Radioimmunotherapy using 131I-rituximab in patients with advanced stage B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma: initial experience.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to evaluate the safety, toxicity and therapeutic response of non-myeloablative radioimmunotherapy using 131I-rituximab in previously heavily treated patients with B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (B-NHL).

Methods: Nine patients with relapsed, refractory or transformed B-NHL received ten radioimmunotherapies. Patients had a median of 5 (range 2-7) prior standard therapies.

90Y microsphere treatment of unresectable liver metastases: changes in 18F-FDG uptake and tumour size on PET/CT.

Purpose: The intra-arterial administration of 90Y microspheres is a new palliative treatment option for unresectable liver metastases. The aim of this study was to quantitatively assess changes in FDG uptake and tumour size following 90Y microsphere treatment (SIR-Spheres) using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT imaging.

Methods: Five patients with unresectable liver metastases who had failed multiple prior chemotherapy regimens received seven 90Y microsphere treatments to a single liver lobe.

Membrane glucocorticoid receptors (mGCR) are expressed in normal human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and up-regulated after in vitro stimulation and in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

Glucocorticoids mediate their therapeutic actions mostly by genomic effects via cytosolic receptors, but some effects are too rapid to be mediated by changes at the genomic level. The detailed mechanisms of these nongenomic actions are still unclear. Membrane-bound glucocorticoid receptors (mGCR) have been suggested to be involved, although their physiological existence in humans so far is hypothetical.