Educating undergraduate medical students about oncology: a literature review.

PURPOSE: This article is a review of the literature regarding teaching oncology to undergraduate medical students. METHODS: MEDLINE, Psychinfo, ERIC, TIMELIT, EMBASE, CINAHL and the Cochrane CENTRAL Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) were searched, using the search terms cancer, oncology, education, undergraduate, and teaching. RESULTS: The main findings can be summarized as follows: the involvement of patients in teaching is popular with students and portfolio learning is a successful way of involving patients; the use of standardized patients to teach breast examination improves students' performance in clinical assessment; the use of silicone models to teach breast examination improves students' sensitivity for detecting breast lumps; computer aided learning modules have a role, but are not superior to other types of learning; learning about cancer screening and prevention increases students' knowledge, improves their self rated skills, and changes their behavior; and cancer patients have an important role to play in teaching undergraduate communication skills. CONCLUSION: We have found 48 articles on undergraduate teaching in oncology. Oncology teachers should consider adopting the evidence based approaches outlined in this review, and there should be more emphasis on educational research within the field of oncology.

Bilateral peripheral T-cell lymphoma of the fallopian tubes.

BACKGROUND: Lymphoma of the female genital tract is rare, and usually involves the ovaries or the uterus. Most cases of fallopian tube lymphoma reflect disease arising in the ovaries. All previously reported cases of primary lymphoma of the fallopian tube were of B cell lineage. CASE: A 51-year-old woman presented with systemic upset and a pelvic mass. At laparotomy, both fallopian tubes were inflamed and histological examination revealed peripheral T-cell lymphoma. At staging, she had IIB(E) disease, and she was treated with six cycles of CHOP-M chemotherapy. CONCLUSION: Our case is unusual in that this is the first described case of peripheral T-cell lymphoma arising in the fallopian tubes and is moreover unusual because of the involvement of both fallopian tubes without involvement of other gynaecological organs. The clinical course was favourable with complete remission maintained for more than 5 years.