Intensive nutritional care for patients treated with radiotherapy in head and neck cancer: a randomized study and meta-analysis.

Nutritional care improves quality of life (QOL) in head and neck cancer patients treated with radiotherapy. The aim of our study was to determine whether intensive nutritional care (INC) would further improve QOL. In addition to a control group based on European and American guidelines, patients included in the INC group received six meetings with a dietitian.

[Personal and social identity transformations that occur over time among patients with total laryngectomy].

Objective: To examine personal and social identity transformations that occur over time among patients treated for laryngeal carcinoma with total laryngectomy.

Method: Patients with laryngectomy and their family underwent interviews by a sociologist and a head and neck surgeon.

Results: The diagnosis of cancer fills the patient's mind with images of suffering and death.

Early response to chemotherapy in hypopharyngeal cancer: assessment with (11)C-methionine PET, correlation with morphologic response, and clinical outcome.

Unlabelled: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in hypopharyngeal cancer globally improves survival, but some patients do not respond to chemotherapy and adjuvant therapy is delayed. Prediction of response to chemotherapy may allow physicians to optimize planned treatment. The aim of this study was to compare treatment response assessed early with (11)C-methionine PET and morphologic response assessed after treatment completion with MRI.

Failure of antibiotic therapy in acute otitis media.

The aim of this retrospective study was to determine the possible causes of failure of antibiotic therapy in children with acute otitis media (AOM). Thirty-nine samples of middle-ear fluid were obtained by myringotomy from 31 children suffering from AOM, unrelieved by antibiotic therapy administered for over 48 hours. The samples were analysed by the usual microbiological techniques, including cultures, tests for beta-lactamase producing strains and the determination of the minimal inhibitory concentration of penicillin for Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Anatomic variations of the arteries of the nasal fossa.

Objective: This study was performed for knowledge about the vascular supply of the nasal fossa and a description of the site of division and number of branches of the sphenopalatine artery.

Study Design: This study was performed on 10 fresh nonembalmed cadavers. Anatomic variations of nasal fossa arteries were studied.