[Survival rate of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma]

Background and Objective: Squamous carcinoma accounts for the majority of esophageal carcinoma worldwide. This study was done to evaluate the survival rate of patients with esophageal cancer in Iran

Methods: This historical cohort study was carried outon 105 patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma whom admitted to Firoozgar hospital in Tehran, Iran during 2009-14. Patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma were treated with chemoradiation either with or without surgery

Results: The mean age of patients was 63 years. Frequency of esophageal cancer in both sexes in the age group 51-60 years was higher than other groups. 5-year survival in patients with esophageal cancer treated with chemoradiation without surgery was 9.5% and in patients treated with chemoradiation with surgery was 31.7% [P<0.05]. One-year, three-year and five-year survival rate in patients were treated with chemoradiation with or without surgery was 68.5%, 38% and 22.8%, respectively

Conclusion: The survival rate of patients with esophageal cancer is very low, but the treatment with chemoradiation with surgery can increase life expectancy of patients

Optimization of clinical target volume delineation using magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging [MRSI] in 3D conformal radiotherapy of prostate cancer

For the purpose of individual clinical target volume assessment in radiotherapy of prostate cancer, MRSI was used as a molecular imaging modality with MRI and CT images. The images of 20 prostate cancer patients were used in this study. The MR and MRSI images were registered with CT ones using non-rigid registration technique. The CT based planning [BP], CT/MRI BP and CT/MRSI BP was performed for each patient. For plan evaluation, Dose Volume Histograms [DVHs] data were used. A paired sample T-test was used for the analysis of the obtained data. The percentage of variation of CTVMRI to CTVCT and PTVMRI to PTVCT were 12.83% and 8.97%, respectively. CTVMRSI and PTVMRSI were 21% and 27.41% more than their corresponding values of CT volumes. The mean percentage of variation in rectum volume that received 60% of the prescribe dose [V60R] in MRSI/CT BP relative to CT BP was 14.66%. The use of MRSI in detecting of prostate adenocarcinoma could provide some decisive information to determine optimum volume and safe margin for target definition to improve adaptive radiotherapy in prostate cancer