[Treatment of bladder cancer in the elderly]. / Behandlung des Harnblasenkarzinoms im Alter.

BACKGROUND: In Germany, bladder cancer is the fourth most common malignancy in males, while it occupies the 14th place in females. About 75% of cases occur in patients aged 65 or more years. OBJECTIVES: Elderly patients with nonmuscle-invasive bladder cancer appear to harbor a higher risk of disease recurrence and progression and should undergo the same treatment and careful surveillance as their younger counterparts. Elderly patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer undergoing radical cystectomy are at an increased risk of perioperative morbidity and mortality and should be referred to experienced high-volume centers. CONCLUSION: Beside radical cystectomy as standard treatment, several bladder-sparing approaches (transurethral resection, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, chemoradiotherapy) are available which may be treatment alternatives in carefully selected cases. Valid randomized comparisons between these approaches and radical cystectomy are, however, still lacking.

[Incidental undifferentiated carcinoma of the prostate: A case with unusual diagnosis]. / Inzidentelles undifferenziertes Karzinom der Prostata : Ein Fall mit überraschender Wendung.

A 69-year-old man presented with an incidental undifferentiated carcinoma of the prostate. Ten years ago the patient had clinical stage I seminoma of the right testis with adjuvant radiotherapy. Follow-up care was without pathological findings. Staging examinations did not show metastatic disease. After radical prostatectomy with pelvic lymphadenectomy, the histological examination revealed a metastatic seminoma in the prostate. Therefore, the diagnosis was a late relapse in an extremely rare location. So far only four other reports describe testicular seminoma with metastases to the prostate.

A Framework for (Tele-) Monitoring of the Rehabilitation Progress in Stroke Patients: eHealth 2015 Special Issue.

BACKGROUND: Preservation of mobility in conjunction with an independent life style is one of the major goals of rehabilitation after stroke. OBJECTIVES: The Rehab@Home framework shall support the continuation of rehabilitation at home. METHODS: The framework consists of instrumented insoles, connected wirelessly to a 3G ready tablet PC, a server, and a web-interface for medical experts. The rehabilitation progress is estimated via automated analysis of movement data from standardized assessment tests which are designed according to the needs of stroke patients and executed via the tablet PC application. RESULTS: The Rehab@Home framework's implementation is finished and ready for the field trial (at five patients' homes). Initial testing of the automated evaluation of the standardized mobility tests shows reproducible results. CONCLUSIONS: Therefore it is assumed that the Rehab@Home framework is applicable as monitoring tool for the gait rehabilitation progress in stroke patients.

[Organ and function preservation in prostate cancer]. / Organ- und Funktionserhalt beim Prostatakarzinom.

BACKGROUND: Curative treatment for prostate cancer is associated with risks which may adversely influence quality of life. Furthermore, there is a considerable rate of overdiagnosis of tumors which would be non-life-threatening if left untreated. Efforts have been made to reduce overtreatment. DISCUSSION: Beside the traditional conservative symptomatic management especially in elderly patients with meaningful comorbidity, several prostate-sparing or deferred treatment options are currently discussed. For all of them, insufficient data on efficacy and safety are available. RESULTS: Because of the required long-term follow-up of large sample sizes, conclusive data will not become available in the near future. Therefore, these treatment options have to be considered experimental to a large degree. This applies both to focally ablative techniques and to active surveillance of prostate cancer in patients with a long further life expectancy. Only in carefully selected patients with favorable tumor-associated risk profiles and high risk of medium-term competing mortality may active surveillance be considered a valid and relatively safe treatment option.

[Implementation of the S3 prostate cancer guideline in daily clinical practice: results of a survey among urologists]. / Implementierung der S3-Leitlinie Prostatakarzinom im klinischen Alltag : Ergebnisse einer Umfrage unter Urologen.

BACKGROUND: Beside the quality of a guideline, the implementation in daily practice is of particular concern. The aim of this study was to determine the degree of implementation of the interdisciplinary S3 guideline on diagnostics and treatment of prostate cancer. METHODS: A questionnaire containing questions regarding the implementation of the S3 guideline was sent to 119 private practice urologists and 37 urologists working in hospitals. Comparisons were made with the χ(2) test. RESULTS: The response rate was 63%. Of the responding urologists, 93% reported that they used the guideline in the daily practice, while 95% considered the strong recommendations of the guideline as treatment standard. Urologists working in a hospital recommended the guideline less frequently to their patients as source of information (30 versus 58%, p = 0.0283), but more frequently to other physicians (95 versus 72%, p = 0.0294), than private practice urologists did. CONCLUSION: The interdisciplinary S3 guideline on diagnostics and treatment of prostate cancer is used by the vast majority of urologists in their daily practice. The strong guideline recommendations are considered as treatment standard. A more compact presentation and a propagation of the guideline outside the urologic community might improve implementation of the guideline.

[Age and comorbidity in early prostate cancer]. / Alter und Komorbidität beim frühen Prostatakarzinom.

With increasing age the risk-benefit balance of immediate curative treatment of early prostate cancer worsens. While the advantage of immediate intervention becomes increasingly uncertain the probability of unfavourable functional outcomes increases with an adverse impact on the quality of life. Therefore, a careful selection is particularly important in elderly patients with prostate cancer. For this purpose comorbidity classifications may be used; however up to now, there is no consensus on the instruments to be preferred and on the way of application. When different patient populations or clinical settings are considered the survival probabilities may differ significantly between patients with apparently identical levels of comorbidity. Therefore, when comorbidity classifications are intended to be used during treatment decision-making, it should be checked whether and how they are applicable in the individual clinical situation.

[Prostate-specific antigen for treatment monitoring]. / Prostataspezifisches Antigen zur Therapiesteuerung.

Today, most incident prostate cancer cases are diagnosed in early and thus potentially curable stages because of the determination of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Treatment monitoring is another important aspect of the tumor marker PSA. In this article, contemporary recommendations for the use of PSA in treatment monitoring are discussed in the settings of active surveillance, radical prostatectomy and radiotherapy.

Usage of international standards for integrating extramural monitoring and personal health device data into medical information infrastructure.

Integrating extramural measured devices data into medical information systems is becoming more and more attractive for integrated medical care. A lot of devices already have the ability to transfer measured data to mobile devices or computers and a few systems offer submitting data to a centralized information database or information system. Unfortunately, all of these devices use proprietary protocols and processes which makes integration into other systems a major problem. To address this problem the Healthy Interoperability project has been created with the objective of creating a framework for transferring health data based on international standards. The paper outlines how the framework architecture takes full advantage from the definitions of the international standards ISO 11073, HL7, IHE and CEN 13606. Even the definition of the user profiles and the security framework is based on standards from ETSI, ISO and CEN. By using these standards the framework can also perfectly be used for intramural communication.

[Pelvic lymphadenectomy and radical prostatectomy. Recommendations of the German S3 guideline]. / Pelvine Lymphadenektomie und radikale Prostatektomie. Empfehlungen der S3-Leitlinie.

Radical prostatectomy is the most frequently used treatment for localized prostate cancer. In contrast to other strategies radical prostatectomy has been shown to be superior to watchful waiting in a prospective randomized trial. According to the German S3 guideline patients have to be informed about the results of this trial prior to treatment decision. The aims and quality indicators of radical prostatectomy include--as has also been defined by the German Cancer Society for certified prostate cancer centers--complete removal of the prostate with negative surgical margins (R0) and preservation of continence as well as potency. In low-risk disease (according to D'Amico criteria) pelvic lymph node dissection may be abandoned. If lymphadenectomy is performed a minimum number of ten nodes should be obtained. An extended lymphadenectomy is recommended in locally advanced disease.Radical prostatectomy is a valid treatment option in locally advanced prostate cancer. In cases with Gleason score > or = 8 or clinical stage cT3/4 magnetic resonance imaging of the pelvis should be performed prior to treatment decision making. In patients undergoing radical prostatectomy (neo) adjuvant treatment should not be used (exception: adjuvant treatment for lymph node metastases). For the first time the German S3 guideline determines minimum surgery volumes aimed at quality assurance. Radical prostatectomy has to be performed under the supervision of an experienced surgeon. This includes the number of 50 prostatectomies per year and institution, 25 prostatectomies per surgeon, and an appropriate training program.

[Acute abdominal pain due to a ventriculo-peritoneal shunt metastasis of an intracranial germ cell tumor]. / Akute Nierenkolik aufgrund einer ventrikuloperitonealen Shunt-Metastase eines intrakraniellen Germinoms.

INTRODUCTION: Extracranial metastases of pineal germinomas are rare. CASE REPORT: The case of a metastasis of a primary intracranial germ cell tumor via a temporary-ventriculo-peritoneal shunt as a cause of acute abdominal pain is reported. The germ cell tumor markers were useful in establishing the diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: With an appropriate clinical history, intra-abdominal metastases via a temporary ventriculo-peritoneal shunt should be considered in the differential diagnosis of acute abdominal pain.

[Treatment of locally advanced prostate cancer]. / Therapie des lokal fortgeschrittenen Prostatakarzinoms.

The management of clinically locally advanced prostate carcinoma (cT3) remains a controversial issue. The clinical stage cT3 consists of a mixture of overstaged T2 carcinomas but also contains lymph node-positive cases. Treatment options consist of radical prostatectomy, external beam radiotherapy, hormonal deprivation (early or delayed) and the so-called watchful waiting. In many cases multimodal therapy is used. Radical prostatectomy in the clinical stage T3 can achieve acceptable tumour-specific survival rates if patients are well selected. In this way, tumour-specific survival rates can be reached for pT3 patients which closely approach those of pT2 cases. In lymph node-positive cases after radical prostatectomy adjuvant hormonal treatment can prolong survival, but not in lymph node-negative cases. A benefit of adjuvant radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy has not been proven. Although it can postpone or prevent biochemical recurrence, it does not prolong overall survival. Treatment of stage cT3 by external beam radiotherapy alone results in unfavourable tumour-specific survival rates. In these cases definite improvement can be achieved by adjuvant androgen deprivation with LHRH analogues. If in case of severe comorbidity or advanced age primary hormonal treatment is chosen, early vs deferred treatment seems to prolong survival marginally.

[The significance of comorbidity and age in radical prostatectomy]. / Bedeutung von Komorbidität und Alter bei der radikalen Prostatektomie.

The coexistence of another diagnosis beside the index disease under study is defined as comorbidity. Comorbidity increases with advancing age. In candidates for radical prostatectomy, two aspects of comorbidity are of interest: its association with perioperative complications and long-term survival. The Charlson score is the most extensively studied comorbidity classification for the prediction of long-term outcome. Several studies have identified this score as an independent prognostic factor in the prostate cancer setting. In addition to the Charlson score, data collected during the preoperative cardiopulmonary risk assessment may deliver information identifying patients with an increased long-term mortality risk. The meaningfulness of comorbidity in predicting overall mortality seems to be comparable to that of the Gleason score, the most important tumor-related predictor of survival in prostate cancer. The identification of prognostically relevant single conditions and the development of a "radical prostatectomy-specific" comorbidity classification might improve the stratification of candidates for radical prostatectomy in the future.

[PSA rise after radical prostatectomy]. / PSA-Anstieg nach radikaler Prostatektomie.

Approximately 18 % of patients will experience PSA failure only after radical prostatectomy. The rate of clinical (local or systemic) recurrence is in the same range. Clinical recurrence is accompanied by an increasing PSA in almost all cases. Altogether, the 10-year risk of PSA recurrence after radical prostatectomy for clinically localized prostate cancer is about 35 %. PSA relapse precedes the development of metastases by a median time of 8 years. The median survival after the manifestation of metastases is about 4-5 years. To differentiate the reasons of PSA failure, recurrence-free interval, Gleason score and PSA doubling time deliver important information. Patients with a high probability of isolated local failure (PSA relapse later than two years after radical prostatectomy) should undergo a biopsy, if a local radiotherapy is considered. The results of current clinical trials are eagerly awaited to answer the question weather immediate, delayed or intermittent hormonal therapy offer best results in individual cases.

pH-induced denaturation of spectrin changes the interaction of membrane proteins in erythrocyte ghosts. Biochemical and electron microscopic evidence.

The influence of different buffer pH values on the properties of spectrin in erythrocyte ghosts and on isolated spectrin was investigated. Ultrastructural findings and the results of biochemical studies show that denaturation and aggregation of spectrin molecules rather than disulfide crosslinking are responsible for the precipitation of spectrin in acidic buffer. Since hemolysis in hypotonic buffer at pH 6.0 yields ghosts with spicules and microvesicles, the structure of spectrin in intact cells might also be changed and lead to the clustering of transmembrane proteins and the aggregation of components of the cytoplasmic network.