Nasal mucoepidermoid carcinoma after radiotherapy: Case report

Introduction Mucoepidermoid carcinoma (MEC) is a tumor originated from the epithelium of the glandular excretory ducts and has highly variable biological potential. It is the most prevalent cancer of the salivary glands. The present report aims to describe a case of nasal mucoepidermoid carcinoma that developed after adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) treatment of a recurrent pituitary macroadenoma. Case Report Male patient, 62 years old, presented with recurrent nasal epistaxis on the right, associated with intense pulsatile headache, visual analogical scale (VAS) 10/10, with improvement only with the use of opioids and morphine. After undergoing oncological screening and study by imaging exams, the presence of an expansive seal lesion with suprasellar extension was seen, involving the medial wall of the cavernous segment of the right carotid artery and the anterior cerebral artery, as well as the presence of a new expansive lesion in the right nasal cavity, with ethmoid bone invasion superiorly and medial orbit wall invasion laterally, compressing the ipsilateral optic nerve canal. Discussion Sinonasal neoplasms represent a small portion of all malignancies of the upper aerodigestive tract, accounting for < 5% of these neoplasms. The development of MEC involves risk factors such as occupational issues, history of trauma and surgery involving the nasal area, and radiation exposure, as in previous RT. Conclusion Mucoepidermoid carcinoma is an uncommon neoplasia and can be associated with RT treatment, as used in cases of recurrent pituitary macroadenoma. In general, surgical resection to obtain free margins of neoplastic tissue is the aimed treatment, seeking better prognosis.

Plenum of the Interdepartmental Scientific Council on Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences M3 RF "Oncological screening, carcinogenesis and early stages of cancer in the practice of a gynecologist"

October 31 - November 1, 2000 in Izhevsk the Plenum of the Interdepartmental Scientific Council on Obstetrics and Gynecology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences M3 of the Russian Federation was held. Despite the allocation of two different specialties in clinical medicine - gynecology and gynecological oncology, the problems of risk and early diagnosis of gynecological cancer occupy a prominent place in the activities of an obstetrician-gynecologist. Diseases of the breast are of no less importance for clinical practice. The topic of this Plenum is a logical continuation of previous discussions on topical issues of modern gynecology - "Ways of development of modern gynecology" and "Ovarian tumors", held within the framework of the Ministry of Taxes and Communications.

The application of lean technologies to optimize oncological screening in the periodic health examination of adult population groups

Background. Improving organizational technologies for early detection of cancer using targeted programs for large-scale cancer screening is a priority task of primary health care.The aim: to assess the potential of lean technologies to optimize cancer screening during periodic health examination of the adult population.Materials and methods. To develop an optimal organizational and functional model of cancer screening, a working group was created; information about the current state of the process was collected.Results. A comprehensive analysis of the state of the process revealed the following problems: violation of the algorithms of oncological screening at stage 1 of periodic health examination (13.8 %); cases of non-completion of stage 2 of periodic health examination by patients with suspected colon cancer (20.4 %); queues for endoscopic examinations (14 days) and, as a consequence, not a quick visit to the oncologist of the primary oncology department (17–18 days). After optimization of the periodic health examination: there is no queue for endoscopy for patients with suspected oncopathology; accelerated access of patients with suspected oncopathology to the oncologist of the primary oncology department (from 17–18 to 5 days; p < 0.01). Increased awareness of patients about the rules for preparing for endoscopic examination and a reminder of the date and time of the upcoming endoscopy, there was an increase in the number of patients who completed stage 2 of health examination to exclude/confirm oncopathology (from 79.6 to 90 %; p < 0.05). The frequency of violations by doctors of the oncological screening algorithm decreased from 13.8 to 2.3 % (p < 0.01).Conclusion. The use of lean manufacturing marketing strategies in primary health care has helped to identify, eliminate and control the causes of problems during the first and second stages of clinical examination of patients with suspected oncopathology.

Biochemical and Molecular Diagnostic Indicators for Cancer

Biomarkers are substances that are either secreted by the tumor or produced by the body in response to the presence of cancer. Biomarkers serve as an objective measure for evaluation of normal and pathological processes as well as pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention. Cancer studies are usually difficult to interpret, especially based on the contemporary medical diagnosis. In this circumstance, biomarkers are developing as reliable diagnostic metabolites, which have many promising applications in oncological screening, differential diagnosis, risk assessment, response to treatment, and examining the progression of disease. Genome or protein based prognostic biomarkers are available, for numerous cancer types, for potential inclusion into clinical prognostic staging methods. However, there lies difficulty in translating these biomarkers into clinical outcomes. This review concerns important biomarkers related to wide varieties of cancer and also elucidates mode of action of few major biomarkers.

Hope and Distress Are Not Associated With the Brain Tumor Stage

ObjectiveHopelessness and depression are strongly associated with suicidality. Given that physical and psychological outcomes can be altered with hope, hope is a therapeutic goal of increasing importance in the treatment of brain tumor patients. Moreover, it is not yet understood which factors affect the perception of hope in brain tumor patients. In addition, it remains uncertain whether lower-grade brain tumor patients suffer less from psycho-oncological distress than higher-grade brain tumor patients.MethodsNeuro-oncological patients were examined perioperatively with the Distress Thermometer (DT) and the Herth Hope Index (HHI). In addition, psychological comorbidities (anxiety GAD-2, depression PHQ-2) and an assessment of general psycho-oncological distress were recorded.ResultsSixty-six brain tumor patients were included (median age 53 years, 35% higher-grade brain tumors, i.e., WHO grade III/IV). No differences between higher- and lower-grade brain tumor patients were observed for general psycho-oncological distress and hope. However, higher-grade brain tumor patients showed a significantly higher level of depression (p ≤ 0.001) and more negative expectations regarding therapeutic success (H = 4.873, p ≤ 0.050). The extent of depression correlated negatively with hope.ConclusionUnexpectedly, higher-grade brain tumor patients remained as hopeful as lower-grade brain tumor patients despite the devastating diagnosis, higher levels of depression, and a worse expectation of therapeutic success. Conversely, lower-grade brain tumor patients experience as much psycho-oncological distress as patients with a higher-grade brain tumor, underpinning the imperative need for comprehensive psycho-oncological screening. For all brain tumor patients, considering hope is important to avoid suicides resulting from hopelessness and depression.

Patient-reported outcomes and psycho-oncological screening in hematology: a practical example of routine electronic monitoring

Summary Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) have gained increasing importance in oncology. PROs can supplement medical treatment with important information about the patient’s quality of life (QoL), which is typically assessed using standardized questionnaires. PROs capture the symptomatology and functional impairments as perceived by the patient without further interpretation by another party. In this article, we describe how routinely assessed electronic PROs (ePROs) at the outpatient unit of the Department of Hematology Innsbruck complement the Austrian Myeloma Registry (AMR) and clinical routine. There is a broad body of literature showing that ePRO assessments can supplement patient–physician contact and help focus communication on clinically relevant issues that matter for the patient. Based on ePRO results, physicians can initiate clinical action such as referring patients to psycho-oncological treatment. Electronic PRO assessments might facilitate communication between healthcare providers among themselves but also between healthcare providers and patients, and make it possible to incorporate the patients’ point of view into treatment in a standardized way. The example depicted herein demonstrates how ePRO assessments can be integrated and used in routine monitoring and for psycho-oncological screening.

Nanostructured Chemoresistive Sensors for Oncological Screening and Tumor Markers Tracking: Single Sensor Approach Applications on Human Blood and Cell Samples

Preventive screening does not only allow to preemptively intervene on pathologies before they can harm the host; but also to reduce the costs of the intervention itself; boosting the efficiency of the NHS (National Health System) by saving resources for other purposes. To improve technology advancements in this field; user-friendly yet low-cost devices are required; and various applications for gas sensors have been tested and proved reliable in past studies. In this work; cell cultures and blood samples have been studied; using nanostructured chemoresistive sensors; to both verify if this technology can reliably detect tumor markers; and if correlations between responses from tumor line metabolites and the screening outcomes on human specimens could be observed. The results showed how sensors responded differently to the emanations from healthy and mutant (for cells) or tumor affected (for blood) samples, and how those results were consistent between them, since the tumoral specimens had higher responses compared to the ones of their healthy counterparts. Even though the patterns in the responses require a bigger population to be defined properly; it appeared that the different macro-groups between the same kind of samples are distinguishable from some of the sensors chosen in the study; giving promising outcomes for further research.

Nanostructured Chemoresistive Sensors for Oncological Screening: Preliminary Study with Single Sensor Approach on Human Blood Samples

The demand for reliable devices to detect tumor biomarkers in human body is constantlyincreasing [...]