Multidisciplinary team in cancer management

The multidisciplinary team (MDT) is defined as a group of people of different healthcare disciplines, which meets together at a given time to discuss a given patient; each of them is able to contribute independently to the diagnostic and treatment decision about the patient. In general, surgeon, radiologist and medical oncology dignify the core member of the team. The concept of MDT was formally introduced into UK practice during the 1990s. A major impetus was given by the publication of the Calman-Hine report in 1995 and the consequent drive to ensure that all patients with cancer, no matter where they might live, and to whom they might have been referred, would have equal access to a high and uniform standard of care. Theoretically, MDT working should ensure an effective coordination, the best quality as well as a good continuity of patient care by bringing together key professionals with all necessary knowledge, skills and experience. The recent institution of Virtual Multidisciplinary Teem (vMDT) has been introduced to resolve the economical and organisational problems of MDT. MDT work is widely accepted in many other countries, e.g. USA, Australia and some countries in Europe, all of which have comparable initiatives to those listed above. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland. All rights reserved

Epigenetic Features of Animal Biotechnologies

International audienceEpigenetic mechanisms play a crucial role in many biological processes, such as regulation of gene expression especially after fertilization and during early embryonic development. Indeed, the parental genomes that carry special epigenetic signatures, undergo important chromatin remodelling through epigenetic modifications during the first embryonic cleavages, some of which are crucial for the production of healthy embryos. It is therefore very important for breeders and embryologists to understand how parentally inherited genomes may be epigenetically altered by animal biotechnologies as it could affect embryo quality and further development. This chapter introduces some of the basic epigenetic parameters underpinning early embryonic development and how they could be affected during the processes of embryo in vitro production, somatic cell nuclear transfer or stem cells derivatio