A natural language processing pipeline for pairing measurements uniquely across free-text CT reports.

Objective: To standardize and objectivize treatment response assessment in oncology, guidelines have been proposed that are driven by radiological measurements, which are typically communicated in free-text reports defying automated processing. We study through inter-annotator agreement and natural language processing (NLP) algorithm development the task of pairing measurements that quantify the same finding across consecutive radiology reports, such that each measurement is paired with at most one other ("partial uniqueness").

Methods And Materials: Ground truth is created based on 283 abdomen and 311 chest CT reports of 50 patients each.

Automatically pairing measured findings across narrative abdomen CT reports.

Radiological measurements are one of the key variables in widely adopted guidelines (WHO, RECIST) that standardize and objectivize response assessment in oncology care. Measurements are typically described in free-text, narrative radiology reports. We present a natural language processing pipeline that extracts measurements from radiology reports and pairs them with extracted measurements from prior reports of the same clinical finding, e.

A phase II study of lapatinib in recurrent/metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Purpose: This study sought to determine the efficacy and safety profile of lapatinib in patients with recurrent/metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN).

Experimental Design: This phase II multiinstitutional study enrolled patients with recurrent/metastatic SCCHN into two cohorts: those without (arm A) and those with (arm B) before exposure to an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor. All subjects were treated with lapatinib 1,500 mg daily.

Amongst eligible patients, age and comorbidity do not predict for dose-limiting toxicity from phase I chemotherapy.

Background: There are no clear predictors clinicians can use to determine who is more likely to experience dose-limiting toxicity (DLT) in phase I chemotherapy clinical trials. Many providers are reluctant to refer older adults to phase I trials because of concerns about the development of toxicity. The goal of this study was to identify clinical and nonclinical factors which were associated with the development of DLT in phase I studies.