Publications by authors named "Philiz Goh"
Background: Available treatment options have improved overall survival and contributed to delayed progression, but metastatic prostate cancer remains incurable. Treatment strategies are based on disease progression assessed by a combination of biochemical, radiographic, and symptomatic changes.
Objectives: The aim of this article is to review metastatic prostate cancer, symptoms representing disease progression, disease treatments, and symptom management.
Approximately 50% of patients with cancer will develop skeletal metastases, which often lead to significant pain. When a patient complains of pain, a bone scan and/or plain x-rays are ordered as investigations. X-rays necessitate a 1-cm diameter mass and 50% bone mineral loss at minimum for detection.
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- Bone metastases are common in cancer patients, particularly those with lung, breast, renal cell, thyroid, and prostate cancers, with about 40% of renal cell carcinoma patients developing them.
- Distal bone metastases, specifically below the elbow and knee, occur less frequently, affecting only about 7% of renal cell carcinoma cases.
- This report presents the third documented case of olecranon metastasis in a renal cell carcinoma patient, highlighting the rarity of such occurrences in all cancers.
Article Synopsis
- The Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) was created in 1996 to assess palliative patient performance status and has only been studied for inter-rater reliability once.
- A study at the Odette Cancer Centre evaluated PPS inter-rater reliability among an oncologist, a radiation therapist, and a research assistant with 102 patients.
- Results showed strong correlations between raters, particularly between the oncologist and research assistant, indicating good reliability of the PPS tool, but further research is needed to confirm its effectiveness across different palliative settings.
Purpose: Eleven randomized controlled trials (RCT) comparing various radiotherapy (RT) schedules for locally advanced lung cancer published since 1991 found no difference in palliation of intrathoracic symptoms. The most commonly prescribed schedule by Canadian Radiation Oncologists (RO) (20 Gy in five fractions [20 Gy/5]), when first evaluated versus 10 Gy/1 in a 2002 RCT, showed a significant survival benefit. A subsequent RCT assessing 20 Gy/5 found worse survival versus 16 Gy/2.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To investigate the efficacy of dexamethasone as a prophylactic adjuvant analgesic to decrease pain flare and to assess its safety and tolerance of dexamethasone.
Materials And Methods: Patients treated with a single 8 Gy for bone metastases took 8 mg dexamethasone before the radiation treatment. The Brief Pain Inventory was administered at baseline and then daily for 10 days after radiation.