Rays
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Review
Preoperative assessment and risk factors in the surgical treatment of lung cancer: the role of age.
The incidence of lung cancer in the elderly is increasing in Western countries. This disease represents the second leading cause of cancer death in this age group and it is also responsible for a substantial increment in morbidity and health care costs. ⋯ Therefore, a careful preoperative assessment of these factors, with particular regard to comorbid conditions (such as cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases or secondary malignancy) is necessary in older adults. In consideration of the need of a multidisciplinary assessment to identify comorbidities and operative risk a close collaboration between pneumologists, radiologists, oncologists, thoracic surgeons, anesthesiologists, cardiologists, geriatric specialists, physical therapists is highly recommended.
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Abstract. Radiotherapy was the standard treatment for patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer until the mid 1990s. ⋯ Goals of neoadjuvant chemoradiation are resecability and downstaging. Recent published experiences evidenced that neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is feasible if delivered with low total dose and limited volume; pathological downstaging to stage 0-I could be a reasonable surrogate end-point for overall and disease free survival and for distant metastasis.
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Three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3-D CRT) or intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) have been increasingly used as an alternative to radical prostatectomy in patients with localized carcinoma of the prostate and in patients at high risk, in combination with hormonal therapy. To better understand the implications of dose-time and fractionation in prostate cancer, it is important to be familiar with some laboratory investigations dealing with the cell kinetics characteristics of this tumor. Biological and clinical considerations of dose fractionation, total dose of irradiation and local tumor control, elapsed overall treatment time and sequelae of irradiation are illustrated, based on an exhaustive review of the literature.