Onkologie
-
Editorial Comment Comparative Study
Strategic options on behalf of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer: mass tumor murder versus serial tumor killing.
-
Metastatic melanoma during pregnancy represents a life-threatening situation not only for the mother but also for the fetus due to aggressive therapy and potential maternal-fetal metastasis. ⋯ Sufficient perinatal and oncologic experience provided, diagnostic and surgical interventions as well as radiotherapy and chemotherapy in metastatic melanoma disease are feasible and relatively safe even during pregnancy.
-
Adjuvant treatment of stage III colon cancer represents a significant economic burden for the German health care system. The available chemotherapy regimens have significantly different medical and economic profiles. ⋯ In Germany, FOLFOX-4 is the most effective but also the most expensive treatment and represents the current standard. Xelox emerges as a slightly less costly alternative when oral treatment is preferred. For patients not able to tolerate oxaliplatin-based therapy, capecitabine has the best economic profile of all alternative regimens. Drug acquisition costs are by far the most important factor driving costs in all regimens.
-
The treatment guidelines in the last decade have shown a trend towards increasing surgical radicality in endometrial cancer. Little information is available on the implementation of standards into clinical reality. We evaluated the adherence to standard therapy before and after introduction of an internal quality management system and determined the reasons for non-adherence. ⋯ Adherence to guideline-based therapy for endometrial cancer can be achieved in most patients. Implementation of standards and quality assurance primarily helps to avoid surgical overtreatment but failed to reduce less-than-standard treatment radicality. The latter seemed to be more defined by patient characteristics than by institution standards.