BACKGROUND The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of tumor characteristics and parameters of treatment response in predicting biochemical disease-free survival (BFS) for patients with intermediate or high risk prostate cancer treated by combined definitive external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). METHODS Between June 1995 and January 2015, 375...

OBJECTIVE To quantify the risk and severity of negative effects of treatment for localised prostate cancer on long term quality of life. DESIGN Population based, prospective cohort study with follow-up over three years. SETTING New South Wales, Australia. PARTICIPANTS Men with localised prostate cancer were eligible if aged less than 70 years, diagnosed between October 2000 and October 20...

PURPOSE We evaluated outcomes of patients treated with external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) for locoregionally advanced or recurrent nonanaplastic thyroid cancer and analyzed the effect of EBRT volume on locoregional control. METHODS This study included 23 patients with locoregionally advanced or recurrent nonanaplastic thyroid cancer who were treated with EBRT. Two different EBRT target volumes...

OBJECTIVES Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is one of the most aggressive solid tumors in humans. Despite intense application of multimodality of treatment with surgery and/or external beam radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the survival rates remain low--generally the mean survival is about six (6) months after diagnosis. Rapid development--particularly over the last decade--of interventional ra...

BACKGROUND Pain from skeletal metastases represents a major burden of advanced disease from solid tumors. Analgesic medications, bisphosphonates, hormonal agents, cytotoxic chemotherapy, and external beam radiotherapy are all effective treatments. However, patients often suffer from diffuse painful metastases and respond poorly to these standard therapies. Bone-seeking radionuclides can specifi...

The development of a new depth-dose measuring device for electron beam therapy is described. The device employs plastic scintillating fiber detectors inserted in a polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) phantom in line along an incident electron beam. Output photons from a fiber, the number of which is proportional to the absorbed dose at each depth of the phantom, were converted to an electric signal w...

BACKGROUND Combined radiotherapy and hyperthermia is a well-established alternative to chemoradiotherapy for advanced stage cervical cancer patients with a contraindication for chemotherapy. Pre-clinical evidence suggests that the radiosensitizing effect of hyperthermia decreases substantially for time intervals between radiotherapy and hyperthermia as short as 1-2 h, but clinical evidence is l...

This paper describes the biological mechanisms of normal tissue reactions after radiation therapy, with reference to conventional treatments, new treatments, and treatments in developing countries. It also describes biological reasons for the latency period before tissue complications arise, the relationship of dose to incidence, the effect of increasing the size of the irradiated volume, early...

Myxopapillary ependymoma (MPE) is a World Health Organization grade I ependymoma that is quite rare and generally thought to be benign. Possible drop metastasis from MPE has been reported three times in the literature; in each case there were cotemporaneous additional MPE lesions. We report the case of a man who had a piecemeal gross total resection of a MPE at L1-L3 followed by adjuvant extern...

OBJECTIVE To highlight the role of psychosocial variables in treatment decision making for patients with localized prostate cancer and how family physicians can be of most help to such patients in facilitating good treatment choices. QUALITY OF EVIDENCE PubMed was searched, and articles relevant to the psychosocial aspects of localized prostate cancer treatment decision making were included. ...