Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0034065 (pulmonary embolism)
 14,979 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Malignant ascites is a pathological condition, due to several abdominal and extra-abdominal neoplasms, representing a difficult challenge in treatment. Different medical and surgical options have been proposed, but none of them have shown efficacy, leading only to partial and temporary relief of symptoms. Laparoscopic intraperitoneal chemotherapy may be a valid therapeutic option in patients in whom medical therapies have failed and peritoneovenous shunting is contraindicated. A 49-years old woman with malignant ascites, secondary to peritoneal localization of right pleural mesothelioma, underwent, after failure of medical therapy, laparoscopic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (with Cisplatin 25 mg/m2/L and Doxorubicin 7 mg/m2/L). An important and lasting reduction of ascites and abdominal symptoms was documented till the exitus, due to pulmonary embolism after 11 months. Laparoscopic intraperitoneal chemotherapy may be a good therapeutic option to palliative malignant ascites in patient not eligible for a radical cytoreductive treatment, but further investigations are needed to standardized dosage and perfusion procedure.
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PMID:[Laparoscopic intraperitoneal hyperthermic perfusion in palliation of malignant ascites. Case report]. 1950 18

Soft-tissue sarcomas are rare tumours of mesenchymal origin. Patients with metastatic disease have a median survival of about 10 months. Doxorubicin, an anthracycline, is often used to reduce tumour volume, but it does not prolong overall survival. Pazopanib, a multiple tyrosine kinase inhibitor already marketed for kidney cancer, is now licensed for the treatment of certain metastatic soft-tissue sarcomas when chemotherapy fails or when the disease progresses despite adjuvant or neoadjuvant therapy. Clinical evaluation of pazopanib in this setting is based on a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 369 patients whose tumours had progressed despite at least one line of chemotherapy, based on an anthracycline. In this trial, pazopanib did not provide a statistically significant increase in overall survival. The median survival time was about 12 months. A statistically significant increase in median progression-free survival was observed (4.6 versus 1.6 months, an increase of 3 months), based mainly on radiological criteria. Pazopanib did not improve quality of life. The adverse effect profile includes cardiovascular, gastrointestinal and hepatic disorders, and palmoplantar erythrodysaesthesia. Serious adverse effects are frequent. Other life-threatening adverse effects observed in patients with soft-tissue sarcoma include pneumothorax (especially in case of pulmonary metastasis), heart failure, venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and hypothyroidism. In practice, given its lack of any proven impact on overall survival and its excessive toxicity, the use of pazopanib is not justified. It is better to focus on appropriate symptomatic care in order to preserve these patients' quality of life.
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PMID:Pazopanib and soft-tissue sarcomas. Too toxic. 2386 45