Publications by authors named "Dana Cernea"
Background: Craniospinal irradiation (CSI) is a complex radiotherapy (RT) technique required for treating specific brain tumors and some hematologic malignancies. With large volumes of hematogenous bone marrow (BM) being irradiated, CSI could cause acute hematologic toxicity, leading to treatment interruptions or severe complications. We report on the dynamics and dose/volume predictors of hematologic toxicity during CSI.
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- This study evaluates a deep-learning, MRI-based auto-contouring tool aimed at improving the speed and accuracy of delineating brain organs at risk during radiotherapy, compared to manual methods.
- The research involved analyzing data from thirty patients, where both AI-generated contours and manually corrected contours were compared using various accuracy metrics like Dice Similarity Coefficient and mean surface distance.
- Results indicated that auto-contouring was significantly faster than manual contouring, with good accuracy for larger structures; however, improvements are needed for smaller structures to enhance overall effectiveness in clinical practice.
Tomotherapy is a method of delivering rotational IMRT offering various advantages, notably for complex and large targets such as the cranio-spinal axis. This systematic literature review reports on main clinical outcomes and toxicities in patients with various cancer types that received whole craniospinal axis irradiation (CSI) using Tomotherapy and offers a comprehensive comparison between Tomotherapy and other radiotherapy delivery techniques. Databases including PubMed, PubMed Central, Embase, and Cochrane were searched using the keywords "tomotherapy" AND "craniospinal".
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- A study evaluated the effectiveness and safety of bevacizumab (BEV) for patients with recurrent glioblastoma who had already undergone first-line treatment with radiotherapy and temozolomide.
- The TAMIGA trial involved randomizing patients after they experienced disease progression into two groups: one receiving lomustine (CCNU) with BEV and the other receiving CCNU with a placebo.
- Results indicated that the trial was halted due to high dropout rates, with median survival slightly better in the CCNU + BEV group (6.4 months) compared to the CCNU + placebo group (5.5 months), but the difference was not statistically significant.
Background: Duligotuzumab, a novel dual-action humanized IgG1 antibody that blocks ligand binding to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 3 (HER3), inhibits signaling from all ligand-dependent HER dimers, and can elicit antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. High tumor-expression of neuregulin 1 (NRG1), a ligand to HER3, may enhance sensitivity to duligotuzumab.
Methods: This multicenter, open-label, randomized phase II study (MEHGAN) evaluated drug efficacy in patients with recurrent/metastatic (R/M) squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) progressive on/after chemotherapy and among patients with NRG1-high tumors.
Purpose: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive primary brain tumor. Despite maximal cytoreductive surgery followed by chemoradiotherapy the prognosis is still poor. Although surgery and radiotherapy may have reached maximal effectiveness, chemotherapy has the potential to improve survival.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Standard therapy for newly diagnosed glioblastoma is radiotherapy plus temozolomide. In this phase 3 study, we evaluated the effect of the addition of bevacizumab to radiotherapy-temozolomide for the treatment of newly diagnosed glioblastoma.
Methods: We randomly assigned patients with supratentorial glioblastoma to receive intravenous bevacizumab (10 mg per kilogram of body weight every 2 weeks) or placebo, plus radiotherapy (2 Gy 5 days a week; maximum, 60 Gy) and oral temozolomide (75 mg per square meter of body-surface area per day) for 6 weeks.