Oncology Research and Treatment

Phyllodes tumors belong to uncommon fibroepithelial breast tumors with a range of biological behaviours. Phyllodes tumors are responsible for less than 1 percent of all neoplasms of the breast A 66 -years-old woman introduced to our Breastcancer Unit in March 2021 because of a huge mass of her left breast with bleeding out of a tumor necrosis. Five years ago in 2016 a benign phyllodes tumor was diagnosed externally. When we started the treatment the tumor had a weight of 18.6 kg. We describe the surgical managment and the systemic treamtent of metastatic disease...

INTRODUCTION: Cancer diagnoses are constantly increasing in clinical practice. Therefore, more and more patients are interested in how they can actively participate in the process of treatment. Spirituality represents a hidden issue of the population, which counts as a branch of complementary and alternative treatment. Therefore, the aim of our study is to investigate whether there are associations between spirituality and demographic and psychosocial factors, as well as religious beliefs, in cancer patients...

Background This study explored qualitatively, in a sample of German hematologists working in clinical allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (alloHSCT), the perceptions of barriers and facilitators to participate in continuous medical education (CME), to provide detailed information how to improve participation in CME activities related to alloHSCT which may also apply to other areas of medicine. Methods Based on a recruitment campaign of the German Association for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (DAG-HSZT), 21 semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using framework analysis...

BACKGROUND: CAR-T cell treatment became standard therapy for relapsed or refractory hematologic malignancies, such as non-hodgkins lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Owing to the rapidly progressing field of CAR-T cell therapy and the lack of generally accepted treatment guidelines, we hypothesized significant differences between centers in prevention, diagnosis and management of short- and long-term complications. METHODS: To capture the current CAR-T cell management among German centers to determine the medical need and specific areas for future clinical research the DAG-HSZT (Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hämatopoetische Stammzelltransplantation und Zelluläre Therapie ; German Working Group for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy) performed a survey among 26 German CAR-T cell centers...

INTRODUCTION: Palliative care physicians (pcps) face special challenges caring for terminally ill patients. We conducted this study to evaluate the burnout (bo) prevalence among pcps and sought to identify risk as well as protective factors as a basis for the development of preventive measures. METHODS: Participants (Pcs) were invited via e-mail to complete an online survey between May and June 2022. Besides the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory assessing the bo dimensions exhaustion (exh) and disengagement (dis), sociodemographic data were collected...

INTRODUCTION: Thalamic gliomas pose a particular therapeutic challenge as complete resection is rarely achieved due to the deep and eloquent location. Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy (LITT) may provide a valuable management option for deep-seated gliomas that are not accessible with open surgery. CASE PRESENTATION: A 57-year-old woman presented with a rapidly progressive large thalamic glioblastoma. Opting for full ablation we selected a challenging trajectory to maximise the possibility of full ablation...

INTRODUCTION: Mucinous cystadenocarcinoma (MCA) of the breast is an extremely rare type of breast carcinoma. Since its biological characteristics, treatment options, and clinical outcomes are unclear, there is a lack of consensus regarding the optimal management of this disease. Thus, our single case report will aid our understanding of its natural history, prognostic factors, and treatment strategies. CASE PRESENTATION: We present a 54-year-old woman with a case of advanced MCA of the breast accompanied by a huge breast mass, lymph node involvement, and distant bone metastases...

INTRODUCTION: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most prevalent malignant tumor worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer-related death.Aimed to report the disease burden of CRC in China from 1990 to 2019 and predict the trend of mortality burden over the next 10 years. METHODS: The age-period-cohort (APC) model was implemented to analyze the trends of mortality from CRC in China from 1990 to 2019, and the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model was used to predict the trends of CRC incidence and mortality from 2020 to 2029...

BACKGROUND: Topoisomerase I is an enzyme that plays a crucial part in DNA replication and transcription by the relaxation of supercoiled double-stranded DNA. Topoisomerase I inhibitors bind to the topoisomerase I cleavage complex, thereby stabilizing it and preventing the religation of the DNA strands, leading to DNA damage, cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. Various topoisomerase I inhibitors have been evaluated in solid tumors, and irinotecan and topotecan have been approved for the treatment of epithelial malignancies...

Oncolytic virotherapy is a novel strategy for cancer treatment in humans and companion animals. Canine distemper virus (CDV) is known to induce apoptosis in tumor cells, thus serving as a potential candidate for oncolytic therapy. However, the mechanism of viral oncolytic activity is less studied and varies depending on the type of cancer and cell lines. In the present study, the susceptibility of the MCF-7 cell line to CDV infection was assessed using the CDV strain which was confirmed previously through sequence analysis in the Vero cell line...

INTRODUCTION: Active malignancies have been identified as an independent risk-factor for severity and mortality in COVID-19. However, direct comparisons between SARS-CoV-2 infected patients with active (acP) and non-active cancers (n-acP) remain scarce. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed a cohort of cancer patients with PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, enrolled from 03/16/2020 to 07/31/2021. Data on demographics, cancer, and laboratory findings were collected...

INTRODUCTION: Owing to its low incidence, there no reliable statistics about prognostication derived from large sample sizes have been reported of malignant ovarian germ cell tumors (MOGCTs) and sex cord-stromal tumors (SCSTs). The present study aimed to investigate the clinicopathological prognostic factors and the survival trends of MOGCTs and SCSTs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients with MOGCTs and SCSTs were recorded in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database diagnosed between 2000 and 2019...

INTRODUCTION: Adult T-cell leukemia lymphoma (ATLL) is an aggressive mature T-cell neoplasm caused by human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) infection. Despite its poor prognosis, there is no standard therapy for ATLL due to its low incidence and the disease affecting only endemic geographical clusters. METHODS: A retrospective evaluation of patients with the diagnosis of ATLL at Moffitt Cancer Center and Memorial Healthcare System was done to identify patients and disease characteristics along with the progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) for the different therapies used...

INTRODUCTION: Immunotherapy has been established as the standard treatment option for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (aHCC). Despite the increased efficacy, disease progression occurs in a relevant proportion of patients even after an objective response. Combination concepts with locoregional therapy are currently under investigation for hepatic disease but are also in discussion for the control of distant metastasis. Radiotherapy is a highly effective treatment modality for local tumor control...

INTRODUCTION: In further-line mCRC treatment, median progression-free survival (PFS) is rather short, and many patients do not benefit from any antitumor treatment and should therefore be treated according to best-supportive care. A risk score based on standard laboratory values using markers of tumor inflammation aims to define a patient cohort with high treatment benefit and might offer insights into tumor biology. As regorafenib has been dropped off the German market due to an unfavorable risk-benefit ratio, patient selection is key for any further-line treatment option...

INTRODUCTION: Angiogenesis is considered important in the pathogenesis of multiple myeloma (MM), as well as in the targeted treatment of the disease. Leucine-rich-α2-glycoprotein 1 (LRG1) is a protein that participates in angiogenesis and its effect on solid organ tumors has been investigated recently. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between MM and LRG1. METHODS: The MM patients who admitted to Hatay Mustafa Kemal University Hematology Clinic between September 2021 and October 2022 were included in the study...

BACKGROUND: Timely diagnosis of treatment-related chronic health conditions in childhood cancer survivors (CCS) may result in reduced long-term morbidity and mortality. Evidence-based guidelines serve as a tool to implement risk-adapted screening examinations in long-term follow-up (LTFU) of CCS. SUMMARY: New international LTFU guidelines from the last 3 years have been reviewed and included into a practical LTFU tool in order to provide an updated summary of LTFU recommendations...

INTRODUCTION Pathogen inactivation (PI) utilizing Amotosalen and UVA light (INTERCEPT® Blood System) is a well-established method for the production of safer platelet concentrates (PC). While many studies describe clinical and logistical benefits of PI, the implications and potential challenges from a hospital management perspective have not yet been analyzed - health economic analyses considering reimbursement of PI are lacking. The objective of this analysis was to examine the real-life inpatient treatment costs from a hospital perspective and to assess the economic impact of PI-PC versus conventional PC (CONV-PC) administration in Germany...

INTRODUCTION: Cancer patients (pts) suffer from a significant amount of psychosocial distress related to tumor disease itself or straining treatments. Despite recommendations how to screen for and to deal with psychosocial distress in cancer pts, data about implementation of psycho-oncological interventions (poi) in outpatient settings of cancer pts is scarce. Aim of this study was to identify outpatients with cancer in need of poi and to evaluate different assessment instruments. METHODS: N=200 outpatients with haemato-/oncological malignancies were interviewed between October 2015 and December 2017 at the University Hospital Mannheim using the Basic Documentation for Psycho-Oncology (PO-Bado) and the Hornheider Screening Instrument (HSI) - both clinician-administered assessment tools - followed by descriptive, univariate and agreement analysis...

Introduction Sarcomas are documented in population-based and in clinic-associated databases. This study evaluated the status quo regarding the potential and obstacles of cancer registry-based research on sarcomas exemplified by Germany in comparison to similar databases in the US and Europe. Completeness and quality of data are discussed based on statistical analyses of a pooled data set established for the German Cancer Congress 2020. Methods We analyzed data derived from 16 German institutions (Federal state cancer registries and some facility-based registries)...