Anticancer research
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Anticancer research · Nov 2012
Clinical TrialTalc pleurodesis as surgical palliation of patients with malignant pleural effusion. Analysis of factors affecting survival.
Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is common in most patients with advanced cancer, especially in those with lung cancer, metastatic breast carcinoma and lymphoma. This complication usually leads patients to suffer from significant dyspnea, which may impair their mobility and reduce their quality of life. In patients with MPE, several interventions have been shown to be useful for palliation of the symptoms, including talc pleurodesis. ⋯ We did not find any relationship between survival and gender (log-rank test, p=0.53) or underlying malignancy associated with MPE (p=0.89, 0.48 and 0.36 for secondary cancer, lung cancer and mesothelioma, respectively). Similarly, no correlation was found between survival and age of the patients (Cox's regression, p=0.44) or quantity of pleural effusion (p=0.88). Our results show that the prognosis of patients after talc pleurodesis is independent of age, gender, type of malignancy and amount of pleural effusion, thus, suggesting the utility of treating all patients with symptomatic MPE early.
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Anticancer research · Nov 2012
Clinical TrialImproved quality of life in patients with malignant pleural effusion following videoassisted thoracoscopic talc pleurodesis. Preliminary results.
Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is a common, debilitating complication of several types of advanced malignancy, which may significantly reduce the quality of life of patients. There are several options to treat MPE, including thoracentesis, placement of a long-term indwelling pleural catheter and chemical pleurodesis. The best treatment is still debated, but talc remains the agent of choice to achieve pleurodesis. ⋯ A significant relationship between total amount of preoperative pleural effusion and both KI (R=-0.54, p=0.002) and MRC (R=0.64, p=0.0001) was found. No correlation (p=NS, log-rank test) was found between preoperative KI or MRC and underlying malignancy related to MPE. In conclusion, thoracoscopic large-particle talc pleurodesis is a feasible and effective treatment for MPE, significantly improving quality of life of patients.
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Anticancer research · Nov 2012
Prognostic value of preoperative metabolic tumor volumes on PET-CT in predicting disease-free survival of patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer.
This study aimed to determine the relationship between the pre-operative metabolic tumor volume (MTV) and the disease-free survival (DFS) of patients with stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) using F-18 2-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose (FDG) positron-emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) scanning. ⋯ For patients with stage I NSCLC treated with surgery, preoperative MTV parameters have a limited prognostic value for predicting DFS.
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Anticancer research · Nov 2012
Prognostic significance of ERCC1, RRM1 and BRCA1 in surgically-treated patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
Chemotherapy is an important modality of treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Recent studies have shown that assessment of predictive molecular markers could be helpful for estimation of the response rate to chemotherapy. The aim of our study was to assess the relation of mRNA levels of DNA repair genes excision repair cross-complementary group 1 (ERCC1), ribonucleotide reductase subunit M1 (RRM1) and breast cancer 1 (BRCA1), in surgically-resected tumor tissues from patients who underwent adjuvant chemotherapy, to the disease-free interval (DFI) and overall survival (OS). We investigated if potential residual tumor cells after resection reflect properties of the primary tumor and response to chemotherapy according to the level of predictive markers with respect to current knowledge. ⋯ Patients who had been treated with adjuvant chemotherapy and had shown lower expression of repair genes had adverse prognosis. We observed that the assessment of DNA repair gene level in primary tumors treated by surgical resection had prognostic significance and did not predict response to adjuvant chemotherapy.