Cholangiocarcinoma, sequential chemotherapy, and prognostic tests.

Introduction: Routine blood tests are prognostic tests for patients with cholangiocarcinoma. New drug regimens may produce a median overall survival of 2 years or more.

Methods: This single practice, IRB-approved, phase II trial examines prognostic tests, Kaplan-Meier survival, and univariate Cox regression analyses.

Actionable tests and treatments for patients with gastrointestinal cancers and historically short median survival times.

Background: Patients have difficult unmet needs when standard chemotherapy produces a median survival of less than 1 year or many patients will experience severe toxicities. Blood tests can predict their survival.

Methods: Analyses evaluate predictive blood tests to identify patients who often survive 1 and 2 years.

Bevacizumab Added to Moderate-dose Chemotherapy for Refractory Uterine Cancer.

Background/aim: Bevacizumab (bev), when added to a moderate dose combination of previously failed cytotoxins, as a third- and fourth-line therapy for refractory gastric, cholangiocarcinoma, and ovarian cancers, produced high-quality responses. The regimen was based on preclinical models designed in order to simultaneously partner both bev and each of the cytotoxins with 4-5 synergistic drugs.

Patients And Methods: Eligible patients (n=9) had high-grade endometrial tumors and had failed standard chemotherapy.

Superficial femoral artery occlusive disease severity correlates with MR cine phase-contrast flow measurements.

Purpose: To evaluate how cine phase-contrast (PC) flow data correlate with the severity of peripheral vascular disease (PVD).

Materials And Methods: Flow waveforms were obtained in 48 patients proximal and distal to superficial femoral artery (SFA) disease using the 2D cine PC technique with velocity encoding (venc) = 100 cm/second. Flow data were correlated with SFA disease severity and compared with data from nine healthy volunteers.