Poor health-related quality of life and abnormal psychosocial adjustment in Italian children with perinatal HIV infection receiving highly active antiretroviral treatment.

To evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQL), social competence, and behavioral problems in children with perinatal HIV infection receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), a cross-sectional study was performed at the Department of Pediatrics, University of Brescia. We evaluated HRQL, social competence, and behavioral problems in 27 HIV-infected children compared with age and sex-matched control subjects using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), respectively. On the PedsQL 4.0 Generic Core Scale, HIV-infected subjects displayed significantly reduced physical (p=0.043) and psychosocial health (p=0.021) functioning, particularly at school (p=0.000), compared with healthy subjects, resulting in a significantly reduced total score (p=0.013). Assessment of social competence and the behavioral features of HIV-infected children by means of the CBCL revealed severe limitations of functioning in HIV-infected children who had impaired social ability. Children with HIV-RNA above the threshold level of 50 had higher scores on the CBCL delinquent behavior (p=0.021) and school competence (p=0.025) subsets. Although the introduction of HAART regimens has prolonged the survival of HIV-infected children, other factors, including disease morbidity and familial and environmental conditions, negatively affect their quality of life, thereby contributing to increased risk for behavioral problems.

Primary cutaneous non-Hodgkin lymphoma: results of a retrospective analysis in the light of the recent ILROG guidelines.

PURPOSE:: To analyze clinical outcome, local response, survival and toxicity in patients with primary cutaneous lymphoma (PCL) treated with radiotherapy. METHODS:: From 1995 to 2014, 112 patients were treated. B-cell lymphomas (CBCLs; n = 86) and T-cell lymphomas (CTCLs; n = 23) were analyzed separately. Clinical and therapeutic characteristics (age, sex, histology, primary treatment and radiotherapy modality) were related to response to treatment, survival and toxicity. RESULTS:: CBCLs were divided into 4 subgroups: marginal-zone lymphoma (n = 20), follicle center lymphoma (n = 32), diffuse large-cell lymphoma (DLBCL; n = 22) and DLBCL-leg type (n = 12). No significant correlation was found between doses and systemic treatments, extent of biopsy and number of lesions. DLBCL-leg type patients were older (p = 0.05), had disseminated disease (p = 0.034), and more frequently had local (p = 0.01) or systemic recurrence (p = 0.05). CTCLs were divided into 4 subgroups: α/ß CTCL (n = 3), nasal type CTCL (n = 0), γ/δ CTCL (n = 10) and mycosis fungoides (n = 10). Longer disease-free survival was observed in patients obtaining complete remission (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS:: Radiotherapy is feasible, safe and effective for localized PCLs. The choice of dose is related to histological subgroups and the related prognoses. Survival results are very good also in relapsing disease. In advanced cutaneous lymphoma radiotherapy alone has mainly a role in symptom palliation.

Light and shadows of a new technique: is photon total-skin irradiation using helical IMRT feasible, less complex and as toxic as the electrons one?

BACKGROUND: Radiotherapy is one of the standard treatments for cutaneous lymphoma and Total Skin Electrons Beam Irradiation (TSEBI) is generally used to treat diffuse cutaneous lymphoma and some cases of localized disease. Helical IMRT (HI) allows to treat complex target with optimal dose distribution and organ at risk sparing, so helical tomotherapy has been proposed as alternative technique to TSEBI but only one preliminary report has been published. METHODS: Three patients treated (from May 2013 to December 2014) with Helical IMRT, with a total dose between 24 and 30 Gy, were retrospectively evaluated. Data about dosimetric features, response and acute toxicity were registered and analyzed. Planned target coverage was compared with daily in vivo measures and dose calculation based on volumetric images used for set up evaluation as well. RESULTS: The patients had a mean measured surface fraction dose ranging from 1.54 Gy up to 2.0 Gy. A planned target dose ranging from 85 to 120% of prescription doses was obtained. All doses to Organs At Risk were within the required constraints. Particular attention was posed on "whole bone marrow" planned V10Gy, V12Gy and V20Gy values, ranging respectively between 23 and 43%, 20.1 and 38% and 9.8 and 24%. A comparison with the theoretical homologous values obtained with TSEBI has shown much lower values with TSEBI. Even if treatment was given in sequence to the skin of the upper and lower hemi-body, all the patients had anaemia, requiring blood transfusions, leukopenia and thrombocytopenia. CONCLUSION: Based on our limited results TSEBI should still be considered the standard method to treat total skin because of its pattern of acute and late toxicities and the dose distribution. In this particular case the better target coverage obtained with HI can be paid in terms of worse toxicity. Helical IMRT can instead be considered optimal in treating large, convex, cutaneous areas where it is difficult to use multiple electrons fields in relation with the clinical results and the limited and reversible toxicities.