The lancet oncology
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The lancet oncology · Aug 2005
Multicenter Study Clinical TrialTreatment of medulloblastoma with postoperative chemotherapy alone: an SFOP prospective trial in young children.
Morbidity and mortality are high in young children with medulloblastoma who receive craniospinal radiotherapy. We aimed to assess whether adjuvant treatment with protracted chemotherapy alone could replace radiotherapy. ⋯ Conventional chemotherapy alone can be used to cure children with non-metastatic medulloblastoma who have gross total resection confirmed by early radiological assessment, but is not sufficient for treatment of those with metastatic or incompletely resected medulloblastoma. Salvage treatment followed by posterior-fossa radiotherapy can effectively treat local relapses or progression.
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The lancet oncology · Aug 2005
ReviewEmerging pathways in the development of chondrosarcoma of bone and implications for targeted treatment.
Chondrosarcoma is a malignant cartilage-forming tumour of bone, of which distinct clinicopathological subtypes are known. Conventional chondrosarcoma is notorious for its locally aggressive behaviour as well as for its resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy; so far surgery is the only effective therapeutic option. During the past 10 years, substantial new insights have been gained about molecular cell biology, molecular cytogenetics, and immunopathology, leading to better understanding of chondrosarcoma development at the molecular level, which will ultimately lead to better clinical understanding and possibly to the development of targeted treatment.
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The lancet oncology · Aug 2005
Long-term mortality from heart disease and lung cancer after radiotherapy for early breast cancer: prospective cohort study of about 300,000 women in US SEER cancer registries.
Radiotherapy for early breast cancer can decrease breast cancer mortality but increase other mortality, mainly from heart disease and lung cancer. The mean cardiac dose from irradiation of a left-sided breast cancer can be two or three times that for a right-sided breast cancer. The mean ipsilateral (ie, on the same side as the breast cancer) lung dose can also be two or three times the mean contralateral lung dose. Particularly during the 1970s, when typical heart and lung exposures were greater than now, the laterality of an irradiated breast cancer could measurably affect cardiac mortality and mortality from cancer of the right or the left lung decades later. This study aimed to assess the hazards in the general US population from routine cancer-registry and death-certificate data. ⋯ US breast cancer radiotherapy regimens of the 1970s and early 1980s appreciably increased mortality from heart disease and lung cancer 10-20 years afterwards with, as yet, little direct evidence on the hazards after more than 20 years. Since the early 1980s, improvements in radiotherapy planning should have reduced such risks, but the long-term hazards in the general populations of various countries still need to be monitored directly.