Spiritual well-being is a recognized predictor of health-related quality of life in palliative patients. No research in Croatia has yet addressed this field. This study, the first of its kind in Croatia, validated a Croatian translation of the EORTC QLQ-SWB32 measure of spiritual well-being with curative Croatian oncology patients and assessed its use and value. The study was conducted between July 2019 and January 2020 at the Department of Radiotherapy and Oncology, University Hospital Rijeka, with 143 cancer patients, using the linguistically validated Croatian version of the measure. All patients found the measure acceptable. Confirmatory factor analysis aligned with the structure found in previous studies. Cronbach’s alpha confirmed internal consistency. Female participants scored higher on the RSG (Relationship with Someone or Something Greater), RG (Relationship with God), and EX (Existential) scales, and on Global-SWB. Patients with breast and gynecological tumors scored higher on RG. Older patients scored lower on RSG, RG and EX. Retirees and those with below-average incomes scored lower on EX. Participants who identified as having no religion scored lower on RSG. Stage I cancer patients scored higher on RG. The Croatian version of the EORTC QLQ-SWB32 is an acceptable, valid, and reliable measure of SWB for Croatian cancer patients.

Kaposi’s sarcoma is a neoplasm of endothelial cells. That vascular tumor is usually limited to the skin, but it may involve mucous membranes, visceral organs, and lymph nodes. Serological evidence has shown that human herpesvirus 8 infection is required for the development of Kaposi’s sarcoma. Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is the most common leukemia all over the world. Increased skin cancer risk has been reported for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The relation between these two pathologies has not yet been clarified. We report a case of Kaposi’s sarcoma along with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in a patient who did not receive therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Background: Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy in women. Aim: To assess the impact of HER2 status on axillary lymph node (ALN) involvement in patients with invasive ductal carcinoma of no special type (IDC-NST) both at diagnosis and during the 4-year postoperative period. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively included 375 women with an early clinical stage of non-luminal IDC-NST who between 2007 and 2013 underwent breast surgery at a clinical hospital. They were divided into phenotype-based groups: HR+HER2-, HR+HER2+, HR-HER2+ and HR-HER2-. Only patients with sentinel lymph node (SLN) macrometastases underwent ALN dissection. If > 3 ALNs were positive, radiotherapy was delivered. All patients were treated with chemotherapy, HER2+ BC patients received trastuzumab, and hormone receptor (HR)-positive BC patients received hormonal therapy. Results: Larger tumor size, higher grade, HR+, HER2+ status, and lymphovascular invasion (LVI) were predictive for ALN metastases at diagnosis. The poorest overall, disease-free, and distant recurrence-free survival (OS, DFS, DRFS) were found in the HR-HER2-group, while the poorest locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRFS) was observed in HR-HER2+ and HR-HER2-groups. HER2 status was not predictor of survival. Conclusions: HER2+ status was predictive for ALN involvement at diagnosis but had no effect on 4-year LRFS in these patients.

Uni ver sity Hos pi tal Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia Sci en tific pa per http://doi.org/10.2298/NTRP1803301DThe com puted to mog ra phy has be come a stan dard tool in ra di a tion ther apy treat ment planning. Ad di tion ally, there is a grow ing aware ness of the dose de liv ered to the part of the body out side the tar get vol ume. The ion iz ing ra di a tion car ries a sto chas tic risk of ma lig nancy, there fore, the doses should be kept as low as rea son ably achiev able in or der to pro vide an ad equate in for ma tion needed for the ra dio ther apy plan ning. The ob jec tive of this work was to set up the ini tial di ag nos tic ref er ence lev els and cor re late to the im age qual ity that would be used in the fu ture op ti mi za tion of lo cal iza tion scans. To quan tify the doses from com puted to mogra phy lo cal iza tion scans at the Uni ver sity Hos pi tal Rijeka, lo cal di ag nos tic ref er ence lev els were es tab lished for five most com mon pro ce dures of dif fer ent an a tom i cal re gions; head, head and neck, pel vis, breast and tho rax. The Com puted To mog ra phy Dose In dex vol u met ric and the Dose-Length Prod uct were used as dose in di ca tors and scan ning pa ram e ters were also re corded. The im age qual ity as sess ment was per formed for each set of im ages. The re sults were com pared to the sel dom pub lished data in or der to com pare the clin i cal prac tice. The image qual ity for al most all of the body re gions are scored as ac cept able in av er age but re quire im prove ment. It is shown that the op ti mi za tion of ra dio ther apy pro to cols is re quired. Therefore, these re sults will be used as a guide line for that pro cess. The es tab lish ment of the national di ag nos tic ref er ence lev els for com puted to mog ra phy lo cal iza tion pro ce dures in ra di ation ther apy is the next step and is cur rently an on go ing pro cess.Key words: com puted to mog ra phy, ra di a tion ther apy, op ti mi za tion A. Dikli}, et al.: An As sess ment of Dose In di ca tors for Com puted To mog ra phy . A. Dikli}, et al.: An As sess ment of Dose In di ca tors for Com puted To mog ra phy .