Cancer

In this study, the long term survival results subsequent to preoperative intra-arterial chemotherapy or preoperative radiotherapy were practically the same. Regarding postoperative quality of life, patients who underwent intra-arterial chemotherapy appeared to be in a slightly more favorable situation.

Significant variables affecting survival were combined to create a new composite staging system for recurrent squamous cell carcinomas of the oral cavity and oropharynx.

The biologic factors of Ki-67 labeling index and p53 expression as well as clinicopathologic factors can be used as independent prognostic factors for esophageal carcinoma. However, the results of this study do not support cyclin D1 expression as a prognostic factor.

This study demonstrates that the presence of malignant fistulae does not contraindicate chemoradiotherapy because it provides a better chance of survival and oral alimentation.

Depressed duodenal adenoma has higher proliferative activity than polypoid adenoma in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis.

High intratumoral vessel density combined with p53 protein nuclear accumulation has been shown to predict poor prognosis of patients with Dukes Stage B and Stage C (AJCC/UICC Stage I and III) colorectal adenocarcinoma. High CD31 positive lymphocytic infiltration, but not p53 or bcl-2 expression, was associated with increased vascular density.

In invasive colorectal carcinomas, the frequency of telomere shortening was significantly higher in nonulcerated polypoid carcinomas than in ulcerated carcinomas, and was also significantly higher in ascending colon carcinomas than in sigmoid colon or rectal carcinomas. However, in these tumors, telomerase activity was not correlated with telomere length.

High prevalence of transfusion-transmitted virus (TTV) infection was detected among patients with non-B, non-C hepatocellular carcinoma, suggesting a potential pathogenetic association between TTV infection and hepatocellular carcinoma.

K-ras mutation at codon 12 (KRM) in duodenal aspirates (DA), easily obtained without secretin stimulation immediately after endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography by the mutant allele specific amplification (MASA) method, occurred in 25 (66%) of 38 patients with pancreatic carcinoma and 12 (55%) of 22 patients with biliary tract carcinoma. These results suggest that detection of KRM in DA by MASA is useful for the screening for both pancreatic and biliary tract carcinoma.

Preoperative Ki-67 and p53 analyses along with routine imaging findings were studied retrospectively to determine their role in making an accurate preoperative diagnosis of gastric carcinoma. The presence of p53 overexpression and a high Ki-67 labeling index in the biopsied and surgically resected specimens correlated closely with advanced stage gastric carcinoma that was difficult to distinguish from early gastric carcinoma based on preoperative imaging findings.

Transforming growth factor-β1 might be associated with tumor progression by indirectly stimulating angiogenesis through the up-regulation of vascular endothelial growth factor expression in gastric carcinoma.

The combination of gemcitabine and vinorelbine has been found to show moderate efficacy for the treatment of elderly patients with nonsmall cell lung carcinoma and is well tolerated, except in those patients age ≥ 75 years. In this group the risk of myelosuppression is high and the use of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor should be considered with the administration of such treatment.

Radioresistance and multidrug resistance (MDR) were examined in 30 untreated lung carcinoma patients using Technetium-99m (^99mTc)-tetrofosmin and thallium-201 dual single photon emission computed tomography. Low ^99mTc-tetrofosmin retention was predictive of therapeutic resistance, including radioresistance and MDR, whereas thallium-201 retention alone did not appear to be a significant prognostic factor.

In this randomized, controlled clinical trial, two modes of thoracic irradiation were compared. Although not significant, a trend toward a difference (P = 0.15) was observed for survival in favor of the alternating mode. Lethal pulmonary fibrosis was more frequent with the concurrent mode (P = 0.05). As in other trials, the lack of cisplatin use was probably a disadvantage to overall survival in comparison with trials in which cisplatin was used.

The results of the current study indicate that CYFRA 21-1, carcinoembryonic antigen, and CA 125 determinations in pleural fluid increase the sensitivity of pleural fluid cytology in the diagnosis of malignant pleural effusion.

A schedule similar to the therapy schedule for acute myeloblastic leukemia patients allows a high rate of complete remission in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients but fails to improve relapse rate and survival. In this study, no major improvement was obtained with recombinant granulocyte-macrophage–colony stimulating factor therapy.

Although a longer sojourn time for preclinical breast carcinoma should not necessarily be accompanied by a longer screening interval, a short interval does not appear to be very efficient.

Multivariate analyses of large data sets from the Patient Care Evaluation surveys and the National Cancer Data Base of the American College of Surgeons confirm and quantify the independent associations of age, race, tumor location, grade, ploidy, histologic type, estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor status with the probability of axillary lymph node metastasis from breast carcinoma. However, prediction models incorporating these variables fail to identify large subsets of patients who could avoid axillary dissection.

In this study of radiotherapy for patients with cervical carcinoma, external beam radiotherapy was combined with 4 afterloading high dose rate applications (total of 30 grays). This was found to be clinically feasible and resulted in good survival rates and a low rate of side effects.

Hemoglobin level during radiation is the most significant independent prognostic factor other than stage of disease for patients with carcinoma of the cervix who are treated with radiotherapy. The authors hypothesized that the negative impact of a low hemoglobin level at presentation can be overcome by blood transfusions to maintain the patient's hemoglobin level at ≥ 120 g/L during radiotherapy.

Decreased proportions of tumor-infiltrating CD4⁺ T cells with reversed CD4/CD8 ratios are highly correlated with rapid tumor growth and lymph node metastasis in cervical carcinoma patients.

Ovarian dysplasia was identified in 77.6% of prophylactically removed ovaries from women at high risk for ovarian carcinoma. A new morphometric method based on autocorrelation coefficient combined with nuclear measurements proved to be a powerful discriminator.

Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a tyrosine kinase that is implicated in tumor invasion and metastasis. In this study, FAK was found to be significantly overexpressed in ovarian carcinoma as compared with normal ovarian tissue.

Patients with localized prostate carcinoma who do not experience biochemical failure within 5 years of treatment with conventional external beam radiation therapy have a very high probability of biochemical cure. Patients who achieve a prostate specific antigen nadir ≤ 0.4 ng/mL and require ≥ 2.0 years to reach this nadir have the highest probability of cure.

This dataset indicates that the incidence rate of all neoplasms is significantly reduced in men diagnosed with prostate carcinoma. Selection of the population, underregistration, and reduced surveillance in elderly men with prostate carcinoma, may, at least in part, explain this reduced risk. No excess risk was observed for tobacco-related neoplasms nor for urologic or colorectal carcinomas.

This article presents a case of an intratesticular leiomyosarcoma in a 32-year-old man and discusses the possible cocarcinogenic role of systematic long term, high dose Oral-Turinabol (4-chloro-1-dehydro-17α-methyltestosterone).

Transitional cell carcinoma of the renal pelvis tends to be of a higher grade in those patients who have consumed >1 kg of phenacetin-containing analgesics or those who have histologic evidence of analgesic nephropathy, suggesting that prior analgesic abuse contributes directly or indirectly to tumor progression at this site. Because exposure to phenacetin itself ceased at least 14 years prior to the diagnosis of the tumors discussed in the current study, an indirect effect through analgesic-induced renal pathology was implicated as the agent responsible for tumor progression.

In this study, cell cycle analysis and, in particular, assessment of the MIB-1 nuclear proliferation marker were useful in the histologic evaluation of pheochromocytoma, as MIB-1 was expressed only in malignant tumors.

The combination of etoposide, vinblastine, and doxorubicin, an alternative chemotherapy for patients with Hodgkin disease, was coupled with radiation in this Phase II study.