Achalasia is a rare neurological deficit of the esophagus that produces an impaired relaxation of the lower esophageal sphincter and decreased motility of the esophageal body. Achalasia is generally accepted to be a pre-malignant disorder, since, particularly in the mega-esophagus, chronic irritation by foods and bacterial overgrowth may contribute to the development of dysplasia and carcinoma....

The treatment of rectal cancer currently involves coordinated efforts for combined modality therapy with pre-operative chemoradiation followed by surgical management and additional adjuvant chemotherapy. The landscape of rectal cancer has shifted significantly over the past 30 years. This review aims to track this changing landscape, with a particular focus on current research and future endeav...

background: in recent years, neoadjuvant chemoradiation and subsequent surgical resection with total mesorectal excision has been shown to increase local control with decreased toxicity. neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is the standard treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer. in this study we evaluated the efficacy a cox-2 inhibitor on pathologic response, sphincter preservation and acute tox...

BACKGROUND Although radical resection and postoperative chemoradiation have been the standard therapy for patients with rectal cancer, preoperative staging by local imaging and chemoradiation are widely used. We used a decision analysis to compare the two strategies for rectal cancer management. METHODS We developed a decision model to compare survival outcomes after postoperative chemoradiat...

The use of induction chemotherapy prior to chemoradiation for locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (LA-HNSCC) remains controversial. We explored whether toxicity from induction chemotherapy influenced the delivery of concurrent chemoradiation. Among 171 consecutive previously unirradiated patients with HNSCC treated with combined...

Our study evaluated whether 1999 National Cancer Institute (NCI) chemoradiation guidelines for cervical cancer impacted treatment of women >/=55 years. We identified 385 women >/=55 years (median, 72 years) diagnosed with stage II-IVA cervical cancer between January, 1998 and December, 2002 in the United States Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare registries. Chemoradiati...

Objectives New markers are required to predict chemoradiation response in oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) patients. This study evaluated the ability of magnetic resonance (MR) radiomics locoregional control (LRC) and overall survival (OS) after aimed determine whether this has added value traditional clinical outcome predictors. Methods 177 OPSCC patients were eligible for study. ...