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Background Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are more effective than tamoxifen as neoadjuvant endocrine therapy (NET) for hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer. Here we report the surgical and long-term outcome of elderly postmenopausal patients with locally advanced, HR-positive breast cancer treated with preoperative AIs. Methods Between January 2003 and December 2012, 144 postmenopausal patients inoperable with breast conservative surgery (BCS) received letrozole, anastrozole, or exemestane as NET. Patients underwent breast surgery and received adjuvant AIs. Adjuvant systemic therapy, chemotherapy and/or trastuzumab, and adjuvant radiotherapy were administered as appropriate, but limited to high-risk patients with few or no comorbidities. Results After a median follow-up of 49 months, 4 (3.0 %) patients had local relapse, 18 (12.5 %) had distant metastases, and 24 (17.0 %) died. BCS was performed in 121 (84.0 %) patients. A tumor size

Purpose The aim of this study is to evaluate the long-term outcome of patients with locally advanced breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant systemic chemotherapy (NST) in routine clinical practice. Methods Four hundred and nine patients were identified between January 1999 and December 2011. All patients received NST followed by surgery, adjuvant treatments and radiotherapy, as appropriate. Results At Kaplan–Meier analysis, patients with surgical stage III disease were more likely to develop distant metastasis and die from breast cancer (p

Hydroxamate-based histone deacetylase inhibitors (Hb-HDACIs), such as vorinostat, belinostat and panobinostat, have been previously shown to have a wide range of activity in hematologic malignancies such as cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Recent data show that they synergize with a variety of cytotoxic and molecular targeted agents in many different solid tumors, including breast, prostate, pancreatic, lung and ovarian cancer. Hb-HDACIs have a quite good toxicity profile and are now being tested in phase I and II clinical trials in solid tumors with promising results in selected neoplasms, such as hepatocarcinoma. This review will focus on their clinical activity and safety in patients with advanced solid neoplasms.

A combined analytical/numerical approach is proposed to address the problem of the ship roll motion under the combined action of wind and waves. The approach is modular allowing an easy update of the methodology on the basis of new research outcomes. Realistic environmental conditions regarding both wind and waves are considered. The spatial correlation of wind gusts is taken into account by means of an “aerodynamic admittance” function. The proposed analytical procedure allows obtaining approximate statistical averages of the roll motion without necessarily resorting to time consuming Monte Carlo simulations. On the basis of the results obtained, an estimation of the capsize probability can be carried out. It seems that the effect of wind gustiness could be considered negligible when compared to the effect of waves and of mean wind speed if the ship roll period is not too large. Finally, the presented approach moves towards the concept of “performance based analysis”, recently introduced at IMO as the basis for future developments of Intact Stability, in a clear and formal way.

This paper addresses, starting from an extensive series of tests in longitudinal regular waves, the problems connected with the threshold formulation for parametric rolling and its amplitude modelling above threshold. Both head and following waves have been considered, also in view of the greater attention to head sea conditions called during IMO/SLF discussion on the revision of the Intact Stability Code. Particular attention is given to the nonlinear damping, nonlinear restoring and nonlinear parametric excitation terms. The mathematical models so developed are “compared” with experimental results by means of an ad hoc parameter estimation technique. The experimental results show that a preliminary analysis of the possibility of the onset of parametric rolling can be done by using standard hydrostatic packages allowing for the computation in longitudinal waves. The amplitude above threshold needs, however, a nonlinear approach. The subject is discussed in connection with a series of experiments on scale models of naval ships (a frigate and a destroyer) which exhibited large amplitude rolling in head waves in some loading conditions.