Drug-Related Pneumonitis in Cancer Treatment during the COVID-19 Era.

Interstitial lung disease is recognized as a group of diseases with a different etiopathogenesis characterized by chronic lung inflammation with the accumulation of inflammatory cells, lymphocytes and macrophages, and the consequent release of proinflammatory cytokines. Various degrees of pulmonary fibrosis can be associated with this inflammatory condition. Interstitial lung disease related to oncological drugs is a relevant problem in clinical practice.

Neutropenic Enterocolitis in the Treatment of Solid Tumors: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Neutropenic enterocolitis is a clinical condition characterized by inflammation of the colic mucosa, usually the caecum, associated with bowel wall thickening in patients with compromised immune system due to chemotherapy treatments. It can occur as well in other clinical conditions that lead to immunosuppression. Clinically, patients present with abdominal pain, fever, and neutropenia on blood tests.

Yoga Protocol for Cancer Patients: A Systematic Exploration of Psychophysiological Benefits.

Background: Several studies report that practicing Yoga may lead to numerous psychophysiological benefits in patients undergoing treatment for cancer. Moreover, it may result in an effective alternative for coping with sleep disturbances, anxiety, depression and fatigue symptoms. A study based on the "Yoga in Oncology" project of the Foundation Poliambulanza was carried out, and it was designed to explore the benefits of Yoga, therefore corroborating Yoga as a therapeutic activity that can have a beneficial impact on patients diagnosed with cancer.

Hair Loss Prevention by a Scalp Cooling Device in Early Breast Cancer Patients: The Poliambulanza Preliminary Experience.

Background: The most effective agents in the treatment of breast cancer have a common side effect, the hair loss. Some studies reported a reduction of hair loss with the use of the scalp cooling device. Indeed, it decreases the drug accumulation in the hair follicles.

Impact of a Psycho-Educational Team in early Breast Cancer Patients' Coping Strategies: The Venere Project.

Aims And Background: The main purpose of our psycho-educational groups was to help women with breast cancer, learn how to cope with the physical, emotional, and lifestyle changes associated with cancer as well as with medical treatments that can be painful and traumatic. With this study, we wanted to detect the effects that group action had on the women who participated in it.

Methods: We studied a total of 97 patients who participated in 13 psycho-education groups.

Significance of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio in Western advanced EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer receiving a targeted therapy.

Purpose: Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide and, although targeted therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitors has dramatically improved the rates of response and survival in advanced EGFR-mutated adenocarcinoma, the overall outcome remains unsatisfactory. Therefore, new prognostic factors, preferably simple, inexpensive, and easy to reproduce on a large scale, are needed. We performed a retrospective analysis of our database including 63 western Caucasian patients with advanced EGFR-mutated lung adenocarcinoma and receiving gefitinib, erlotinib, or afatinib as first- or second-line therapy.

Off-target effects and clinical outcome in metastatic colorectal cancer patients receiving regorafenib: The TRIBUTE analysis.

Regorafenib is an orally administered multikinase inhibitor indicated for the treatment of heavily pretreated metastatic colorectal cancer patients with good performance status, albeit less than 50% treated patients achieve disease stabilisation or better at the first radiological evaluation. In addition to that a particularly broad spectrum of toxicities (experienced as G3 or more NCI CTCAE graded by 50% of patients treated) have led to reconsider its widespread use in the majority of patients. We retrospectively collected data about the magnitude of off-target effects experienced during the first 8-weeks of regorafenib monotherapy and analysed their correlation with overall survival, progression free survival and disease control rate.

Chemotherapy rechallenge after regorafenib treatment in metastatic colorectal cancer: still hope after the last hope?

Introduction: The introduction of biological agents in cancer therapy is changing the progression of metastatic colorectal cancer. Currently, resistance to biological agents is an emerging problem; the progression of the disease is caused by the development of resistant clones. According to some authors, these clones can be re-sensitized to traditional and previously utilized chemotherapy agents.

Parents with cancer: Searching for the right balance between telling the truth and protecting children.

Objective: Recent scientific approaches to cancer patients draw attention to the psychological aspects of the disease and the involvement of their families, who are forced to reorganize themselves in order to manage the patient's illness. Functional responses to a stressful event facilitate open communication between family members and empathy for the patient's children, who need to be involved and informed about the illness in a clear and open fashion. The primary goal of this observational study was to explore the communication styles used by cancer-stricken parents with their children and to identify a correlation with the patient's levels of anxiety and depression and their ability to cope.

GEMOX: An Active Regimen for the Treatment of Luminal and Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer.

Background: Pretreated metastatic breast cancer (MBC) remains a formidable challenge with unmet needs both in terms of prolonged survival and quality-of-life-related issues.

Methods: We collected data from 27 MBC patients treated with gemcitabine and oxaliplatin (GEMOX) at our institution between June 2009 and April 2015. The patients were heavily pretreated, and all had previously been exposed to anthracyclines and taxanes.

Angiogenesis genotyping and clinical outcome during regorafenib treatment in metastatic colorectal cancer patients.

Regorafenib monotherapy is a potential option for metastatic colorectal cancer patients. However, the lack of predictive factors and the severe toxicities related to treatment have made its use in clinical practice challenging. Polymorphisms of VEGF and its receptor (VEGFR) genes might regulate angiogenesis and thus potentially influence outcome during anti-angiogenesis treatment such as regorafenib.

QT Prolongation and Anticancer Drugs: Is it a Cardiologist's Worry? The Oncologist's Point of View.

Currently, many novel therapies are available for physicians treating cancer; some of them are associated with adverse cardiac events. One of the most worrisome cardiac event is QT prolongation, which is a risk factor for developing the potentially fatal torsade de pointe. Many classes of drugs, both anticancer and concomitant agents, are involved in this issue.

Pancreatic Cancer: Promises and Failures of Target Therapies.

Currently, few efficient therapies are available to battle pancreatic cancer. Mechanisms underlying this cancer are not well known and researchers are trying to identify new therapeutic targets. Here, we present a review of new treatments and their results in recent years.

Prognostic clinical factors in pretreated colorectal cancer patients receiving regorafenib: implications for clinical management.

Background: We assessed the impact on survival of angiogenesis and inflammation-related factors, particularly LDH serum levels, platelet, neutrophil and lymphocyte counts, and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), in metastatic colorectal cancer patients receiving regorafenib monotherapy.

Methods: LDH serum levels, neutrophil, lymphocyte and platelet counts were collected at the start of regorafenib monotherapy. Cut-off values were calculated by ROC curve analysis.

Oxaliplatin-induced hypersensitivity reaction: underlying mechanisms and management.

Hypersensitivity reactions are rare but feared drugs adverse effect. These reactions are not uncommon with anticancer drugs, such as taxanes, monoclonal antibodies, and platinum compounds. Oxaliplatinum, a third-generation platinum compound, one of the mainstay drugs in the treatment of many gastrointestinal cancers, can give rise to hypersensitivity reactions, sometimes with fatal outcomes.

Assessing cancer caregivers' needs for an early targeted psychosocial support project: The experience of the oncology department of the Poliambulanza Foundation.

Objective: Caregivers play a key role in the management of patients with cancer. However, some studies have suggested that caregivers have even more unmet needs than the patients.

Method: To better identify the needs and changes in the lifestyles of the caregivers in our practice and to plan a targeted support project to decrease caregiver burden, we administered the Caregiver's QoL Index-Cancer (CQoLC) to 200 consecutive caregivers.

Blind Snipers: Relevant Off Target Effects of Non-chemotherapeutic Agents in Oncology: Review of the Literature.

In recent years an increasing attention is focused on the potential effects of drugs on cancer incidence and/or cancer survival. Many medications of common use, developed for a variety of medical non-cancer situations, have been found to have potential anti- cancer effects. In this article, we performed an overview of the literature evidence for several commonly used non-cancer medications, such as aspirin, beta-blockers, metformin and other anti- diabetics, cardiac glycosides, anticoagulant heparin, statins, psychotropic drugs, vitamins, calcium and estrogens which have been shown to have anticancer effects, in observational and experimental studies.

Chemotherapeutic options for colorectal cancer patients with cardiovascular diseases.

The high incidence of cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer in the world's population means that these two conditions may coexist in the same patient. In addition fluoropyrimidines, backbone for the treatment of colorectal cancer in both early stage and advanced disease, have a well-characterized cardio-toxicity, which limits their use in patients with heart disease and limits their reintroduction in those patients who have shown this toxicity. For the treatment of this, increasing proportion of patients is now possible to consider fluoropyrimidines-free chemotherapy regimens that are examined in this work, with the attempt to provide a possible treatment algorithm for various situations encountered in clinical practice.

Targeting VEGF-VEGFR Pathway by Sunitinib in Peripheral Primitive Neuroectodermal Tumor, Paraganglioma and Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma: Three Case Reports.

Sunitinib malate (Sutent(TM); Pfizer Inc., New York, N.Y.

Oxaliplatin-induced lung toxicity. Case report and review of the literature.

Rapidly developing pulmonary fibrosis associated with the use of the anti-cancer drug oxaliplatin has been reported mainly by Asiatic literature as isolate case reports. This rare but potentially fatal side effect has neither identified risk factors nor established treatment guideline. We report here a new clinical case concerning a patient with advanced gastric cancer treated with the oxaliplatin-based FOLFOX regimen along with a review of the literature as well as a discussion of emerging experimental treatment mainly based on imatinib.

Triplets versus doublets, with or without cisplatin, in the first-line treatment of stage IIIB-IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients: a multicenter randomised factorial trial (FAST).

Background: The FAST is a 2 × 2 factorial trial addressing two questions: (1) the role of replacing cisplatin (P) with a non-platinum agent, vinorelbine (N), and (2) the role of adding a third agent, ifosfamide (I), in a doublet based on gemcitabine (G).

Methods: A total of 433 stage IIIB-IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients were randomised to one of four arms: gemcitabine-cisplatin (GP), gemcitabine-vinorelbine, gemcitabine-ifosfamide-cisplatin or gemcitabine-ifosfamide-vinorelbine. Two comparisons were performed: N- vs P-containing regimens and I-triplets vs non-I doublets.

Colon cancer.

Colon cancer is one of the leading tumours in the world and it is considered among the big killers, together with lung, prostate and breast cancer. In the recent years very important advances occurred in the field of treatment of this frequent disease: adjuvant chemotherapy was demonstrated to be effective, chiefly in stage III patients, and surgery was optimized in order to achieve the best results with a low morbidity. Several new target-oriented drugs are under evaluation and some of them (cetuximab and bevacizumab) have already exhibited a good activity/efficacy, mainly in combination with chemotherapy.

Colorectal cancer treatment in elderly patients: an update on recent clinical studies.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers in the Western world, with > 500,000 new cases diagnosed each year. One of the strongest risk factors for colon cancer is age. Physicians and their older patients commonly face the dilemma of whether to give/receive systemic chemotherapy for CRC.

Benefit from a high dose of gefitinib in a woman with lung adenocarcinoma and an epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine-kinase acquired mutation.

Over the last 10 years, the approach to the treatment of cancer has changed significantly due to an improved understanding of the processes that regulate tumor growth and development. Targeted strategies act against various neoplasms, alone or in combination with conventional therapy, while avoiding most of the toxicities induced by standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Promising targets include members of the human epidermal receptor (HER) family, such as epidermal growth factor receptor (HER1/EGFR).