The International Staging System (ISS) is the most important prognostic system for multiple myeloma (MM). It was identified in the era of conventional agents. The outcome of MM has significantly changed by novel agents. Thus the applicability of ISS system in the era of novel agents in Chinese patients needs to be demonstrated. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical outcomes and prognostic si...

Progression-free survival (PFS) is increasingly used as an important and even a primary endpoint in randomized cancer clinical trials in the evaluation of patients with solid tumors for both practical and clinical considerations. Although in its simplest form, PFS is the time from randomization to a predefined endpoint, there are many factors that can influence the exact moment of when disease ...

Pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma (PXA) is a rare, low-grade glioma (World Health Organization Grade II) that most often presents in the first two decades of life. We summarize and present our institutional experience in the management of these tumors. All patients managed for PXA at the University of California San Francisco were retrospectively identified through chart review. Patient demographic...

BACKGROUND Twist, a basic helix--loop-helix transcription factor, has been reported to be associated with the development and progression of human cancer. We examined the distribution and expression of Twist in cervical cancer to examine its clinical significance. PATIENTS AND METHODS We examined the distribution and expression of Twist in 101 cervical cancer specimens and determined the asso...

The standard of care for newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM) is surgery, then radiotherapy (RT) with concurrent temozolomide (TMZ), followed by adjuvant TMZ. We hypothesized patients with low diffusivity measured using apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) histogram analysis evaluated after RT+TMZ, prior to adjuvant TMZ, would have a significantly shorter progression-free (PFS) and overall surviv...

OBJECTIVE Progression-free survival is an often-used endpoint in clinical trials comparing preoperative therapy and surgery-first therapy. Because the surgery date is always later in the preoperative arm than in the surgery-first arm, it is difficult to define progression-free survival optimally. We evaluated three progression-free survival definitions that used different methods to handle inco...

PURPOSE The number of patients who make it to receive third-line chemotherapy is increasing owing to the improvements in adverse-event management of chemotherapy for small-cell lung cancer (SCLC). Sequencing of optimal treatment for SCLC is still a challenge for oncologists. In this paper, we aim to present a different approach to the treatment of SCLC. METHODS Between January 2008 and July 2...

OBJECTIVE Patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma experience highly variable outcomes despite receiving similar therapeutic regimens. Identifying biomarkers that predict survival and guide individualized therapy is urgently needed. Cystatin C has been explored as a valuable prognostic marker in several malignancies. We retrospectively assessed the relationship between serum cystatin C levels and...

OBJECTIVE We aimed to determine the prognostic value of bcl-2, c-myc and survivin in synovial sarcoma cases and to evaluate the relationship between the conventional morphological findings with prognosis. MATERIAL AND METHOD In this study, we evaluated 81 synovial sarcoma cases referred to our tertiary tumor center during a period of 20 years. We applied bcl-2, c-myc and survivin immunohistoc...

A clinical relationship between dose-intensity of melphalan and response rate has been demonstrated in multiple myeloma. Promising results have been reported after 200 mg/m(2) melphalan, especially in younger patients. It is uncertain whether 100 mg/m(2) melphalan (MEL100) can offer similar results in older patients. To address this issue, patients were treated with 2 or 3 MEL100 courses follow...