First-line therapy outcomes in patients with advanced stage nonsmall cell lung cancer treated at nongovernment tertiary care centrer in India: Experience from a real world practice.

INTRODUCTION: Reports on first line or subsequent treatment and their outcomes for patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in India are scarce. The present study is an attempt to understand real world practice scenario of first-line therapy and outcome in advanced stage NSCLC patients. METHODS: Observational study was conducted at a nongovernment tertiary cancer care center. Totally 83 patients with newly diagnosed advanced NSCLC who were evaluated for further treatment from 2008 onward were included in the study. RESULTS: Best supportive care was the only treatment received in 11/83 patients. Sixty-three patients received platinum-based doublet chemotherapy and nine received epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) as first-line therapy. Pemetrexed and platinum was the most common first-line chemotherapy (56%) regimen used. First-line chemotherapy had to be discontinued in these eight patients due to Grade III/IV toxicity. Disease control rate with the first-line chemotherapy was 70% (partial response 38%, stable disease 32%). Median overall survival (OS) was 17 months with OS at 1 and 2 years was 52% and 29.5%, respectively. CONCLUSION: First-line platinum-based chemotherapy is feasible and does achieve disease control in the majority of patients with advanced NSCLC. Strategies of selection of therapy based on histology and the presence of driver mutations, use of small molecule TKI, maintenance therapy and multiple lines of therapies are being increasingly implemented in clinical practice and thus improving survival of Indian patients of NSCLC.

Oncology Gold Standard™ practical consensus recommendations 2016 for treatment of advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

The Oncology Gold Standard (OGS) Expert Group on renal cell carcinoma (RCC) developed the consensus statement to provide community oncologists practical guidelines on the management of advanced clear cell (cc) RCC using published evidence, practical experience of experts in real life management, and results of a nationwide survey involving 144 health-care professionals. Six broad question categories containing 33 unique questions cover major situations in the routine management of RCC. This document serves as a ready guide for the standard of care to optimize outcome. The table of "Take Home Messages" at the end is a convenient tool for busy practitioners.

Cytomegalovirus oesophagitis in a patient with Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is frequent in immunocompromised patients, especially in AIDS, organ transplantation and rarely in Hodgkin's disease and Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL). We present a case of NHL with CMV oesophagitis, which has rarely been documented in literature. Apart from fungal and herpes simplex infections, as the common differential diagnosis for oesophagitis in patients of lymphoma, CMV should be considered an important etiologic agent. Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of CMV oesophagitis with gancyclovir can avert significant morbidity and avoid unacceptable treatment delays.