Medical registries provide highly reliable data, challenged hierarchically only by randomized controlled trials. Although registries have been used in several fields of medicine for more than a century and a half, their key role is frequently overlooked and poorly recognized. Medical registries have evolved from calculating basic epidemiological data (incidence, prevalence, mortality) to diverse applications in disease prevention, early diagnosis and screening programs, treatment response, health care planning, decision making and disease control programs. Implementing, maintaining and running a medical registry requires substantial effort. Developing the registry represents a complex task and is one of the major barriers in widespread use of registries. Medical registries have potential to evolve to a next generation by taking benefit from recent semantic web technology developments. This paper is aimed at providing a summary of the basic information available on medical registries and to highlight the progress and potential applications in this field.

This study underlines the high need of patients with ovarian cancer for all details concerning treatment options irrespective of their cultural background, the stage of disease and the patient's age. Increased information requirements regarding potential side effects and treatment alternatives were recorded. Besides the need for more effective therapy, alopecia and fatigue are the most important side effects of concern to patients.

Recently, an increasing number of novel drugs were approved in oncology and hematology. Nevertheless, pharmacology progress comes with a variety of side effects, of which cytokine release syndrome (CRS) is a potential complication of some immunotherapies that can lead to multiorgan failure if not diagnosed and treated accordingly. CRS generally occurs with therapies that lead to highly activated T cells, like chimeric antigen receptor T cells or in the case of bispecific T-cell engaging antibodies. This, in turn, leads to a proinflammatory state with subsequent organ damage. To better manage CRS there is a need for specific therapies or to repurpose strategies that are already known to be useful in similar situations. Current management strategies for CRS are represented by anticytokine directed therapies and corticosteroids. Based on its pathophysiology and the resemblance of CRS to sepsis and septic shock, as well as based on the principles of initiation of continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) in sepsis, we propose the rationale of using CRRT therapy as an adjunct treatment in CRS where all the other approaches have failed in controlling the clinically significant manifestations.

Background and aimKetamine is a drug used for the induction and maintenance of general anesthesia, for the treatment of postoperative and posttraumatic acute pain, and more recently, for the reduction of postoperative opioid requirements. The main mechanism of action of ketamine is the antagonization of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors that are associated with central sensitization. In the pathogenesis of chronic pain and particularly in neuropathic pain, an important role is played by the activation of NMDA receptors. Although ketamine is indicated and used for the treatment of chronic cancer pain as an adjuvant to opioids, there are few clinical studies that clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of ketamine in this type of pain.The aim of this study is to analyze evidence-based clinical data on the effectiveness and safety of ketamine administration in the treatment of chronic neoplastic pain, and to summarize the evidence-based recommendations for the use of ketamine in the treatment of chronic cancer pain.MethodWe reviewed the literature from the electronic databases of MEDLINE, COCHRANE, PUBMED, MEDSCAPE (1998–2014), as well as chapters of specialized books (palliative care, pain management, anesthesia).ResultsA number of studies support the effectiveness of ketamine in the treatment of chronic cancer pain, one study does not evidence clear clinical benefits for the use of ketamine, and some studies included too few patients to be conclusive.ConclusionsKetamine represents an option for neoplasic pain that no longer responds to conventional opioid treatment, but this drug should be used with caution, and the development of potential side effects should be carefully monitored.