Definitive radiation therapy for endometrial cancer in medically inoperable elderly patients.

PURPOSE: With the increasing elderly population, more women with newly diagnosed endometrial cancer may not be surgical candidates due to medical comorbidities. Definitive radiation therapy with external beam radiation (EBRT) and/or brachytherapy is a reasonable primary treatment for endometrial cancer in patients who cannot undergo surgery. METHODS: A retrospective review identified 26 women 75 years and older with endometrial cancer who were not operative candidates due to comorbidities and received definitive radiation. RESULTS: The median age of the treated patients was 83, all of whom had significant medical comorbidities precluding surgical treatment. Seventy-three percent of the patients had stage T1 disease, 19% were stage T2, and 8% were stage T3. Seventy-three percent of patients received EBRT before brachytherapy (median dose: 45 Gy). The median brachytherapy dose was 20 Gy in 5 fractions. The types of brachytherapy used were Rotte Y applicator (42%), tandem and cylinder (42%), and ring and tandem (16%). Median followup was 12 months (1-60 months). No treatment breaks were required for the entire group and only 2 patients (8%) developed late toxicity. The overall survival for all patients was 89% and 28% at 1 and 2 years, respectively. Disease-specific survival for all patients was 93% at 1 year and 73% at 3 years. CONCLUSIONS: The results in this study indicate that definitive radiation with EBRT and/or brachytherapy for endometrial cancer is feasible and well tolerated in an elderly population.

Eshkol-Wachman movement notation in diagnosis: the early detection of Asperger's syndrome.

The diagnostic criteria of Asperger's syndrome (AS), considered a part of the autistic spectrum disorder, are still unclear. A critical marker, which distinguishes AS from autism, is the presence of language. The ability of a child with AS to acquire and use language early results in the fact that AS usually is diagnosed much later than autism. Autism is not usually diagnosed until around the age of 3, whereas AS usually is not diagnosed until the child is 6 or 7 years of age. In the present article, using Eshkol-Wachman movement notation, we present evidence that abnormal movement patterns can be detected in AS in infancy. This finding suggests that AS can be diagnosed very early, independent of the presence of language. As shown earlier by us, almost all of the movement disturbances in autism can be interpreted as infantile reflexes "gone astray"; i.e., some reflexes are not inhibited at the appropriate age in development, whereas others fail to appear when they should. This phenomenon appears to apply to AS as well. Based on preliminary results, a simple test using one such reflex is proposed for the early detection of a subgroup of children with AS or autism.