Optimal care for the child with cancer: A summary statement from the SIOP Working Committee on Psychosocial Issues in Pediatric Oncology.

Since its foundation in 1991, the SIOP Working Committee on Psychosocial Issues in Paediatric Oncology1 has developed and published 12 sets of Guidelines for health-care professionals treating children with cancer and their families. Those elements considered essential in the process of cure and care of children with cancer are summarized in this document as a formal statement, developed at the 2007 SIOP annual meeting in Mumbai. Elaboration of the concepts with detailed strategies for practice can be found in the referenced guidelines [1-12] and in a companion publication [13].

Patterns of treatment failure in infants with primitive neuroectodermal tumors who were treated on CCG-921: a phase III combined modality study.

Purpose: To analyze patterns of treatment failure in infants with primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNETs) who were treated primarily with chemotherapy in a large multi-institutional study.

Materials And Methods: Sixty-five prospectively staged patients with PNET confirmed by central pathology review, who were 18 months or younger were treated on Children's Cancer Group Study 921 (CCG-921) primarily with chemotherapy. Forty-six patients had posterior fossa (PF) primary tumors and 19 patients had supratentorial (ST) primaries.

Patterns of failure in supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumors treated in Children's Cancer Group Study 921, a phase III combined modality study.

Purpose: To analyze the patterns of failure in patients with supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumors (ST-PNETs) treated with combined modality therapy in a large, randomized, multi-institutional study.

Methods And Materials: A total of 44 prospectively staged patients with ST-PNET confirmed by central pathology review were treated in the Children's Cancer Group Study 921, which compared two chemoradiotherapy regimens. The patterns of initial sites of failure were analyzed.

Desferoxamine (DFO)--mediated iron chelation: rationale for a novel approach to therapy for brain cancer.

Iron homeostasis is crucial to normal cell metabolism, and its deficiency or excess is associated with numerous disease states. The association of increased iron load with cancer may be due to several factors including free radical production, reduction of the body's protective mechanism to combat oxidative stress, inhibition of immune systems, inhibition of essential nutrient functions, facilitation of cancer growth, suppression of antitumor actions of macrophages, and lowering of the ratio of T4-T8 positive lymphocytes. Antiproliferative effects of desferoxamine (DFO) both in vitro and in vivo are mediated by an intracellular pool of iron that is necessary for DNA synthesis rather than prevention of iron uptake from transferrin.