Newly diagnosed colon or rectal cancer should be staged using the TNM (tumor, node and distant metastasis) nomenclature to determine prognostic factors. Based on this staging, it is possible to select patients in need of adjuvant therapy following surgery. In patients with stage III colon cancer, adjuvant chemotherapy with fluorouracil and levamisole has been shown to produce a 40 percent reduc...

External-beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy, widely utilized as curative treatment modalities for prostate cancer, have undergone significant clinical and technological advances in recent decades. Contemporary radiotherapy treatment algorithms use pretreatment prognostic factors to stratify patients into low-, intermediate-, and high-risk groups that correlate with both pathologic stage of dis...

Differentiated thyroid cancer comprises papillary, mixed papillary-follicular and follicular adenocarcinomas. They are mostly hormone-sensitive and respond to thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) suppression. The standard treatment is total thyroidectomy, (131)I therapy and thyroid hormone suppression therapy. Adjuvant external radiotherapy is discussed controversially. Most authors recommend adju...

OBJECTIVE Over the last 5 years the management of stage I testis cancer has changed tremendously. This review focuses on the latest changes in diagnostics and treatment of clinical stage I non-seminomatous and seminomatous germ cell tumors. METHODS A non-structured literature search (MEDLINE) was performed, including recently published papers (up to March 2006) on the subject. RESULTS Organ...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the prognostic impact of the surgical approach and adjuvant treatment in operable malignant melanoma of head and neck (MMHN). METHODS Retrospective reviews of 31 patients who underwent surgery-based treatment with curative intent, either by the endoscopic or external approach, for MMHN were performed to analyze recurrence patterns, salvage m...

BACKGROUND Postmastectomy adjuvant therapy is used to prevent locoregional recurrence and improve overall breast cancer specific survival rates. However, it can adversely affect the cosmetic results of reconstruction. Therefore, the authors examined flap stability and patients' satisfaction with immediate breast reconstruction after adjuvant therapy. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the me...

Radical cystectomy with extended pelvic lymph-node dissection, associated with neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, remains the standard of care for advanced, non-metastatic muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Loco-regional control is a key factor in the outcome of patients since it is related to overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS) and cause-specific survival. The risk of loco-regional ...

The last decade has witnessed a dramatic change in management of metastatic spine disease, with an increased role for surgery and emerging use of stereotactic radiotherapy, often in combination. Patients may be treated with radiotherapy followed by surgery, or have surgery and then adjuvant radiotherapy. In both cases, the surgeon and oncologist need to select the optimal timing for surgery and...