Publications by authors named "Smeele L"

Objective: Survivors of pediatric head and neck rhabdomyosarcoma (HNRMS) are at risk of developing endocrinopathies following local treatment, resulting from radiation damage to the pituitary gland, hypothalamus, or thyroid gland, often at a young age. Our aim was to determine the prevalence of endocrine dysfunction in long-term HNRMS survivors and compare the prevalence of anterior pituitary insufficiency (API) among different local treatment strategies: external beam radiation with photons, external beam radiation with protons, microscopically radical surgery combined with external irradiation, and macroscopic radical surgery combined with brachytherapy.

Design And Methods: Head and neck rhabdomyosarcoma survivors treated between 1993 and 2017, with ≥2 years of follow-up, without recurrent disease or secondary malignancy were eligible for this study.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to assess how myelosuppressive chemotherapy affects the oral microbiome and its correlation with oral mucositis (OM) and febrile neutropenia (FN) in cancer patients.
  • Researchers conducted a longitudinal analysis involving 46 patients, collecting oral rinsing samples at various stages of treatment, which were analyzed for changes in microbial diversity.
  • Significant alterations in the oral microbiome were found during chemotherapy and in the presence of OM, indicating a potential link between treatment and oral health complications, though more extensive studies are needed for confirmation.
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Objectives: This study's objectives are (1) to investigate the registration accuracy from intraoperative ultrasound (US) to histopathological images, (2) to assess the agreement and correlation between measurements in registered 3D US and histopathology, and (3) to train a nnUNet model for automatic segmentation of 3D US volumes of resected tongue specimens.

Methods: Ten 3D US volumes were acquired, including the corresponding digitalized histopathological images (n = 29). Based on corresponding landmarks, the registrations between 3D US and histopathology images were calculated and evaluated using the target registration error (TRE).

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Background: Histopathological analysis often shows close resection margins after surgical removal of tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC). This study aimed to investigate the agreement between intraoperative 3D ultrasound (US) margin assessment and postoperative histopathology of resected TSCC.

Methods: In this study, ten patients were prospectively included.

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Three-dimensional (3D) ultrasound can assess the margins of resected tongue carcinoma during surgery. Manual segmentation (MS) is time-consuming, labour-intensive, and subject to operator variability. This study aims to investigate use of a 3D deep learning model for fast intraoperative segmentation of tongue carcinoma in 3D ultrasound volumes.

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Purpose: Treatment of head and neck cancer (HNC) may lead to obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), but conclusive results on the prevalence of OSA are lacking. The objective of this study is to investigate the prevalence of OSA in a cohort of patients treated for advanced T-stage HNC.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in two tertiary cancer care centers including patients at least 1 year after treatment with curative intent with surgery and/or (chemo)radiotherapy ((C)RT) for advanced T-staged (T3-4) cancer of the oral cavity, oropharynx, hypopharynx, or larynx.

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Introduction: Theoretically, the added value of electronic health records (EHRs) is extensive. Reusable data capture in EHRs could lead to major improvements in quality measurement, scientific research, and decision support. To achieve these goals, structured and standardized recording of healthcare data is a prerequisite.

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Objective: Timely treatment initiation in head and neck cancer (HNC) care is of great importance regarding survival, oncological, functional, and psychological outcomes. Therefore, waiting times are assessed in the Dutch Head and Neck Audit (DHNA). This audit aims to assess and improve the quality of care through feedback and benchmarking.

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Objective: To describe the development and validation of automated electronic health record data reuse for a multidisciplinary quality dashboard.

Materials And Methods: Comparative study analyzing a manually extracted and an automatically extracted dataset with 262 patients treated for HNC cancer in a tertiary oncology center in the Netherlands in 2020. The primary outcome measures were the percentage of agreement on data elements required for calculating quality indicators and the difference between indicators results calculated using manually collected and indicators that used automatically extracted data.

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Background: The four different local therapy strategies used for head and neck rhabdomyosarcoma (HNRMS) include proton therapy (PT), photon therapy (RT), surgery with radiotherapy (Paris-method), and surgery with brachytherapy (AMORE). Local control and survival is comparable; however, the impact of these different treatments on facial deformation is still poorly understood. This study aims to quantify facial deformation and investigates the differences in facial deformation between treatment modalities.

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Purpose: Intra-operative assessment of resection margins during oncological surgery is a field that needs improvement. Ultrasound (US) shows the potential to fulfill this need, but this imaging technique is highly operator-dependent. A 3D US image of the whole specimen may remedy the operator dependence.

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Background: The oral cavity is a potential source of infectious complications in patients treated with myelosuppressive chemotherapy (CT). Pre-chemotherapy oral examination to identify foci of infection is recommended, but it is unclear whether this should include panoramic radiography. The present study aimed to evaluate the additional diagnostic merit of panoramic radiography as part of pre-CT oral screening.

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Objectives: Patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) are often highly affected by disease and treatment, resulting in impaired physical functioning and quality of life. Therefore, evaluation of patients' psychosocial and functional outcomes can be facilitated by patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). By providing the patients' own perspectives, PROMs are crucial to improving patient-centered care.

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Introduction: Care for head and neck cancers is complex in particular for the rare ones. Knowledge is limited and histological heterogeneity adds complexity to the rarity. There is a wide consensus that to support clinical research on rare cancer, clinical registries should be developed within networks specializing in rare cancers.

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Rhabdomyosarcoma, although rare, is the most frequent soft tissue sarcoma in children and adolescents. It can present as a mass at nearly any site in the body, with most common presentations in the head and neck, genitourinary tract and extremities. The optimal diagnostic approach and management of rhabdomyosarcoma require a multidisciplinary team with multimodal treatment, including chemotherapy and local therapy.

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Although survival after rhabdosarcoma treatment has improved over the years, one third of patients still develop locoregional relapse. This review aims to highlight developments pertaining to staging and local treatment of specific RMS tumor sites, including head and neck, chest/trunk, bladder-prostate, female genito-urinary, perianal, and extremity sites.

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Background: Standard sentinel lymph node procedure (SNP) in pediatric cancer consists of a preoperative injection with technetium nanocolloid in combination with an optional intraoperative injection with blue dye. However, blue dye has disadvantages, and the detection rate is low, with only 60% of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) staining blue. In adult oncology, fluorescence imaging using indocyanine green (ICG) has been shown to be a safe and accurate method for visual detection of SLNs, with a higher sensitivity (up to 97%) compared with blue dye.

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Introduction: This study aims to quantify surgical site complications (SSC) after isolated salvage neck dissection (ND) compared with primary ND.

Patients And Methods: Between 1997 and 2017 in the Netherlands Cancer Institute - Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, a total of 323 isolated NDs were performed in 308 patients: primary ND (n = 144), post-radiotherapy (RT) ND (n = 53) and post-chemoradiotherapy (CRT) ND (n = 126). Patient, tumor and therapy characteristics were recorded.

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• This ESMO–EURACAN Clinical Practice Guideline provides key recommendations for managing salivary gland cancer. • The guideline covers clinical and pathological diagnosis, staging and risk assessment, treatment and follow-up. • Treatment algorithms for parotid, submandibular, sublingual and minor salivary gland cancer are provided.

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Purpose: The frequency and patterns of HL in a HNRMS survivor cohort were investigated. A dose-effect relationship between the dose to the cochlea and HL was explored.

Methods: Dutch survivors treated for HNRMS between 1993 and 2017 with no relapse and at least two years after the end of treatment were eligible for inclusion.

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Introduction: Adverse events (AE) of treatment are prevalent and diverse in head and neck rhabdomyosarcoma (HNRMS) survivors. These AEs are often reported by physicians; however, patients' perceptions of specific AE are not well known. In this study, we explored patient-reported outcomes measuring appearance, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and facial function in HNRMS survivors.

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Background: Although the main task of health care providers is to provide patient care, studies show that increasing amounts of time are spent on documentation.

Objective: To quantify the time and effort spent on the electronic health record (EHR) in head and neck cancer care.

Methods: Cross-sectional time-motion study.

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Squamous cell carcinoma in the head and neck area is rare in children and constitutes only 2% of malignancies. Between October 2019 and December 2020, 3 young, male patients presented at the Princess Máxima Centre for Paediatric Oncology with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral mucosa. All 3 had complaints of increasing, painful swelling in the oral cavity for weeks to months prior to the diagnosis.

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