Radiological exams on end-stage oncologic patients before hospice admission.

Purpose: To evaluate frequency, type, and cost of diagnostic and interventional radiological exams performed on end-stage oncologic patients in the 90 days before Hospice admission.

Materials And Methods: Data of patients admitted to Hospice from January 2012 through June 2013 (18 months) were cross-checked with data from the digital archive of the Radiology Department. Frequency and type of exams performed before admission were analyzed across three 1-month periods, namely M, M, M, corresponding to 90-61, 60-31 and 30-1 days before admission.

Adjuvant treatment for locally advanced rectal cancer patients after preoperative chemoradiotherapy: when, and for whom?

Background: The standard treatment for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (clinical tumor, node, metastases [TNM] stage II or III) is radiotherapy before surgery (with or without concomitant fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy) followed by surgery. The role of adjuvant chemotherapy in this setting of patients is controversial in terms of the overall benefit on survival, the subgroup of patients who might not need it, and the best regimen (combination regimens vs. fluoropyrimidine alone).