The study will provide information on patients' quality of life and its variations over time in relation to the treatments received for the prostate cancer.

The use of α-tocopherol as adjuvant treatment to reduce the acute adverse effects of radiotherapy on the vagina should be considered.

Brain metastases are common in stage IV malignant melanoma, carrying a prognosis traditionally regarded as severe, with a median survival of few months. Recently introduced systemic therapies as targeted therapy or immunotherapy have significantly improved the prognosis of metastatic melanoma. The optimal association of radiotherapy to such novel treatments has to be clarified. We report on a 43-year-old woman with 10 brain metastases. Three of them were treated with stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) with complete response even of the untreated lesions. As the patient was BRAF-mutated, she was started on dabrafenib/trametinib. After 8 months she developed new brain metastases, which again responded to a new treatment with SRS. As after 7 months additional lesions appeared, she was treated with whole brain radiotherapy and was started on nivolumab. Twenty months after the first diagnosis of brain metastases the patient is fit without significant clinical and radiological signs of toxicity.

Purpose Therapeutic strategies for prostate cancer (PCa) have been evolving dramatically worldwide. The current article reports on the evolution of surgical management strategies for PCa in Italy. Methods The data from two independent Italian multicenter projects, the MIRROR-SIU/LUNA (started in 2007, holding data of 890 patients) and the Pros-IT-CNR project (started in 2014, with data of 692 patients), were compared. Differences in patients' characteristics were evaluated. Multivariable logistic regression models were used to identify characteristics associated with robot-assisted (RA) procedure, nerve sparing (NS) approach, and lymph node dissection (LND). ResultsThe two cohorts did not differ in terms of age and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels at biopsy. Patients enrolled in the Pros-IT-CNR project more frequently were submitted to RA (58.8% vs 27.6%, p < 0.001) and NS prostatectomy (58.4% vs. 52.9%, p = 0.04), but received LND less frequently (47.7% vs. 76.7%, p < 0.001), as compared to the MIRROR-SIU/ LUNA patients. At multivariate logistic models, Lower Gleason Scores (GS) and PSA levels were significantly associated with RA prostatectomy in both cohorts. As for the MIRROR-SIU/LUNA data, clinical T-stage was a predictor for NS (OR = 0.07 for T3, T4) and LND (OR = 2.41 for T2) procedures. As for Pros-IT CNR data, GS ≥ (4 + 3) and positive cancer cores ≥ 50% were decisive factors both for NS (OR 0.29 and 0.30) and LND (OR 7.53 and 2.31) strategies. Conclusions PCa management has changed over the last decade in Italian centers: RA and NS procedures without LND have become the methods of choice to treat newly medium-high risk diagnosed PCa.

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