Real-life management and outcome of thyroid carcinoma-related bone metastases: results from a nationwide multicenter experience.

PURPOSE AND PATIENTS: The M.O.S.CA.TI. (Metastases of the Skeleton from CArcinoma of the ThyroId) is a multicenter, retrospective study investigating the real-life outcome and management of bone metastases (BM) in 143 patients (63 M, 80 F; median age 64 years, range 11-87) with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC). RESULTS: Radio-active iodine (RAI) treatment was performed in 131 patients (91.6%), surgical approach and/or external radiotherapy in 68 patients (47.6%), and anti-resorptive bone-active drugs in 32 patients (22.4%; in 31 zoledronate and in one denosumab). At the start of treatment, 24 patients (75.0%) receiving anti-resorptive bone-active drugs had at least one clinical skeletal-related event (SRE) (p < 0.001). One or more clinical SREs (pathological fractures and/or malignant hypercalcemia and/or spinal cord compression) developed in 53 patients (37.1%). Development of SREs was significantly associated with metachronous BM (hazard ratio (HR) 2.04; p = 0.04), localization of BM to cervical spine (HR 3.89; p = 0.01), and lack of avid RAI uptake (HR 2.66; p = 0.02). Thirty-nine patients (27.3%) died in correlation with development of SREs (HR 6.97; p = 0.006) and localization of BM to the hip (HR 3.86; p = 0.02). Moreover, overall mortality was significantly decreased by RAI therapy (HR 0.10; p = 0.02), whereas no significant effects were induced by bone-active drugs (p = 0.36), external radiotherapy (p = 0.54), and surgery (p = 0.43) of BM. CONCLUSIONS: SREs are very frequent in BM from DTC and they impact patient survival. In the real life, the use of bone-active drugs is currently limited to zoledronate in patients with pre-existing SREs. In this clinical setting, RAI therapy, but not zoledronate, decreased mortality.

Right putamen and age are the most discriminant features to diagnose Parkinson's disease by using 123I-FP-CIT brain SPET data by using an artificial neural network classifier, a classification tree (ClT).

OBJECTIVE: The differential diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) and other conditions, such as essential tremor and drug-induced parkinsonian syndrome or normal aging brain, represents a diagnostic challenge. 123I-FP-CIT brain SPET is able to contribute to the differential diagnosis. Semiquantitative analysis of radiopharmaceutical uptake in basal ganglia (caudate nuclei and putamina) is very useful to support the diagnostic process. An artificial neural network classifier using 123I-FP-CIT brain SPET data, a classification tree (CIT), was applied. CIT is an automatic classifier composed of a set of logical rules, organized as a decision tree to produce an optimised threshold based classification of data to provide discriminative cut-off values. We applied a CIT to 123I-FP-CIT brain SPET semiquantitave data, to obtain cut-off values of radiopharmaceutical uptake ratios in caudate nuclei and putamina with the aim to diagnose PD versus other conditions. SUBJECTS AND METHOD: We retrospectively investigated 187 patients undergoing 123I-FP-CIT brain SPET (Millenium VG, G.E.M.S.) with semiquantitative analysis performed with Basal Ganglia (BasGan) V2 software according to EANM guidelines; among them 113 resulted affected by PD (PD group) and 74 (N group) by other non parkinsonian conditions, such as Essential Tremor and drug-induced PD. PD group included 113 subjects (60M and 53F of age: 60-81yrs) having Hoehn and Yahr score (HY): 0.5-1.5; Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) score: 6-38; N group included 74 subjects (36M and 38 F range of age 60-80 yrs). All subjects were clinically followed for at least 6-18 months to confirm the diagnosis. To examinate data obtained by using CIT, for each of the 1,000 experiments carried out, 10% of patients were randomly selected as the CIT training set, while the remaining 90% validated the trained CIT, and the percentage of the validation data correctly classified in the two groups of patients was computed. The expected performance of an "average performance CIT" was evaluated. RESULTS: For CIT, the probability of correct classification in patients with PD was 84.19±11.67% (mean±SD) and in N patients 93.48±6.95%. For CIT, the first decision rule provided a value for the right putamen of 2.32±0.16. This means that patients with right putamen values <2.32 were classified as having PD. Patients with putamen values ≥2.32 underwent further analysis. They were classified as N if the right putamen uptake value was ≥3.02 or if the value for the right putamen was <3.02 and the age was ≥67.5 years. Otherwise the patients were classified as having PD. Other similar rules on the values of both caudate nuclei and left putamen could be used to refine the classification, but in our data analysis of these data did not significantly contribute to the differential diagnosis. This could be due to an increased number of more severe patients with initial prevalence of left clinical symptoms having a worsening in right putamen uptake distribution. CONCLUSION: These results show that CIT was able to accurately classify PD and non-PD patients by means of 123I-FP-CIT brain SPET data and provided also cut-off values able to differentially diagnose these groups of patients. Right putamen uptake values resulted as the most discriminant to correctly classify our patients, probably due to a certain number of subjects with initial prevalence of left clinical symptoms. Finally, the selective evaluation of the group of subjects having putamen values ≥2.32 disclosed that age was a further important feature to classify patients for certain right putamen values.

Brain natriuretic peptide as a cardiac marker of transient radiotherapy-related damage in left-sided breast cancer patients: A prospective study.

PURPOSE: Our study evaluated brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) changes over time after adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) in women with left-sided breast cancer investigating its correlation with heart dosimetric parameters. METHODS: Forty-three patients underwent clinical cardiac examination, electrocardiogram (ECG), echocardiography and BNP measurement before RT (T0) and 1 (T1), 6 (T6) and 12 months (T12) after. After T12 cardiac assessment was performed annually in each patient. Mean values and standard deviation (SD) of BNP, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), V20, V25, V30, V45 and mean dose were calculated. Normalized BNP (BNPn) was calculated as follows: BNPnT1 = BNPT1/BNPT0, BNPnT6 = BNPT6/BNPT0, BNPnT12 = BNPT12/BNPT0. Absolute BNP and BNPn values were used for data analysis. RESULTS: Median follow-up from the end of RT to the last check-up was 87 months (range 37-120 months). Minimum follow-up was 74 months except for two patients, who died at respectively 37 and 47 months after RT. In all patients LVEF did not change significantly (p = 0.22) after RT. BNP increased significantly (p < 0.001), particularly 1 and 6 months after RT. It slightly decreased after 12 months. BNP did not correlate with V20, V25, V30, V45, mean dose and MHD. All BNPn correlated significantly (p < 0.05) with V20, V25, V30, V45, mean dose and MHD. Four patients had a cardiac event; in the only subject who developed myocardial infarction, V20, V25, V30 and V45 were the highest and BNP increased from T1 and persisted high even at T12. CONCLUSION: Our results confirm that BNP could be a useful minimally invasive marker of early RT related cardiac impairment.

Selective arterial embolisation for bone tumours: experience of 454 cases.

PURPOSE: The authors present the experience of a single institution with selective arterial embolisation for primary and metastatic bone tumours. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 365 patients were treated with 454 embolisation procedures from December 2002 to April 2010. Embolisation was the primary treatment for benign bone tumours, adjuvant treatment to surgery for benign and malignant bone tumours and palliative treatment for bone sarcomas and metastases. Indications for repeat embolisation included pain or imaging evidence of progressive disease: 105 patients had repeat embolisation at the same location at an interval of 1-3 months; 260 patients had one embolisation, 78 had two and 29 had three or more. In all patients, N-2-butyl cyanoacrylate (NBCA) in 33% lipiodol was the embolic agent used. RESULTS: A total of 419 of the 454 embolisations (93%) were technically successful. In 35 cases, embolisation was not feasible because of poor lesion vascularisation (21 patients with bone metastases and two with aneurysmal bone cysts), origin of the Adamkiewicz artery in the embolisation field (four patients with bone metastases and one with aneurysmal bone cyst), atheromatosis and arteriosclerosis (five patients with bone metastases) and anatomical and technical problems such as small-calibre vessels, many branches and acute vessel angles (two patients with bone metastases). A clinical response was achieved in 406 of the 419 procedures (97%), and no response in 13 procedures in patients with pelvis and sacrum tumours. Complications included postembolisation syndrome in 81 patients (22%), transient paraesthesias in 41 (11%), skin breakdown and subcutaneous necrosis at the shoulder and pelvis in five (1.4%) and paresis of the sciatic nerve in one (0.3%). CONCLUSIONS: We recommend embolisation as primary or palliative treatment or an adjunct to surgery for tumours of variable histology. Strict adherence to the principles of transcatheter embolisation is important. Arteries feeding the tumour and collaterals must be evaluated carefully and catheterised superselectively to protect the normal tissues. NBCA is considered the most appropriate embolic agent for small-vessel occlusion without major complications.