MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medical records of 407 cervical cancer patients between 1st January 2002 to 31st December 2012 were reviewed. Some 32 cases with positive PALN were identified to have received definitive extended field radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy. Treatment outcomes, clinicopathological factors affecting survival and radiotherapy related acute and late effects were analyzed.
RESULTS: Totals of 13 and 19 patients underwent EFRT and CCEFRT respectively during the period of review. The median follow-up was 70 months. The 5-year overall survival (OS) was 40% for patients who underwent CCEFRT as compared to 18% for patients who had EFRT alone, with median survival sof 29 months and 13 months, respectively. The 5-years progression free survival (PFS) for patients who underwent CCEFRT was 32% and 18% for those who had EFRT. Median PFS were 18 months and 12 months, respectively. Overall treatment time (OTT) less than 8 weeks reduced risk of death by 81% (HR=0.19). Acute side effects were documented in 69.7% and 89.5% of patients who underwent EFRT and CCEFRT, respectively. Four patients (12.5%) developed radiotherapy late toxicity and there was no treatment-related death observed.
CONCLUSIONS: CCEFRT is associated with higher 5-years OS and median OS compared to EFRT and with tolerable level of acute and late toxicities in selected patients with cervical cancer and PALN metastasis.
CASE REPORT: A 59-year-old man was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukaemia. Following this, he underwent all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) based chemotherapy and achieved remission. Four years later, the disease relapsed and he was given idarubicin, mitoxantrone and ATRA followed by maintenance chemotherapy (ATRA, mercaptopurine and methotrexate). He achieved a second remission for the next 11 years. During a follow-up later, his full blood picture showed leucocytosis, anaemia and leucoerythroblastic picture. Bone marrow examination showed hypercellular marrow with trilineage dysplasia, 3% blasts but no abnormal promyelocyte. Fluorescence in-situ hybridisation (FISH) study of the PML/RARA gene was negative. Karyotyping result revealed complex abnormalities and monosomal karyotype (MK). A diagnosis of therapy-related myelodysplastic syndrome/myeloproliferative neoplasm with unfavourable karyotypes and MK was made. The disease progressed rapidly and transformed into therapy-related acute myeloid leukaemia in less than four months, complicated with severe pneumonia. Despite aggressive treatment with antibiotics and chemotherapy, the patient succumbed to the illness two weeks after the diagnosis.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Diagnosis of t-MN should be suspected in patients with a history of receiving cytotoxic agents. Karyotyping analysis is crucial for risk stratification as MK in addition to complex aberrant karyotypes predicts unfavourable outcome. Further studies are required to address the optimal management for patients with t-MN.
PURPOSE: To examine the association between adult lifetime physical activity and breast cancer risk in a case-control analysis.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study involved 122 cases of breast cancer and 121 controls in the state of Kelantan in Malaysia. A comprehensive measure of lifetime physical activity was used to assess occupational, household, and recreational/sports activity. For every type of activity, a metabolic equivalent (MET) score was assigned using the compendium of physical activities. MET-hours/week per year for all types of activities at different levels of intensities for different age groups were calculated. Logistic regression analysis was used to estimate odds ratios between various measures of physical activity and breast cancer risk.
CONCLUSIONS: The mean MET-hours/week per year for all activities were 120.0 and 132.9 of MET-hours/week per year for cases and controls respectively. Household activities accounted for about 70% of the total lifetime physical activities. Only about 2.5% of the total lifetime physical activities were in the form of recreational/sports. This study found no association between lifetime occupational and recreational/sports physical activities with breast cancer risk among Kelantanese women. However, higher intensity lifetime household activities seemed to significantly reduce risk of breast cancer.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: An online search was done for studies reporting incidental prostate cancer in cystoprostatectomy specimens. After following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines we identified a total of 34 reports containing 13,140 patients who underwent radical cystoprostatectomy for bladder cancer with no previous history of prostate cancer. A cumulative analysis was performed on the available data regarding prevalence, clinicopathological features and oncologic outcomes. RevMan, version 5.3 was used for data meta-analysis.
RESULTS: Of the 13,140 patients incidental prostate cancer was detected in 3,335 (24.4%). Incidental prostate cancer was significantly associated with greater age (Z = 3.81, p = 0.0001, d = 0.27, 95% CI -0.14-0.68), lymphovascular invasion of bladder cancer (Z = 2.07, p = 0.04, r = 0.14, 95% CI 0.09-0.18) and lower 5-year overall survival (Z = 2.2, p = 0.03). Among patients with clinically significant and insignificant prostate cancer those with clinically significant prostate cancer significantly more frequently showed a positive finding on digital rectal examination (Z = 3.12, p = 0.002, r = 0.10, 95% CI 0-0.19) and lower 5-year overall survival (Z = 2.49, p = 0.01) whereas no effect of age was observed (p = 0.15). Of 1,320 patients monitored for biochemical recurrence prostate specific antigen recurrence, defined as prostate specific antigen greater than 0.02 ng/ml, developed in 25 (1.9%) at between 3 and 102 months.
CONCLUSIONS: This meta-analysis suggests that incidental prostate cancer detected during histopathological examination of radical cystoprostatectomy specimens might be linked with adverse characteristics and outcomes in patients with invasive bladder cancer.
METHOD: By using the keywords "acute lymphoblastic leukemia", and "microarray", a total of 280 and 275 microarray datasets were found listed in Gene Expression Omnibus database GEO and ArrayExpress database respectively. Further manual inspection found that only three studies (GSE18497, GSE28460, GSE3910) were focused on gene expression profiling of paired diagnosis-relapsed pediatric B-ALL. These three datasets which comprised of a total of 108 matched diagnosis-relapsed pediatric B-ALL samples were then included for this meta-analysis using RankProd approach.
RESULTS: Our analysis identified a total of 1795 upregulated probes which corresponded to 1527 genes (pfp 1), and 1493 downregulated probes which corresponded to 1214 genes (pfp
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospectively, we reviewed nine cases of glomus tumour. A clinical evaluation proforma was developed on the basis of clinical history and specific clinical test for diagnosis of these tumours. All the cases were evaluated and treated surgically by a single surgeon with a specific technique. Post-operatively, diagnosis was confirmed by histopathological examination.
RESULTS: Females (77.78%) were predominantly affected in this series and the tumours commonly occurred in the right hand (66.66%). Spontaneous pain, cold sensitivity test and Love's Pin test was positive in all cases (100%). Hildreth's test was positive in 88.89%. In none of the cases the tumours recurred during minimum follow-up of one year. In all cases, histopathological examination confirmed the preoperative diagnosis of glomus tumours.
CONCLUSION: Diagnosis of glomus tumours can be made clinically based on history taking and clinical examination. Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Ultrasound are not necessary for diagnosis and management of typical subungual tumours.