Treatment of Cancer and Palliative Care (2) Expected Role of Probiotics in Clinical Practice, Especially in Children Undergoing Chemotherapy

The role of hyperthermia (HT) in cancer therapy and palliative care has been discussed for years in the literature. There are plenty of articles that show good feasibility of HT and its efficacy in terms of tumor response and survival improvements. Nevertheless, HT has never gained enough interest among oncologists to become a standard therapy in clinical practice. The main advantage of HT is the enhancement of chemotherapy (CHT), radiotherapy (RT), chemoradiotherapy (CRT), and immunotherapy benefits. This effect has been confirmed in several types of tumors: esophageal, gastrointestinal, pancreas, breast, cervix, head and neck, and bladder cancers, and soft tissue sarcoma. HT effects include oxygenation and perfusion changes, DNA repair inhibition and immune system activation as a consequence of new antigen exposure. The literature shows a wide variety of randomized, nonrandomized, and observational studies and both prospective and retrospective data to confirm the advantage of HT association to CHT and RT. There are still many ongoing trials on this subject. This article summarizes the available literature on HT in order to update the current knowledge on HT use in association with RT and/or CHT from 2010 up to 2019.

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The First Domain of Palliative Care

10.1093/med/9780199798551.003.0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

E. Alessandra Strada

Keyword(s):

Risk Factors ◽

Palliative Care ◽

Clinical Practice ◽

Clinical Case ◽

Clinical Skills ◽

Home Based ◽

Professional Self ◽

The Difference ◽

Clinical Case Scenarios

This chapter proposes palliative psychology competencies in the first domain of palliative care based on the framework of the Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care. Competencies are conceptualized as comprising knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The role of palliative psychologists is presented through the discussion of clinical case scenarios. These roles for psychologists are discussed in the context of different palliative care settings (inpatient; outpatient, home-based palliative care, hospice). The relevant application of clinical skills is discussed. The difference between palliative care and hospice is also presented. Finally, this chapter approaches the topic of professional self-care, which is conceptualized as a necessary competence for palliative psychologists. The discussion presents risk factors, protective factors, and interventions especially relevant to palliative psychologists.

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The miR-21 potential of serving as a biomarker for liver diseases in clinical practice

Biochemical Society Transactions ◽

10.1042/bst20200653 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 48 (5) ◽

pp. 2295-2305

Author(s):

Jiawei Zhang ◽

Dandan Li ◽

Rui Zhang ◽

Peng Gao ◽

Rongxue Peng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Clinical Practice ◽

Liver Diseases ◽

Hepatic Disease ◽

Noninvasive Detection ◽

Diagnosis And Prognosis ◽

Expected Performance ◽

Potential Biomarker ◽

Disease Condition ◽

Complex Regulatory Network

The role of miR-21 in the pathogenesis of various liver diseases, together with the possibility of detecting microRNA in the circulation, makes miR-21 a potential biomarker for noninvasive detection. In this review, we summarize the potential utility of extracellular miR-21 in the clinical management of hepatic disease patients and compared it with the current clinical practice. MiR-21 shows screening and prognostic value for liver cancer. In liver cirrhosis, miR-21 may serve as a biomarker for the differentiating diagnosis and prognosis. MiR-21 is also a potential biomarker for the severity of hepatitis. We elucidate the disease condition under which miR-21 testing can reach the expected performance. Though miR-21 is a key regulator of liver diseases, microRNAs coordinate with each other in the complex regulatory network. As a result, the performance of miR-21 is better when combined with other microRNAs or classical biomarkers under certain clinical circumstances.

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