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To systematically review the efficacy/safety of radiotherapy/temozolomide (TMZ) vs. radiotherapy for treating glioblastoma (GBM), Medline, Current Contents, and Cochrane database were searched. Five studies were reviewed. Median survival ranged from 9.4 to 19.0 months (radiotherapy/TMZ) vs. 7.3-17.1 months (radiotherapy). Survival ranged from 80.2% to 95.0% (radiotherapy/TMZ) vs. 8.3-84.2% (radiotherapy) at 0.5 years and from 20.0% to 61.1% (radiotherapy/TMZ) vs. 5.0-50.6% (radiotherapy) at 1 year. Median progression-free survival (PFS) ranged from 5.5 to 13.0 months (radiotherapy/TMZ) vs. 4.4-7.6 months (radiotherapy). PFS rates at 0.5 years ranged from 53.9-78.0% (radiotherapy/TMZ) vs. 53.9-78.0% (radiotherapy). Radiotherapy/TMZ provides better survival outcomes than radiotherapy alone in treating GBM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose To develop and validate prediction models of overall survival (OS) for head and neck cancer (HNC) patients based on image biomarkers (IBMs) of the primary tumor and positive lymph nodes (Ln) in combination with clinical parameters. Material and methods The study cohort was composed of 289 nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) patients from China and 298 HNC patients from the Netherlands. Multivariable Cox-regression analysis was performed to select clinical parameters from the NPC and HNC datasets, and IBMs from the NPC dataset. Final prediction models were based on both IBMs and clinical parameters. Results Multivariable Cox-regression analysis identified three independent IBMs (tumor Volume-density, Run Length Non-uniformity and Ln Major-axis-length). This IBM model showed a concordance(c)-index of 0.72 (95%CI: 0.65–0.79) for the NPC dataset, which performed reasonably with a c-index of 0.67 (95%CI: 0.62–0.72) in the external validation HNC dataset. When IBMs were added in clinical models, the c-index of the NPC and HNC datasets improved to 0.75 (95%CI: 0.68–0.82; p = 0.019) and 0.75 (95%CI: 0.70–0.81; p < 0.001), respectively. Conclusion The addition of IBMs from the primary tumor and Ln improved the prognostic performance of the models containing clinical factors only. These combined models may improve pre-treatment individualized prediction of OS for HNC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study compared the oral cavity dose between the routine 7-beam intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) beam arrangement and 2 other 7-beam IMRT with the conventional radiotherapy beam arrangements in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Ten NPC patients treated by the 7-beam routine IMRT technique (IMRT-7R) between April 2009 and June 2009 were recruited. Using the same computed tomography data, target information, and dose constraints for all the contoured structures, 2 IMRT plans with alternative beam arrangements (IMRT-7M and IMRT-7P) by avoiding the anterior facial beam and 1 conventional radiotherapy plan (CONRT) were computed using the Pinnacle treatment planning system. Dose-volume histograms were generated for the planning target volumes (PTVs) and oral cavity from which the dose parameters and the conformity index of the PTV were recorded for dosimetric comparisons among the plans with different beam arrangements. The dose distributions to the PTVs were similar among the 3 IMRT beam arrangements, whereas the differences were significant between IMRT-7R and CONRT plans. For the oral cavity dose, the 3 IMRT beam arrangements did not show significant difference. Compared with IMRT-7R, CONRT plan showed a significantly lower mean dose, V30 and V-40, whereas the V-60 was significantly higher. The 2 suggested alternative beam arrangements did not significantly reduce the oral cavity dose. The impact of varying the beam angles in IMRT of NPC did not give noticeable effect on the target and oral cavity. Compared with IMRT, the 2-D conventional radiotherapy irradiated a greater high-dose volume in the oral cavity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]