[Role of MRI and CT in the evaluation of postirradiation status and complications in head and neck cancer]. / Az MRI és a CT szerepe a sugárterápia utáni státusz értékelésében, szövõdményeinek vizsgálatában, fej-nyaki daganatoknál.

Most head and neck cancer patients are treated with combined modalities such as surgery, radiotherapy (RT), chemotherapy (ChT). Concurrent chemo-radiation has improved treatment outcomes with increased toxic effects. Reactions after RT are divided into early and late changes. Early reactions are seen during the course of therapy or within 3 months; these are reversible in most cases. Late complications are observed 3 months to years after RT and they are generally irreversible. As typical late reaction radiation induced necrosis may occur in soft tissues, cartilage, bones and brain. Tumor recurrence and post-radiation necrosis typically appear at the same time, within 2-3 years after RT; the differentiation may be difficult. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have become the gold standards not only for staging and assessing tumor response, but also to evaluate posttreatment status, to distinguish residual or recurrent tumor and RT complications. Using baseline CT or MRI between 2-3 months after treatment and performing standard follow-up imaging with strict clinical follow-up are required to establish early salvage treatment.

[Standard CHOP immuno-chemotherapy for primary mediastinal lymphomas]. / A primer mediastinalis lymphomák standard R-CHOP immun-kemoterápiás kezelése.

INTRODUCTION: Primary mediastinal lymphoma (PMBCL) is an aggressive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma entity. It is a rare disease with specific clinical symptoms. The tumor is predominantly localized in the mediastinum but grows rapidly and infiltrates the surrounding tissues and organs. Two thirds of the patients are young females. Previous studies showed that third generation treatments are more effective than former standard cyclophosphamide-doxorubicin-vincristine-prednisolone (CHOP) regimens. AIM: Authors' goal was to assess whether adding the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody, rituximab to the standard CHOP regimen improves the efficacy of the treatment compared to their previous results with CHOP and third generation chemotherapy regimens. METHODS: Between October, 2002 and December, 2004 they have started the rituximab-CHOP (R-CHOP) treatment of 20 newly diagnosed, previously untreated PMBCL patients. Results were compared to the data of 24 patients receiving CHOP (n = 9) or procarbazin-prednisolone-doxorubicin-cyclophosphamide-etoposide-cytosin-arabinoside-bleomycin-vincristin-methotrexate (ProMACE-CytaBOM) (n = 15) treatment in the past. RESULTS: During an average follow-up of 64.6 months, the 5-year overall survival (OS) rate was significantly higher in the R-CHOP group compared to the CHOP treatment (79.4% vs. 33.3%; p = 0.026). However, due to the low number of cases, significant statistical difference could not be demonstrated in the 5-year event-free survival (EFS: 70.0% vs. 33.3%; p>0.05), disease-free survival (DFS: 70.0% vs. 33.3%; p>0.05) and relapse-free survival rate (RFS: 93.0% vs. 100%; p> 0.05), despite of the remarkable numeric difference. When comparing the 5-year survival rates of R-CHOP and ProMACE-CytaBOM treatments, the results were very similar without any significant statistical difference between the two types of treatment (OS: 79.4% vs. 80%; EFS: 70.0% vs. 60.0%; DFS: 70.0% vs. 60.0%; RFS: 93.0% vs. 82.0%; p> 0.05 in all cases). With adding rituximab to CHOP treatment, which was previously considered an insufficient treatment on its own, authors have obtained as good results in treating PMBCL as with third generation regimens. Patients have received the R-CHOP treatments without major side effects and mainly as out-patients. CONCLUSIONS: Standard R-CHOP treatment could therefore replace the more toxic third generation regimens in PMBCL as well. The data are comparable with those reported in the international literature.

[Results of immuno-chemotherapeutic treatment of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma]. / Diffúz nagy B-sejtes lymphomák immunokemoterápiás kezelésével elért eredményeink.

Treatment with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisolone (CHOP) has been considered as the standard therapy for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) for more than 20 years. CHOP treatment in combination with targeted immunotherapy, rituximab (R-CHOP), resulted in significant improvements in the treatment of this group of patients. In this study, efficacy of R-CHOP and R-CHOP-like treatments was analysed. Results were compared to the data of historical patients only receiving CHOP treatment or CHOP-like treatment. Between September 2002 and April 2005, 140 newly diagnosed, untreated DLBCL patients started to receive R-CHOP treatment in a single centre. The eligibility criteria included advanced stage (clinical stages III-IV), or large tumour size (>7 cm) and/or symptom B or extranodal manifestation in the case of clinical stages I-II. The results were compared to the data of 130 patients only receiving CHOP treatment in the past. In the patients receiving R-CHOP, the therapeutic outcomes were superior for all parameters. During an average follow-up period of 44 or 52 months, the overall remission rate was 73.6% in the R-CHOP group in comparison with 47.7% in the CHOP group. The 5-year overall survival was 68.6% vs. 41.0% (RR: 0.4293, CI: 0.2963-0.6221; p < 0.0001), the event-free survival was 59.8% vs. 33.5% (RR: 0.5038, CI: 0.3606-0.7038; p < 0.0001) and the progression-free survival was 64.4% vs. 37.6% (RR: 0.4915, CI: 0.3442-0.7019; p < 0.0001). Since prognostic parameters were more favourable in the R-CHOP group, patient groups were also compared using the International Prognostic Index score. Again, significant differences were revealed by the subgroup analyses. The 5-year overall survival was 74.4% vs. 47.9% (RR: 0.4475, CI: 0.2418-0.8285; p = 0.0084) and 52.0% vs. 28.8% (RR: 0.4989, CI: 0.3098-0.8035; p = 0.003) in the group with good prognosis and in the group with poor prognosis, respectively. In the group with very good prognosis, the statistical difference between the two groups in terms of the 5-year survival parameters remained undetectable as a result of the already very high therapeutic effect and low case number (OS and EFS: CHOP: 100% and 62.5% vs. R-CHOP: 90.9% and 87.0%; p = 0.3873 and p = 0.1702). Combining the standard CHOP treatment with rituximab resulted in a significant improvement of the therapeutic outcomes irrespective of the prognostic grouping. The data are comparable with those reported in the international literature.