Digestive toxicities after palliative three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) for cervico-thoracic spinal metastases.

OBJECTIVE: The palliative treatment for cervico-thoracic spinal metastases is based on a three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT). Digestive toxicities are common and cause a clinical impact frequently underestimated in patients. We performed a retrospective study of digestive side effects occurring after palliative 3D-CRT for cervico-thoracic spinal metastases. PATIENTS AND METHODS: All patients receiving palliative 3D-CRT at Jean Bernard Center from January 2013 to December 2014 for spinal metastases between the 5th cervical vertebra (C5) and the 12th thoracic vertebra (T12) were eligible. Three-dimensional conformal RT was delivered by a linear accelerator (CLINAC, Varian). Premedication to prevent digestive toxicities was not used. Adverse events ("esophagitis" and "nausea and/or vomiting") were evaluated according to the NCI-CTCae (version 4). RESULTS: From January 2013 to December 2014, 128 patients met the study criteria. The median age was 68.6 years [31.8; 88.6]. Most patients (84.4%) received 30 Gy in 10 fractions. The median overall time of treatment was 13 days [3-33]. Forty patients (31.3%) suffered from grade ≥ 2 of "esophagitis" (35 grade 2 (27.4%) and 5 grade 3 (3.9%)). Eight patients (6.3%) suffered from grade ≥ 2 of "nausea and/or vomiting" (6 grade 2 (4.7%), 1 grade 3 (0.8%), and 1 grade 4 (0.8%)). CONCLUSION: The high incidence of moderate to severe digestive toxicities after palliative 3D-CRT for cervico-thoracic spinal metastases led to consider static or dynamic intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) to reduce the dose to organ at risk (the esophagus and stomach). Dosimetric studies and implementation in the clinic should be the next steps.

Treatment of cutaneous and/or soft tissue manifestations of corticosteroids refractory chronic graft versus host disease (cGVHD) by a total nodal irradiation (TNI).

The management of corticosteroids refractory chronic graft versus host disease (cGVHD) remains controversial. Retrospective analysis of patients treated at the Integrated Center of Oncology by total nodal irradiation (TNI) was performed to evaluate its therapy potency. TNI delivers a dose of 1 Gy in a single session. The delimitation of the fields is clinical (upper limit: external auditory meatus; lower limit: mid-femur). No pre-therapeutic dosimetry scanner was necessary. Evaluation of the efficacy was by clinical measures at 6 months after the treatment. Twelve patients were treated by TNI between January 2010 and December 2013. TNI was used in second-line treatment or beyond. The median time between allograft and TNI was 31.2 months, and the median time between the first manifestations of cGVHD and TNI was about 24.2 months. Of the 12 patients, nine had a clinical response at 6 months (75%), including five complete clinical responses (41.6%). Five patients could benefit from a reduction of corticosteroid doses. Three patients had hematologic toxicity. TNI could be considered as an option for the treatment of a cutaneous and/or soft tissues corticosteroids refractory cGVHD. However, prospective randomized and double-blind trials remain essential to answer the questions about TNI safety and effectiveness.

Mapping of Recurrence Sites Following Adjuvant or Salvage Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer Patients.

INTRODUCTION: Although salvage and adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) are effective in prostate cancer (PC) patients, 30%-40% of men will have disease progression. The objective was to describe the pattern of recurrence in PC patients with biochemical failure (BF) following postoperative RT. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 935 PC patients treated from 2009 to 2019 with adjuvant or salvage RT at the Institut de Cancérologie de l'Ouest. Of these, 205 (22%) developed BF of whom 166 underwent imaging. Patients with identified radiologic failure prior any specific treatment were included to determine the site of relapse categorized as local (L)-only, locoregional (LR), or metastatic (M) recurrence. Main disease characteristics and RT fields were examined in relation to sites of recurrence. RESULTS: One hundred forty-one patients were identified with 244 sites of failure on imaging. Of these, 108 patients had received RT to the PB alone and 33 RT to the PB and pelvic lymph nodes (PB+PLN). Androgen-deprivation therapy was used concomitantly in 50 patients (35%). The median PSA at imaging was 1.6 ng/ml (range, 0-86.7). In all, 74 patients (52%) had M disease (44% in the PB group and 79% in the PB+PLN group), 61 (43%) had LR failure (52% in the PB alone group and 15% in the PB+PLN group), and six (4%) had L-only failure, at a median of 26.7 months (range, 5-110.3) from RT. Metastases were in extra-pelvic LN (37 (15%)), bones (66 (27%)), and visceral organs (eight (3%)). Fifty-three (48%) of the pelvic LN failures in the PB group would have been encompassed by standard PLN RT volume. CONCLUSION: We found that most patients evaluated for BF after postoperative RT recurred outside the RT field. Isolated pelvic nodal failure was rare in those receiving RT to the PB+PLN but accounted for half of failures in those receiving PB alone RT. Imaging directed salvage treatment could be helpful to personalize radiation therapy plan.

Cost-Effectiveness of Web-Based Patient-Reported Outcome Surveillance in Patients With Lung Cancer.

INTRODUCTION: A multicenter randomized clinical trial in France found an overall survival benefit of web-based patient-reported outcome (PRO)-based surveillance after initial treatment for lung cancer compared with conventional surveillance. The aim of this study was to assess the cost-effectiveness of this PRO-based surveillance in lung cancer patients. METHODS: This medico-economic analysis used data from the clinical trial, augmented by abstracted chart data and costs of consultations, imaging, transportations, information technology, and treatments. Costs were calculated based on actual reimbursement rates in France, and health utilities were estimated based on scientific literature review. Willingness-to-pay thresholds of €30,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) and €90,000 per QALY were used to define a very cost-effective and cost-effective strategy, respectively. Average annual costs of experimental and control surveillance approaches were calculated. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was expressed as cost per life-year gained and QALY gained, from the health insurance payer perspective. One-way and multivariate probabilistic sensitivity analyses were performed. RESULTS: Average annual cost of surveillance follow-up was €362 lower per patient in the PRO arm (€941/year/patient) compared to control (€1,304/year/patient). The PRO approach presented an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of €12,127 per life-year gained and €20,912 per QALY gained. The probabilities that the experimental strategy is very cost-effective and cost-effective were 97% and 100%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Surveillance of lung cancer patients using web-based PRO reduced the follow-up costs. Compared to conventional monitoring, this surveillance modality represents a cost-effective strategy and should be considered in cancer care delivery.

Voxel-Based Analysis for Identification of Urethrovesical Subregions Predicting Urinary Toxicity After Prostate Cancer Radiation Therapy.

PURPOSE: To apply a voxel-based analysis to identify urethrovesical symptom-related subregions (SRSs) associated with acute and late urinary toxicity in prostate cancer radiation therapy. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Two hundred seventy-two patients with prostate cancer treated with intensity-modulated radiation therapy/image-guided radiation therapy were analyzed prospectively. Each patient's computed tomography imaging was spatially normalized to a common coordinate system via nonrigid registration. The obtained deformation fields were used to map the dose of each patient to the common coordinate system. A voxel-based statistical analysis was applied to generate 3-dimensional dose-volume maps for different urinary symptoms, allowing the identification of corresponding SRSs with statistically significant dose differences between patients with or without toxicity. Each SRS was propagated back to each individual's native space, and dose-volume histograms (DVHs) for the SRSs and the whole bladder were computed. Logistic and Cox regression were used to estimate the SRS's prediction capability compared with the whole bladder. RESULTS: A local dose-effect relationship was found in the bladder and the urethra. SRSs were identified for 5 symptoms: acute incontinence in the urethra, acute retention in the bladder trigone, late retention and dysuria in the posterior part of the bladder, and late hematuria in the superior part of the bladder, with significant dose differences between patients with and without toxicity, ranging from 1.2 to 9.3 Gy. The doses to the SRSs were significantly predictive of toxicity, with maximum areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.73 for acute incontinence, 0.62 for acute retention, 0.70 for late retention, 0.81 for late dysuria, and 0.67 for late hematuria. The bladder DVH was predictive only for late retention, dysuria, and hematuria (area under the curve, 0.65-0.72). CONCLUSIONS: The dose delivered to the urethra and the posterior and superior parts of the bladder was predictive of acute incontinence and retention and of late retention, dysuria, and hematuria. The dose to the whole bladder was moderately predictive.

Chemotherapy of metastatic hepatoid adenocarcinoma: Literature review and two case reports with cisplatin etoposide.

Hepatoid adenocarcinoma (HAC) is a rare and aggressive cancer subtype with a poor prognosis under metastatic conditions. Currently, there is no specific chemotherapy treatment protocol for advanced stages of the disease. This review evaluates two cases of HAC of gastric cardia with synchronous liver metastasis, which were successfully treated by chemotherapy with cisplatin (25 mg/m2 each day) (day 1 to day 3) and etoposide (100 mg/m2) (day 1 to day 3), every three weeks. A structured literary evaluation and reviewed pertinent articles are additionally presented to analyse the different approaches for the treatment of metastatic HAC (mHAC). The two described case reports demonstrated good partial responses to treatment and one of the two patients exhibited a good prognosis after a 9-year follow-up. A total of 20 case reports concerning the use of chemotherapy in mHAC were presented in the literature, 11 of which were regarding gastric HACs. The two aforementioned cases result in a total of 22 reports, 11 of which exhibited objective responses to chemotherapy, 8 patients demonstrated a partial response and 3 a complete response. The cisplatin-based regimen concerned 55% (12/22) patients and enabled 9 (75%) to exhibit a partial or complete response. A total of three patients exhibited a good prognosis in the long-term follow-up, all of them treated with a cisplatin-based regimen. It was demonstrated that the usual digestive regimens were not efficient in the treatment of HAC. In the absence of prospective trials, it may be hypothesized that cisplatin-based chemotherapy may be the most efficient first-line treatment in mHAC, with a 75% patient response, in accordance with the literature and follow-up cases.

Multi-atlas-based segmentation of prostatic urethra from planning CT imaging to quantify dose distribution in prostate cancer radiotherapy.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Segmentation of intra-prostatic urethra for dose assessment from planning CT may help explaining urinary toxicity in prostate cancer radiotherapy. This work sought to: i) propose an automatic method for urethra segmentation in CT, ii) compare it with previously proposed surrogate models and iii) quantify the dose received by the urethra in patients treated with IMRT. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A weighted multi-atlas-based urethra segmentation method was devised from a training data set of 55 CT scans of patients receiving brachytherapy with visible urinary catheters. Leave-one-out cross validation was performed to quantify the error between the urethra segmentation and the catheter ground truth with two scores: the centerlines distance (CLD) and the percentage of centerline within a certain distance from the catheter (PWR). The segmentation method was then applied to a second test data set of 95 prostate cancer patients having received 78Gy IMRT to quantify dose to the urethra. RESULTS: Mean CLD was 3.25±1.2mm for the whole urethra and 3.7±1.7mm, 2.52±1.5mm, and 3.01±1.7mm for the top, middle, and bottom thirds, respectively. In average, 53% of the segmented centerlines were within a radius<3.5mm from the centerline ground truth and 83% in a radius<5mm. The proposed method outperformed existing surrogate models. In IMRT, urethra DVH was significantly higher than prostate DVH from V74Gy to V79Gy. CONCLUSION: A multi-atlas-based segmentation method was proposed enabling assessment of the dose within the prostatic urethra.

Randomized Trial Comparing a Web-Mediated Follow-up With Routine Surveillance in Lung Cancer Patients.

Background: The use of web-based monitoring for lung cancer patients is growing in interest because of promising recent results suggesting improvement in cancer and resource utilization outcomes. It remains an open question whether the overall survival (OS) in these patients could be improved by using a web-mediated follow-up rather than classical scheduled follow-up and imaging. Methods: Advanced-stage lung cancer patients without evidence of disease progression after or during initial treatment were randomly assigned in a multicenter phase III trial to compare a web-mediated follow-up algorithm (experimental arm), based on weekly self-scored patient symptoms, with routine follow-up with CT scans scheduled every three to six months according to the disease stage (control arm). In the experimental arm, an alert email was automatically sent to the oncologist when self-scored symptoms matched predefined criteria. The primary outcome was OS. Results: From June 2014 to January 2016, 133 patients were enrolled and 121 were retained in the intent-to-treat analysis; 12 deemed ineligible after random assignment were not subsequently followed. Most of the patients (95.1%) had stage III or IV disease. The median follow-up was nine months. The median OS was 19.0 months (95% confidence interval [CI] = 12.5 to noncalculable) in the experimental and 12.0 months (95% CI = 8.6 to 16.4) in the control arm (one-sided P = .001) (hazard ratio = 0.32, 95% CI = 0.15 to 0.67, one-sided P = .002). The performance status at first detected relapse was 0 to 1 for 75.9% of the patients in the experimental arm and for 32.5% of those in the control arm (two-sided P < .001). Optimal treatment was initiated in 72.4% of the patients in the experimental arm and in 32.5% of those in the control arm (two-sided P < .001). Conclusions: A web-mediated follow-up algorithm based on self-reported symptoms improved OS due to early relapse detection and better performance status at relapse.