[Lipid profile in patients with Cancer before and after receiving Xeloda]

Background and Objectives: Capecitabine [Xeloda] is an orally administered pro-drug of 5-fluorouracil, which is used as chemotherapeutic agent. Some studies have raised concerns about the lipid profile changes following Xeloda. In this study we examined such probable changes in patients before and after receiving Xeloda

Materials and Methods: Lipid profile changes were measured before and after administration of Xeloda in 100 patients with gastrointestinal cancers. Serum levels of triglyceride; total cholesterol; low-density lipoprotein [LDL]; and high-density lipoprotein [HDL] were measure at baseline and 3 months after starting Xeloda. Hypertriglyceridemia was defined as serum triglyceride>200 mg/dl and hypercholesterolemia was defined as serum total cholesterol>200 mg/dl

Results: A total of 64 male and 36 female patients with a mean age of 61.11 +/- 12.51 years [range: 31-68] were recruited. The mean serum level of triglyceride increased significantly from 148.51 +/- 39.28 mg/dl at baseline to 194.17 +/- 78.88 mg/dl 3 months after taking Xeloda [p<0.001]. Similar trends were observed for serum levels of total cholesterol [from 190.29 +/- 51.56 mg/dl to 197.86 +/- 56.44 mg/dl; p<0.001] and HDL [from 44.35 +/- 9.94 mg/dl to 45.94 +/- 9.13 mg/dl; p=0.001]. Change of serum LDL was not significant [p=0.10]. We found that forty-two percent and 15% of patients developed hypertriglyceridemia and hypercholesterolemia 3 months after treatment, respectively

Conclusion: Xeloda increases serum levels of triglyceride; total cholesterol and HDL

[Clinical and pathological findings and prognostic factors in a long term follow up of patients with differentiated Thyroid Cancer]

Background and Objectives: Thyroid Cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, and its incidence is increasing all over the world. It seems that patients' characteristics, distribution of different histopathological types, its clinical presentation, prognostic factors, and patients' outcome are significantly from study to study. In this study we examined the above factors in a group of patients with thyroid cancers

Materials and Methods: In a retrospective setting, medical records of 450 patients with thyroid cancer diagnosed between 1993-2014 in Tabriz Endocrinology Centre were studied and patient's demographic information, clinical/histopathological findings, treatments, and long-term outcome were recorded

Results: From total number of 450 patients 80.4% were female, the mean age of patients at the time of diagnosis were 37.15 +/- 11.72 years [range: 11-74]. Solitary thyroid nodule was the most common initial presentation [77.5%], followed by multiple thyroid nodules [20.9%], cervical lymphadenopathy [9.3%], and hoarseness [0.3%]. Fine-needle aspiration was carried out in 79.8% of the patients with the following findings: papillary carcinoma in [56.5%], benign nodule [15.3%], follicular carcinoma [12%], suspicious [9.7%], medullary carcinoma [2.2%], Hurtle cell carcinoma [2.2%], unsatisfactory [1.7%], and anaplastic carcinoma [0.3%]. In the future workups that were performance the distribution of the final diagnosis was papillary carcinoma [92%], medullary carcinoma [3.8%], hurtle cell carcinoma [2%], follicular carcinoma [2%], and anaplastic carcinoma in [0.2%]. Postoperative follow-up was achieved in 90.9% of patients, with a mean duration of 7.40 years. Cure was reported in 91.4%, local metastasis in 5.9%, concomitant local and distant metastases in 2%, and pare distant metastasis in 0.7%

Conclusion: Most aspects of thyroid cancers in the present study were compatible with previous reports. Excellent postoperative survival was an outstanding finding in our study