Steroid-sparing effects of angiotensin-II inhibitors in glioblastoma patients.

BACKGROUND: The standard of care in patients with glioblastoma (GBM) relies on surgical resection, radiation therapy (RT), and temozolomide. Steroids are required in almost all patients to reduce peritumoral edema, but are associated with numerous side effects. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a key driver of peritumoral edema and angiogenesis in human GBM. Recently, angiotensin-II inhibitors were reported to reduce VEGF secretion and tumor growth in some animal models. METHODS: To investigate whether angiotensin-II inhibitors might have a similar effect in humans and before undertaking a prospective study, we retrospectively investigated a series of 87 consecutive, newly diagnosed GBM patients, treated in a single center. Amongst these patients, 29 (33%) were already treated before RT for high blood pressure (HBP), 18 of them (21%) with an angiotensin-II inhibitor. In all patients, performance status, surgical procedures, and steroid dosages were documented. RESULTS: Patients treated with angiotensin-II inhibitors, but not other antihypertensive drugs, required half of the steroids of the other patients during radiotherapy (P = 0.005 in multivariate analysis, considering other antihypertensive treatments, surgical resection, and performance status). This effect of angiotensin-II inhibitors was also significant at the beginning of radiotherapy (P = 0.03 in multivariate analysis). Treatment with angiotensin-II inhibitors had no effect on survival (16.2 vs. 17.9 months for the treated and the non-treated group, respectively, P = 0.77). CONCLUSION: Angiotensin-II inhibitors might display significant steroid-sparing effects in brain tumor patients. Given the morbidity associated with steroids, this finding might have important practical consequences in these patients and warrants a randomized study.

Opalski syndrome detected on DWI MRI: A rare lateral medullary infarction. Case report and review.

INTRODUCTION: Wallenberg's syndrome and ipsilateral paresis due to combined infarction of the lateral medullary and cervical spinal infarction is known as Opalski syndrome. This rarely described syndrome was reported, to our knowledge, with DWI MRI, only once. CASE REPORT: We report the case of a 43-year-old man with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease who, after a brief episode of coma, developed Wallenberg syndrome and ipsilateral hemiparesis. Initial diffusion weighted-imaging MRI showed a high-intensity signal involving the lateral medulla oblongata and the spinal cord; but FLAIR MRI sequences showed bilateral high-intensity signals in the lateral medulla oblongata and spinal cord and high-intensity signals in the right and left cerebellar hemisphere in the PICA territories. MRI performed one year later showed an infarction involving the left medullary area and adjacent spinal segments alone. CONCLUSION: This observation illustrates a rare syndrome of lateral medullary infarction, associated with spinal cord infarction related to a possible transient basilar occlusion.

[Management of brain metastases from non-small cell lung carcinoma]. / Les métastases cérébrales des cancers bronchiques non à petites cellules : vers une prise en charge homogène.

INTRODUCTION: In France, approximately 30,000 new patients per year develop brain metastases (BM), most of them resulting from a lung cancer. STATE OF THE ART: Surgery and radiosurgery of all the BM must be considered when possible. In other cases, whole brain radiotherapy remains the standard of care. PERSPECTIVES: The role of chemotherapy, poorly investigated so far, should be revisited. CONCLUSION: This review focused on BM secondary to a non-small cell lung carcinoma.