Anna Roma

• Istituto Oncologico Veneto

254 Background: Early palliative care has been shown to improve patient (pts) and caregiver satisfaction, symptom control, quality of end-of-life care, cost and in some cases survival in pts with advanced cancer. In accordance with ASCO, ESMO and AIOM guidelines a Simultaneous Care Clinic (SCC) was set up at Veneto Institute of Oncology (IOV) since...

Purpose The SARS-CoV-2 spread has impacted Healthcare systems. COVID-19 pandemic has had consequences for patients with cancer, being associated with delays in diagnosis, in treatment And follow-up care, increase in overall infection rates and higher mortality. A survey on COVID-19 and a vaccination-questionnaire were developed at different times o...

Purpose: A multidimensional prognostic index (MPI) based on a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) has been developed and validated in independent cohorts of older patients demonstrating good accuracy in predicting one-year mortality. The aim of this study was to develop a cancer-specific modified MPI (Onco-MPI) for mortality prediction in old...

Purpose: The role of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) for soft tissue sarcomas (STS) is not standard practice. We investigated effectiveness and tolerability of ACT in patients (pts) with operated high-risk STS in clinical practice. Methods: Medical records of pts with localized STS referred to Istituto Oncologico Veneto, Padova, from January 1, 2003...

Objective: We evaluated the efficacy of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in recurrent disease, response to therapy, and long-term follow-up of ovarian cancer (OC) patients in relation to cancer antigen-125 (CA125) levels and the prognostic meaning of this modality in this subset of subjects. M...

Unlabelled: von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) is a rare hereditary condition caused by germline alteration of VHL gene predisposing to renal carcinoma and multiple other tumors. Since acquired dysregulation of VHL-dependent pathways is often present in patients with sporadic RCC treated with the anti-angiogenic drug sunitinib, there is a strong rationale to...

This review focuses on epidemiology, aetiology, clinical presentation, diagnosis, management, prognosis and follow-up of soft tissue sarcomas (STS) involving limbs and trunk. Any patient with a suspected STS should be referred to a specialized sarcoma centre and managed by a multidisciplinary group. The standard treatment is surgical excision follo...

Trabectedin is an alkylating agent registered in Europe for the treatment of advanced metastatic soft-tissue sarcomas, whose activity has been documented mainly in liposarcomas or leiomyosarcomas. Here, we report the response achieved in a patient with lung metastases from synovial sarcoma. A man with a large synovial sarcoma of the axilla underwen...

Gliomas are the most frequent primary brain tumors and the incidence data has increased in the elderly population. Unfortunately, prospective studies on this population are few and so the right treatment is unknown. In the elderly patients no standard treatment has been established and therefore the optimal treatment should be individualized. We pe...

Background: To date, there is no standard treatment for recurrent glioblastoma. We analyzed the feasibility of second surgery plus carmustine wafers followed by intravenous fotemustine. Methods: Retrospectively, we analyzed patients with recurrent glioblastoma treated with this multimodal strategy. Results: Twenty-four patients were analyzed....

Background We conducted a multicenter prospective trial to assess tolerability and activity of pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) in women ≥ 70 years with locally-advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Patients and Methods All patients underwent Multidimensional Geriatric Assessment (MGA). Frail patients were excluded. Normal cardiac function wa...

e15606 Background: The multi-target tyrosine-kinase inhibitor sunitinib has been widely used in first or subsequent lines of treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Since results of registrative clinical trials may be overestimated due to patient selection, outcome data of sunitinib in the routine clinical practice are warranted. Meth...

Background Actual tolerability of sunitinib is still poorly documented in elderly patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC).Patients and methodsCharts of elderly patients treated with sunitinib for mRCC were reviewed in six Italian centers to assess safety (primary objective), efficacy and correlation of toxicity with comprehensive geria...

Malignancy-associated hypercalcemia (MAH) is one of the clinical emergencies in medical oncology, arising early or, more often, during the late phases of disease. Prevalence cannot be estimated accurately because previous figures of 5-30% of all cancer patients have progressively reduced thanks to the widespread use of bisphosphonates for the preve...

Cancer-induced hypercalcemia (CIH) occurs in 5% to 30% of patients with cancer during the course of their disease, depending on the type of tumor. This review provides information on the pathophysiology and treatment of CIH. Enhanced bone resorption is the primary cause of CIH and the release of tumor-derived mediators induces this increase in oste...

Vinorelbine is a semi-synthetic vinca alkaloid that has been shown active in many tumor types and is currently registered for the treatment of advanced breast cancer (ABC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and it is used in other cancer type such as prostate cancer, lymphomas, gynecologic malignancies. This agent has a generally favorable saf...

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women worldwide, and represents the leading cause of death in the female population. Incidence of breast cancer increases with age, and older patients are more likely to have disseminated disease at diagnosis. For those patients who relapse after endocrine treatment or in which the tumor does not expre...

Prostate cancer is largely a disease of older men, with more than 90% of mortality observed in patients over 65 years. In the metastatic setting, a number of treatment options are available, with androgen-deprivation therapy being the first-choice, but few studies have examined the feasibility and efficacy of endocrine therapy and chemotherapy in m...

Malignancy-associated hypercalcemia (MAH) is the commonest cause of hypercalcemia in hospitalized patients. Its incidence is 15 cases per 100,000 person-year. Such complication develops in almost 10% of patients with advanced cancer representing, ultimately, the most frequent cause of death in several patients with cancer. Parathyroid hormone relat...

Breast cancer (BC) is the most common cancer in women, and the hormone receptor status is one of the most important prognostic factors in patients with BC. The aim of this study was to establish whether a relationship exists between the hormone receptor rate and the main classic risk factors in patients with BC. The data regarding a series of 351 c...

20064 Background: 1p and 19q deletions have been associated with a favorable response to chemotherapy and a good prognosis in patients (pts) with oligodendroglioma. MGMT promoter methylation has been associated with a longer survival in pts with glioblastoma who receive alkylating agents. As yet, there are no data on the expression of MGMT, and on...