[Role of gemcitabine in the treatment of other malignant tumors].

The therapeutic interest of gemcitabine both as a single drug and in combination is now well known and applied in various malignant diseases. However, it would be worth being further explored in two tumor models for which its efficacy has been suspected and which have been somehow "abandoned" by modern oncology after the demonstration of their high sensitivity to platinum derivatives, namely epidermoid tumours of the upper aero-digestive tract and uterine cervix. Combination studies should be encouraged in this setting.

Therapeutic advances in the management of metastatic colorectal cancer.

Metastatic colorectal cancer has long been considered as a short-term, poor prognosis, chemoresistant disease. Until the early 1990s, the impact of systemic chemotherapy on patient outcome was debated. Recently, the emergence of new therapeutic modalities (5-FU modulations and associations with oxaliplatin and irinotecan) has led to a significant improvement in tumor response rates and patient survival.

[Primary peritoneal tumors: report on a series of eight cases and review of the literature].

Primary peritoneal tumors are rare and yet not well-known malignancies. We report here the clinical cases of 8 patients who were referred to our institution with a primary peritoneal tumor, 4 serous carcinomas (PSC) and 4 malignant mesotheliomas (PMM). Diagnosis was available in all cases and reviewed by two pathologists.

The influence of mutation site and age on the severity of duodenal polyposis in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis.

Background: The present study was undertaken to identify factors affecting the severity of the duodenojejunal polyposis in patients with familial adenomatous polyposis.

Methods: Duodenojejunal polyposis was evaluated in 41 consecutive patients with familial adenomatous polyposis (mean age 41 years, range 21-63 years), 33 (80%) with known APC mutation, by using a standardized endoscopic protocol. The severity of the polyposis was graded with the Spigelman scoring system (0-12 points), the Spigelman score/age ratio, and the presence or absence of advanced adenomas (>1 cm in diameter and/or high-grade dysplasia).

Quality of life in patients at risk of medullary thyroid carcinoma and followed by a comprehensive medical network: trends for future evaluations.

Background: As shown in a previous study, the knowledge of the genetic risk in individuals belonging to families at risk of medullary-thyroid carcinoma (MTC) could be associated with impaired quality of life (QoL).

Patients And Methods: In the present study, we compared the QoL scores obtained in the same period with the subjective quality of life profile (SQLP): in 82 individuals at risk of MTC who had been tested for Ret-mutations; in 200 women at risk of familial breast/ovarian cancer syndrome (BOC); and in a control population of 3,501 healthy volunteers.

Results: Significant differences were observed in favour of healthy volunteers as well as individuals at risk of MTC, over women at risk of BOC (mean scores: 0.