scholarly journals Hemipelvectomy- only a salvage therapy?

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Wedemeyer ◽  
Max Daniel Kauther

After the first hemipelvectomy in 1891 significant advances have been made in the fields of preoperative diagnosis, surgical technique and adjuvant treatment in patients with pelvic tumors. The challenging surgical removal of these rare malignant bone or soft tissue tumors accompanied by interdisciplinary therapy is mostly the only chance of cure, but bares the risk of intensive bleeding and infection. The reconstruction after hemipelvectomy is of importance for the later outcome and quality of life for the patient. Here, plastic surgery with microvascular free flaps or local rotational flaps improved the reconstruction and reduced infection rates. Average local recurrence rates of 14% demonstrate good surgical results, but 5 year survival rates of only 50% are described for some tumor entities, showing the importance of a multimodal collaboration. On a basis of a selective literature review the history, indications, treatment options and outcome of hemipelvectomies are presented.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iman Kalaji

Abnormalities in the rhythmic electromechanical contractions of the heart results in cardiac arrhythmias. When these abnormalities rise from the ventricles of the heart, they are classified as ventricular arrhythmias. The two major types of ventricular arrhythmias are ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation (VF). Ventricular fibrillation is the most dangerous among the two arrhythmias, that usually leads to sudden cardiac death if not treated immediately. Annually about 40,000 sudden cardiac deaths are reported in Canada. Due to high mortality rate and serious impact on quality of life, researchers have been focusing on characterizing ventricular arrhythmias that may lead to delivering optimized treatment options in improving the survival rates. In this thesis two major types of ventricular arrhythmias were analyzed and quantified by performing discriminative sparse coding analysis called label consistent K-SVD using time frequency dictionaries that are well localized in time and frequency domains. The analyzed signals were 670 ECG ventricular arrhythmia segments from 33 patients extracted from the Malignant Ventricular Ectopy and Creighton University Tachy-Arrhythmia databases. Using the LCKSVD dictionary learning approach, an overall maximum classification accuracy of 73.3% was achieved with a hybrid optimized wavelet dictionary. Based on the comparative analysis, the trained (learned) dictionaries yielded better performance than the untrained dictionaries. The results indicate that discriminative sparse coding approach has greater potential in extracting signal adaptive and morphologically discriminative time-frequency structures in studying ventricular arrhythmias.



2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iman Kalaji

Abnormalities in the rhythmic electromechanical contractions of the heart results in cardiac arrhythmias. When these abnormalities rise from the ventricles of the heart, they are classified as ventricular arrhythmias. The two major types of ventricular arrhythmias are ventricular tachycardia (VT) and ventricular fibrillation (VF). Ventricular fibrillation is the most dangerous among the two arrhythmias, that usually leads to sudden cardiac death if not treated immediately. Annually about 40,000 sudden cardiac deaths are reported in Canada. Due to high mortality rate and serious impact on quality of life, researchers have been focusing on characterizing ventricular arrhythmias that may lead to delivering optimized treatment options in improving the survival rates. In this thesis two major types of ventricular arrhythmias were analyzed and quantified by performing discriminative sparse coding analysis called label consistent K-SVD using time frequency dictionaries that are well localized in time and frequency domains. The analyzed signals were 670 ECG ventricular arrhythmia segments from 33 patients extracted from the Malignant Ventricular Ectopy and Creighton University Tachy-Arrhythmia databases. Using the LCKSVD dictionary learning approach, an overall maximum classification accuracy of 73.3% was achieved with a hybrid optimized wavelet dictionary. Based on the comparative analysis, the trained (learned) dictionaries yielded better performance than the untrained dictionaries. The results indicate that discriminative sparse coding approach has greater potential in extracting signal adaptive and morphologically discriminative time-frequency structures in studying ventricular arrhythmias.



2021 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 153473542110638
Author(s):  
Eun-Bin Kwag ◽  
Soo-Dam Kim ◽  
Ji Hye Park ◽  
So-Jung Park ◽  
Mi-Kyung Jeong ◽  
...  

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide, and Korea is no exception. Humanity has been fighting cancer for many years, and as a result, we now have effective treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. However, there are other issues that we are only now beginning to address, such as cancer patients’ quality of life. Moreover, numerous studies show that addressing these issues holistically is critical for overall cancer treatment and survival rates. This paper describes how Korea is attempting to reduce cancer incidence and recurrence rates while also managing the quality of life of cancer patients. Integrative Oncology is the field that addresses these broad issues, and understanding the current state of integrative oncology in Korea is critical. The goal of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of integrative oncology in Korea as well as to look ahead to future developments.



Children ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle Friedman ◽  
Tara Henderson

Over the past two decades, marked progress has been made in understanding the biology of neuroblastoma; this has led to refined risk stratification and treatment modifications with resultant increasing 5-year survival rates for children with neuroblastoma. Survivors, however, remain at risk for a wide variety of potential treatment-related complications, or “late effects”, which may lead to excess morbidity and premature mortality in this cohort. This review summarizes the existing survivorship literature on long-term health outcomes for survivors of neuroblastoma, focusing specifically on potential injury to the endocrine, sensory, cardiovascular, pulmonary, and renal systems, as well as survivors’ treatment-related risk for subsequent neoplasms and impaired quality of life. Additional work is needed to assess the potential late effects of newer multimodality therapies with the aim of optimizing long-term medical and psychosocial outcomes for all survivors of neuroblastoma.



1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 70-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
LT Swanson

The congenital heart defect of HLHS is nearly uniformly fatal without intervention. As surgeons gain experience with the techniques the success rates are improving; more infants with HLHS are being offered hope for survival and quality of life. The critical nature of this diagnosis, the relatively new treatment options, and uncertainty of the surgical outcome impose tremendous stress on the parents. Choice of treatment is difficult and should be made in collaboration with the attending physician. Although the first year of my son's life was difficult, the past 5 years have been wonderful. He continues to thrive and enjoy most of the activities other 6-year-olds enjoy. In retrospect, palliative surgery was a good option for him. As both his mother and a cardiac nurse, I recognize that he may once again require surgical intervention, but I am encouraged that medical and surgical advances are being made for children with HLHS.



2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (S2) ◽  
Author(s):  
M.G. Smylie

Treatment options for patients with metastatic melanoma have expanded rapidly since the approval of ipilimumab by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2011. Cytokines such as interferon and interleukin-2 were approved in 1995 and 1998 respectively. However, the effect on survival was marginal, and the toxicity, substantial. Multiple vaccine studies likewise failed to show improvements in survival. The “Holy Grail” came with the discovery of immune checkpoints, and the first metastatic melanoma trial to show an improvement in overall survival involved the use of an immune checkpoint inhibitor against ctla-4: ipilimumab. Since then, the field of immuno-oncology has exploded, with approvals for PD-1 inhibitors and discovery, in clinical trials, of several novel checkpoints such as tim-3, lag-3, and others. In fact more than 950 novel immunotherapy drugs are currently being trialled. Recently, combinations of ctla-4 and PD-1 inhibitors have been associated with 1-year survival rates exceeding 80% and 4-year survival rates greater than 50%. In no tumour has as much progress been made in the last 5 years as in melanoma, and the efforts to unravel and exploit mechanisms used by the tumour to avoid immune detection are just beginning.



2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-290
Author(s):  
Rebecca Thorpe ◽  
Heather Drury-Smith

AbstractBackground:This review evaluates whether brachytherapy can be considered as an alternative to whole breast irradiation (WBI) using criteria such as local recurrence rates, overall survival rates and quality of life (QoL) factors. This is an important issue because of a decline in local recurrence rates, suggesting that some women at very low risk of recurrence may be incurring the negative long-term side effects of WBI without benefitting from a reduction in local recurrence and greater overall survival. As such, the purpose of this literature review is to evaluate whether brachytherapy is a credible alternative to external beam radiation with a particular focus on the impact it has on patient QoL.Methods:The search terms used were devised by using the Population Intervention Comparison Outcome framework, and a literature search was carried out using Boolean connectors and Medical Subject Headings in the PubMed database. The resultant articles were manually assessed for relevance and appraised using the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network tool. Additional papers were sourced from the citations of articles found using the search strategy. Government guidelines and regulations were also used following a manual search on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence website. This process resulted in a total of 30 sources being included as part of the review.Results:Three types of brachytherapy were the foundation for the majority of the papers found: interstitial multi-catheter brachytherapy, intra-cavity brachytherapy and permanent seed implantation. The key themes that arose from the literature were that brachytherapy is equivalent to WBI both in terms of 5-year local recurrence rates and overall survival rates at 10–12 years. The findings showed that brachytherapy was superior to WBI for some QoL factors such as being less time-consuming and equal in terms of others such as breast cosmesis. The results did also show that brachytherapy does come with its own local toxicities that could impact upon QoL such as the poor breast cosmesis associated with some brachytherapy techniques.Conclusion:In conclusion, brachytherapy was deemed a safe or acceptable alternative to WBI, but there is a need for further research on the long-term local recurrence rates, survival rates and quality of life issues as the volume of evidence is still significantly smaller for brachytherapy than for WBI. Specifically, there needs to be further investigation as to which patients will benefit from being offered brachytherapy and the influence that factors such as co-morbidities, performance status and patient choice play in these decisions.



2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 323-334
Author(s):  
Kristi Beatty ◽  
Chris Winkelman ◽  
Joseph A. Bokar ◽  
Polly Mazanec

The start of the 21st century has produced advances in cancer care that have improved both survival rates and quality of life for many persons diagnosed with cancer. Targeted therapy has given new hope for controlling cancer as a chronic illness. Alone, or in combination with traditional therapies such as surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy, this new form of therapy targets malignant cells, halting tumor growth and the potential metastatic spread of disease. Toxicities are limited, but some are serious and may require intensive care. It is imperative for the experienced critical care nurse to have an understanding of these new treatment options and those on the horizon, as these therapies are the future of cancer care. Whereas in previous decades, patients with cancer may not have survived an intensive care admission for treatment complications or advanced disease, many patients now are recovering from life-threatening events, continuing treatment for their disease, and going on to live meaningful, good-quality lives.



2016 ◽  
Vol 175 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-35
Author(s):  
N. A. Maistrenko ◽  
A. A. Khvatov ◽  
A. A. Sazonov

Late diagnostics of colon cancer along with high specific weight of the patients of elder age groups indicated the urgency of study of application of cytoreductive surgery in elderly and senile patients of with colorectal cancer. A comparative assessment of the results of cytoreductive operations (primary tumor resection) was made in two groups of patients with disseminated colon cancer (younger and older than 60 years old). It was stated, that the performance of palliative resection allowed them to obtain of encouraging remote results, provide more higher survival rates than in patients of young and mean age groups. The more frequent development of complications after cytoreductive operations was associated with decompensation of accompanying pathology in patients of elder age groups. These data confirmed the need of their adequate correction in preoperative period. The application of cytoreductive surgery significantly improved the quality of life of the patients of elder age groups with disseminated forms of colon cancer.



2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. S08-S13
Author(s):  
William R. Lumry ◽  
Russell A. Settipane

<title/> Hereditary angioedema (HAE) is a rare autosomal dominant genetic disorder characterized by swelling of subcutaneous, mucosal, and submucosal tissue without associated pruritus or wheals caused by a temporary localized increase in vascular permeability. Swelling attacks primarily affect the cutaneous tissue, abdominal viscera, genitals, or airways. <title/> Reports of the prevalence of HAE C1 inhibitor (C1-INH) deficiency varies widely, from 1:50,000 to 1:100,000. The prevalence of HAE normal C1-INH is unknown but is likely much lower than HAE C1-INH. Approximately one-third of patients with recurrent angioedema without wheals have HAE. <title/> The burden of disease for patients with HAE is substantial. Attacks are unpredictable with respect to frequency, severity, and the site that swells. Laryngeal attacks can be fatal if not treated promptly and appropriately. Feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression can trigger attacks, and begin a cycle of attacks that cause anxiety that, in turn, triggers further attacks. Despite full physical recovery between attacks, patients often experience continual emotional impairment and reduced quality of life (QoL). Absenteeism from work and presenteeism at work or educational activities for patients and caregivers increase stress and reduce productivity during and between attacks. Missed opportunities for career development are common. <title/> Significant advances have been made in the past decade to expand both acute and prophylactic treatment options for patients with HAE, lowering both the disease and treatment burden, and improving the QoL of patients with HAE.



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