Role of integrated PET/CT Fusion in lung carcinoma

Positron emission tomography has emerged as an important diagnostic tool in the management of lung cancers. PET is sensitive in the detection of lung cancer, but FDG [2-deoxy-2-18fluro-D-glucose] is not tumor specific and may accumulate in a variety of non-malignant conditions occasionally giving false negative result. The addition of CT to PET improves specificity foremost, but also sensitivity in tumor imaging. Thus, PET/CT fusion images are a more accurate test than either of its individual components and are probably also better than side-by-side viewing of images from both modalities. PET/CT fusion images are useful in differentiating between malignant and benign disease, fibrosis and recurrence, staging and in changing patient management to a more appropriate therapy. With analysis and discussion, it appears that PET/CT fusion images have the potential to dramatically improve our ability to manage the patients with lung cancer and is contributing to our understanding of cancer cell biology and in the development of new therapies

Role of radiotherapy in early breast cancer: an overview

Radiotherapy has an established role in reducing the local relapses in breast cancer patients. The objective of this review was to investigate whether radiotherapy or its omission after breast surgery has measurable consequences on local tumor recurrence and patient survival. The late excess of cardiac deaths has also been published in various reports but important advances in the delivery of radiotherapy have overcome this problem to the extent that, excess cardiac deaths do not appear to be occurring in more recent trials. In this article some recent data, suggesting that radiotherapy following mastectomy and/or breast conserving surgery has a beneficial effect on survival is reviewed. Omission of radiotherapy is associated with a large increase in risk of ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence and with a small increase in the risk of patient's mortality