Treatment of favorable, early-stage hodgkin's disease in children and adolescents using vamp and low-dose, involved-field radiation

to evaluate outcome and assess, toxicity of children and adolescents with, early-stage, favorable Hodgkin's disease treated with vinblastine, doxorubicin, methotrexate, and prednisone [VAMP] and low-dose, involved-field radiation, Patients and twenty-four patients with clinical stages I and IIA, favorable [nonbulky] Hodgkin's disease were treated with four cycles of VAMP chemotherapy and 15Gy involved field radiation for those who achieved a complete response, or 25.5Gy for those who achieved a partial response to two cycles of VAMP with a median follow-up of 49 months [range, 74 to 66 months], the overall and event-free survival were 95.8% and 87.5%, respectively. The only factor associated with longer event-free survival was the number of initially involved sites. Risk-adapted, combined-modality therapy using only four cycles of VAMP chemotherapy with 15 to 25.5 Gy of involved-field radiation for patients with early-stage/favorable Hodgkin's disease is highly effective and without demonstrable side-effects. These results indicates that patients with stages I and IIA, non-bulky, and involving less than three Ann Arbor sites can be cured with limited therapy that does not include an alkylating agent bleomycin, etoposide, or high-dose extended-field radiation therapy

Clinical relevance of apo-1 / fas and Bcl-2 expression in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia

This study tried to speculate the role of Apo-I antigen and BCL-2 oncoprotein in newly diagnosed children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia [ALL] and to find out if they have any possible role as predictors of the outcome and response to therapy. Before induction therapy Fas antigen expression had a significantly low mean value in the patients with failed induction compared with patients with complete remission. Patients with failed induction showed a significantly higher pre-induction value of patients who showed complete remission. No significant correlation was found between the percentage of Fas expression among patients with ALL was variable. In spite of having high values of Bcl-2, yet, neither Fas antigen expression nor the level of BCL-2 oncoprotein could be considered as a sensitive predictor of the outcome and response to therapy

Ambulatory electrocardiographic changes in children with chronic renal insufficiency. a study of the effects of hemodialysis process

Ambulatory electrocardiographic [Holter] recording was done for 24 hours before and 24 hours after study of HD session in 26 pediatric patients with chronic renal insufficiency [CRI] on maintenance HD. This was a trial to evaluate the possible effect of HD process on the electrocardiographic pattern in those patients. Holter changes were observed during the last hour of HD session in 20 patients only [76.92%]. These were sinus tachycardia [ST] in 90%, supraventricular tachycardia [SVT] in 5% and bradycardia with first degree atrio- ventricular block in 5%. Premature supraventricular contractions [PSVC] were recorded in 40% of the patients with Holter changes and premature ventricular contractions [PVC] in 25% of the HD induced significant prolongation of Q-Tc interval in 75% of the patients with Holter changes [P <0.001] and significant shortening of it in 15% of them [P<0.001]. The degree of prolongation of Q-Tc interval showed significant positive correlation with degree of HD induced decrease in serum calcium [P <0.001] and in serum potassium [P <0.001]