Use of immune checkpoint inhibitors in solid organ transplant recipients with advanced cutaneous malignancies.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) are standard of care therapy for patients with cutaneous malignancies, the most frequently diagnosed cancers in solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients. The activity and rate of allograft rejection in SOT recipients with advanced skin cancers treated with ICI is understudied.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of SOT recipients with advanced melanoma, cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC), and merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) who were treated with ICI.

Preoperative Carbohydrate Loading in Patients Undergoing Thoracic Surgery: A Quality-Improvement Project.

Purpose: The purpose of this project was to implement carbohydrate loading in patients undergoing thoracic surgery in an effort to decrease postoperative pain, nausea, and length of stay as a part of an enhanced recovery after surgery protocol.

Design: This quality-improvement project used a preintervention and postintervention design.

Methods: Carbohydrate loading was given to 50 patients before undergoing thoracic surgery.

Symptom Management for Patients With Esophageal Cancer After Esophagectomy.

KD is a 67-year-old man with a medical history of hypertension, asthma, and a 20-pack/year smoking history who developed progressive dysphagia 8 months ago. Upon consultation with his primary care provider, he underwent an esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) for evaluation. A friable mass was visualized at the gastroesophageal junction, and biopsies confirmed adenocarcinoma of the esophagus.

The Toxicity and Benefit of Various Dosing Strategies for Interleukin-2 in Metastatic Melanoma and Renal Cell Carcinoma.

Interleukin-2 (IL-2) therapy has been used with success in curing meta-static renal cell carcinoma and melanoma in a small minority of patients. However, the benefits can be accompanied by severe toxicity. This review of the literature discusses varying doses of IL-2 and their associated re-sponse rates and the toxicities associated with treatment.

Supratentorial extraventricular anaplastic ependymoma with extracranial metastasis.

Ependymoma is a relatively rare malignancy accounting for 2.0% of all primary central nervous system tumors in adults. Extracranial metastasis is a very uncommon complication of gliomas, especially of anaplastic ependymomas.