Hyperprogressive disease (HPD) rate in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) was determined using tumor growth kinetics (TGK) and ...compared with rapidly progressive screen-failure (SF) patients. The impact of TGK on outcomes with salvage chemotherapy (SCT) was also evaluated.
HPD was found in 22/120 (18%) patients. Median TGK before the onset of immunotherapy (TGK
) was 2.7 for SF patients and 4.8 for HPD patients, with no significant difference (
= 0.17). Disease control rate after initial progressive disease on ICI was 86% with SCT in case of tumor growth deceleration vs 39% in case of tumor growth acceleration.
HPD was frequent, but TGK of HPD patients treated with ICI did not differ from SF patients, suggesting that there is no relevant causal relationship between HPD and ICI. After initial PD with ICI, tumor growth deceleration was associated with better outcomes, indicating that TGK
might be useful to detect late responders, meriting prospective investigations.
TGK ratio (TGK
) was defined as the ratio of TGK on ICI (TGK
) to TGK
. HPD was defined as TGK
≥ 2. TGK
>1 indicated tumor growth acceleration, while 0 < TGK
< 1 indicated tumor deceleration.
Our aim was to develop practical models built with simple clinical and radiological features to help diagnosing Coronavirus disease 2019 COVID-19 in a real-life emergency cohort. To do so, 513 ...consecutive adult patients suspected of having COVID-19 from 15 emergency departments from 2020-03-13 to 2020-04-14 were included as long as chest CT-scans and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) results were available (244 47.6% with a positive RT-PCR). Immediately after their acquisition, the chest CTs were prospectively interpreted by on-call teleradiologists (OCTRs) and systematically reviewed within one week by another senior teleradiologist. Each OCTR reading was concluded using a 5-point scale: normal, non-infectious, infectious non-COVID-19, indeterminate and highly suspicious of COVID-19. The senior reading reported the lesions' semiology, distribution, extent and differential diagnoses. After pre-filtering clinical and radiological features through univariate Chi-2, Fisher or Student t-tests (as appropriate), multivariate stepwise logistic regression (Step-LR) and classification tree (CART) models to predict a positive RT-PCR were trained on 412 patients, validated on an independent cohort of 101 patients and compared with the OCTR performances (295 and 71 with available clinical data, respectively) through area under the receiver operating characteristics curves (AUC). Regarding models elaborated on radiological variables alone, best performances were reached with the CART model (i.e., AUC = 0.92 versus 0.88 for OCTR, sensitivity = 0.77, specificity = 0.94) while step-LR provided the highest AUC with clinical-radiological variables (AUC = 0.93 versus 0.86 for OCTR, sensitivity = 0.82, specificity = 0.91). Hence, these two simple models, depending on the availability of clinical data, provided high performances to diagnose positive RT-PCR and could be used by any radiologist to support, modulate and communicate their conclusion in case of COVID-19 suspicion. Practically, using clinical and radiological variables (GGO, fever, presence of fibrotic bands, presence of diffuse lesions, predominant peripheral distribution) can accurately predict RT-PCR status.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have been developed in gastric adenocarcinomas and approved in first-line metastatic setting (in combination with chemotherapy) as well as in pretreated patients. ...Microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) tumors are predicted to derive high benefit from ICI but data in gastric locations are limited. Here, we describe the case of a 68-year old patient with stage IV MSI-H gastric adenocarcinoma, referred to our center to receive immunotherapy after failure of standard of care (surgery with perioperative platin-based chemotherapy and paclitaxel plus ramucirumab at disease progression). The patient received one injection of durvalumab and tremelimumab and was hospitalized eighteen days after because of occlusive syndrome. The CT scan showed hyperprogression of the lymph nodes and hepatic lesions, compressing the gastric stump. He died few days later. Molecular analyses did not explain this outcome. To our knowledge, this is one of the first reported cases of hyperprogressive disease after combined ICI for a patient with MSI-H tumor. We review the potential causes and discuss the emerging literature regarding predictive factors of hyperprogression in the particular subset of MSI-H patients. If some data were available in retrospective studies, validation of strong predictive factors is needed to avoid such dramatic evolutions.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains a major public health challenge, and faces disparities and delays in the diagnosis and access to care. Our purposes were to describe the medical path ...of PDAC patients in the real-life setting and evaluate the overall survival at 1 year. We used the national hospital discharge summaries database system to analyze the management of patients with newly diagnosed PDAC over the year 2016 in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region (AuRA) (France). A total of 1872 patients met inclusion criteria corresponding to an incidence of 22.6 per 100,000 person-year. Within the follow-up period, 353 (18.9%) were operated with a curative intent, 743 (39.7%) underwent chemo- and/or radiotherapy, and 776 (41.4%) did not receive any of these treatments. Less than half of patients were operated in a high-volume center, defined by more than 20 PDAC resections performed annually, mainly university hospitals. The 1-year survival rate was 47% in the overall population. This study highlights that a significant number of patients with PDAC are still operated in low-volume centers or do not receive any specific oncological treatment. A detailed analysis of the medical pathways is necessary in order to identify the medical and territorial determinants and their impact on the patient’s outcome.
A toroidal high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) transducer was used to non-invasively treat liver tissues in vivo in a pig model. The transducer was divided into 32 concentric rings with equal ...surface areas operating at 2.5 MHz. First, attenuation of skin, fat, muscle and liver tissues was measured in fresh animal samples to adjust the energy delivered to the focal zone. Then, 8 animals were included in the present protocol and placed in a dorsal decubitus proclive position at an angle of 15°. The device was held by hand, and sonications were performed during apnea. Two thermal HIFU lesions were created in 40 s in each animal. The average abdominal wall thickness was 14.8 ± 1.3 mm (12.5-17.6 mm). The longest and shortest axes of the HIFU ablations were 20.9 ± 6.3 mm (14.0-33.7 mm) and 14.2 ± 5.5 mm (7.0-22.0 mm), respectively. All HIFU lesions were visible on sonograms. The correlation between the dimensions of the HIFU lesions observed on sonograms and those obtained during gross examination was r = 0.84. Creating large and fast ablations with reliable ultrasound imaging guidance in the liver using this handheld device may represent a new therapeutic option for patients with liver tumors.
Retrospective assessment of risk factors using univariate and multivariate analyses.
To evaluate risk factors retrospectively for cement leakage (CL), including vascular cement leakage (vCL) and ...cortical cement leakage (cCL), in percutaneous vertebroplasty of spinal metastasis.
Complications of vertebroplasty for spine metastasis are rare but related to extravertebral cement leakage that is pulmonary embolism and medullary compression. Better understanding of the risk factors for vascular and cortical types of cement leakage is necessary to prevent these complications.
Fifty-six cancer patients (30 females, 26 males; age, 56 ± 12 yr) (81 vertebrae) were treated in 58 sessions under fluoroscopy or computed tomography-fluoroscopy guidance. Leakage rates were reported. The following items were assessed for occurrence of CL, vCL, and cCL: primary tumor site, prior radiotherapy or local tumor ablation or embolization, appearance on computed tomography, cortical osteolytic destruction, vertebral collapse, operator's experience, guidance modality, and cement filling.
CL, vCL, and cCL rates were 53%, 25%, and 32%. History of prior treatment correlated with a decrease in CL (P = 0.018). vCL decreased when lung was the primary tumor site (P = 0.036), in osteolytic vertebrae (P = 0.033) or when there was a vertebral collapse (P = 0.037). cCL correlated with operator's experience (P = 0.021) and vertebral collapse (P < 0.001). Superior discal cCL correlated with superior endplate cortical destruction (P = 0.012). Although history of prior treatment seemed to be an independent protective factor (odds ratio = 0.24; 95% confidence interval, 0.087-0.7; P = 0.001), vertebral collapse was isolated as a risk factor for cCL (odds ratio = 32; 95% confidence interval, 6.7-161; P = 0.001).
Risk factors for cCL and vCL are distinct. Vertebral collapse and cortical destruction are risk factors for cCL. History of prior treatment is a protective factor for CL.
4.
Objective
Cryoablation is being more and more often used to treat desmoid tumors. We report our experience of cryoablation as a local and analgesic treatment for inoperable or recurring desmoid ...tumors.
Methods
This study includes 34 patients who underwent percutaneous cryoablation of 41 desmoid tumors between July 2012 and September 2016. All patients underwent pain assessment using a visual analog scale (VAS) and preoperative imaging. All cryoablation procedures were performed using the same cryoablation system. Patients received clinical and radiological follow-up at 6 months post-procedure, with pain-rating and adverse events being recorded. A long-term follow-up was achieved until 31 December 2018. Disease-free survival at 3 years was also recorded. Radiological tumor response was determined by tumor measurements using RECIST 1.1.
Results
Twelve patients benefitted from curative treatment on 100% of the tumor volume, but 22 patients received debulking treatment because of the risk of neighboring structures. Two patients had a postoperative hematoma grade 2 of the CIRSE classification system for complications, and two patients had grade 4 complications involving palsy of the common fibular nerve. Disease-free survival at 3 years was 42.2%. The mean VAS pain scores were 5.7 and 2.4 at pretreatment and 6 months, respectively, showing a mean reduction of 3.3 (
p
< 0.001). At 6 months, all measured tumor dimensions were significantly lower than pretreatment.
Conclusion
Cryoablation is an effective therapeutic option for the local treatment and for the analgesic management of desmoid tumors.
Background
Pulmonary metastases (PM) are the most frequent extra‐abdominal metastases from colorectal cancer. Lung resection and imaging‐guided thermal ablation (IGTA) are used as curative‐intent ...treatment. We compared the outcomes of patients with PM, treated with resection or ablation.
Methods
We retrospectively analyzed data from patients who underwent surgery or IGTA for colorectal PM between April 2011 and November 2020. Surgery was performed for peripheral PM and IGTA for deep‐located PM not in contact with major vessels. Patients who had both procedures were excluded. Patients were compared using propensity score matching (PSM) analysis, stratified according to number, size, and unilaterality of PM.
Results
One hundred and fourty‐six patients were included, 65 (44.5%) underwent surgery and 81 (55.5%) underwent IGTA. After PSM analysis, each group contained 46 patients. IGTA patients had a lower morbidity rate (13.1% vs. 15.2%, p = 0.028) and a shorter length of stay (5.13 vs. 2.63 days, p < 0.001). Oncological outcomes were similar in both groups with 5‐year OS of 80% and 5‐year progression‐free survival (PFS) of 30% (p = 0.657 and p = 0.504, respectively) with similar recurrence patterns.
Conclusion
Lung resection and IGTA seem to have similar oncologic outcomes for both OS and PFS. IGTA could be an alternative effective treatment for small PM, whenever technically feasible.
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