Treatment of locoregionally advanced head and neck cancer with concomitant high-dose radiotherapy plus cetuximab improves locoregional control and reduces mortality without increasing the common toxic effects associated with radiotherapy to the head and neck. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00004227.)

No abstract

Targeting MEK has been shown to be effective in suppressing many important pathways involved in cell growth and the prevention of apoptosis. MEK inhibitors have many potential therapeutic uses in the suppression of cancer, proliferative diseases and aging.

No abstract

Various Raf inhibitors have been developed and are being clinically used to treat patients with melanoma, thyroid, hepatocellular and renal cell cancers. Some 'Raf-kinase inhibitors' affect other kinases which are also expressed on malignant cells; yet, these inhibitors have proven useful in the therapy of certain cancer patients. Other more recently developed Raf specific inhibitors have shown success in the treatment of tumors bearing Raf mutations. The development of Raf inhibitors has significantly advanced cancer therapy in the past decade.

No abstract

No abstract

An inverse treatment planning system for Gamma Knife radiosurgery has been developed using nonlinear programming techniques. The system optimizes the shot sizes, locations, and weights for Gamma Knife treatments. In the patient's prescription, the user can specify both the maximum number of shots of radiation and a minimum isodose line that must surround the entire treatment volume. After satisfying all of the constraints included in the prescription, the system maximizes the conformity of the dose distribution. This automated approach to treatment planning has been applied retrospectively to a series of patient cases, and each optimized plan has been compared to the corresponding manual plan produced by an experienced user. The results demonstrate that this tool can often improve the tumor dose homogeneity while using fewer shots than were included in the original plan. Therefore, inverse treatment planning should improve both the quality and the efficiency of Gamma Knife treatments.