Case of papillary thyroid cancer presenting with an inoperable cervical mass successfully treated with high-dose radiation therapy

External-beam radiation therapy (EBRT) for differentiated thyroid cancer has been controversial. Palliative irradiation is usually recommended for patients with treatment-resistant relapse and/or distant metastases, but high-dose EBRT is not often indicated in this situation. A 50-year-old man had treatment-resistant recurrence of an inoperable cervical mass and multiple lung metastases after total thyroidectomy and neck dissection. Because the patient had good performance status and no other life-threatening metastases, he received high-dose intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). Remarkably, the tumour shrank during treatment. After 3 months, he had bleeding from the internal carotid artery. The bleeding was outside the high-dose irradiation site and was likely due to infection; emergency interventional radiology was performed. The post-EBRT clinical course was favourable and the cervical mass almost disappeared. The patient remained alive for 3 years post treatment. It is possible to extend the indication of high-dose intensity-IMRT in selected patients with differentiated thyroid cancer.

Oncologic Outcomes of Radical Prostatectomy and High-Dose Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy with Androgen-Deprivation Therapy for Relatively Young Patients with Unfavorable Intermediate-Risk Prostate Adenocarcinoma

Purpose: To estimate the oncologic outcomes of radical prostatectomy (RP) and high-dose intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) with short-term androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) in relatively young men with unfavorable intermediate-risk prostate cancer, as defined by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN-UIR-PC). Patients and Methods: We enrolled relatively young men (≤65 years) from the Taiwan Cancer Registry who had been diagnosed as having NCCN-UIR-PC and who had received RP or high-dose IMRT (at least ≥72 Gy) with short-term ADT (4–6 months). After propensity score matching of the confounders, Cox proportional regression was used to model the time from the index date (i.e., date of diagnosis) to all-cause death, biochemical failure (BF), locoregional recurrence (LRR), and distant metastasis (DM). Results: The corresponding adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) of the risk of all-cause death, BF, LRR, and DM were 2.76 (1.36–5.60, p = 0.0050), 2.74 (1.72–4.84, p < 0.0001), 1.28 (1.09–1.90, p = 0.0324), and 2.11 (1.40–4.88, p = 0.0052), respectively. Conclusions: RP is superior to high-dose IMRT with short-term ADT in terms of oncologic outcomes for relatively young men with UIR-PC.

Comparison of Clinical Outcomes in Patients With Localized or Locally Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma Treated With Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Involving Gemcitabine-Cisplatin and High Dose-Intensity MVAC

PurposeTo compare the efficacy and safety of high dose-intensity combination of methotrexate, vinblastine, adriamycin and cisplatin (HD MVAC) with gemcitabine plus cisplatin (GC) as a neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) or locally advanced upper tract urothelial cancer (UTUC). Patients and MethodsA retrospective analysis was conducted for patients with UC (cT2-4aN0-1M0) who received NAC from January 2011 and December 2017 at Asan Medical Center. Pathologic complete response (pCR), down-staging (<ypT2 and no N upstaging), disease-free survival (DFS), OS and safety were compared for each regimen. ResultsOut of a total of 277 patients, 176 patients received GC and 41 patients received HD MVAC. With the exception of age (patients receiving GC were younger; p=0.002), other baseline characteristics were well balanced between groups. pCR rates were 27.0% for GC and 22.6% for HD MVAC (p=0.62), and down-staging rate was 50.8% for GC and 58.1% for HD MVAC (p=0.47). There were no differences in OS (72.1% vs 73.1% for GC vs HD MVAC; p=0.58) and DFS (54.9% vs 63.3% for GC vs HD MVAC; p=0.21) at 3 years. HD MVAC with prophylactic G-CSF was associated with a higher incidence of febrile neutropenia (p<0.001) than GC. The NAC regimen was not an independent prognostic factor for OS. ConclusionsOncologic outcomes were not significantly different between the GC and HD MVAC when used as NAC in MIBC/UTUC.