[Radiation pneumopathy. Our experience in the treatment of Hodgkin's disease with mantle-shaped field radiotherapy].

The literature of the radiation pneumonitis is reviewed from the standpoint of the pathogenesis, histopathology and dependent parameters of the disease. A series of 125 patients treated with mantle fields for Hodgkin's disease between 1972/80 is studied. The radiation pneumonitis developed radiologically in 28 patients (22,4\%); in 20 (72\%) was asymptomatic. The incidence of pneumonitis against the time of onset of the disease, reveals a peak about the first three months after the end of radiotherapy. No significative variations of incidence of disease are seen in two groups of patients treated respectively with and without chemotherapy (20\% and 26\%). Frequency diagrams of pneumonitis as a function of the calculate values of the dose for TD, rets, TDF, show a significant correlation with the ranges of doses expressed in TDF

Recency effect in anterograde amnesia: evidence for distinct memory stores underlying enhanced retrieval of terminal items in immediate and delayed recall paradigms

This study was devised to investigate immediate and delayed recency effects in anterograde amnesic patients. For this purpose, a word-list immediate recall paradigm and a modified version of the procedure devised by Baddeley and Hitch [Attention and Performance, Erlbaum, NJ, 1977] for eliciting the recency effect in delayed recall conditions was administered to a sample of amnesic patients and to a group of age-matched healthy subjects. Amnesics disclosed a fully normal recency effect in the immediate recall paradigm and a deficient recency effect in the delayed recall condition. These data, taken together with experimental evidence from a patient affected by a pure form of phonological short-term memory impairment [35], draw a double neuropsychological dissociation suggesting a differential origin for the two kinds of recency effects: a short-term memory output underlying enhanced recall of terminal items in immediate recall paradigms, and an ordinal retrieval strategy applied to long-term memory stored units at the root of the delayed recency effect

Perceptual and conceptual components in implicit and explicit stem completion

This study was aimed at investigating functional and neuropsychological dissociations between repetition priming and explicit memory tasks. The explicit and implicit versions of the stem completion task were administered to a group of amnesics and a group of control subjects. In Experiment 1 both the explicit and implicit stem completions were significantly higher when the same presentation modality was used for studying and testing than when a change in modality from studying to testing occurred. Amnesics had normal implicit and deficient explicit completion performance. Experiment 2 revealed an advantage of the semantic over the phonological condition only in the explicit task and only in control subjects. Amnesic patients completed the same percentage of words as normal subjects in the phonological and semantic conditions of the implicit task and in the phonological condition of the explicit task but were deficient in intentionally completing semantically processed words. Possible interpretations of these results are discussed according to theoretical models that distinguish memory tasks along an explicit-implicit dichotomy (multiple memory system theory) or along a perceptual-conceptual dichotomy (transfer-appropriate procedures approach), and alternative theoretical positions are evaluated regarding repetition priming and memory deficits in amnesic patients

Deficient intentional access to semantic knowledge in patients with severe closed-head injury

Patients after severe closed-head injury (CHI) demonstrate reduced ability to spontaneously utilize semantic memory during word-list memory tests and when requested to answer questions regarding general knowledge. However, they show normal lexical facilitation in both automatic and intentional semantic priming paradigms. The present study was aimed at investigating two alternative hypotheses a) that the deficit in semantic processing after CHI is the result of impaired access to an otherwise normal semantic system or b) that it reflects a loss of knowledge from a deteriorated semantic store. For this purpose, the performance of 15 CHI patients on an automatic Semantic Priming paradigm and on tests of Picture Naming and Semantic Judgment were compared to those of 14 normal controls (NC). Although CHI patients' reaction times were significantly slower than those of NCs, the semantic priming effect was comparable in the two groups. Instead, CHI patients performed significantly worse than NCs in the naming and semantic judgment tasks. These results provide evidence that CHI patients access semantic memory automatically at a normal rate. However, when the task is more demanding in terms of processing requests, then CHI patients' performance becomes defective

Particle Beam Therapy (Hadrontherapy): Basis for interest and Clinical Experience

The particle or hadron beams deployed in radiotherapy (protons, neutrons and helium, carbon, oxygen and neon ions) have physical and radiobiological characteristics which differ from those of conventional radiotherapy beams (photons) and which offer a number of theoretical advantages over conventional radiotherapy. After briefly describing the properties of hadron beams in comparison to photons, this review discusses the indications for hadrontherapy and analyses accumulated experience on the use of this modality to treat mainly neoplastic lesions, as published by the relatively few hadrontherapy centres operating around the world. The analysis indicates that for selected patients and tumours (particularly uveal melanomas and base of skull/spinal chordomas and chondrosarcomas), hadrontherapy produces greater disease-ti ee survival. The advantages of hadrontherapy are most promisingly realised when used in conjunction with modern patient positioning, radiation delivery and focusing techniques (e.g. on-line imaging, three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy) developed to improve the efficacy of photon therapy. Although the construction and running costs of hadrontherapy units are considerably greater than those of conventional facilities, a comprehensive analysis that considers all the costs, particularly those resulting from the failure of less effective conventional radiotherapy, might indicate that hadrontherapy could be cost effective. En conclusion, the growing interest in this form of treatment seems to be fully justified by the results obtained to date, although more efficacy and dosing studies are required. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved

Analysis of the memory impairment in a post-encephalitic patient with focal retrograde amnesia

This study aimed to characterize the qualitative pattern of focal retrograde memory impairment shown by a post-encephalitic patient (AV). AV's memory deficit encompassed autobiographical data, public events and famous people. In a public events questionnaire, she demonstrated a smooth negative temporal gradient with good recollection of events that occurred about 15 years before the disease but poor memory of more recent events. Her visual input lexicon was unimpaired, as demonstrated by normal lexicality judgment for words and normal familiarity judgment for proper names, but she was poor in familiarity judgment for famous faces (prosopagnosia) and in accessing the meaning of words or specific information about people. The cerebral MRI demonstrated widespread abnormal intensity areas encroaching upon the white matter of temporal, parietal and occipital lobes but sparing temporal poles and orbito-frontal cortex

Perceptual and conceptual components in implicit and explicit stem completion

This study was aimed at investigating functional and neuropsychological dissociations between repetition priming and explicit memory tasks. The explicit and implicit versions of the stem completion task were administered to a group of amnesics and a group of control subjects. In Experiment 1 both the explicit and implicit stem completions were significantly higher when the same presentation modality was used for studying and testing than when a change in modality from studying to testing occurred. Amnesics had normal implicit and deficient explicit completion performance. Experiment 2 revealed an advantage of the semantic over the phonological condition only in the explicit task and only in control subjects. Amnesic patients completed the same percentage of words as normal subjects in the phonological and semantic conditions of the implicit task and in the phonological condition of the explicit task but were deficient in intentionally completing semantically processed words. Possible interpretations of these results are discussed according to theoretical models that distinguish memory tasks along an explicit-implicit dichotomy (multiple memory system theory) or along a perceptual-conceptual dichotomy (transfer-appropriate procedures approach), and alternative theoretical positions are evaluated regarding repetition priming and memory deficits in amnesic patients

Recency effect in anterograde amnesia: evidence for distinct memory stores underlying enhanced retrieval of terminal items in immediate and delayed recall paradigms

This study was devised to investigate immediate and delayed recency effects in anterograde amnesic patients. For this purpose, a word-list immediate recall paradigm and a modified version of the procedure devised by Baddeley and Hitch [Attention and Performance, Erlbaum, NJ, 1977] for eliciting the recency effect in delayed recall conditions was administered to a sample of amnesic patients and to a group of age-matched healthy subjects. Amnesics disclosed a fully normal recency effect in the immediate recall paradigm and a deficient recency effect in the delayed recall condition. These data, taken together with experimental evidence from a patient affected by a pure form of phonological short-term memory impairment [35], draw a double neuropsychological dissociation suggesting a differential origin for the two kinds of recency effects: a short-term memory output underlying enhanced recall of terminal items in immediate recall paradigms, and an ordinal retrieval strategy applied to long-term memory stored units at the root of the delayed recency effect

Deficient intentional access to semantic knowledge in patients with severe closed-head injury

Patients after severe closed-head injury (CHI) demonstrate reduced ability to spontaneously utilize semantic memory during word-list memory tests and when requested to answer questions regarding general knowledge. However, they show normal lexical facilitation in both automatic and intentional semantic priming paradigms. The present study was aimed at investigating two alternative hypotheses a) that the deficit in semantic processing after CHI is the result of impaired access to an otherwise normal semantic system or b) that it reflects a loss of knowledge from a deteriorated semantic store. For this purpose, the performance of 15 CHI patients on an automatic Semantic Priming paradigm and on tests of Picture Naming and Semantic Judgment were compared to those of 14 normal controls (NC). Although CHI patients' reaction times were significantly slower than those of NCs, the semantic priming effect was comparable in the two groups. Instead, CHI patients performed significantly worse than NCs in the naming and semantic judgment tasks. These results provide evidence that CHI patients access semantic memory automatically at a normal rate. However, when the task is more demanding in terms of processing requests, then CHI patients' performance becomes defective

Forgetting from long-term memory in severe closed-head injury patients: effect of retrieval conditions and semantic organization

This study was aimed at investigating long-term forgetting in chronic survivors of severe closed-head injury (CHI). For this purpose, performance decay passing from a 30-sec- to a 60-min-delay test in four memory procedures (Free Recall of unrelated stimuli, Free Recall of related stimuli. Cued Recall and y/n Recognition) of 20 CHI and 20 normal controls was analyzed. Comparable 30-sec-delay performance in CHI and control patients were obtained by manipulating exposure times to study material during the learning phase. Results demonstrated accelerated forgetting in CHI patients in the Free Recall of the related list only. This finding was particularly evident in CHI patients suffering from a focal temporal lobe lesion. These data are discussed in light of retrieval and encoding deficits characterizing memory disorders in CHI patients