Correction to: Surgical and oncological outcomes after complete mesocolic excision in right-sided colon cancer compared with conventional surgery: a retrospective, single-institution study.

The publisher regrets that some errors were introduced during the production process. The errors are now presented correctly in this article.

Surgical and oncological outcomes after complete mesocolic excision in right-sided colon cancer compared with conventional surgery: a retrospective, single-institution study.

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was whether complete mesocolic excision (CME) with central vascular ligation (CVL) is associated with a survival benefit compared with traditional procedure in right-sided colon cancer. METHODS: Overall, 251 consecutive patients underwent surgery for right colon cancer between 2007 and 2012. After exclusion, 95 subjects received non-CME surgery before 2010, and 97 subjects received CME surgery after January 2010, when we started to perform CME systematically. The number of lymph nodes, morbidity, and mortality was analyzed. Overall survival (OS) and disease-specific survival (DSS) were investigated. RESULTS: The median number of examined lymph nodes was 33.28 in the CME group and 26.92 in the non-CME group, p < 0.001. Postoperative complications were 21.6% in the CME group and 17.8% in the non-CME group, without significant difference. One out of 192 patients died. Three-year OS was 88% in the CME group and 71% in the non-CME group (p = 0.003). In stage II, 3-year DSS was 97% in the CME group and 86% in the non-CME group. In stage III, the 3-year DSSs in the CME and in the non-CME groups were 86 and 67%, respectively (p < 0.001). Cox's regression showed that CME (p = 0.0012), the number of lymph nodes (p = 0.029), and TNM stage (p < 0.001) were significant independent predictors of DSS at 3 years. CONCLUSION: Surgical standardization of CME with CVL for right-sided colon cancer is associated with better staging and prognosis, particularly in UICC stage II and III. This study shows that CME is safe and reproducible with acceptable morbidity.

Practical application of Octavius® -4D: Characteristics and criticalities for IMRT and VMAT verification.

Octavius® -4D is a very effective device in radiotherapy treatment quality assurance (QA), due to its simple set-up and analysis package. However, even if it is widely used, its main characteristics and criticalities were only partially investigated. Taking start from its commissioning, the aim of this work was to study the main dependencies of the device response. The outcome dependence was studied comparing results by different delivery techniques [Intensity Modulated Radiation Therapy, IMRT (n = 29) and RapidArc, RA (n = 15)], anatomical regions [15 head/neck, 19 pelvis and 10 pancreas] and linear accelerators [DHX (n = 14) and Trilogy (n = 30)]. Moreover, the agreement dependency on the section of the phantom was assessed. Plan evaluations obtained by 2D, 3D, and volumetric γ-index (both local and global) were also compared. Generally, high dose gradient resulted critically managed by the assembly, with a smoother effect in RA technique. Worse agreements emerged in the 2D γ-index vs those of 3D and volumetric (P < 0.001), that were instead statistically comparable in global metric (P > 0.300). Volumetric plan evaluation was coherent with the average of passing rates on the 3 phantom axes (r ≥ 0.9), but transversal section provided best agreements vs sagittal and coronal ones (P < 0.050). The three studied districts furnished comparable results (P > 0.050) while the two LINACs provided different agreements (P < 0.005). The study pointed out that the phantom transversal section better fits the planned dose distribution, so this should be accounted when a two-dimensional evaluation is needed. Moreover, the major reliability of the 3D metric with respect to the 2D one, as it better agrees with the dosimetric evaluation on the whole volume, suggests that it should be preferred in a two-dimensional evaluation. Better agreements, obtained with RA vs IMRT technique, confirm that Octavius® -4D is specifically conceived for rotational delivery. Lastly, the assembly resulted sensitive to different technology.

CBCT-based Prostate IGRT With and Without Implanted Markers: Assessment of Geometric Corrections and Time for Completion.

BACKGROUND/AIM: Cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) is the most commonly used system in modern radiotherapy of prostate cancer for daily positioning verification. The use of intraprostatic radiopaque fiducials (FMs) may be added to CBCT. We wanted to investigate the possible advantage of using FMs in daily CBCT repositioning. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We selected three CBCTs for each treatment course for 13 patients (seven with and six without use of FMs) treated at our centre. Seven experienced Radiation Oncologists retrospectively reviewed the CBCTs, recording couch movements for correct patient positioning, and time spent to do it. Analysis of variance and t-test were carried out for comparison of different groups and for differences in mean values of the movements recorded (with p<0.05 as significance level). RESULTS: No statistically significant difference was found between operators in the analysis of images with FMs nor of images without them. A difference was only found in the mean corrections in couch rotation and pitch angle, which were higher in the FM group, and in the mean time for image analysis, which was shorter in this group. Using the van Herk formula, we found a possible reduction of clinical target volume and planning target volume margins for the FM group. CONCLUSION: According to our study, the use of intraprostatic FMs in daily CBCT seems useful for better detection of and correction for non-negligible rotational errors. Furthermore, FMs reduced the time to treatment start, which is very important in reducing the risk of intrafraction organ motion. These results need to be confirmed by further studies.

Radiotherapy for head and neck cancer in Lombardy: a survey by the Lombardy Group of the Italian Association for Radiation Oncology.

AIMS: In 2013, a survey was conducted to analyze the available resources and their use in the radiation treatment of patients with malignancies of the head and neck region in Lombardy, on behalf of the Lombardy group of the Italian Association of Radiation Oncology. METHODS: A questionnaire was sent to 26 of 34 radiotherapy centers active in the region. Two centers were excluded because they did not treat head and neck cancers (Besta Neurological Institute and Cyberknife center), 4 had started their activity in 2013 or late 2012, and 2 satellite centers had their results included in the main center's response. Items investigated included number of patients with head and neck cancer treated in 2012, general technical issues, and integration with surgery and chemotherapy. RESULTS: Twenty-four questionnaires were returned (92% response rate). There was a good consistency on the use of radiotherapy in different settings, whereas integration with chemotherapy showed more heterogeneous data. Treatment techniques were 3D conformal radiotherapy or intensity-modulated radiotherapy with image-guided radiotherapy in most cases and a low rate of treatment-related death was observed. CONCLUSIONS: This survey provides important data on the use of radiotherapy resources for patients with head and neck cancer in Lombardy. The data offer the opportunity to further investigate issues that could better standardize head and neck cancer treatment and allocate resources across the region.

Sixth and seventh tumor-node-metastasis staging system compared in gastric cancer patients.

AIM: To investigate the clinical relevance and prognosis regarding survival according to the changes of the tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) in gastric cancer patients. METHODS: We retrospectively studied 347 consecutive subjects who underwent surgery for gastric adenocarcinoma at the Division of General Surgery, Hospital of Busto Arsizio, Busto Arsizio, Italy between June 1998 and December 2009. Patients who underwent surgery without curative intent, patients with tumors of the gastric stump and patients with tumors involving the esophagus were excluded for survival analysis. Patients were staged according to the 6(th) and 7(th) edition TNM criteria; 5-year overall survival rates were investigated, and the event was defined as death from any cause. RESULTS: After exclusion, our study population included 241 resected patients with curative intent for gastric adenocarcinoma. The 5-year overall survival (5-year OS) rate of all the patients was 52.8%. The diagnosed stage differed in 32% of 241 patients based on the TNM edition used for the diagnosis. The patients in stage II according to the 6(th) edition who were reclassified as stage III had significantly worse prognosis than patients classified as stage II (5-year OS, 39% vs 71%). According to the 6(th) edition, 135 patients were classifed as T2, and 75% of these patients migrated to T3 and exhibited a significantly worse prognosis than those who remained T2, regardless of lymph node involvement (37% vs 71%). The new N1 patients exhibited a better prognosis than the previous N1 patients (67% vs 43%). CONCLUSION: 7(th) TNM allows new T2 and N1 patients to be selected with better prognosis, which leads to different staging. New stratification is important in multimodal therapy.