Correlation between oncological family history and clinical outcome in a large monocentric cohort of pediatric patients with rhabdomyosarcoma

International Journal of Clinical Oncology - Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), an aggressive soft tissue sarcoma of the skeletal muscle generally affecting children and adolescents, shows extensive...     

Psychological intervention in young brain tumor survivors: The efficacy of the cognitive behavioural approach

Purpose.?Cognitive and behavioural therapy (CBT) is often used to treat behavioural and emotional disorders in children, and its efficacy has been described in several studies. As behavioural and emotional disorders are frequent sequelae in brain tumor survivors, the goal of this work is to describe the efficacy of a CBT intervention in the treatment of young brain tumor survivors.

Methods.?Forty young patients, aged 4–18 years, were included in the study. The treatment group, composed of 17 patients, received sessions of CBT. The Child Behaviour Checklist 4–18 (CBCL/4–18) and the Vineland Adaptive Behavioural Scales (VABS) were administered to parents at the beginning and at the end of the hospitalisation. The statistical significance of changes for clinical subjects during the CBT administration was estimated.

Results.?With regard to the CBCL/4–18, the clinical group showed a significant advantage on the withdrawn, somatic complaints, social problems, attention problems, internalising and total problem scales. On the VABS, the treatment group improved to a significantly greater extent in the social skills domain.

Conclusions.?These results substantiate our assumption that CBT is an effective intervention for young patients surviving brain tumors and may be particularly helpful to younger individuals in managing cancer-related limitations.     

CHILDHOOD LIPOSARCOMA: A Single-Institutional Twenty-Year Experience

A retrospective observational study was performed on a series of 12 consecutive pediatric patients treated over a 20-year period at the Istituto Nazionale Tumori, Milano. Conservative surgery was the treatment of choice in all patients; radical excision was obtained at diagnosis in 9 cases and after primary chemotherapy in 1 case. Five patients were subjected to surgery alone, and one to postoperative radiotherapy. After a median follow-up of 11 years (range 1-20), all the patients were alive without evidence of disease, 11 in first complete remisson, and 1 after local relapse. In agreement with other reports, the authors underline the unquestionable pivotal role of radical surgery in the treatment of liposarcoma. The high proportion of resectable tumors accounts for the excellent survival of the patients in this study. The role of both adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy is uncertain and awaits multicentric cooperative prospective studies.     

Minimally invasive closure of patent foramen ovale through port-access surgery

Neurological Sciences - We present here our experience of patent foramen ovale closure through a mini-invasive surgical technique. With the new surgical platform termed Heartport System, it is...