Cancer bronchique non à petites cellules localement évolué : place de la chimioradiothérapie exclusive

Lung cancer is the most frequent form of malignant tumours. The prognosis is poor with a 5-year cure rate which increased from approximately 6% in the sixties to only 15% in the nineties. Surgery remains the reference treatment but only a small minority of patients (about 25%) present with operable disease. The post-surgical 5-year survival is only 25%, providing the rationale for the current research on adjuvant treatments for control of both local and metastatic disease. In that context, the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, commonly referred to as chemo-radiotherapy, has assumed considerable importance : either exclusively in inoperable patients (inoperable tumour or patients inoperable for medical reasons), or pre-operatively. This article reviews the results of the pivotal definitive chemoradiotherapy studies in non-metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer. With exclusive chemoradiation, the concomitant scheme seems to be the most favourable, results issued from randomised studies are expected to confirm that point. An increased toxicity is observed, and the advent of conformal therapy may allow another survival gain. Optimal treatments integration will be necessary.     

Apport de la radiothérapie guidée par l’image et repositionnement du patient dans le cancer anorectal

Intensity-modulated radiation therapy is recommended in anal squamous cell carcinoma treatment and is increasingly used in rectal cancer. It adapts the dose to target volumes, with a high doses gradient. Intensity-modulated radiation therapy allows to reduce toxicity to critical normal structures and to consider dose-escalation studies or systemic treatment intensification. Image-guided radiation therapy is a warrant of quality for intensity-modulated radiation therapy, especially for successful delivery of the dose as planned. There is no recommended international or national anorectal cancer image-guided radiation therapy protocol currently available. Dose-escalation trials or expert opinions about intensity-modulated/image-guided radiation therapy good practice guidelines recommend daily volumetric imaging throughout the treatment or during the five first fractions and weekly thereafter as a minimum. Image-guided radiation therapy allows to reduce margins related to patient setup errors. Internal margin, related to the internal organ motion, needs to be adapted according to short- or long-course radiotherapy, gender, rectal location; it can be higher than current recommended planning target volume margins, particularly in the upper and anterior part of mesorectum, which has the most significant movement. Image-guided radiation therapy based on volumetric imaging allows to take target volume shrinkage into account and to develop adaptive strategies, in particular for mesorectum shrinkage during rectal cancer treatment. Lastly, the emergence of new image-guided radiation therapy technologies including MRI (which plays a major role in pelvic tumours assessment and diagnosis) opens up interesting perspectives for adaptive radiotherapy, taking into account both organs’ movements and tumour shrinkage.     

Place de la chimiothérapie hyperthermique intrapéritonéale (CHIP) dans la prise en charge du cancer de l’ovaire : expérience monocentrique institutionnelle

The peritoneal carcinomatosis of ovarian cancer led to the development of optimal cytoreduction surgery completed by hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC). The main goal of this study is to evaluate the feasibility, tolerance and efficacy of this technique in patients with ovarian cancer. A retrospective monocentric study has evaluated 43 patients with HIPEC procedures from 1995 to 2009. After a complete cytoreduction surgery, a HIPEC procedure with cisplatin is performed. Data on complications and survival parameters were collected. Prognostic factors were also analyzed. Post-surgery complications included one death due to a septic shock (2.3%) and six patients have presented major complications (13.9%). The median of overall survival and progression free survival were 53.6 and 39 months, respectively. Patients with a primary complete surgical cytoreduction of the peritoneal carcinomatosis presented overall survival length of 131 months versus 84 months without initial complete resection (P < 0.0001). Surgical cytoreduction combined with HIPEC is a feasible procedure with acceptable morbid-mortality rates. The initial complete resection of the peritoneal carcinomatosis significantly increases survival and represents a strong prognostic factor.     

Radiothérapie des cancers épidermoïdes de la tête et du cou localement évolués : état de l’art,actualités et directions futures

Therapeutic principles of radiation therapy in head and neck carcinomas will be discussed in this review. Intensity-modulated radiotherapy with concomitant cisplatin should be standard. In case of contraindication to chemotherapy, cetuximab is an option, while hyperfractionation should be considered in patients unfit for concomitant treatment. Concomitant chemotherapy should be administered in the presence of extracapsular extensions and positive margins in the postoperative setting. Current research areas such as desescalation in human papillomavirus-positive tumours, adaptive radiotherapy, radiomics and immunotherapy will also be addressed.     

Les carcinomes du nasopharynx Les modalités de la radiothérapie et les associations de la radiothérapie et de la chimiothérapie: état actuel et perspectives

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a highly radiosensitive and chemosensitive. In the patient with locally advanced Humours, the results of conventional radiotherapy are unsatisfactory with significant rates of both local recurrences and distant metastases. The aim of this review is to report the innovative strategies for treatment of the nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Altered fractionation techniques can improve local control. The impact of the innovative techniques, including conformai radiation, stereotactic radiation and IMRT, on survival, must be evaluated in randomised trials. The encouraging early results obtained with concurrent (more than sequential) chemotherapy and radiotherapy must be confirmed in prospective randomized trial in endemic areas.     

Le rôle de la protonthérapie dans les cancers de l’oesophage

Because of the physical properties of proton beam radiation therapy (PT), which allows energy to be deposited at a specific depth with a rapid energy fall-off beyond that depth, PT has several theoretical advantages over photon radiation therapy for esophageal cancer (EC). Protons have the potential to reduce the dose to healthy tissue and to more safely allow treatment of tumors near critical organs, dose escalation, trimodal treatment, and re-irradiation. In recent years, larger multicenter retrospective studies have been published showing excellent survival rates, lower than expected toxicities and even better outcomes with PT than with photon radiotherapy even using IMRT or VMAT techniques. Although PT was associated with reduced toxicities, postoperative complications, and hospital stays compared to photon radiation therapy, these studies all had inherent biases in relation with patient selection for PT. These observations were recently confirmed by a randomized phase II study in locally advanced EC that showed significantly reduced toxicities with protons compared with IMRT. Currently, two randomized phase III trials (NRG-GI006 in the US and PROTECT in Europe) are being conducted to confirm whether protons could become the standard of care in locally advanced and resectable esophageal cancers.     

Associations d’hormonothérapie et de radiothérapie pour le cancer de prostate

Combination of radiotherapy and androgen deprivation is now considered as the standard of care for patients with a localized prostate cancer but poor prognosis factors. Two groups of randomized trials have led to this recommendation: some have compared radiotherapy alone versus hormonal treatment and radiotherapy: these trials demonstrated, now with a long follow-up, an improvement in 10-year survival for the combined treatment. Three recent trials compared androgen deprivation alone or combined with radiotherapy; a benefit in survival was also demonstrated in favour of the combination. Some questions remained concerning the optimal duration of hormonal treatment, in view of its potential side effects. Patients in the intermediate prognostic groups could receive a short-term androgen deprivation, but those with a high Gleason score must be treated with a long-term hormonal treatment. Modalities of radiotherapy, regarding volumes and dose must also be précised in the next years.     

Nouvelles techniques dans le cancer de la prostate localisé : chirurgie et radiothérapie

The management of localized prostate cancer has been marked over these last years by the importance of Active Surveillance for low risk forms. Indeed, the long follow-up and the quality of the results are now sufficient to offer this option even in relatively young people. However, the question is still under investigation concerning intermediate risk of prostate cancer. Patients’ selection and follow-up management are of very high importance. Another major evolution is the robotic assistance for radical prostatectomy. Even if the level of evidence is still low, the global utilization all over the world of robotic assistance is a major fact of these last years mostly explained by the difficulty to correctly perform manual laparoscopic surgical procedure. Lastly, the focal therapy of prostate cancer is a new concept. The development of this approach is authorized by the improvement of the quality of prostate MRI and the accuracy of prostate biopsy. Presently, the focal treatment has to be performed in clinical trials or maybe with the help of national database validated by all the actors concerned by the treatment of prostate cancer.     

Place de la chimiothérapie d’induction dans le traitement des carcinomes épidermoïdes des voies aérodigestives supérieures : contre

The treatment of locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is based on concomitant chemoradiotherapy. A sequential treatment combining induction chemotherapy with docetaxel, cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil (TPF), followed by (chemo)radiotherapy is frequently used as part of laryngeal preservation strategies. Apart from this particular situation, the benefit in terms of survival of induction chemotherapy has been much discussed in recent years. In five recent randomized trials, chemoradiotherapy was compared with TPF induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy. Of these five trials, four concluded that these treatments were similar. A single trial reports a benefit for induction chemotherapy but its methodology is highly debatable. After TPF chemotherapy, chemoradiotherapy is less well tolerated. In patients with significant lymph node invasion (N2b-c-N3), induction chemotherapy reduces the occurrence of distant metastasis. The HPV status should not influence the therapeutic decision.     

Radiothérapie et hormonothérapie pour le cancer de la prostate : acquis et interrogations

The combination of radiotherapy and androgen suppression with luteinizing hormone releasing hormone agonist is mainly devoted to locally advanced prostate cancer and intermediate or poor risk localized prostate cancer. They are based on phase III randomized trials which have shown that for locally advanced prostate cancer, a four-month complete androgen blockade initiated two months prior radiotherapy and stopped at the completion of radiotherapy increased overall survival in patients with Gleason scores 2–6, meanwhile, an adjuvant long-term androgen suppression (2.5 to three years) improved significantly the overall survival. Complete androgen blockade with a four to six months duration, combined with external irradiation, enhanced the overall survival in patients with intermediate or poor risk localized prostate cancer.