Over the past 25 years, significant advances have been made in the management of patients with rectal cancer. Phase III studies have shown the efficacy of postoperative radiation therapy and chemotherapy in improving local control and survival of patients with resected stage II and III disease. Data from the randomized German CAO/ARO/AIO-94 trial of preoperative versus postoperative chemoradiat...

Minsky and Guillem should be commended for this excellent review and for addressing major areas of controversy in the management of rectal cancer. Among the many issues they cover, the authors review the supporting evidence for the use of neoadjuvant vs adjuvant chemoradiation in patients with stages II/III rectal cancer. They conclude, based on the decreased risk of local recurrence and decrea...

Dang and colleagues recently reported in the journal that tumor response to definitive chemoradiation, as assessed using the RECIST criteria, and the risk of radiation pneumonitis were positively correlated in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We had previously reported similar findings in a study that used positron tomography both to measure tumor response and to assess normal ...

Lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma of the skin (LELCS) is a rare cutaneous neoplasm microscopically similar to undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma. It is typically nonaggressive and is treated with wide local excision. However, we present a case of a patient with a regional recurrence and more aggressive LELCS with perineural invasion and positive margins for which he was treated with wide ...

BACKGROUND Over the years, the treatment of oropharyngeal cancer has changed; in the past, first-line treatment consisted of surgery followed by adjuvant radiotherapy, today however, primary treatment typically involves concomitant chemoradiation, and reserves surgery for salvage. While chemoradiation is the modality of choice for primary management of oropharyngeal cancer, disease characterist...

man rectal cancer trial (CAO/ ARO/AIO-94) now made public, we have a prospective randomized study that has confirmed what those treating rectal cancer have long suspected: preoperative chemoradiation provides a significant advantage over postoperative therapy in terms of pelvic control and sphincter preservation. Full-course radiation therapy with 5-fluorouracil-based chemotherapy, similar to t...

BACKGROUND Postoperative chemoradiation as per Intergroup-0116 trial ("Macdonald regimen") is considered standard for completely resected high risk gastric cancer. However, many concerns remain with regards to the toxicity of this regimen. To evaluate the safety and tolerability of this regimen in a routine clinical practice setting, we analyzed our experience with its use. As we did not expect...

Abstract BACKGROUND Retinal structure and vascular changes are used as biomarkers for preclinical Alzheimer disease. We conducted a cohort study to evaluate the feasibility of obtaining these data in patients with low-grade gliomas (LGGs) who completed chemoradiation therapy without self or family reported cognitive concerns. METHODS Optical coherence tomography (OCT) angiography (OCTA, OptoVue...

The best treatment strategy for patients with locally advanced unresectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains the subject of considerable debate. This report presents a case of a 58-year-old woman with locally advanced unresectable PDAC who was treated with sequential FOLFIRINOX for 8 cycles followed by chemoradiation, and continues to show durable disease control 18 months later....

The standard of care for locally advanced carcinoma of uterine cervix is concurrent chemoradiation therapy followed by intracavitary brachytherapy, when there is para-aortic lymphadenopathy, radiation field needs to be extended to para-aortic region. In the latter case dose limiting organs are spinal cord, kidneys and small intestine. We present a challenging case of FIGO IVB squamous cell carc...