Dose-escalated Salvage Whole-pelvic Radiotherapy for Biochemical Recurrence After Radical Prostatectomy for High-risk Prostate Cancer.

Background/Aim: To investigate the institutional experience of dose-escalated salvage whole-pelvic radiotherapy (WPRT) with the simultaneous integrated boost (SIB) technique in patients with biochemical recurrence (BCR) after radical prostatectomy for high-risk prostate cancer. Patients and Methods: This retrospective study included 21 patients with BCR who received radical prostatectomy for high-risk prostate cancer and underwent salvage RT. Clinical target volume (CTV) of the whole pelvis (CTV56) included the prostate bed, common iliac, external iliac, internal iliac, and obturator lymph node regions. The boost CTV (CTV66) included the prostate bed. Planning target volumes (PTV) were generated by adding a margin of 6-8 mm to CTV (PTV56 and PTV66). Doses of 56.1 and 66 Gy in 33 fractions were delivered to PTV56 and PTV66, respectively. Results: The 5-year biochemical progression-free survival, overall survival, and cause-specific survival rates were 72%, 94%, and 94%, respectively. A grade 3 late genitourinary toxicity event of gross hematuria was observed in one patient (4%). Acute and late toxicities of grade ≥3, other than gross hematuria, were not observed in any patient. Conclusion: Dose-escalated salvage WPRT using the SIB technique provides appropriate tumor control without increasing the incident of significant toxicities.

Clinical Outcomes of Definitive Chemoradiotherapy for Cervical Esophageal Cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIM: To investigate the clinical outcomes of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) in patients with cervical esophageal carcinoma and analyze the prognostic factors. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Thirty-nine patients with cervical esophageal carcinoma were retrospectively identified among consecutive patients who received CCRT between November 2009 and September 2019 at our institution. The patients were treated by intensity-modulated radiation therapy (N=13) or three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (N=26). RESULTS: The median follow-up period was 35 months (range=2-158 months). There were 32 men and 7 women with a median age of 66 years (range=50-83 years). Clinical stages were I in 6 patients, II in 4, III in 19, and IV in 10. Hypopharyngeal invasion was noted in 8 patients. The initial treatment responses were evaluated 3-6 weeks after the final session of CCRT: a complete response (CR) in 24 patients, a partial response (PR) in 13, and stable disease (SD) in 2. Two- and 5-year overall survival (OS) rates were 73.8 and 59.4%, respectively. Two- and 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 57.8 and 48.0%, respectively. A univariate analysis identified the initial treatment response (CR or non-CR) as a significant factor for OS (p=0.0002) and PFS (p=0.0026). The CR rate was 81.0% in patients with T1-3 and 33.3% in those with T4 (p=0.0038). CONCLUSION: Patients with cervical esophageal carcinoma in Nagasaki University Hospital in Japan achieved superior outcomes compared with previous studies. CR rate was higher in patients with T1-3 and correlated with better OS.

Effectiveness of negative pressure wound therapy for the wound of ileostomy closure: a multicenter, phase II randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: The American Society of Surgery and American Society for Surgical Infections issued guidelines for surgical site infections (SSIs) in December 2016. These guidelines recommend a purse-string suture (PSS) for stoma closure as it facilitates granulation and enables open wound drainage. This study investigated the effect of using negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) along with standard PSS and aimed to determine the optimal period of NPWT use. METHODS: The patients were divided into three groups as follows: Group A, postoperative wound management alone with gauze exchange as the representative of conventional PSS; Group B, the performed management was similar to that of Group A plus NPWT for 1 week; and Group C, the performed management was similar to that of Group A plus NPWT for 2 weeks. Regarding objective measures, the wound reduction rate was the primary outcome, and the incidence of SSIs, length of hospital stay, and wound healing duration were the secondary outcomes. RESULTS: In total, 30 patients (male: 18, female: 12) were enrolled. The average age was 63 (range: 43-84) years. The wound reduction rate was significantly higher in Group B than in Group A on postoperative days (PODs) 7 (66.1 vs. 48.4%, p = 0.049) and 10 (78.6 vs. 58.2%, p = 0.011), whereas no significant difference was observed on POD 14. Compared with Group A, Group C (POD 7: 65.9%, POD 10: 69.2%) showed an increase in the wound reduction rate on POD 7, although the difference was not significant (p = 0.075). SSIs were observed in Groups B (n = 2) and C (n = 2) (20%) but not in Group A (0%). CONCLUSIONS: The most effective duration of NPWT use for ileostomy closure with PSS in terms of the maximum wound reduction rate was from PODs 3 to 10. However, NPWT did not shorten the wound healing duration. NPWT may reduce the wound size but should be used with precautions for SSIs. The small sample size (30 cases), the use of only one type of NPWT system, and the fact that wound assessment was subjective and not blinded were the limitations of this study. Further studies are needed to confirm our findings. TRIAL REGISTRATION: UMIN Clinical Trials Registry; UMIN000032174 (10/04/2018).

[Stoma care in patients with malignant disease].

The aim of stoma care and rehabilitation is improving the quality of life of the patient with a stoma. There are more than 1,700 stoma specialist nurses in Japan, eg, enterostomal therapists(ET)and wound, ostomy, and continence nurses(WOCN), who are involved in the care of patients with stomas. In this manuscript, we describe our role in the care of patients with temporary/permanent stomas created for emergency disease and/or palliative care, and the adverse effects of various current chemotherapies.

Application of an artificial neural network to high-resolution CT: usefulness in differential diagnosis of diffuse lung disease.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of our study was to evaluate the diagnostic performance of an artificial neural network (ANN) in differentiating among certain diffuse lung diseases using high-resolution CT (HRCT) and the effect of ANN output on radiologists' diagnostic performance. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We selected 130 clinical cases of diffuse lung disease. We used a single three-layer, feed-forward ANN with a back-propagation algorithm. The ANN was designed to differentiate among 11 diffuse lung diseases by using 10 clinical parameters and 23 HRCT features. Therefore, the ANN consisted of 33 input units and 11 output units. Subjective ratings for 23 HRCT features were provided independently by eight radiologists. All clinical cases were used for training and testing of the ANN by implementing a round-robin technique. In the observer test, a subset of 45 cases was selected from the database of 130 cases. HRCT images were viewed by eight radiologists first without and then with ANN output. The radiologists' performance was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis with a continuous rating scale. RESULTS: The average area under the ROC curve for ANN performance obtained with all clinical parameters and HRCT features was 0.956. The diagnostic performance of four chest radiologists and four general radiologists was increased from 0.986 to 0.992 (p = 0.071) and 0.958 and 0.971 (p < 0.001), respectively, when they used the ANN output based on their own feature ratings. CONCLUSION: The ANN can provide a useful output as a second opinion to improve general radiologists' diagnostic performance in the differential diagnosis of certain diffuse lung diseases using HRCT.