Prophylactic cranial irradiation in non-small cell lung cancer.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to G Frezza.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
The efficacy of multimodality treatment for unresectable hilar cholangiocarcinoma was evaluated in terms of outcome, survival and quality of life. Eleven patients were enrolled in the following protocol: percutaneous drainage of both right and left biliary systems; Iridium-192 intraluminal brachytherapy; replacement of the drainages with endoprotheses; external radiotherapy. Six patients completed the protocol and 5 were treated with brachytherapy alone. Mean survival was 10.5 months, similar to surgical results and higher than the control group treated with percutaneous stenting (2.75 months) or biliary drainage alone (1.75 months), with an average hospital stay of 10-15 days and no procedure-related mortality.
BACKGROUND: Inhaled steroids are the most commonly used anti-inflammatory agents for asthma and are increasingly recognised as having a more rapid onset of action than was previously thought. We have investigated the effect of a single dose of inhaled steroid on nocturnal worsening of asthma. METHODS: Ten patients with steroid naive moderate asthma and nocturnal asthma participated in a randomised, double blind, placebo controlled, crossover trial. Participants spent three nights in the laboratory, one week apart. On each night they underwent spirometric testing at 16.00 hours and received one of the three treatments (placebo, beclomethasone 1000 micro g, or fluticasone 1000 micro g) delivered by metered dose inhaler. Spirometric tests were repeated at 04.00 hours the following morning. RESULTS: Following placebo administration the mean (SE) overnight fall in FEV(1) was 0.65 (0.27) l compared with -0.02 (0.13) l following fluticasone (p=0.019) and 0.23 (0.12) l following beclomethasone (p=0.048 v placebo). CONCLUSION: A single dose of inhaled steroid (within the therapeutic range) reduced the fall in FEV(1) in patients with nocturnal asthma when administered at 16.00 hours. Nocturnal worsening of asthma is a useful model for testing inhaled steroid activity in a single night study.
PURPOSE: Evaluate, in patients with inoperable hilar CLCA, the efficacy of multimodality treatment (brachiotherapy, chemotherapy, external radiotherapy and endoprosthesis positioning) in terms of survival, quality of life and cost/benefit compared to palliative surgical treatment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 20 patients with inoperable hilar CLCA were evaluated. Ten were considered for combined palliative and radiotherapy treatment according to the following protocol: percutaneous colangiography followed by positioning of right and left internal biliar drainage (10-12 F); intraductal brachiotherapy using Ir-192 needles was performed (7 Gy). A second administration was after 7 days. Total dose was 14 Gy; the biliar drainages were then replaced by endoprosthesis (12-14 F) and left in position for 3 months in order to model the post-attinic fibrosis and to prevent stenosis; external radiotherapy was administered starting 15 days after last brachiotherapy treatment (26 administrations (180 cGy) in 5 weeks, total 46 Gy); chemotherapy (5 FU: 350 mg/mq/die) for 5 days during the first and the fifth week of external radiotherapy; biliar endoprosthesis were removed by endoscopic and, or transhepatic mode after 3 months from end of therapy, verifying. Cholangiography assessed the patency of the biliar duct. Metallic stents were placed if results were not satisfactory; follow-up was by: hepatic lab work-up, tumoral markers, US or TC evaluated disease progression. RESULTS: In 5 of the 10 patients considered for the combined treatment, 5 patients completed the protocol and 5 were treated only with brachiotherapy because of deterioration of clinical conditions. All patients had initial complete remission of jaundice although it recurred with disease progression that led to death. No acute post-radiotherapy complication was observed. Digestive hemorrhage (chronic post-radiotherapy complication) was the cause of death in one patient. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS: Good results were observed in the patients that completed the protocol, mean survival was 7,5 months instead of 1,75 months as in patients that underwent only percutaneous drainage. Better results may be obtained taking in consideration the poor clinical conditions of the patients at the time of diagnosis. The proposed therapeutic protocol requires an average hospitalization of 10-15 days instead of 15-20 days as for palliative biliar-digestive deviation, being less invasive and thus associated to lower morbidity and no mortality.
BACKGROUND: Recent work has identified a category of genes devoted to the control of genomic stability and prevention of cellular evolution. They encode components of cell cycle checkpoint, i.e., regulatory pathways committed to ordered cell cycle transition and fidelity of replicated DNA under adverse environmental conditions, such as those following exposure to genotoxic agents. Gadd45 belongs to the class II family of DNA damage-inducible (DDI) gene, and its role in DNA repair has been proved in many experimental models. The aim of our study was to correlate gadd45 radio-induction with the responsiveness to radiotherapy of cervical carcinomas, a type of cancer most commonly treated with radiotherapy alone. METHODS: By means of a competitive polymerase chain reaction strategy, we compared in 14 patients the gene expression levels before and during external beam radiotherapy, when a dose ranging from 18 to 25 Gy was delivered to the target. RESULTS: We found a correlation between the lack of gadd45 induction and a good clinical response to radiotherapy, in terms of both local control and disease-free survival. CONCLUSION: Our results support the measure of the induction of gadd45, and possibly of other genes required for regulated G1-S checkpoint, as a method useful for prognostic evaluation of cervical carcinoma patients.
BACKGROUND: In 1991, the Italian Association for Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and the National Council of Research (CNR) initiated an Italian Cooperative Study (SE 91-CNR Protocol) with the main objective of improving the overall survival (SUR) and the event free survival (EFS) of children and young adults with localized Ewing sarcoma and primitive neuroectodermal tumors of bone compared with a previous study (IOR/Ew2 Protocol). METHODS: Between November 1991 and November 1997, 165 patients were enrolled in this study, 160 of whom were evaluable. The patients were treated with a multimodal approach characterized by intensified chemotherapy, hyperfractionated and accelerated radiation therapy, and the addition of ifosfamide and etoposide to standard chemotherapy with vincristine, actinomycin-D, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide. RESULTS: After a median follow-up of 37 months, 126 of the 160 evaluable patients remained free of disease recurrence. Thirty-one patients developed a disease recurrence (20 with disseminated disease). CONCLUSIONS: The 3-year SUR and EFS rates found in the current study (83.6% and 77.8%, respectively) may be considered satisfactory. Only age at diagnosis < or =14 years and a good histologic response appeared to affect the outcome of patients with localized Ewing sarcoma positively. These results appear to demonstrate the efficacy of the addition of ifosfamide in induction chemotherapy to four-drug standard combination chemotherapy, as confirmed by the improved outcome in terms of 3-year EFS reported in the SE 91-CNR Protocol compared with the IOR/Ew2 Protocol (77.8% vs. 60.7%). In addition, the better outcome also could be explained by the change in treatment strategy with a trend toward the use of more surgery than radiation therapy compared with the authors' previous protocol.
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine (ABVD) and radiotherapy in advanced Hodgkin's disease. In addition, to evaluate whether patients with slow responding tumors could profit from the early change of treatment regimen [MOPP (mechloretamine, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone)] followed by radiation therapy or autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT). Finally, to evaluate treatment options for patients with both early and late relapses. A total of 78 patients with previously untreated stages IIA bulky, IIB, III (A and B), and IV (A and B) Hodgkin's disease were treated with the ABVD regimen followed by radiotherapy. Patients with stages IIIB and IV (A and B) were re-staged after 4 ABVD courses of the treatment: slow responders (response less than 70%) underwent second-line treatment (MOPP) and eventually ABMT. Relapsed patients with a long initial complete response (> or = 12 months) were treated with second-line conventional treatment and those patients with a short initial complete response (< 12 months) underwent ABMT. The complete response (CR) rate was 91% after ABVD and radiation therapy. An additional 5 stage IIIB and IV patients whose therapy was switched after 4 cycles because of a slow response obtained a CR (3 after 2 MOPP courses plus radiotherapy and 2 after 2 MOPP courses followed by ABMT). Including these additional CRs, the overall CR rate was 97%. No episodes of clinical cardiopulmonary toxicity were observed. With a median follow-up time of 42 months, the 4-year relapse-free survival was 87%. The 4-year overall survival was 96%. Ten cases relapsed: all but one obtained a second CR with different approaches depending on the timing of relapse. The ABVD regimen appears to be effective and well tolerated confirming the validity of this four-drug regimen in the treatment of advanced Hodgkin's disease. In addition, therapeutic choices based on the timing of the relapse and the use of re-staging after 4 cycles in order to identify slow responders can play an important role in increasing the number of cured patients.
Isolated central nervous system (CNS) relapse was evaluated in terms of incidence, risk factors, and outcome in a consecutive cohort of 175 patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in which no case of lymphoblastic or Burkitt's lymphoma was encountered. All these patients had obtained a complete remission with first-line treatment and none had received prophylactic CNS treatment at diagnosis. Nine patients (5.2%) developed isolated CNS relapse after a median of 8 months from diagnosis. CNS involvement was documented by cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) cytology in 4 patients and on the basis of radiologic and clinical features in 5 others. Factors significantly associated with a greater likelihood of CNS relapse were advanced stage, B symptoms, bone marrow involvement, and high LDH levels in univariate analysis with only advanced stage being of significance in multivariate analysis. All relapsed CNS lymphoma patients died within a median time of 4 months from the disease recurrence, confirming the poor prognosis after CNS relapse and stressing the need to develop new treatment strategies for patients at high risk of CNS recurrence.
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Therapy of both Hodgkin's disease (HD) and aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) with mediastinal presentation at the time of diagnosis is frequently followed by radiological detection of residual masses. Computed tomography (CT) scanning is generally unable to detect the differences between tumor tissue and fibrosis. Gallium-67-citrate single photon emission ((67)GaSPECT) can potentially differentiate residual active tumor tissue from fibrosis. DESIGN AND METHODS: Seventy-five patients with HD or aggressive NHL presenting mediastinal involvement (64% with a bulky mass) were studied with CT and (67)GaSPECT at the end of combined modality therapy (chemo- and radiation therapy). RESULTS: After treatment, 3/3 (100%) patients with positive (67)GaSPECT and negative CT scan relapsed while only 1/18 (6%) patients with both negative (67)GaSPECT and CT scan did so. At the same time, 54 patients had a positive restaging CT scan (abnormal mass < 10% of size of initial mass). Of these patients, 13 had a positive (67)GaSPECT, 10 of whom (77%) relapsed; 41 had a negative (67)GaSPECT of whom 5 (12%) relapsed. The 4-year actuarial relapse-free survival rate was 90% for those with negative scans compared with 23% for gallium-positive patients (p < 0.000000). INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSIONS: In lymphoma patients with mediastinal involvement, (67)GaSPECT should be considered, at least in patients who are CT positive, the imaging technique of choice for monitoring and differentiating the nature of any residual masses.
BACKGROUND: Peripheral B-cell lymphoma of the marginal zone (MALT, low-grade), presenting as localized, extranodal disease, usually affects the elderly. The gastrointestinal tract is the most frequently involved extranodal location, representing 70% of all MALT lymphomas. Recently, numerous other extranodal sites involved by MALT lymphomas have also been described. PATIENTS AND METHODS: From January 1990 to October 1995, 24 patients with untreated nongastrointestinal low-grade MALT lymphoma were submitted to treatments ranging from the local approach of radiotherapy and local alpha-interferon (alpha-IFN) administration to chemotherapy. The tumours were located in the lung (seven cases), conjunctiva (four cases), lachrymal gland and orbital soft tissue (four cases), salivary glands (three cases), skin (three cases), breast (two cases), and thyroid (one case). All patients had low-grade stage IE tumours. RESULTS: Chemotherapy was administered in 11 patients (six with lung, three with salivary gland, one with breast, and one with thyroid locations); radiation therapy was employed in seven patients (three with lachrymal gland, three with skin, and one with breast locations); local alpha-IFN administration was administered in five patients (four with conjunctival, and one with lachrymal gland sites); and surgery was employed in one patient with a lung tumour. All patients achieved complete remissions; three local recurrences and two relapses in other sites were observed. The global five-year survival rate was 100% with a relapse-free survival rate of 79%. CONCLUSIONS: These data confirm the significant efficacy of different therapeutic approaches to specific sites inbes obtaining a good remission rate for nongastrointestinal localized low-grade MALT lymphomas.
In the last decade, there have been several reports on what is now recognized as a new clinical and pathological entity termed primarily mediastinal B-cell lymphoma (PMBCL) with sclerosis. This lymphoma presents unique clinical characteristics with an aggressive outcome and, at present, the best approach seems to be a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Between June 1989 and September 1994, twenty-two previously untreated patients with PMBCL with sclerosis were treated with a combination of third-generation chemotherapy regimen (MACOP-B or F-MACHOP) and mediastinal irradiation. All the patients presented with bulky mediastinal involvement; the radiologic clinical stage with evaluation of tumor size included computed tomography and Gallium-67-citrate SPECT. Twenty-one patients (95%) achieved a complete response and only one was resistant to treatment. Regarding 67Ga SPECT, 6 patients, including the nonresponder, showed persistent abnormal 67Ga uptake after chemotherapy; however after the mediastinal radiotherapy, all the patients except for the nonresponder were 67Ga-negative. The overall survival was 87%, with a median follow-up of 24 months from the time of diagnosis. Two of the patients who achieved complete response relapsed 7 and 10 months after completion of treatment, respectively. The relapse-free survival rate was 89% at 62 months (median 20 months). In patients presenting with bulky mediastinal PMBCL with sclerosis combined modality treatment using third-generation chemotherapy regimens and radiotherapy induces a good remission rate with greater than 80% chance of surviving disease-free, at 2 years. A longer follow-up before definitive conclusions are drawn is still warranted.
Treatment of both Hodgkin's disease (HD) and high-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (HG-NHL) with bulky presentation at diagnosis frequently results in residual masses detected radiologically. Conventional diagnostic radiology and computed tomography (CT) are generally unable to detect the differences between tumor tissue and fibrosis. Gallium-67-citrate (67Ga) SPECT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can potentially differentiate residual active tumor tissue and fibrosis. Thirty-three patients with HD or HG-NHL presenting with bulky mediastinal disease were studied with CT, 67Ga SPECT, and MRI (only for 16 patients) at diagnosis, after two-thirds of their chemotherapy, at the end of chemotherapy, and after radiotherapy in order to evaluate the mediastinal region on the basis of persistence of residual masses and activity of pathological tissue. After treatment, all patients with 67Ga-negative (30/33) disease are still in continuous complete response. Among the three 67Ga-positive patients, 2 relapsed within one year and another one is still alive without evidence of disease. Regarding MRI, two patients were found to be positive, one of them concomitant with 67Ga-positivity; both patients survive in complete response. In lymphoma patients with bulky mediastinal presentation, the 67Ga SPECT remains the preferable imaging technique for monitoring and differentiating the eventual active residual tumor. In combination, CT and 67Ga SPECT represent a suitable complete imaging approach to the radiological diagnosis which may be useful in these particular patients. MRI could probably be considered as a second-line method and from our data would be used only in selected cases because of the high cost, accessibility, and lower specificity as opposed to 67Ga SPECT in evaluating potentially active residual disease.
Lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL) in adult patients is recognized as a particular entity in the high-grade non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (HG-NHL) group with characteristic clinical and prognostic features. Initially, polychemotherapy normally used in HG-NHL failed to produce long-term relapse-free survival because of progression disease in the CNS and in the bone marrow. Subsequently, the intensification of therapy using multimodality aggressive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treatments led to an increase in long-term relapse-free survival. We analyzed retrospectively 53 adult patients with LBL according to the Kiel classification and the criteria by Nathwani et al. Therapeutic modifications depended upon the different times of diagnosis. Twenty-one patients received the modified L17 regimen, 13 patients were treated with the L0288 regimen, and 19 patients were submitted to the L20 protocol. There was no significant differences in CR rates among the three protocols: 48% vs 54% vs 63%, respectively. Nineteen of 29 patients who achieved CR were alive and relapse-free at a median follow-up of 84 months. Ten of the CR patients underwent autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) to consolidate the first response and 7 of them are alive and relapse-free. Early stage of disease, age < 30 years, low LDH levels, the absence of leukemic phase at diagnosis, and, in particular the attainment of CR were all features of patients with good prognosis. Our study confirms the role of intensive polychemotherapeutic regimens including CNS prophylaxis, the significance of a score model of prognostic factors, and of the role of ABMT (or allogeneic bone marrow transplantation) in the treatment of adult LBL.
The Authors reviewed a group of 28 pts with early-stage supraglottic carcinoma (T1-T2N0), classified according to UICC (1987), and treated exclusively with radiotherapy (RT) between 1980 and 1991. Until 1990 RT was employed for such tumors when surgery was refused or controindicated, while since 1991 primary irradiation (with surgery in reserve) has been considered the treatment of choice. The total dose ranged from 66 to 70 Gy on the larynx and up to 50 Gy on neck nodes. RT was applied in a daily fraction of 2 Gy five times a week. No significant early complications were observed. Only 1 pt showed residual cronical oedema in the arytenoid region. In none of the pts was tracheostomy necessary. The local control rate obtained after 30 months was 85.7% (24/28). Salvage surgery (horizontal supraglottic laringectomy, HSL) was performed in 3 out of 4 pts with local failure and achieved complete control of the disease. In the last pt the surgery was controindicated because of poor general health conditions. The actuarial survival rate after 5 years is 86.2%. The present series was compared to a group of 152 pts with T1-T2N0 supraglottic cancer treated surgically (HSL) at the same Istitution. In these pts local control and the actuarial survival rates are 85.6% and 89% respectively. According to recent Literature data, the present findings confirm that RT may be administered for the treatment of selected early stage (T1-T2N0) supraglottic squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx with oncologic results equivalent to those obtained with radical surgery. The importance of imaging techniques (TC, MRI) in the correct staging of the tumor is emphasised.
Eighty-two patients with primary gastric (IE, II1E, and II2E) non-Hodgkin's lymphoma according to the Musshoff's staging system were treated with combined modality including surgery with/without radiotherapy between January 1985 and December 1991. According to the Updated Kiel classification 54 had high-grade histologic subtypes and 28 low-grade. The strategy throughout the study was to resect primary tumor: all patients underwent gastrectomy, 40 subtotal and 42 total gastrectomy. The resection permitted complete surgical staging utilizing three pathologic features: disease confined within or beyond the serosa, negative/positive regional lymph nodes, and negative/positive surgical margins. If there was no evidence of these pathologic factors, the patients who underwent surgery alone received no further radiotherapy. On the other hand, all patients who presented at least one of three pathologic factors were treated with adjuvant radiotherapy after the resection. All except 14 patients presented at least one of the pathologic features and 50 (61%) patients had involvement of the whole gastric wall. Radiotherapy included the gastric bed and para-aortic lymph nodes and, for the patients, who had positive regional lymph nodes in combination with the complete involvement of the gastric wall, the irradiation included the whole abdominal approach. The complete response rate was 97% and the 9-year disease-free survival was 93%. All but one of the 5 relapses occurred within 18 months stressing the need for more specific staging. Gastric resection with/without radiotherapy may still represent the primary therapeutic procedure in early stage gastric non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
From 1981 to 1991, fifty-three patients with primary gastric lymphoma were referred to our Institute and submitted to a complete pathologic staging followed by gastric resection, i.e., total or partial gastrectomy. According to the Working Formulation criteria, 14 patients (26.4%) were affected with high grade lymphomas, 22 (41.5%) with intermediate lymphomas and 17 (32.1%) with low grade lymphomas. MALT (mucosa associated lymphoid tissue) lymphomas were observed in > 50% of cases. At the pathologic examination of the surgical specimens, infiltration depth was assessed, according to TNM criteria, in the patients whose disease was limited to the muscular gastric wall (T1-T2) and in those whose disease spread to the serosa or beyond it (T3-T4). Twenty-five patients were classified as stage I and 28 as stage II (9 of them in stage II E1 and 19 in stage II E2 according to Musshoff's classification). The treatment protocol of these patients was as follows: stage I patients (T1-T2) with normal surgical resection margins underwent no adjuvant treatment (10 patients); stage I patients (T1-T2) with resection margins infiltrated by the disease were submitted to local irradiation; stage I (T3-T4) and stage II E1 patients underwent large-field postoperative irradiation (14 patients); stage II E2 patients (n = 19) received conventional chemotherapy (CHOP, F-CVP, N-CVP): the ones who failed to reach complete remission or presented with bulky disease at diagnosis completed the treatment with large-field irradiation (10 patients). The disease-free survival (86.5%) and the overall survival (96%) rates of stage I patients exhibited no significant difference relative to stage II patients (DFS: 87% and OS: 90%). The analysis of relapses relative to disease extent demonstrated that this parameter is more significant to prognosis than nodal involvement (T1-T2: 2/39 relapses, 5.1%; T3-T4: 4/14 relapses, 28.6%).
A retrospective study was carried out on a series of 154 patients affected with vocal cord cancer in stage T1 treated with definitive radiotherapy April, 1979, to November, 1991. According to the 1992 TNM classification (UICC), 121 patients were classified as stage T1a and 33 patients as stage T1b. All patients were treated using parallel opposed fields of a 60 cobalt unit. Field size ranged from 16 to 30 square centimeters and the dose from 4400 to 7000 cGy, but only 15 patients received less than 6400 cGy. All patients were treated with once-daily fractionation (200 cGy/day). Follow-up ranges from 25 to 123 months; the median is 63 months. We observed 14 local recurrences (9.0%), all but one within 36 months from the end of treatment. Ten of 14 patients (71.4%) were rescued by surgery (8 patients underwent total laryngectomy and 2 conservative surgery); 13 patients were lost for intercurrent deaths. The incidence of recurrences is 7.4% for T1a patients (9/121) and 15.1% for T1b patients (5/33). The total dose does not seem to be related to relapse rate since recurrences were found in 6.6% of patients after a dose < 6400 cGy and in 9.3% of patients who had received higher doses. In our experience, field size did not affect, treatment results (< 25 cm2: 7.5% recurrences, > 25 cm2: 10.7%). Besides lesion volume, the main prognostic factor was overall treatment time. The incidence of failure was 3 times lower (5.8%) in the patients who completed the treatment within 7 weeks than in the patients whose treatment lasted more than 8 weeks (16.6%).
Explore the source record for details and available documents.