Measurement of tumor volume by PET to evaluate prognosis in patients with head and neck cancer treated by chemo-radiation therapy.

Purpose: To evaluate the prognostic value of the metabolic tumor volume measured on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) imaging and other clinical factors in patients treated for locally advanced head-and-neck cancer (HNC) at a single institution.

Materials And Methods: Between June 2005 and August 2008, 59 patients with HNC that underwent pretreatment FDG-PET studies received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Metabolically active tumor regions were delineated on the pretreatment PET scans by a fixed SUV of 2.

Influence of lactate dehydrogenase and cyclosporine A level on the incidence of acute graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

Previous reports have suggested that a high serum cyclosporine A (CsA) level could result in a lower incidence of acute-graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD). An elevated serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level has been reported to be an adverse predictor of outcome in stem cell transplantation (SCT) for acute myeloid leukemia. In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the records of 24 patients who received allogeneic SCT from an HLA-matched sibling donor for acute and chronic myelogenous leukemia.