The treatment outcome of radical radiotherapy in laryngeal cancer.

OBJECTIVE: This study reports the treatment outcome of radiotherapy alone for laryngeal cancer MATERIAL AND METHOD: A retrospective analysis was performed on 138 patients with stage I to IV squamous cell carcinoma of larynx who received radiotherapy alone in Division of Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Thailand between 2003 and 2009. RESULTS: The 4-year local control (LC) rate in all patients was 44.1%. The 4-year overall survival (OS) was 82.1%. The 4-year LC rates for stage I, II, III, and IV were 75.3%, 69.4%, 57.1%, and 36.9%,respectively (p = 0.0055). Finally, the 4-year OS rates for stage I, II, III, and IV were 85%, 78.6%, 91.1%, and 71.5%, respectively. The laryngeal preservation rate of all stages was 73%. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the treatment outcome of radiotherapy alone in all stages of laryngeal cancer in our center was unsatisfactory when compared to other series.

Real-world outcomes of postmastectomy radiotherapy in breast cancer patients with 1-3 positive lymph nodes: a retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the treatment outcomes and to explore the determinants of clinical outcome in breast cancer patients with 1-3 positive nodes who did or did not receive postmastectomy radiotherapy (PMRT) in a tertiary care referral cancer center in Northern Thailand. METHODS: We investigated a retrospective cohort of registered breast cancer patients at the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Thailand from 2001-2007. Analysis was performed using Cox regression models to identify factors affecting the overall survival (OS) and relapse-free survival (RFS) rates. Comparisons were made between two cohorts: women who received adjuvant PMRT (74 patients) and women who did not receive adjuvant PMRT (81 patients). RESULTS: A total of 155 patients were included with a median follow-up period of 4.45 years. There was a statistically significant 4-year OS difference between the two groups of patients: 100% for the PMRT group and 93.1% for the non-PMRT group (P = 0.044). The 4-year RFS was 85.9% for patients receiving PMRT and 78.3% for patients who did not receive PMRT (P = 0.291). On multivariate analysis of OS, using hormonal treatment was the only significant independent factor associated with improved OS. On multivariate analysis of RFS, none of the variables were significantly associated with improved RFS. PMRT was notfound to be a prognostic variable related to the outcome of patients using a logistic regression model. CONCLUSION: Our retrospective, hospital-based analysis demonstrated that PMRT improved the treatment outcome in terms of OS for women with 1-3 node positive early-stage breast cancer.

Real-world outcomes of different treatments in the management of patients with HER-2 positive breast cancer: a retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the treatment outcome in terms of relapse free survival and overall survival, and explore the determinants of the clinical outcome in HER-2/neu positive breast cancer patients who received or not received adjuvant trastuzumab. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The authors reviewed retrospectively of newly diagnosed non-metastatic breast cancer patients at the Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University between January 2004 and December 2007. Comparisons were made between the two cohorts, women who did not receive adjuvant trastuzumab (100 patients) and women who received adjuvant trastuzumab (14 patients). RESULTS: The median follow-up time was 4.7 years. Four-year relapse-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients receiving trastuzumab was 92.3% and 100%, respectively. In the cohort of HER-2 positive patients who did not receive trastuzumab, the 4-year RFS in this group was 68.2% and 4-year OS was 87.8%. The difference was not statistically significant between the 4-year RFS rates (p = 0.103) and the 4-year OS rates (p = 0.214). By multivariate Cox regression analyses, only nodal status was identified as the independent predictors for superior RFS (hazard ratio 2.93; 95% CI, 1.07 to 5.88; p = 0.034) and none of the clinical parameters were significant predictors for 4-year overall survival. CONCLUSION: A hospital-based analysis of adjuvant Trastuzumab use in our center does not demonstrate the different treatment outcome. However there is a trend of favorable outcome in the group receiving adjuvant trastuzumab.