Fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy boost and weekly paclitaxel in malignant gliomas clinical and pharmacokinetics results.

Management of Malignant Gliomas continues to be a challenge. We prospectively studied the role of adding weekly Paclitaxel to Fractionated Stereotactic Radiation Therapy (FSRT) in the treatment of Malignant Gliomas. Twenty-three Glioblastoma Multiforme and two Anaplastic Astrocytoma were studied. Patients received 46 Gy at 2 Gy/fraction followed by a boost utilizing FSRT at a fraction of 2.5 Gy for 8 fractions. Paclitaxel is delivered concomitantly at 150 mg/m(2) weekly for six cycles. Eighteen patients had pharmacokinetic assays of Paclitaxel levels. All patients were followed until death or for a maximum of 36 months. The overall survival of the whole group was 14 months. The median survival for RPA prognostic classes III, IV, V, and VI were 20, 14, 12, and 11 months. Higher survival (14 months) was noted in the subtherapeutic phenytoin level group compared to 10 months in the therapeutic group (P=0.271). No grade 4 CTCAE (version 3.0) toxicities were observed. Enhanced survival was demonstrated with gross tumor resection (20.8 months), KPS > or =80 (18.7 months) and age < or =60 years (27 months) as compared to subtotal resection or biopsy (12.1 months, P< 0.005), KPS < or =70 (10.8 months, P=0. 005) and older age > 60 (10.46 months, P=0.006), respectively. Our study suggests that: i) the use of weekly Paclitaxel and FSRT in Gliomas is well tolerated with a survival of 14 months; ii) the regimen resulted in improvement of survival of RPA classes IV, V, VI; and iii) the use of FSRT boost may be studied with other chemotherapeutic agents to see if superior results can be attained.

Position of late and early replicating human X chromosomes at somatic metaphase.

The location of late and early replicating human X chromosomes was determined in metaphases obtained from human females using the RBA technique. The late replicating X chromosome was not observed preferentially in a peripheral location. Nevertheless, a consistent pattern was observed in the location of both sex chromosomes from the pooled observations. The distance between the two X chromosomes did not vary significantly (P greater than 0.05) from person to person. The earlier hypothesis that late replicating autosomes containing genetically less active chromatin are accumulated at the periphery of the nucleus in plant cells was not observed in human somatic cells.

Spatial relationship of human X and Y chromosomes at somatic metaphase.

A total of 592 cells was examined from 38 normal humans who had either small or very large Y chromosomes. Chromosome identification was based on the QFQ technique. The distance between the X and Y chromosome was measured from centromere to centromere. The spatial distance between X and Y was significantly smaller when the Y was small as compared to a very large Y (p less than 0.05). The distance increased as the length of the Y chromosome increased and a significant correlation coefficient (r = 0.58) was found (p less than 0.05). It is concluded that the length of the Y chromosome appears to play a major role in the non-random distribution of X and Y at somatic metaphase. The size and XY relationship in aneuploidy resulting from paternal non-disjunction and in patients with XXY and XYY should be investigated.