Cancer treatment reviews
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Cancer treatment reviews · Nov 2005
ReviewRenal cell carcinoma: current status and future prospects.
The incidence of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is increasing. Despite improvements in the management of localized RCC, most patients are diagnosed with advanced RCC, which is often refractory and associated with a poor prognosis. Although surgery is the only curative treatment for localized RCC, improved diagnostic methods facilitating early detection and characterization of renal tumors have enabled more effective use of less invasive treatments. ⋯ Immunotherapy with cytokines is the standard systemic treatment for advanced RCC, and is associated with prolonged survival in a subset of patients, but is generally poorly tolerated. An increased knowledge of the underlying pathophysiology of RCC has resulted in the identification of molecular pathways involved in tumor growth. Promising new agents designed to target these pathways are in development.
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Radiation induced xerostomia is a frequent consequence of radiotherapy (RT) for head-neck cancer (HNC) patients, when parotid glands are included in the radiation fields. Although early appearing xerostomia may be alleviated with the use of pilocarpine, persistent chronic xerostomia affects more than 70% of HNC patients treated with post-operative or radical radiotherapy and significantly impairs the quality of life potentially cured patients. The present manuscript reviews and discusses the current technological (conformal and intensity modulated RT) and pharmacological (amifostine) developments aiming to prevent the severity and reduce incidence of both acute and late radiation xerostomia in patients with HNC.