Pre-exenterative chemotherapy, a novel therapeutic approach for patients with persistent or recurrent cervical cancer.

Background: Most cervical cancer patients with pelvic recurrent or persistent disease are not candidates for exenteration, therefore, they only receive palliative chemotherapy. Here we report the results of a novel treatment modality for these patients pre-exenterative chemotherapy- under the rational that the shrinking of the pelvic tumor would allow its resection.

Methods: Patients with recurrent or persistent disease and no evidence of systemic disease, considered not be candidates for pelvic exenteration because of the extent of pelvic tumor, received 3-courses of platinum-based chemotherapy.

Response to gefitinib in bronchioloalveolar carcinoma in the absence of EGFR mutation.

Mutations in the tyrosine kinase (TK) domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene in non-small cell lung cancers are associated with increased sensitivity of these cancers to drugs that inhibit EGFR kinase activity such as gefitinib and erlotinib. Responses to TK inhibitors in the absence of EGFR gene mutation for BAC patients have not been reported. A case of a patient with BAC refractory to chemotherapy who responded to gefitinib in the absence of EGFR gene mutations is reported.