ABSTRACT
Introduction: Cancer related fatigue, a problem often less understood and under-diagnosed. It is imperative to find non-invasive and non-pharmacological solutions for managing it. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of pranayama on reducing the level of Fatigue during External Radiation Therapy (ERT) among the patients in a selected cancer hospital of Guwahati, Assam. Materials and methods: The study adopted Quantitative evaluative approach; randomized pre-test post-test control group design. Simple random sampling technique without replacement was used and 84 cancer pa-tients were equally divided in control group (42) and experimental group (42). The pre-test level of fatigue was assessed from both the groups and pranayama as intervention was given to experimental group. Result: Pranayama was found to be effective in patients receiving ERT. It was found that following pranaya-ma, majority in experimental group 41 (97.6%) had mild level of fatigue whereas in control group 27 (64.3%) experienced severe level of fatigue. There is significant mean difference in the experimental group as com-pared to control group after the intervention of pranayama (t=17.99, df=41, p-value=<.001). Conclusion: Pranayama is found to be effective intervention in reducing fatigue among cancer patients re-ceiving ERT.
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of the use of external radiation therapy (ERT) in terms of survival and compliance in patients with anaplastic thyroid carcinoma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The medical records of 17 patients with anaplastic thyroid carcinoma treated with ERT between 1993 and 2002 were retrospectively reviewed. ERT was administered after surgery in 14 patients and after a biopsy in three patients. Among the 14 patients who had undergone surgery, nine underwent a curative resection and five underwent a palliative resection. Six patients had associated well-differentiated thyroid carcinomas and 14 patients were diagnosed with a tumor size exceeding 5 cm. The radiation dose ranged from 6~70 Gy (median dose, 37.5 Gy). Eleven patients completed the planned course of ERT, whereas six patients did not. The follow-up period ranged from 1~104 months (median, 5 months; mean, 20 months). RESULTS: Five patients started the ERT without the presence of a gross mass and all of the patients completed ERT without a re-growth of tumor. Twelve patients (four patients after a curative resection, five patients after a palliative resection and three patients after a biopsy) started ERT with a gross mass present and only six patients were able to complete the planned course of ERT. Among the six patients who completed ERT, two patients showed a marked regression of the tumor mass, whereas two patients showed slight regression and two patients showed no response. The median survival was five months (range, 1~104 months) and the mean survival was 21 months. The overall survival was 41% at 1-year, 24% at 2-years and 12% at 5-years. Significant prognostic factors included the number of primary tumors present, tumor size, whether surgery was performed and completion of ERT as planned. Long-term survivors showed a tendency of having smaller sized initial tumors and smaller sized pre-ERT tumors than the short-term survivors. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that patients with a small initial tumor (5 cm) and did not undergo surgery before ERT or that rapid re-growth of the mass was observed at the surgical site are likely to have a short survival time, along with the interruption of ERT. In these cases, the role of ERT is very limited and the omission of ERT could be considered.