The use of HIPEC along with the extent of the disease and the extent of cytoreduction play an important role in the survival of patients with recurrence in an initially advanced ovarian cancer.

BACKGROUND: Mucinous and clear cell histology have been associated with adverse prognosis in ovarian carcinomas. The authors compared the outcome of these subtypes with that of serous tumors in patients who were treated with combination paclitaxel/platinum at their center. METHODS: Four hundred twenty patients with histologically confirmed, serous (n ¼ 367), mucinous (n ¼ 24), or clear cell (n ¼ 29) ovarian carcinomas, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage III or IV disease, and who were treated with paclitaxel/platinum after cytoreductive surgery were included in this analysis. RESULTS: The median overall survival for each histological subtype was 47.7 months (95% confidence interval [CI], 37.7-57.7 months) for serous, 15.4 months (95% CI, 4.2-26.6 months) for mucinous, and 36.6 months (95% CI, 22.7-50.5 months) for clear cell carcinomas. Cox regression analysis showed that mucinous histology was an independent predictor of poor prognosis compared with serous tumors (hazard ratio, 0.360; 95% CI, 0.215-0.603; P ¼ .001). In contrast, such a difference between clear cell and serous carcinomas was not found (P ¼ .337). Median survival of patients with mucinous tumors and residual disease >2 cm was poor, averaging 7.1 months (95% CI, 4.6-9.6 months). CONCLUSIONS: Mucinous but not clear cell histology is associated with significantly worse prognosis in advanced ovarian cancer treated with combination platinum/paclitaxel. Different therapeutic strategies should be studied in this entity.

The overall study findings indicated a significant correlation between the levels of anxiety and depression in patients on hemodialysis. Patients with high levels of anxiety had higher levels of depression and those with high depression scores had higher anxiety scores.

Background: The advanced lung cancer inflammation index [ALI: body mass index  serum albumin/neutrophil-tolymphocyte ratio (NLR)] reflects systemic host inflammation, and is easily reproducible. We hypothesized that ALI could assist guidance of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Patients and methods: This retrospective study included 672 stage IV NSCLC patients treated with programmed deathligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitors alone or in combination with chemotherapy in 25 centers in Greece and Germany, and a control cohort of 444 stage IV NSCLC patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy without subsequent targeted or immunotherapy drugs. The association of clinical outcomes with biomarkers was analyzed with Cox regression models, including cross-validation by calculation of the Harrell's C-index. Results: High ALI values (>18) were significantly associated with longer overall survival (OS) for patients receiving ICI monotherapy [hazard ratio (HR) ¼ 0.402, P < 0.0001, n ¼ 460], but not chemo-immunotherapy (HR ¼ 0.624, P ¼ 0.111, n ¼ 212). Similar positive correlations for ALI were observed for objective response rate (36% versus 24%, P ¼ 0.008) and time-on-treatment (HR ¼ 0.52, P < 0.001), in case of ICI monotherapy only. In the control cohort of chemotherapy, the association between ALI and OS was weaker (HR ¼ 0.694, P ¼ 0.0002), and showed a significant interaction with the type of treatment (ICI monotherapy versus chemotherapy, P < 0.0001) upon combined analysis of the two cohorts. In multivariate analysis, ALI had a stronger predictive effect than NLR, PD-L1 tumor proportion score, lung immune prognostic index, and EPSILoN scores. Among patients with PD-L1 tumor

MCC appears to be chemosensitive but can progress rapidly with fatal outcomes. Although the rarity of these tumors precludes randomized trials, a common treatment plan should be utilized by those treating MCC. This may allow some conclusions regarding the optimum treatment of patients with MCC to be drawn in the future.

Objective: Recombinant human granulocyte-colony-stimulating factors such as filgrastim and pegfilgrastim have been employed as primary and secondary prophylaxis against neutropenia in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. This study was conducted to evaluate the rate of febrile neutropenia in patients with high-risk early breast cancer receiving dose-dense chemotherapy and, as primary prophylaxis, either pegfilgrastim 6 mg fixed dose on the same day as chemotherapy or filgrastim on days 2–10 of each cycle. Secondary objectives included the rate of severe neutropenia, treatment delays and dose reductions. Methods: This was a nonrandomized matched case-control study with 214 patients receiving dose-dense chemotherapy. Each group receiving supportive therapy included 107 patients (pegfilgrastim and filgrastim groups). Results: Fourteen patients (13%) in the pegfilgrastim group developed febrile neutropenia as compared to 1 patient (1%) in the filgrastim group (p = 0.001). No statistically significant differences regarding the rate of severe neutropenia, treatment delays and dose reductions were observed. Conclusion: The results demonstrate that pegfilgrastim administered as primary prophylaxis on the same day as dose-dense chemotherapy is less efficacious than filgrastim administered on days 2–10 of each chemotherapy cycle. For the particular regimens given in this retrospective matched case-control study, the current recommendation for administering pegfilgrastim at least 24 h after chemotherapy completion seems justified. However, further randomized controlled trials are needed to clarify this finding.

No abstract

Thymomas account for up to 50 % of anterior mediastinal neoplasms with an incidence of 0.13 per 100,000 person-years in the USA. Thymic carcinoma is a rare malignancy of the thymus gland distinguished from thymomas as it has a more invasive and metastasizing potential conferring poor prognosis. Due to the rarity of thymic carcinoma and the great variety of its histological subtypes, there is no solid evidence on optimal staging, imaging and treatment guidelines. Herein, we systematically review the literature on current clinical practice with regard to diagnostic evaluation, histopathological assessment, management and treatment of squamous thymic carcinoma.