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)

Visual disturbances in patients with breast carcinoma may result from choroidal metastases. Metastases were bilateral in 41% of patients and the choroid was the first site of metastasis in 25%. Therefore awareness of this 'rare' condition is essential for any doctor seeing patients with breast cancer; consultation with an ophthalmologist and radiotherapist is mandatory. Radiation therapy is the treatment of choice, producing an 80% response rate (complete resolution in 25%). The final catastrophe of blindness in these patients can be prevented.
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PMID:Choroidal metastases from breast carcinoma: a survey of 42 patients and the use of radiation therapy. 120 51

Visual disturbances in advanced cancer patients are very rarely signaled, evaluated, or adequately treated. The main causes of sight disturbances are primary eye tumors, ocular metastases, and some paraneoplastic syndromes. Sight alteration can also be associated with asthenia, fatigue, anemia, and hypovitaminosis. These symptoms can be monocular or binocular, and their gravity and evolution can vary. Based on a survey of 156 patients, we estimate the prevalence of visual disturbances to be 12% in advanced cancer patients.
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PMID:Visual disturbances in advanced cancer patients: clinical observations. 1058 53

Treatment of medullary thyroid cancer is mainly based on surgery. Life expectancy exceeds 10 years in almost half of patients with inoperable advanced or metastatic disease. Cytotoxic chemotherapy is generally ineffective when this malignancy progresses. Vandetanib (Caprelsa, AstraZeneca), a multiple kinase inhibitor, is authorised in the European Union for use in this setting. Its clinical evaluation is mainly based on a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 331 patients, 70% of whom had progressed within the previous 6 months. Median follow-up (2 years) is too short to detect an impact on overall survival (about 85% in both groups). Analyses based on other outcomes (progression-free survival and pain) are unreliable, due to the large amount of missing data. The adverse effect profile of vandetanib is unfavourable: it includes diarrhoea and other gastrointestinal disorders, cardiovascular disorders, and cutaneous, neuropsychological, haemorrhagic and metabolic disorders. Visual disturbances have also been observed. Vandetanib also prolongs the QT interval: 3 cases of torsades de pointes and 9 sudden deaths have already been reported. Renal failure increases this risk. Numerous pharmacokinetic interactions are likely to occur, notably via cytochrome P450 isoenzyme CYP 3A4. Vandetanib reduces the effectiveness of levothyroxine. Vandetanib should not be combined with other drugs that prolong the QT interval. The long half-life of vandetanib (about 3 weeks) must be taken into account when managing interactions and adverse effects. There is no firm evidence that vandetanib has a favourable harm-benefit balance in patients with inoperable advanced or metastatic medullary thyroid cancer.
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PMID:Vandetanib: too dangerous in medullary thyroid cancer. 2318 43