Non surgical treatment of sacral osteosarcoma

Osteosarcoma may rarely originate from the axial bones such as pelvis or vertebrae. In some pelvic and most vertebral primary tumors, resection often is not possible completely. In general, these tumors cannot be resected with negative margins so they need additional radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but results are unfavourable because of poor local control and high incidence of distant metastases. This is a case report of sacral osteosarcoma which was treated successfully with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. The patient is a 14-year-old boy with a large osteosarcoma tumor in the first sacral vertebral body, with extra skeletal extension. The patient took radiotherapy [6000 centigray] plus chemotherapy regimen consisting of doxorubicin and cisplatin. In the last follow up 48 months later, the patient was completely asymptomatic with normal performance and there was not any evidence of local progression or distant metastasis

Esophageal cancer in northeast of Iran

Esophageal cancer is the 7th most common cancer in Iran. The northern part of the country shows the highest incidence for this malignancy. In this study we present some epidemiological and clinicopathological characteristics of patients with esophageal carcinoma in this region. In a cross sectional study, 238 Esophageal cancer patients were enrolled in a prospective study of neoadjuvant chemo-radiation treatment in a 4-year period [2006- 2009]. In an oncology clinic their epidemiologic characteristics and clinicopathological findings were registered in a preplanned file. Data consisted of age, sex, race, occupation, residential location, smoking, addiction history, signs and symptoms, blood biochemistry profile, imaging and endoscopic findings. The data were analyzed with the SPSS software. The mean age of the patients was [55% female] 59 years. They were mostly Fars [63%] and Turkmen [13%]. Seventy two percent were residents of rural area, 20% were smokers and 22.3% were opium addict and its analogues. Only 1.3% of patients consumed alcohol. The most common presenting symptom was dysphagia [93.7%], mainly grade III dysphagia [53%]. Location of tumor in esophagus was in the middle third in 53.4% and lower segment in 44.5%. 65% of the patients had an abnormal esophagogram. On endoscopic evaluation the most common types of tumors were polypoid, vegetative and fungoid, respectively. Mean tumor length was 5.7 cm. The most common histology type was squamus cell carcinoma [99.1%] which was moderately differentiated in 51.3% of these patients. No significant relationship was found between the grade of dysphagia with the macroscopic type and the pathologic grade of the tumor in this study. Squamous cell carcinoma comprised more than 99% of all esophageal cancers in our patients and this histological type is the prominent type in the Northeast of Iran. Middle esophageal segment is the major site for this type of cancer which unfortunately most patients present with grade III. Dysphasia reflects the advanced stage of the disease

study of different treatment therapy in the early stage of Hodgkin's disease of upper diaphragms in North East of Iran

The proper treatment for early-stage Hodgkin's disease is controversial. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the therapeutic outcomes of various treatment strategies in supradiaphragmatic clinical early-stage Hodgkin's disease. This retrospective study reviewed the medical records of 105 eligible patients [49 stage I, 59 stage II] who were treated at radiotherapy- oncology departments of Qaem and Omid hospitals in Mashhad [Iran] from April 1995 to April 2000. 26 patients had B symptoms and 5 had large mediastinal mass. Treatment of patients consisted of chemotherapy alone [43 cases], radiotherapy alone [46 cases, 40 mantle and 6 Total nodal irradiation] and combined modality [16 cases]. Survival rates were calculated by Kaplan- Meier model. Log-rank test was used to compare the survival profile between groups. The median age of patients was 25 years with a male to female ratio of 1.56: 1. In comparison with radiotherapy only group, Primary chemotherapy and combined modality groups had significantly more cases with unfavorable factors such as B symptoms, Large mediastinal mass, ESR>40 and stage II. For chemotherapy, combined modality and radiotherapy groups the 5-year progression free survival was 72.5%, 82.5% and 56.2% [P<0.05] and the 5-year disease specific survival was 82.9%, 91.6% and 82.5% respectively. Despite having more cases with unfavorable factors, patients who underwent chemotherapy or combined treatment had lower relapse rates compared to radiotherapy only group. However, there was not a significant difference in 5-year disease specific survival rates between these groups

Angiogenesis assessment in basal cell carcinoma

Basal cell carcinoma [BCC] is currently the most common cutaneous cancer found in humans. Although it generally shows a relatively benign course [BCC1], some cases show aggressive behavior [BCC2]. Until recently, traditional histologic diagnostic criteria have failed to discriminate unequivocally between BCC1 and BCC2. In this study we selected 50 cases of BCC and categorized them into two groups [BCC 1 and BCC2] on the basis of histologic criteria and then examined the rate of angiogenesis to establish if it correlates with their histological features and/or clinical behavior. The vessels were highlighted by immunohistochemical staining for factor VIll-related antigen in formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissues. All 25 cases of BCC2, whose clinical behavior was aggressive had microvessel counts significantly higher than that of the BCC 1 group with mean values of 50.24 and 20.9 for BCC2 and BCCI respectively. But there were eight cases of morphological BCC1 who had aggressive clinical behavior and interestingly had micro vessel counts higher than the other cases of BCC 1. The findings of the present study seem to establish a correlation between tumor angiogenesis and clinicobiological parameters of aggressiveness. From this point of view the assay of microvessel density might be helpful in selecting patients with BCCs at high risk for recurrence or metastasis, who could benefit from additional therapies and closer follow up