[Supporting caregivers of children and adolescents with cancer]. / Accompagner les soignants auprès des enfants et adolescents atteints de cancer.

Caring for a child or adolescent with cancer remains a perilous professional exercise. Caregivers are not only subject to high technical demands (oncological treatments, surgery and resuscitation, rehabilitation and equipment) but also to an emotional and relational involvement inherent to their function. However, the regulation and transformation of affects mobilize a great deal of psychic energy in professionals who must preserve their internal resources as best they can. The point of view of the clinical psychologist will shed light on the mechanisms to be considered in order to support the capacity of the teams to care for and accompany sick children and their families throughout the care process.

[The role of the psychologist with children or adolescents with a bone tumor]. / La place du psychologue auprès de l'enfant ou de l'adolescent atteint de tumeur osseuse.

The psychologist practising both in a paediatric orthopaedic surgery department and a paediatric oncology department provides continuity for children and teenagers suffering from a malignant bone tumour, as well as for their family. Psychological support aims to help these young patients face the somatic and psychological upheavals with which they will be confronted throughout their treatment.

Spontaneous apoptosis in the intra-ductal component's stroma of breast invasive carcinoma.

Spontaneous apoptosis by in situ detection of DNA fragmentation (DNAf) was investigated in breast invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) frozen samples removed from 61 untreated patients. The incidence of DNAf was low in carcinoma cells and was mainly detected in the stroma. In the stroma at a distance from carcinoma cells, DNAf was inversely related to estradiol plasma level variations (p=0.01), indicating that it probably remained under physiological hormonal regulation. In the stroma adjacent to carcinoma cells, DNAf was correlated to tumor progression parameters such as the presence of a comedo intra ductal carcinoma (DCIS) component (p=0.001) and axillary lymph node metastasis (p=0.002), suggesting that this stromal compartment more probably represented a tumoral component closely associated to epithelial tumor cells. Therefore, the detection of DNAf in the adjacent stroma of breast carcinoma could help to predict progression in non invasive tumors and also in invasive tumors in those patients without lymph node invasion.