Blood viscosity in patients with diffuse large B cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

UNLABELLED: The aim of the study was to evaluate blood viscosity as possible marker of disease progression in patients with newly diagnosed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). METHODS: The viscosity of blood samples from 20 patients with newly diagnosed aggressive NHL (stage I, n=7; stage II, n=4; stage III, n=7; stage IV, n=2) was analyzed using Brookfield DV-II + (USA) machine. RESULTS: Blood viscosity in NHL patients (median: 5.5+/-1.46 miliPascal) inversely correlated with lactatdehydrogenase (LDH) level, international prognostic index (IPI) score, and stage (p=0.02, r=-0.51; p=0.03, r=-0.63; and p=0.04, r=-0.45, respectively) and positively correlated with hemoglobin level (p=0.02, r=0.65)). CONCLUSION: According to our data, blood viscosity may be considered as a follow up marker in NHL patients along with LDH level or sedimentation rate.

Effect of different neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens on locally advanced breast cancer.

In this retrospective study, we evaluated the results of 91 locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) patients (30 patients in stage IIIA - 33.0%, 61 patients in stage IIIB - 67.0%) who had been treated with different neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens. Forty-three (47.3%) patients treated with FAC (5-Fluorouracil, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide) or CA (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin), 33 (36.3%) with FEC (5-Fluorouracil, epirubicin, cyclophosphamide) or CE (cyclophosphamide, epirubicin) and 15 (16.5%) with CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, 5-Fluorouracil) combination as neoadjuvant setting. Median follow-up duration was 33 (6-116) months in 91 patients. There was no significant difference in the pretreatment characteristics of patients receiving FAC/CA, FEC/CE and CMF including age, disease stage, menopausal and estrogen/progesteron receptor (ER/PR) status (p>0.05). In CMF group, no patient was treated with taxan as adjuvant setting. However, ten patients (30.3%) in FEC/CE group and 21 patients (48.8%) in FAC/CA group were treated with taxans. Overall response rate was lower in CMF group (60.0%), when compared to FEC/CE (81.9%) and FAC/CA (91.0%) groups (p<0.05). Median overall survival (OS) and diseases free survival (DFS) were similar in three groups; 28.0 months (range: 14.8-41.1) and 12.0 months (range: 5.3-18.6) in CMF, 45.0 months (range: 16.8-73.1) and 23.0 months (range: 0.0-48.6) in FEC/CE, 46.0 months (range: 41.1-50.8) and 22.0 months (range: 11.1-32.8) months in FAC/CA groups, respectively (p>0.05). In conclusion, overall response rates were found to be higher in anthracycline-based combinations than CMF, but these regimens had no additional survival advantage over CMF regimen. Long-term effects of these regimens should be investigated in further randomized trials.