Clinical management of pain in advanced lung cancer

Lung cancer is the most common cancer in the world and pain is its most common symptom. Pain can be brought about by several different causes including local effects of the tumor, regional or distant spread of the tumor, or from anti-cancer treatment. Patients with lung cancer experience more symptom distress than patients with other types of cancer. Symptoms such as pain may be associated with worsening of other symptoms and may affect quality of life. Pain management adheres to the principles set out by the World Health Organization's analgesic ladder along with adjuvant analgesics. As pain can be caused by multiple factors, its treatment requires pharmacological and non-pharmacological measures from a multidisciplinary team linked in with specialist palliative pain management. This review article examines pain management in lung cancer

Time to Surgery Following Short-Course Radiotherapy in Rectal Cancer and its Impact on Postoperative Outcomes. A Population-Based Study Across the English National Health Service, 2009–2014

Aims Preoperative short-course radiotherapy (SCRT) is an important treatment option for rectal cancer. The length of time between completing SCRT and surgery may influence postoperative outcomes, but the evidence available to determine the optimal interval is limited and often conflicting. Materials and methods Information was extracted from a colorectal cancer data repository (CORECT-R) on all surgically treated rectal cancer patients who received SCRT in the English National Health Service between April 2009 and December 2014. The time from radiotherapy to surgery was described across the population. Thirty-day postoperative mortality, returns to theatre, length of stay and 1-year survival were investigated in relation to the interval between radiotherapy and surgery. Results Within the cohort of 3469 patients, the time to surgery was 0–7 days for 76% of patients, 8–14 days for 19% of patients and 15–27 days for 5% of patients. There was a clear variation in relation to different patient characteristics. There was, however, no evidence of differences in postoperative outcomes in relation to interval length. Conclusions This study suggests that the time interval between SCRT and surgery does not influence postoperative outcomes up to a year after surgery. The study provides population-level, real-world evidence to complement that from clinical trials

The narrative geography of Mark

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:DXN036129 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

The changing role of radiation therapy in the management of oligometastatic disease

It is clear from surgical series that there are selected patients presenting with localised metastatic disease who can be cured by radical ablation of the metastasis. To date this has been limited to surgical resection but the evolution of stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) has opened new opportunities. Hypofractionated radiation delivery in 1 to 5 fractions can achieve durable local control with low toxicity. The focus is now to develop robust biomarkers so that those with true oligometastatic and thereby potentially curable disease can be selected for this approach. Keywords: Oligometastases, Stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR), Biomarker

Australian leaf-tailed geckos: phylogeny, a new genus, two new species and other new data

[Extract] Australia's rainforests and adjoining moist sclerophyll forests and heaths are well known for their high diversity and for many species confined to either single localities, or very narrow ranges. Leaf-tailed geckos from such forests well illustrate these characteristics. For nearly 200 years of discovery and description of Australia's reptiles, only two species of 'leaf-tails', Phyllurus platurus (Shaw, 1790) and P. cornutus (Ogilby, 1892) = Saltuarius cornutus (Ogilby, 1892), were known. Morphological studies since 1975 have resulted in the recognition of many new species and the genus Saltuarius Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993 - P. caudiannulatus Covacevich, 1975; P. isis Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993; P. nepthys Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993; P. ossa Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993; S. salebrosus (Covacevich, 1975); Saltuarius occultus Couper, Covacevich &Moritz, 1993 and S. swaini (Wells & Wellington, 1985). Eight of the 12 presently known species have narrow distributions with four confined to single localities

Australian leaf-tailed geckos: phylogeny, a new genus, two new species and other new data

[Extract] Australia's rainforests and adjoining moist sclerophyll forests and heaths are well known for their high diversity and for many species confined to either single localities, or very narrow ranges. Leaf-tailed geckos from such forests well illustrate these characteristics. For nearly 200 years of discovery and description of Australia's reptiles, only two species of 'leaf-tails', Phyllurus platurus (Shaw, 1790) and P. cornutus (Ogilby, 1892) = Saltuarius cornutus (Ogilby, 1892), were known. Morphological studies since 1975 have resulted in the recognition of many new species and the genus Saltuarius Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993 - P. caudiannulatus Covacevich, 1975; P. isis Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993; P. nepthys Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993; P. ossa Couper, Covacevich & Moritz, 1993; S. salebrosus (Covacevich, 1975); Saltuarius occultus Couper, Covacevich &Moritz, 1993 and S. swaini (Wells & Wellington, 1985). Eight of the 12 presently known species have narrow distributions with four confined to single localities