Comparing symptom reporting by prostate cancer patients and healthcare professionals in the international multicentre REQUITE study.

Introduction: Previous studies showed that healthcare professionals and patients had only moderate to low agreement on their assessment of treatment-related symptoms. We aimed to determine the levels of agreement in a large cohort of prostate cancer patients.

Methods: Analyses were made of data from 1,756 prostate cancer patients treated with external beam radiotherapy (RT) and/or brachytherapy in Europe and the USA and recruited into the prospective multicentre observational REQUITE study.

Association of CD4 Radiation-Induced Lymphocyte Apoptosis with Fibrosis and Telangiectasia after Radiotherapy in 272 Breast Cancer Patients with >10-Year Follow-up.

Purpose: Radiation-induced lymphocyte apoptosis (RILA) has been suggested as a predictive assay for adverse late reactions after radiotherapy. Thus, low RILA values of T-lymphocyte subpopulations have been associated with increased risk for various endpoints at 2 to 3 years of follow-up. The purpose was to test if such associations persist for specific endpoints (subcutaneous fibrosis, telangiectasia) in breast cancer patients with at least 10 years of follow-up.

XRCC1 Polymorphism Associated With Late Toxicity After Radiation Therapy in Breast Cancer Patients.

Purpose: To identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in oxidative stress-related genes associated with risk of late toxicities in breast cancer patients receiving radiation therapy.

Methods And Materials: Using a 2-stage design, 305 SNPs in 59 candidate genes were investigated in the discovery phase in 753 breast cancer patients from 2 prospective cohorts from Germany. The 10 most promising SNPs in 4 genes were evaluated in the replication phase in up to 1883 breast cancer patients from 6 cohorts identified through the Radiogenomics Consortium.

Genetic polymorphisms in DNA repair and damage response genes and late normal tissue complications of radiotherapy for breast cancer.

Breast-conserving surgery followed by radiotherapy is effective in reducing recurrence; however, telangiectasia and fibrosis can occur as late skin side effects. As radiotherapy acts through producing DNA damage, we investigated whether genetic variation in DNA repair and damage response confers increased susceptibility to develop late normal skin complications. Breast cancer patients who received radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery were examined for late complications of radiotherapy after a median follow-up time of 51 months.

Genetic predictors of long-term toxicities after radiation therapy for breast cancer.

Telangiectasia and subcutaneous fibrosis are the most common late dermatologic side effects observed in response to radiation treatment. Radiotherapy acts on cancer cells largely due to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS also induce normal tissue toxicities.