Background. Currently primary treatment options for esophageal cancer are surgery only or concomitant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) and the long-term survival of patients with locally advanced disease is rare. Preoperative concomitant CRT seems to be beneficial, mostly in patients who achieve a complete pathologic response (pCR) after CRT. In this retrospective analysis the efficiency and toxicity of...

A 45-year-old man complaining of cough, dyspnea, and difficulty in swallowing was referred to our hospital. Chest CT scan showed a mediastinal mass compressing the trachea. He was diagnosed with poorly differentiated lung carcinoma by percutaneous needle biopsy. Bronchoscopy and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed a tracheoesophageal fistula (TEF). Long-lasting febrile neutropenia made it...

BACKGROUND Multimodal treatment approaches are indispensable for patients with advanced-stage colorectal cancer. Radiotherapy has been established as essential part of perioperative concepts and was introduced as an option to face challenges such as local relapse or oligometastases. METHODS A literature review was performed to summarize evidence and current standards of radiotherapeutic conce...

BACKGROUND Local residual and recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) generally shows treatment failure after standard radiotherapy with or without concurrent chemotherapy. Whether endoscopic nasopharyngectomy might provide an additional therapeutic advantage remains controversial. Therefore, we retrospectively compared the clinical prognoses of patients with residual or recurrent NPC treated ...

background: to evaluate the dosimetric difference between conventional and three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3d-crt) using 6 and 18 mv x-ray photons. materials and methods: computed tomography scans of 26 pelvic patients were acquired and transferred to the 3d treatment planning system. for each patient, 8 conventional plans (3, 4, 5 and 6 fields) and one 3d-crt plan were prepared using...

COI disclosure: JPW is a member of the research board of EHE International, has received lecture honorarium from Novartis Pharmaceutical, and was awarded a research grant from GlaxoSmithKline to conduct a COPD study. EAH, MB, LL, and GM, have no conflict of interest to declare. Abstract Purpose: Radiotherapy (RT) is the standard therapy for unresected stage I-II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCL...

Volumetric-modulated arc radiotherapy (VMAT) is an iteration of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), both of which deliver highly conformal dose distributions. Studies have shown the superiority of VMAT and IMRT in comparison with 3-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) in planning target volume (PTV) coverage and organs-at-risk (OARs) sparing. This is the first study examining the be...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the interval between surgery and adjuvant treatments regarding the overall survival and recurrence-free survival in patients from a developing country. For stages II and III rectal cancer, international guidelines recommend neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) regardless of the tumor location. In the developing countries there is a...

The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential benefits of conformal radiotherapy (CRT) combined with a sequential volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) boost in the treatment of upper thoracic esophageal cancer. Ten patients with upper thoracic esophageal cancer previously treated with CRT plus a sequential VMAT boost plan were replanned with CRT plus an off-cord CRT boost plan an...

PURPOSE The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between the circulating lymphocyte level during preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) and pathologic complete response (pCR) in locally advanced rectal cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS From May 2010 to May 2013, 52 patients treated with preoperative CRT followed by surgery, were analysed. Patients received conventional fractionat...