Cardiotoxicity of mediastinal radiotherapy.

Aim: To explore available recent literature related to cardiotoxicity following mediastinal radiation.

Background: Radiotherapy-related heart injury is well documented, with no apparent safety threshold dose. The number of long-term cancer survivors exposed to mediastinal radiotherapy at some point of their treatment is increasing.

Breast cancer patients with brain metastases or leptomeningeal disease: 10-year results of a national cohort with validation of prognostic indexes.

Development of brain metastasis (BM) and leptomeningeal (LM) disease in breast cancer (BC) patients indicates poor prognosis and impairs patients' quality of life. Prognostic survival scores for BM can help predict expected survival in order to choose the most appropriate treatment. The aim of our study was to analyze national data for BC patients treated with radiation therapy for BM/LM disease and validate the applicability of different survival prognostic scores.