Therapie der rezidivierten und fernmetastasierten Plattenepithelkarzinome des Kopf-Hals-Bereichs

This year, the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (R/M-HNSCC) was mainly dominated by immunotherapy. The corresponding studies are presented in another article. Beside this, results of phase II studies in particular were presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting, in which—as in recent years—new drugs (monoclonal antibodies, small molecules) played a major role. Furthermore, a clinical scoring system for prognosis evaluation in R/M-HNSCC patients was presented and the influence of HPV status on survival in this patient cohort was investigated. The studies presented herein reflect the different drug-based treatment concepts in R/M-HNSCC and represent the variety of therapeutic approaches in the recurrent and metastatic setting.     

Further Observations on Orbital

Vaginal epithelial cells mature from basal to intermediate to superficial cells. Estrogen causes more superficial cells to be shed, and the proportion of exfoliated cell types is called a Maturation Index. This index helps clinicians manage dysfunctional bleeding, evaluate hormone change at menopause or prepuberty, and predict ovulation.     

Die wichtigsten Studienergebnisse der prim?ren Radiochemotherapie von Kopf-Hals-Tumoren

Primary concomitant and sequential chemoradiation is a commonly used therapeutic strategy for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. At the annual meeting of the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology numerous trial results were presented. A selection of the most important trials will be summarized in this article. This year, several important results from phase III trials—including the long awaited comparison of sequential and concomitant chemoradiation—were demonstrated.     

Increased susceptibility of peripheral mononuclear cells of leukemic patients to HTLV-I infection in vitro

Peripheral mononuclear cells (MNC) collected from 12 healthy donors and 44 leukemic patients at various stages of the disease were tested for natural killer (NK) activity and for their susceptibility to HTLV-I infection in vitro, measured in terms of percentage of p19 positive cells. MNC from leukemic donors at any stage of leukemia (ie, onset or relapse, ON/REL; complete remission or off-therapy, CR/OT donors) were highly susceptible to HTLV-I infection. This was true for acute leukemias of lymphoblastic (ALL) or nonlymphoblastic (ANLL) type. MNC of ON/REL patients were more susceptible to HTLV-I than those of CR/OT donors. In addition, leukemic blasts were more rapidly infected (ie, within five to seven days) than the HTLV-I-susceptible normal cord- blood lymphocytes. However, the presence of circulating blasts was not essential to virus susceptibility, since CR/OT MNC, presumably free of leukemic blasts, were still more susceptible to HTLV-I than normal cells. Basal NK function of MNC from leukemic patients was significantly lower than that detectable in healthy controls. However, no correlation was found between susceptibility to HTLV-I infection and NK activity.