BACKGROUND The use of stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is rapidly increasing. Presently, the most accurate method uses fiducial markers implanted near the tumor. A shortcoming of this method is that the beams turn off during the majority of the respiratory cycle, resulting in a prolonged treatment time. Recent advances in collimation technology have enabled continuous irradiation to a movi...

introduction: natural killer (nk) cells, of which cd56 is a specific marker, play an important role in host defense against tumors. cancer stem cells, of which aldehyde dehydrogenase isoform 1 (aldh1) is an immunohistochemical marker, are a group of tumorigenic cells which are involved in migration and tumor recurrences. we aimed to evaluate the expression of aldh1 and cd56 in common salivary g...

Lisa M. McShane, Biometric Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, MD Douglas G. Altman, Medical Statistics Group, Cancer Research UK, Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Wolfson College, Oxford, UK Willi Sauerbrei, Institut fuer Medizinische Biometrie und Medizinische Informatik, Universitaetsklinikum Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany Sheila E. Taube, Cancer Diagonisis Program, National...

Ectopic production and secretion of hormones by a wide variety of tumors has been known for decades. Initially, ectopic hormone secretion was recognized by signs and symptoms of excess circulating biologically active hormone. With development of more sophisticated assay techniques, biologically inactive fragments and "big" forms of authentic hormones have been identified in these syndromes. Rec...

Telomerase activation is one of the main pathways to immortalize cancer cells. In many kinds of cancer cells, this special reverse transcriptase stabilizes and elongates telomeres and prevents telomere erosion that naturally occurs in every cell division. Esophageal cancer is the fifth most frequent cause of cancer death worldwide, and is highly associated with alcohol, smoking, cultural ha...

Applications and limitations of alkaline phosphatase as a tumor marker are discussed. This review focuses on three characteristic isoenzymes that have been found in the serum of cancer patients: (1) the Regan isoenzyme in bronchogenic carcinoma; (2) the Nagao isoenzyme in pleuritis carcinomatosa; and (3) the hepatoma alkaline phosphatase. Tumor variants of alkaline phosphatase are classified ba...

Patients suffering from malignant diseases have been shown to have increased amounts of cell free nucleic acids in their circulation. As genetic and epigenetic alterations are increasingly characterized in different types of tumors, such changes can be used to detect tumor-derived nucleic acids in the circulation. To date, nearly all tumor-associated nucleic acids have been detected in the plas...

CD44 is a cellular protein that has been intensively studied in relation to carcinogenesis over the last decade. It is altered during inflammatory responses and cellular malfunctioning during tumor progression. Tumors of epithelial origin express CD44 in multiple isoforms called variants; some isoforms are related to specific cancer cells. An increase of CD44 specific isoforms is detected in ce...