Treatment of persistent air leak with endobronchial valves

Persistent pulmonary air leaks are usually treated conservatively with prolonged thoracostomy tube drainage. In case this approach fails, surgical revision used to be the only option. This case report describes the successful treatment of a 66-year old patient who developped a pulmonary air leak after cardiothoracic surgery that persisted despite attempted surgical repair and talc pleurodesis. The treatment was successfully completed with endobronchial valves thereby demonstrating that treatment with endobronchial valves doesn’t only represent an alternative to surgery, but that it can also be successful in case surgical intervention fails

Which factors predict overall survival in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer treated with abiraterone acetate post-docetaxel?

Micro-Abstract Individual patients' survival varies greatly in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Retrospective analysis of 368 patients treated with docetaxel and starting abiraterone acetate revealed 5 adverse prognostic factors: hemoglobin 10 metastases, ECOG performance status ≥ 2, radiographic progression, and time since diagnosis < 90 months. A prognostic model stratifies patients into 3 groups with different estimated survival, which can aid in patient counseling.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Abiraterone acetate post-docetaxel for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer in the Belgian compassionate use program

BACKGROUND: Abiraterone acetate (AA) is licensed for treating metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Real-world data on oncological outcome after AA are scarce. The current study assesses efficacy and safety of AA in mCRPC patients previously treated with docetaxel who started treatment during the Belgian compassionate use program (January 2011-July 2012). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Records from 368 patients with mCRPC from 23 different Belgian hospitals who started AA 1000mg per day with 10mg prednisone or equivalent were retrospectively reviewed (September 2013-December 2014). Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) response (decrease≥50%), time to PSA progression (increase>50% over PSA nadir in case of PSA response/>25% in absence of PSA response), time to radiographic progression (on bone scans or for soft tissue lesions using Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumors 1.1), overall survival and adverse event rate (Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events v4.03) were analyzed. Kaplan-Meier statistics were applied. RESULTS: Overall, 92 patients (25%) had an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status≥2. Median age was 73 years, median PSA was 103ng/dl. PSA response was observed in 131 patients (37.4%). Median time to PSA and radiographic progression was 4.1 months (95% CI: 3.6-4.6) and 5.8 months (5.3-6.4), respectively. Median overall survival was 15.1 months (13.6-16.6). Most common grade 3 to 4 adverse events were anemia (13.9%), hypokalemia (7.3%), fatigue (6.8%), and pain (6.3%). Median duration of AA treatment was 5.3 months (interquartile range: 2.8-10.3). The main study limitation is its retrospective design. CONCLUSIONS: These real-world data on post-docetaxel AA efficacy are in line with the COU-AA-301 trial. Importantly, incidence of severe anemia and hypokalemia is up to 50% higher than reported in previous studies