The prognostic role of baseline CEA and CA 19-9 values and their time-dependent variations in advanced colorectal cancer patients submitted to first-line therapy.

Serum marker evaluation is an easily available prognostic indicator that may help clinicians to discriminate patients with an aggressive disease; there are few and small-sized studies exploring the prognostic role of baseline carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) values and their variations during first-line therapy, and even fewer data are available for carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA 19-9). Our aim was to analyze the role of those prognostic markers to exploit them in daily clinical practice. Data of 892 patients with marker determination before and 3 and/or 6 months during therapy were extracted from two institutional databases. Patients were grouped according to single marker variation as always negative (G0), decreasing (G1), stable (G2), or increasing (G3). We evaluated the progression-free survival (PFS) and the overall survival (OS) of all the patents and correlated them with CEA and CA 19-9 values. A concordance between response to therapy and marker decrease was evident in 50.2% and in 34.4% of the patients for CEA and CA 19-9. Patients with low CEA or CA 19-9 baseline values had a longer PFS (15.1 vs. 10.5; 13.6 vs. 10.2 months) and OS (32.0 vs. 22.3; 30.5 vs. 20.1 months). The same results of PFS and OS were obtained by analyzing the data of the four different groups. Multivariate analyses confirmed the independent prognostic role of CEA and CA 19-9. Baseline CEA and CA 19-9 levels and their kinetics demonstrated to be independent prognostic factors. CA 19-9 dosage is not recommended; a possible role of CA 19-9 in patients with negative CEA could be worth further evaluation

lba22negative hyper selection of ras wild type wt metastatic colorectal cancer mcrc patients randomized to first line folfox plus panitumumab pan followed by maintenance therapy with either 5fu lv plus pan or single agent pan translational analyses of the valentino study

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o 016first line folfox plus panitumumab followed by 5 fu lv plus panitumumab or single agent panitumumab as maintenance therapy in patients with ras wild type metastatic colorectal cancer mcrc the valentino study

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Volcanic SO2 by UV-TIR satellite retrievals: validation by using ground-based network at Mt. Etna

Mt. Etna volcano in Italy is one of the most active degassing volcanoes worldwide, emitting a mean of 1.7 Mt/year of Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) in quiescent periods. In this work, SO2 measurements retrieved by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), hyper-spectral Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) and the second Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME-2) data are compared with the ground-based data from the FLux Automatic MEasurement monitoring network (FLAME). Among the eighteen lava fountain episodes occurring at Mt. Etna in 2011, the 10 April paroxysmal event has been selected as a case-study for the simultaneous observation of the SO2 cloud by satellite and ground-based sensors. For each data-set two retrieval techniques were adopted and the measurements of SO2 mass and flux with their respective uncertainty were obtained. With respect to the FLAME SO2 mass of 4.5 Gg, MODIS, IASI and GOME-2 differ by about 10%, 15% and 30%, respectively. The SO2 flux correlation coefficient between MODIS and FLAME is 0.84. All the retrievals within the respective errors are in agreement with the ground-based measurements supporting the validity of these space measurements

Primary chemotherapy with adriamycin, cisplatin, vincristine and cyclophosphamide in locally advanced thymomas: a single institution experience

From 1990 to 1997, 16 consecutive patients with stage III and IVa invasive thymoma were treated in a single institution with primary chemotherapy consisting in adriamycin (40 mg m–2), cisplatin (50 mg m–2) administered intravenously on day 1, vincristine (0.6 mg m–2) on day 2 and cyclophosphamide (700 mg m–2) on day 4 (ADOC). The courses were repeated every 3 weeks. The aim was to evaluate the impact of this cytotoxic regimen with respect to response rate, per cent of patients radically resected, time to progression and overall survival. Two complete responses (one clinical and one pathological) and 11 partial responses were observed (overall response rate 81.2%); two patients had stable disease and one progressed. Toxicity was mild as only two patients developed grade III/IV neutropenia and one patient grade III nausea/vomiting. Nine patients were radically resected (five out of ten with stage III, and four out of six with stage IVa). Median time to progression and overall survival was 33.2 and 47.5 months respectively. Three patients were alive and disease free after more than 5 years. The ADOC scheme is highly active and manageable in the treatment of locally advanced thymoma. As a preoperative approach it should be offered to patients not amenable to surgery or to those surgically resectable but with a great deal of morbidity. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Abnormal cognition, sleep, EEG and brain metabolism in a novel knock-in Alzheimer mouse, PLB1

Peer reviewedPublisher PD