Stratification of rectal cancer stage for selection of postoperative chemoradiotherapy: current status.

Disease relapse (local, distant) and survival rates (overall [OS], disease-free [DFS]) are dependent on disease stage at time of diagnosis. In rectal cancer pooled analyses of phase III North American trials, OS and DFS were dependent on TN stage (N substage within T stage), NT stage (T substage within N stage), and treatment method. Three risk groups of patients were defined: (1) intermediate T1-2N1, T3N0; (2) moderately high T1-2N2, T3N1, T4N0; and (3) high T3N2, T4N1, T4N2.

Chemical synthesis and structure elucidation of bovine kappa-casein (1-44).

The caseins (alphas1, alphas2, beta, and kappa) are phosphoproteins present in bovine milk that have been studied for over a century and whose structures remain obscure. Here we describe the chemical synthesis and structure elucidation of the N-terminal segment (1-44) of bovine kappa-casein, the protein which maintains the micellar structure of the caseins. kappa-Casein (1-44) was synthesised by highly optimised Boc solid-phase peptide chemistry and characterised by mass spectrometry.

A randomized phase II trial of two schedules of topotecan for the treatment of advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer.

We conducted a randomized phase II trial of two different schedules of topotecan in patients with advanced-stage non small lung cancer (NSCLC) without prior cytotoxic chemotherapy. All patients had histologic or cytologic confirmation of stage IV (M1) or III-B NSCLC. Patients were stratified by performance status, stage and weight loss.

Phase II study of high-dose somatostatin analogue in patients either previously treated or untreated who have extensive-stage small cell lung cancer.

The authors conducted a phase II study of somatostatin analogue in 18 patients with extensive stage small cell lung cancer (four with previous treatment, 14 without previous treatment). Patients received 2,000 mg subcutaneously thrice daily. They were required to have an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance score of 0-2 and acceptable pretreatment biochemical parameters.