Reviews on Recent Clinical Trials - Volume 12, Issue 2, 2017

Primary endocrine therapy is an option in cases of hormone receptor positive and HER2 negative non-metastatic breast cancer. Aromatase inhibitors are considered the therapy of choice in postmenopausal patients. In premenopausal patients aromatase inhibitors in combination with LHRHanalogues are regarded superior to tamoxifen. Three different settings have to be discriminated: Patients too frail for surgery are Read More

Background: Patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) are characterized by an unfavorable prognosis particularly when not responding well to anthracycline-taxane chemotherapy. This is due to a more aggressive biology in some cases but most importantly to a lack of agents other than conventional chemotherapy. Hence, there is an urgent need to optimize therapy of patients with TNBC in order to improve prognos Read More

In HER2-positive early breast cancer, neoadjuvant treatment with a combination of sequential chemotherapy and HER2-targeted therapy is currently the standard of care. This is followed by breast surgery, radiotherapy (if indicated), completion of 12 months of HER2-directed therapy, and - depending on the tumor biology - endocrine adjuvant therapy, and ultimately follow up. 10-year survival rates in the HER2-positive Read More

Introduction: Targeted intraoperative radiotherapy (TARGIT - IORT) as a tumour bed boost after breast conserving surgery is well established for women with early breast cancer. A previous study from our group shows a beneficial effect of TARGIT-IORT on overall survival (OS) but not disease-free survival (DFS) after neoadjuvant chemotherapy compared to an external boost suggesting a potential non-inferiority of TARGIT-IOR Read More

Background: Last two to three decades, this world witnesses a rapid progress of biomarkers and bioinformatics technologies. Cancer bioinformatics is one of such important omics branches for experimental/clinical studies and applications. Methods: Same as other biological techniques or systems, bioinformatics techniques will be widely used. But they are presently not omni-potent. Despite great popularity and improveme Read More

Background: As we move away from the traditional chemotherapy era to targeted therapy, the validity of old assessment paradigms associated with therapeutics are being raised in the context of immunotherapy. The old paradigm required elaborating on the toxicity assessment, with no expectation of efficacy in early phase trials. Safety data from Phase 1 and 2 studies with many immunotherapeutics show limited toxiciti Read More

Background: Since more than 50 years glucocorticoids represent the milestone in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA). However, many patients with RA present a circadian rhythm in symptoms severity with a significant worsening in the morning, that correlates with cyclic changes in circulating hormones and cytokines. Classical steroid therapy given in the morning fails to intercept this Read More

Background: The association of migraine with intracardiac communications and a resultant improvement with their closure has been a matter of controversy. Mostly observational and retrospective studies indicate a significant improvement in migraine attacks in patients undergoing percutaneous closure procedures. However, there is a paucity of randomized trials on this topic and prospective data provide little evide Read More

Background: Studies have shown that the quality of elderly care is substantially influenced by the attitudes of healthcare staff. The present study aimed to assess the attitude of rural community health workers towards elderly people. Methods: A cross-sectional design was employed in this study, which was conducted among all health workers of Harsin city (province of Kermanshah - Iran). The Kogan's Attitudes towards Old Read More

Purpose: To evaluate the feasibility of using Helical Tomotherapy (HT) for post mastectomy left-sided breast cancer. Methods and Materials: Treatment plans were generated for 5 post mastectomy left sided breast cancer patients treated at king Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, comparing three-dimensional technique with the HT planning. The prescribed dose was 50 Gy in 25 fractio Read More