[en] An external beam therapy with two fractions a day giving 48 Gy with 16 fractions and 45 days, initially palliative, has been shown to be well adapted for a simultaneous radiosensitizing chemotherapy employment. Associated to a cisplatin, fluorouracil, etoposide and hydrea based chemotherapy, it has been applied to 46 patients with inoperable stages IV ORL tumors including 91% T4, 9% T3, 48% N2N3, 72% performance status equal or less than 2. With a 30 months observation median delay a clinical complete response at 4 months is observed in 93%, with further locoregional relapses in 38%. One year survival is 58%, 2 years 40%, 3 years 35%. These results are equal or better than those obtained with hyperfractionated, accelerated, hyperfractionated and accelerated, and classical radiotherapy. (authors)

[en] The authors report a retrospective study of assessment of the tolerance to and of the activity of the trastuzumab in association with a total encephalic irradiation. The study is based on 31 patients suffering from brain metastases in relationship with a mammary cancer with HER2 expression, and who have been submitted to a total encephalic radiotherapy with a trastuzumab treatment. This medicine appears to be efficient and harmless. A clinic trial should confirm these results. Short communication

No abstract available

[en] The authors report a prospective assessment of toxicity a treatment comprising an adjuvant chemo-radiotherapy after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and a comparison with a treatment comprising only radiotherapy. Two sets of patients have been treated for a breast cancer between 1997 and 2002 by association of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy with or without concomitant chemotherapy. Late toxicity has been assessed prospectively according to Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events. Acute toxicity has been noticed in medical files. The analysis of 142 treatments reveals that the concomitant administration of chemotherapy to radiotherapy after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and surgery is associated with an increase of acute toxicity without increase of long term toxicity. Short communication

[en] Glioblastoma cells appear to be inherently radioresistant and to present a significant fraction of hypoxic cells. The most significant prognostic factors to compare results achieved in several series of patients are the age, performance status and quality of surgical resection. Several randomized trials have provided evidence supporting the efficacy of radiation therapy in the treatment of glioblastoma. Prescription of a 60 Gy dose delivered according to a conventional dose-fractionation scheme (single daily fractions of 1.7 to 2 Gy five times per week) in a target volume with a 2-3 cm margin of tissue surrounding the perimeter of the contrast enhancing lesion on computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging is derived from observations made in several retrospective and prospective studies. Evidence of improvement in survival was observed neither in patients receiving hyper-fractioned and accelerated radiotherapy, nor in patients for whom radiation sensitizers such as nitroimidazole compounds or halogenated pyramid analogs were associated to radiation therapy. The addition of nitrosourea to radiotherapy increases the 2-year survival rate by about 10 %. Combination of full-dose external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy or radiosurgery boost in selected patients with glioblastoma leads to an increase in the median survival while external beam radiation alone in patients with similar prognosis does not. (author)

[en] Short communication

[en] Purpose: the objective of this retrospective study was to evaluate the interest of the surgery in the inflammatory breast cancer. This study seems confirm that in the management of the inflammatory breast cancer, the addition of surgery to radiotherapy after a neoadjuvant chemotherapy increases the local control rate. Despite this three modes approach, the prognosis of this disease is unfavourable and efforts must be done in the future to improve the global survival rate. (N.C.)

[en] Antisense oligonucleotides represent a new class of therapeutic agents that could be directed against a variety of host and viral targets. Key to developing the use of these chemicals as drugs is the understanding of their biodistribution and metabolic properties. The purposes of this work were the radiolabelling and the biodistribution study of a 22 mers phosphodiester oligonucleotide (ON22). ON22 with a tyramine group in 5' terminal was ¹²⁵l radiolabelled and injected in normal mouse for imaging and in vitro study. The tyramine residue on ON22 allowed a high specific activity and stable labelling. Biodistribution showed a fast elimination by liver and kidney. Twenty four hours post-injection, 90% of ON22 were eliminated predominantly through the hepatodigestive (81)% and renal (9%) tracts. (authors). 17 refs., 4 figs., 4 tabs

[en] Objective of the study: To determine the necessity of surgery after complete clinical response to a neoadjuvant chemotherapy for the small stage breast cancers. Conclusion: the omission of mammary surgery for the patients in situation of complete clinical response to the neoadjuvant chemotherapy is not associated to an increased rate of distant metastases dissemination nor death. However, a trend in favour of a risk increased of locoregional recurrence has been observed in the exclusive irradiated group. The imaging seems essential to evaluate the response to the chemotherapy and to select the patients that could receive an exclusive irradiation. (N.C.)

[en] Several randomized trials have led us to address the usefulness of post-surgical external beam therapy (EBT) in non-oat cell bronchial carcinoma. Results that were obtained in a group of 374 patients submitted between 1977 and 1994 to identical therapy - the follow-up being done by the same team - and results of six randomized trials are analyzed. Results: The overall survival was 42 % at 5 years and 27 % at 10 years. The 5-year survival was 52 % for stage I cancer (T1N0-T2N0), 60 % for stage II cancer (T1N1-T2N1), 31 % for stage IIIa cancer (T3N0, T1-3N2), 45 % for complete resection and 30 % when resection was not complete. Conclusion: Regarding the benefits of post-surgical radiotherapy, the analysis of the randomized trials does not allow any conclusion. This might be due to either the insufficient number of cases, a follow-up time not long enough, incorrect radiotherapy, or insufficient available data. Comparison of the results pertaining to be six trials with those of our series shows an advantage for the current series, indicating that survival is likely to be improved if EBT is correctly done with regard to the dose, volume and technique used. (author)