BACKGROUND The benefits of adjuvant radiotherapy in rectal carcinoma are well known. However, there is still considerable uncertainty about the optimal radiation treatment. There is an ongoing debate about the choice between very short treatments immediately followed by surgical resection and prolonged treatments with delayed surgery. In this paper, we describe an interim analysis of a non-cont...

INTRODUCTION/AIM Lung cancer is a leading cause of mortality among patients with carcinomas. The aim of this study was to point out risk factors for brain metastases (BM) appearance in patients with IIIA (N2) stage of nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with three-modal therapy. METHODS We analyzed data obtained from 107 patients with IIIA (N2) stage of NSCLC treated surgically with neo...

BACKGROUND Adjuvant radiotherapy for rectal cancer has been extensively studied, but no trial has unequivocally demonstrated improved overall survival with radiotherapy, despite a reduction in the rate of local recurrence. METHODS Between March 1987 and February 1990, we randomly assigned 1168 patients younger than 80 years of age who had resectable rectal cancer to undergo preoperative irrad...

OBJECTIVE Nonhealing perineal wound is an unpleasant complication of surgical excision of the rectum and anus. The aim of the study was to evaluate the risk factors for impaired perineal wound healing after abdominoperineal resection (APR) of rectum for adenocarcinoma, particularly with the increasing use of neo-adjuvant chemoradiation. METHOD The study included 38 consecutive patients (29 me...

BACKGROUND Immediate flap reconstruction for partial vaginal resection is often performed with resection of colorectal, gynecologic, and urologic malignancies. Surgical and functional outcomes have not been well described. The aim of the authors' study was to identify factors associated with improved outcomes in patients undergoing immediate flap reconstruction for partial vaginal resection. ...

To determine the impact of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression on clinical behavior in irradiated and non-irradiated rectal carcinomas. Tumor samples were collected from 1231 patients of the Dutch TME trial in which rectal cancer patients were treated with standardized surgery, and randomized for pre-operative short-term (5 times 5Gy) radiotherapy or no pre-operative radiotherapy. Tissue micro ...

abstract background and aims: probable risk factors of clinical anastomotic leakage and the role of defunctioning stoma in patients undergoing low anterior resection (lar) for rectal cancer, is still controversial. the goal of our study was to find out possible risk factors of anastomotic leakage and to locate the influence of protective stoma in the rate of anastomotic leakage. materials and m...

Preoperative (chemo)radiotherapy, (C)RT, is an essential part of the treatment of rectal cancer patients, but tumor response to this therapy among patients is variable. Thus far, there are no clinical biomarkers that could be used to predict response to (C)RT or to stratify patients into different preoperative treatment groups according to their prognosis. Overexpression of cancerous inhibitor ...

BACKGROUND To investigate the clinical value of preoperative and postoperative radiotherapy (RT) in patients with rectal signet-ring cell carcinoma (SRCC). METHODS Using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program patients with stage II-III rectal SRCC were retrospectively included between 1988 and 2012. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were performed to analyze...

Preoperative radiotherapy (RT) followed by surgery is widely accepted in the treatment of locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). This study aimed to estimate at the population-based level the impact of preoperative RT on overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) in LARCs diagnosed in Southern Switzerland between 1996 and 2007. All patients with LARC were selected from the Ticino ...