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Following radiation therapy, adjuvant extrafascial hysterectomy decreased the risk of relapse for patients with bulky stage IB cervical cancer without improving survival.
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Since the introduction of the 3-weekly CHOP (cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine, prednisone) chemotherapy 25 years ago, many efforts have been undertaken to improve the efficacy of multicycle polychemotherapy for patients with aggressive lymphoma.
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The development of an isolated supraclavicular node recurrence of breast cancer after primary surgical resection (including axillary node dissection) was found, upon review of the tumor registries of 8 community hospitals in The Netherlands, to occur very uncommonly (less than 1%). Examination of clinical outcomes for these patients indicates that isolated supraclavicular recurrence is an antecedent of disseminated disease, in that, even with local control (as achieved by radiation therapy), the great majority of patients soon develop systemic disease.
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Women who survive breast cancer may be at a lower risk of developing coronary artery disease compared with women without a history of breast cancer.
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There has been some controversy on the role of taxanes in combination with platinum for the treatment of ovarian cancer. In the current report, patients who relapsed after a disease-free interval of 6 months or more were randomized in 2 large, multicenter trials conducted in Europe to receive either platinum (or typical platinum-based regimens) or paclitaxel plus platinum.
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This meta-analysis revealed overall increased mortality of up to 25% in patients experiencing depressive symptoms after cancer diagnosis, and a 39% higher risk in patients diagnosed with major or minor depression after cancer diagnosis, based upon 25 independent studies. Given the low number of studies available to date, the effect of depressive symptoms on cancer recurrence did not reach a level of statistical significance.
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In a large population-based, prospective cohort study, it was found that spending less than 50% of the day in a sedentary position, and increasing amounts of physical activity (e.g., walking or bicycling) appear to be associated with reduced rates of prostate-cancer development.
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A long-term longitudinal assessment of quality of life among patients treated for early-stage Hodgkin's lymphoma reveals that, with the exception of fatigue, there is general improvement over time. Factors that influence the rate of improvement include age and sex, but do not include the type of treatment received (radiation vs. chemotherapy).
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Chromosome banding analysis (CBA) of marrow metaphase cells is the standard method to assess response in CML. The authors compared CBA to interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (I-FISH) in 664 samples where both methods were performed.
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In a retrospective tumor registry (SEER) analysis of outcomes for rectal-cancer patients treated over a 14-year period with either presurgical or postsurgical radiation therapy, the importance of pathological lymph node status was found to be significantly more adverse for patients who had presurgical treatment. These patients define a subgroup for whom aggressive post-surgical treatment would seem warranted.
