Relation of body mass index (BMI) to disease free (DFS) and distant disease free Survivals (DDFS) among Turkish women with operable breast carcinoma

Background: The correlation between body mass index (BMI) and patient and tumor characteristics related to prognosis has not been well explored and may help to elucidate the mechanisms involved in the carcinogenesis. Because of the equivocal, inconsistent and uncertain research results as well as racial and ethnic differences, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic significance of high BMI in Turkish women with operable breast carcinoma

Anticancer Therapy for Breast Cancer Patients with Skin Metastases Refractory to Conventional Treatments

WOS: 000333670100068PubMed ID: 24641425Skin metastases of breast cancer are usually late events in the course of tumor progression and signify a poor prognosis. They may remain as a therapeutic challenge especially after failure of standard treatments. Topical interventions, together with or without radiotherapy, may only palliate the symptoms temporarily. However, there may be alternative treatment modalities for unresectable breast cancer skin metastases resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. There are various genetic alterations in tumors and therapeutic potential of expression patterns for factors like epidermal growth factor receptor may have important clinical implications in case of disease refractory to the conventional treatments. Here, we clarified the therapeutic options and genetic alterations in skin metastatic breast cancer patients refractory to standard chemotherapeutics

Quality of life, anxiety and depression in Turkish breast cancer patients and in their husbands

The aim of the present study is to investigate anxiety and depression levels and quality of life of Turkish breast cancer patients and their husbands with Beck depression, STAI scoring system, and EORTC-QLQ-C30 quality of life scale. Fifty-five patients with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy who applied to Dokuz Eylul University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Oncology, and their husbands were included in this study. The series of forms including the questions regarding the demographic characteristics of the patient, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), and EORTC-QLQ-C30 (version 3) were completed during face-to-face interviews by trained interviewers for determination of the psychological status and quality of life of the patients. The mean Beck depression scores of patients and their husbands were 13 +/- A 9.3 (range 2-46) and 7.9 +/- A 5.7 (range 0-27) (P = 0.001). The mean STAI scores of patients and their husbands were 44.9 +/- A 8.7 (range 20-58) and 41.7 +/- A 8.0 (range 26-59) (P = 0.09).Twenty-nine percent of the patients and 5.4% of the husbands (Beck Depression scores a parts per thousand yen17 points) were determined as depressive. It was determined that the EORTC-QLQ C30 physical and social function scales of the patients were significantly lower than their husbands. The difference of global quality of life scores and other function scales (role, cognitive, emotional function scales) between patients and their husbands were not significant. It was found that depression of breast cancer patients were significantly higher than their husbands. But there was no significant difference between the EORTC-QLQ C30 global quality of life scores and STAI scores of the breast cancer patients and their husbands

Cancer and insomnia

The prevalence of sleep disruptions have been reported in 30-50% of cancer patients. Most insomnia cases that involve cancer patients occur in various stages of the disease, with a particular emphasis in the advanced stages. In the literature, insomnia is a specific sleep disruption that is more defined in cancer patients as a symptom or clinical disorder. In oncology patients, insomnia is not only one symptom but a cluster of symptoms that are associated with many risk factors. Better evaluation of the risk factors in cancer patients will be of great assistance for the treatment of sleep disorders in cancer patients. Since there are various diagnostic tests for insomnia, it is important that the diagnosis and follow up is in parallel with these methods. The methods should be proven reliable to validate diagnosis and outcomes for oncology patients

Malign Recurrence of Primary Chest Wall Hemangiopericytoma in the Lung after Four Years: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Hemangiopericytoma (HPC) may develop in every site where the endothelial tissue exits and primarily develops in the skeletal-muscular system or the skin. Adult cases of HPC generally exhibit a benign course. 20–30% of the cases may show a malign course. The tumors that show more than four mitoses, a focal area of necrosis, and increased cellularity on a magnification ×10 are considered as malign. In our paper, we presented our case who showed a lung metastasis at the end of 4 years and who developed a pathological fracture of the right humerus at the end of approximately 2 years, because hemangiopericytoma is rarely seen in the chest wall as a primary tumor