Whole body vibration exercise: are vibrations good for you?

Whole body vibration has been recently proposed as an exercise intervention because of its potential for increasing force generating capacity in the lower limbs. Its recent popularity is due to the combined effects on the neuromuscular and neuroendocrine systems. Preliminary results seem to recommend vibration exercise as a therapeutic approach for sarcopenia and possibly osteoporosis. This review analyses state of the art whole body vibration exercise techniques, suggesting reasons why vibration may be an effective stimulus for human muscles and providing the rationale for future studies.     

When are breast cancer patients old enough for the quitclaim of local control?

Background

Although postoperative radiotherapy (RT) after breast-conserving surgery (BCS) halves the 10-year recurrence rate in breast cancer patients through all age groups, the question of whether RT may be omitted and replaced by endocrine therapy for women aged 70?years and older with low-risk factors has recently become an issue of debate.

Methods

Survey of the relevant recent literature (Medline) and international guidelines.

Results

Three randomized studies investigating the effect of RT in older women revealed significantly increased local recurrence rates when RT was omitted, and a negative impact on disease-free survival was observed in two of these trials. Despite these findings, in one of the studies omission of RT in women over 70 is recommended, leading to a respective amendment in the guidelines of the American National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Several large retrospective cohort studies analyzing the outcome of patients over 65?years with and without RT have since been published and showed a significantly improved local control in all subgroups of advanced age and stage, which predominantly translated into improved disease-free and overall survival.

Conclusion

No subgroup of elderly patients has yet been identified that did not profit from RT in terms of local control. Therefore, chronological age alone is not an appropriate criterion for deciding against or in favor of adjuvant RT. The DEGRO breast cancer expert panel explicitly discourages determination of a certain age for the omission of postoperative RT in healthy elderly women with low-risk breast cancer. For frail elderly women, treatment decisions should be individually decided on the basis of standardized geriatric assessment.     

Radiosurgery for brain metastases at the Royal Adelaide Hospital: are we treating the right patients?

Although non-randomized data strongly suggest improved outcome from radiosurgery (RS) for brain metastases relative to whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) alone, selection factors account for much of the observed differences. This retrospective review of the 16 brain metastases patients treated so far with RS at the Royal Adelaide Hospital confirms a median survival of 10.1 months, consistent with recent multi-institutional pooled results and significantly longer than the median survival of 3-6 months typically reported for WBRT alone. The emerging randomized trials comparing surgery, RS and WBRT for brain metastases are reviewed in the context of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group Recursive Partitioning Analysis prognostic Class concept in order to assess whether we are using this resource intensive technique to treat the 'right' patients. We conclude that it is reasonable to continue our current policy of considering RS primarily for patients of good performance status with solitary brain metastases. We have a flexible approach to adjuvant WBRT which appears to decrease brain relapse, but not improve survival.     

Ultrasound: Can it replace CT in the evaluation of pneumonia in pediatric age group?

Aim of the study

To evaluate the ultrasound efficiency in the assessment of pneumonia in pediatric age group compared to CT as a trial for radiation exposure reduction.

Digital radiography: are the manufacturers' settings too high? Optimisation of the Kodak digital radiography system with aid of the computed radiography dose index

Manufacturers offer exposure indices as a safeguard against overexposure in computed radiography, but the basis for recommended values is unclear. This study establishes an optimum exposure index to be used as a guideline for a specific CR system to minimise radiation exposures for computed mobile chest radiography, and compares this with manufacturer guidelines and current practice. An anthropomorphic phantom was employed to establish the minimum milliamperes consistent with acceptable image quality for mobile chest radiography images. This was found to be 2 mAs. Consecutively, 10 patients were exposed with this optimised milliampere value and 10 patients were exposed with the 3.2 mAs routinely used in the department of the study. Image quality was objectively assessed using anatomical criteria. Retrospective analyses of 717 exposure indices recorded over 2 months from mobile chest examinations were performed. The optimised milliampere value provided a significant reduction of the average exposure index from 1840 to 1570 ( p<0.0001). This new "optimum" exposure index is substantially lower than manufacturer guidelines of 2000 and significantly lower than exposure indices from the retrospective study (1890). Retrospective data showed a significant increase in exposure indices if the examination was performed out of hours. The data provided by this study emphasise the need for clinicians and personnel to consider establishing their own optimum exposure indices for digital investigations rather than simply accepting manufacturers' guidelines. Such an approach, along with regular monitoring of indices, may result in a substantial reduction in patient exposure.     

Radiation exposures of cancer patients from medical X-rays: how relevant are they for individual patients and population exposure?

X-ray procedures have a substantial impact not only on patient care but also on man-made radiation exposure. Since a reliable risk-benefit analysis of medical X-rays can only be performed for diagnosis-related groups of patients, we determined specific exposure data for patients with the ten most common types of cancer. For all patients with the considered cancers undergoing medical X-ray procedures in a maximum-care hospital between 2000 and 2005, patient- and examination-specific data were retrieved from the hospital/radiology information system. From this data, the cumulative 5-year effective dose was estimated for each patient as well as the mean annual effective dose per patient and the mean patient observation time for each cancer site. In total, 151,439 radiographic, fluoroscopic, and CT procedures, carried out in 15,866 cancer patients (age, 62 ± 13 years), were evaluated. The mean 5-year cumulative dose varied between 8.6 mSv (prostate cancer) and 68.8 mSv (pancreas cancer). Due to an increasing use of CT scans, the mean annual effective dose per patient increased from 13.6 to 18.2 mSv during the 6-year period. Combining the results obtained in this study for a particular hospital with cancer incidence data for Germany, we estimated that cancer patients having X-ray studies constitute at least 1% of the population but receive more than 10% of the total effective dose related to all medical X-ray procedures performed nationwide per year. A large fraction of this dose is radiobiologically ineffective due to the reduced life expectancy of cancer patients.     

CT stroke window settings: an unfortunate misleading misnomer?

This commentary will discuss the use of the "stroke window" settings in the evaluation of CT head examinations and advocate their more widespread use in patients who present with neurological symptoms in addition to patients with suspected stroke. We present examples of the use of stroke windows, which revealed subtle abnormalities that were not readily apparent on default brain window settings and were subsequently confirmed on MRI or follow-up CT. As a result we suggest that stroke windows should be routine in the review of all CT head examinations.