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Introduction: Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is having a devastating psychological impact on patients, especially patients with cancer. This work aims to evaluate mood disorders of cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy during COVID-19 in comparison with cancer patients who underwent radiation therapy in 2019. Materials and Methods: We included all the patients undergoing radiation therapy at our department in two-time points (once a week for a month in May 2019) and during the COVID-19 outbreak (in April 2020). All the patients were asked to fulfill a validated questionnaire (STAI-Y1, State trait anxiety inventory scale), the Symptom Distress thermometer (SDT) (from 0 to 10 score), and the Beck Depression Inventory v.2 (BDI-2). We took into account the COVID-19 outbreak and also sex, age, week of radiation treatment, and disease. Results: We included 458 patients (220 males and 238 females), with a median age of 64 years. STAI-Y1 median score was 40 (mean 41,3, range 19-79), whereas the median score of SDT was five and BDI-2 median score was 11. STAI-Y1, SDT, and BDI-2 were significantly correlated with the COVID-19 outbreak (p < 0,001 for all the tests), sex (p: 0,016 for STAI-Y1, p < 0.001 for SDT, p:0.013 for BDI-2), week of treatment (p: 0.012 for STAI-Y1 and p: 0.031 for SDT), and disease (p:0.015 for STAI-Y1, p < 0.001 for SDT and p:0.020 for BDI-2). Conclusions: The prevalence of mood disorders in patients undergoing radiation therapy is higher than expected and even higher during the COVID-19 outbreak. These measurements could be useful as a baseline to start medical humanities programs to decrease these scores.
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Sinonasal carcinomas (SNcs) are rare neoplasms arising from the paranasal sinuses and nasal cavity. Although these tumours have a heterogeneous histology, they are commonly diagnosed as a locally advanced disease and are associated with a poor prognosis. The present retrospective study reviewed 30 patients with locally advanced SNc, who were treated with surgery followed by chemoradiotherapy or radiotherapy, or radiotherapy with or without concomitant chemotherapy between January 1999 and January 2013 at the Department of Radiation Therapy, University of Naples 'Federico II' (Naples, Italy). A total of 19 patients were treated with upfront surgery followed by adjuvant radio- or chemoradiotherapy (group A), while the remaining 11 patients received exclusive radiotherapy with or without concomitant chemotherapy (group B). Concurrent cisplatin-based chemotherapy (100 mg/m2, days 1, 22 and 43 for 3 cycles) was administered to 34% of patients in group A and 55% of patients in group B. At a median follow-up of 31 months, 33.3% of patients were alive. Cause-specific survival (CSS) and progression-free survival (PFS) times were 32 and 12 months, respectively. No difference in CSS rate was observed between the two treatment groups. Univariate analysis determined that disease stage was the only factor that significantly affected CSS (P=0.002) and PFS (P=0.0001) rates. Acute and chronic toxicities were mild, with only 23.3% of patients reporting G1-2 side effects and no treatment-related blindness. The present study reported moderate activity and efficacy of surgery followed by adjuvant radio- or chemoradiotherapy, and exclusive radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy in this poor prognosis category of patients.
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BACKGROUND: Our aim was to define predictors of late radiation-induced lung injury (RILI) in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) survivors treated with bleomycin-containing chemotherapy and radiotherapy. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Eighty consecutive patients treated with chemotherapy and subsequent supradiaphragmatic radiation therapy for HL were retrospectively reviewed for symptoms and/or radiological signs of RILI. Median patient age was 26 years (range 14-55). Left, right, and total lung dosimetric parameters along with clinical, disease, and treatment-related characteristics were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed. A receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to find possible cutoff values dividing patients into high- and low-risk groups. RESULTS: Seven of 80 (9%) patients had lung disease at baseline. Four of 80 (5%) had toxicity after chemotherapy and before the beginning of radiotherapy. These patients were excluded from further evaluation. At a median time of 10 months (range 9-18), 9/69 patients (13%) developed lung radiological changes on computed tomography (CT) after treatment. Four of nine patients were diagnosed RTOG grade ≥ 2. On multivariate analyses, left-lung V30 (p = 0.004, OR = 1.108 95% CI 1.033-1.189) and total-lung V30 (p = 0.009, OR = 1.146 95% CI 1.035-1.270) resulted to be predictors of lung CT changes with a cutoff value of 16% and 15%, respectively. When only symptomatic RILI was considered a left-lung V30 cutoff value of 32% was estimated. CONCLUSION: Bleomycin and RT may cause lung injury in a small, but significant fraction of HL patients. Left-lung V30 predicts the risk of developing asymptomatic or symptomatic RILI after sequential chemo-radiotherapy.