Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0027627 (metastases)
 103,950 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Recent improvements in imaging technics have led many physicians to propose an extensive work-up in non small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) without clear impact on the therapeutic decisions. In fact, it appears that patients with operable disease (stage I, II NSCLC) do not clearly benefit of such complete assessment in absence of symptoms. In the same way, patients with established metastatic disease (stage IV NSCLC) do not require an extensive work-up except when the evidence of a metastatic lesion has a clear specific impact. On the other hand, in case of locally advanced disease (stage III NSCLC), the decision of an aggressive therapeutic approach including surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy justify a complete assessment in order to control the lack of distant metastases.
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PMID:[Do clinical and non-specific biological data influence staging?]. 133 78

This study is based on a retrospective analysis of 163 patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer randomized to one of three Lung Cancer Study Group postoperative resection-adjuvant treatment protocols. All patients underwent rigorous surgical/pathologic staging including required removal and examination of bronchopulmonary, hilar, subcarinal, and paratracheal lymph nodes. Patients were grouped as follows: group I, only subcarinal nodes diseased (N = 40); group II, only high paratracheal nodes diseases (N = 32); group III, only mid-mediastinal nodes diseased (N = 48); and group IV, subcarinal nodes plus nodes from any other site diseased (N = 43). Patient deaths and tumor recurrences were recorded. The death rate was highest for patients with metastases to subcarinal nodes plus nodes in another site (group IV). Pairwise comparisons of the survival rates of patients in each group disclosed a significant difference between group III and IV (p less than 0.02). In view of this observation, the Lung Cancer Study Group recommends that all patients have rigorous mediastinal lymph node staging done at the time of pulmonary resection to establish prognosis and criteria for study of adjuvant treatment interventions.
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PMID:Should subcarinal lymph nodes be routinely examined in patients with non-small cell lung cancer? The Lung Cancer Study Group. 283 10

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was tested in non-small cell lung cancer in an attempt to increase the resectability of the tumor and to treat the microscopic metastatic disease known to be responsible for the majority of failures in surgically treated patients. This review deals with published trials. Most of them are feasibility studies in Stage III NSCLC. Obviously, the heterogeneity of eligibility criteria from one study to another prevents general conclusions on the usefulness of neoadjuvant chemotherapy. However, it is possible to conclude that neoadjuvant chemotherapy has an antitumor activity; the majority of the studies report a 60% objective response rate including a significant number of complete responses and a 50% complete resection rate. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy does not increase morbidity after surgery except when it is combined with preoperative radiation therapy. At the time of writing, one Phase III randomized study comparing neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery with surgery alone has been published. This study concludes that the combined modality treatment improves the survival of patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer. Taken as a whole, the literature deserves further studies to determine the place of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in lung cancer.
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PMID:Neoadjuvant chemotherapy of locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer. 755 18

Radiation therapy alone has been 'standard' management of patients with Stage III non-small cell lung cancer for several decades. Palliative benefits are routinely achieved but significant survival benefits have not been documented. Patterns of failure in Stage III patients emphasize the need to pursue better treatment for both local macroscopic disease and distant micrometastatic sites. Improved control in both areas will be necessary to meaningfully enhance outcome for the universe of Stage III NSCLC patients. Several randomized trials show a significant survival benefit when cisplatin-containing induction chemotherapy is administered prior to locoregional treatment. In the favorable subset of Stage III patients selected for study by CALGB, the surviving fraction at 2-5 years post-therapy was > or = 2-fold larger in the chemoradiation group than in the cohort treated with radiation alone. The French trial documented a significant decrease in distant metastases rate among the chemotherapy treated patients. In all the trials where patterns of failure are discussed, local disease persistence is the overwhelming rule. Future trials must evaluate improved induction chemotherapy approaches. Stage III patients are an ethical population in which to test induction therapy with new drug combinations randomized against already 'active' regimens for comparative efficacy. End points would be initial response rates, patterns of failure, and overall survival. The feasibility of high-dose chemotherapy regimens with growth factor and hematopoietic support followed by aggressive radiation must be tested. If feasible, trials randomizing high dose versus conventional dose induction programs within the context of sequential multimodality therapy should follow. Intensified radiation approaches such as hyperfractionation or CHART should be paired with active concurrent chemotherapy following induction chemotherapy alone. Pursuit of these approaches over the next several years will hopefully produce major improvements in treatment efficacy and lead to enhanced survival expectations for the large group of patients worldwide with Stage III NSCLC.
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PMID:The role of induction chemotherapy before radiation therapy in non-operative management of stage III NSCLC. 770 14

This paper analyzes our treatment results for a selected group of Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with irradiation alone. One, two and five-year survival rates were 42%, 20% and 6% respectively. Survival rates for patients with Stage IIIA and Stage IIIB disease were similar. Our results agree with the literature and confirm that 5% of selected patients with Stage III NSCLC will be disease free and potentially cured, five years after treatment with irradiation. Recurrence in the radiation field continues to be a major problem for patients with Stage III NSCLC, accounting for the initial site of failure in 40%-55% of patients. Improvements in local control will likely improve survival rates somewhat; but, because of the marked propensity for these cancers to ultimately metastasize, significant improvement in survival rates will only occur when effective systemic therapy becomes available.
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PMID:Radiation therapy for stage III non-small cell lung cancer: a curative treatment option. 812 61

Approximately 25%-30% of all patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) present with stage III tumors. Except for specific subsets, these tumors are not usually amenable to complete surgical resection and are associated with a 5-year survival of 10% or less. Because patients with stage III NSCLC die of distant metastases, recent efforts to improve the prognosis of these tumors have focused on neoadjuvant therapy using chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy as induction treatment and subsequent surgical resection for local control. Many trial have now shown the feasibility of neoadjuvant therapy and suggest that overall survival is approximately double that seen after surgical resection or radiation alone. Future clinical trials will define whether surgical resection after induction therapy provides better local and control and survival than chemotherapy and high-dose radiation alone.
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PMID:Resection of stage III non-small cell lung cancer following induction therapy. 855 72

Prognosis of Stage III NSCLC remains dismal, particularly when mediastinal nodal involvement is present. In order to improve local control and to reduce early distant failures, we have treated Stage III patients with concurrent chemoradiotherapy since 1989. From September 1989 to February 1994, 140 patients were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Among these, 24 initially inoperable patients became operable after induction chemoradiotherapy. Characteristics: median age 51 years (35-70); squamous: 45.8%; non squamous: 41.7%; median tumor size: 8 cm; T3 (79.2%); T4a (12.5%); N2 (62.5%) and N3 (8.3%). Preoperative radiotherapy was delivered at a dose of 45 Gy (25 f) over 5 weeks to the mediastinum. Concurrent chemotherapy was continuous infusion cisplatin (n = 10) or cisplatin plus etoposide (n = 14). Five weeks later, radical surgery was carried out (lobectomy n = 14, pneumonectomy n = 10), followed by additional chemotherapy (n = 12) and/or radiotherapy (n = 6), according to histological response. Pathological CR rate was 29.2%. Grade III toxicities were digestive (12.5%), hematologic (8.3%) and infectious (4.2%). Three patients had severe non-lethal postoperative complications with one hemorrhage and two pneumothorax (12.5%). With a median follow-up of 41 months, overall survival at 2 and 5 years was 77.5%, and 72%, respectively. Actuarial local control at 5 years was 82.4%. Nine patients presented with distant metastases, including six with isolated brain metastases. This preoperative chemoradiotherapy regimen appears feasible without overwhelming toxicity and with an acceptable rate of postoperative complications. Despite a significant incidence of isolated brain metastases (25%), 5-year survival is highly encouraging since and appears substantially better than primary surgery.
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PMID:[Preoperative radio-chemotherapy of stage III unresectable non-small cell lung cancer: results of a pilot study]. 868 81

The treatment outcome and prognostic factors for Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) invading the chest wall and treated with definitive radiation therapy alone were investigated. From 1976 to 1990, 40 consecutive patients with Stage III NSCLC invading the chest wall underwent radiation therapy alone. There were 31 with Stage IIIA and nine with Stage IIIB. Squamous cell carcinoma was present in 30 patients (75%). All the patients underwent radiation therapy at a total dose of 60-80 Gy at 2 Gy per fraction. Local pain completely disappeared in 11/13 (85%) and decreased in the remainder after treatment. The 5-year survival rate was 8% for all patients, 10% for Stage IIIA and 0% for IIIB (P = 0.02), 11% for lesions invading the parietal pleura and 0% for those invading the ribs or spine (P = 0.2). Good performance status, Stage IIIA, metastases of lymph nodes less than N3 and small tumor size were better prognostic factors by univariate analysis. By multivariate analysis, performance status (P = 0.01) and Stage (P = 0.03) were the important prognostic factors. Five-year local progression-free survival rates were 51% for patients with lesions invading the parietal pleura and 0% for those invading the ribs or spine (P = 0.009). Good pain relief was achieved in patients with lesions invading the ribs or spine by radiation therapy. Tumors invading the parietal pleura were fairly well controlled by radiation therapy alone.
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PMID:Radiation therapy for stage III non-small cell lung cancer invading chest wall. 931 8

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths, and approximately 85% of patients in whom this neoplasm is diagnosed will die of this disease as a result of micrometastatic disease from tumors that appeared surgically resectable or of surgically unresectable disease that is either locally advanced or metastatic. It will affect approximately 171,000 people in the United States in 1998 and about 75% of these cases will be non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In only 25% of cases can complete surgical resection and cure be considered. Despite this grim outlook, advances have recently been made that beckon in an era of cautious optimism. In this review, a discussion of the latest developments in the management of locally advanced and metastatic NSCLC will be presented in detail. One of the significant developments has been the modifications to the staging system after the natural history of various stages was better characterized by reviewing the outcome of more than 5000 patients. Advances have also been seen in the diagnostic field. Specifically, positron emission tomography and endoscopic ultrasonography and biopsy are being evaluated to determine their role in diagnosing and staging lung cancer. At the present, however, history and physical examination, serum evaluation, computed tomography, and conventional approaches for obtaining a histologic diagnosis are standard practice. The role of adjuvant therapy, both postoperatively and in the neoadjuvant setting, has been studied. There are no data to support the use of radiotherapy or chemotherapy, with or without radiotherapy, in the postoperative setting. In the neoadjuvant setting, some intriguing results in favor of adjuvant chemotherapy have been observed. As discussed in detail these results provide preliminary data and need to be evaluated on a larger scale. Before the 1990s radiotherapy was the principal treatment modality used in the treatment of patients with locally advanced NSCLC. However, the results of several studies have shown the superiority of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in combination for patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC. Many questions regarding the optimal modes of chemotherapy and radiotherapy and the timing of these two modalities have yet to be answered. Concurrent with these advances has been the development of new chemotherapeutic agents that have been extensively evaluated in phase I and II trials. These agents include gemcitabine, paclitaxel, docetaxel, vinorelbine, and irinotecan. These agents have shown significant activity and acceptable toxicity when used in combination with cisplatin or carboplatin, but the results from the large cooperative trials that are ongoing are eagerly awaited to help define the optimal regimen. Further studies are either planned or ongoing to further define the role of these newer agents in the treatment of metastatic disease, in combination with radiotherapy for unresectable disease, and in the surgical adjuvant setting.
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PMID:Treatment of advanced (stages III and IV) non-small-cell lung cancer. 958 Aug 49

For a long time, thoracic radiotherapy has been the standard treatment of stage III non-small cell lung cancer. Because of the low rate of cure and the high rate of metastases in this group, strategies that combine radiotherapy with chemotherapy have undergone extensive investigation during the past decade with both positive and negative results. The combined treatment can be administered either sequentially, concurrently, or in an alternating mode. Some of the randomized trials have reported a positive impact of the addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy with a positive impact of 2 to 4 months in terms of median survival. New therapeutic strategies are needed in order to improve control of both local disease and distant metastases. Improved local control could be achieved with higher radiation doses, conformal radiotherapy, altered fractionation schedules and possibly adjuvant surgery. Control of extrathoracic micrometastases may be improved with new combined modality strategies and new drugs. Increased toxic effects of these combined modality treatments should not diminish the expected therapeutic efficacy.
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PMID:[Radiotherapy in a multidisciplinary approach]. 969 Mar 11


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