Primary leptomeningeal medulloblastoma (PL-MB) in adults is a rare disease with a severe prognosis. A 35-year-old woman presented with headaches, diplopia, and gait ataxia, with triventricular hydrocephalus and descent of the cerebellar tonsils beyond the foramen magnum. Endoscopic third ventriculostomy was performed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRadiotherapy may cause valvular (VHD), pericardial, coronary artery disease (CAD), left ventricular dysfunction (LVD), arrhythmias. The risk of radiation induced heart disease (RIHD) increases over time. The current guidelines suggest a screening for RIHD every 5 years in the long-term survivors who had been treated by chest RT.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To analyze toxicity and outcome predictors in Ewing sarcoma patients with lung metastases treated with busulfan and melphalan (BU-MEL) followed by whole-lung irradiation (WLI).
Methods: This retrospective study included 68 lung metastatic Ewing Sarcoma patients who underwent WLI after BU-MEL with autologous stem cell transplantation, as part of two prospective and consecutive treatment protocols. WLI 12 Gy for <14 years old and 15 Gy for ≥14 years old patients were applied at least eight weeks after BU-MEL.
Medulloblastoma and central nervous system (CNS) germ cell tumors are very rare in adults, while they account for 25% and 5% of brain tumors in children, respectively (Pastore et al. Eur J Cancer 42:2064-208, 2006). Pediatric experiences, mostly from randomized and controlled clinical trials, have led to different tailored treatments, based on various risk factors, including histology, and extent of disease.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The aim of this study is to compare the prevalence of sleep disorders (SD) between children treated for brain tumors and healthy children, and to define the type of SD.
Methods: A case-control study was performed from October 2014 to April 2015. Inclusion criteria were patients between 2 and 16 years with "cases" defined as children affected by central nervous system tumors at least 3 months after the end of treatment (surgery and/or radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy) at the time of evaluation and "controls" as healthy children.
Società Scientifiche Italiane Insieme per gli Adolescenti con Malattie Onco-ematologiche (SIAMO) is an Italian nationwide scheme that focuses on adolescent patients with cancer. Some of its activities include promoting dedicated local projects at the various oncology centers all over the country and organizing events to improve awareness regarding cancer in adolescence. It is with these aims in mind that it organized the Winners' Cup, a football tournament between Italian adolescents who had (or had had) pediatric cancers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFHelical Tomotherapy (HT) is a highly conformal image-guided radiation technique, introduced into clinical routine in 2006 at the Centro di Riferimento Oncologico Aviano (Italy). With this new technology, intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) is delivered using a helicoidal method. Here we present our dosimetric experiences using HT in 100 children, adolescents and young adults treated from May 2006 to February 2011.
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