Attitudes toward Death among Health Care Professionals in the Balkan Region.

: Death is an unavoidable experience in any person's life and affects not only the dying person but also their caregivers. The dying process has been displaced from homes to health care facilities in the majority of cases. Facing death and dying has become an everyday life of health care professionals (HCP), especially in palliative care (PC) settings.

Long Term Respiratory Follow-Up for COVID-19 Patients a Multicenter Study.

Background: The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic initiated officially in October 2020. Since then several observations have been made regarding the disease and its symptoms.

Patients And Methods: We included eighty seven in our observational study.

Personalized Approach to Tissue and Liquid Biopsy after Failure of First-Line EGFR-TKIs: Is There an Issue When Tissue Is Not the Issue? A Case Series.

Traditionally, tissue availability from rebiopsy is a prerequisite for adequate sequencing of epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) in therapy for advanced-stage lung cancer. Tissue biopsy truly is the gold standard for genetic analyses, but in some cases, such as with inadequate localization of the lesion or a patient's inadequate performance status, comorbidities, or unwillingness to undergo an invasive procedure, liquid biopsy-based ctDNA analysis can be a noninvasive alternative approach. However, in some cases the gold standard might not shine that much.

Intratumoral Treatment with Chemotherapy and Immunotherapy for NSCLC with EBUS-TBNA 19G.

Immunotherapy is being used for the past five years either as first line or second line treatment with great results. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy have been also used as combination to immunotherapy to further enhance this type of treatment. Intratumoral treatment has been previously proposed as a treatment option for certain non-small cell lung cancer patients.

Thyroid cancer diagnosis with transdermal probe 22G U/S versus EBUS-convex probe TBNA-B 22G and 19G: pros and cons.

Introduction: Thyroid cancer is usually diagnosed both with imaging techniques and transdermal biopsy. Laboratory tests are also included in the initial work-up.

Patients And Methods: One hundred and thirty patients were included in our study with pathological imaging findings in the thyroid region.

Connection between PD-L1 expression and standardized uptake value in NSCLC: an early prognostic treatment combination.

: Lung cancer is still diagnosed at advanced stage and early treatment initiation is needed. Therefore, we need biomarkers or clusters of information that can provide early treatment prognosis.: Biopsies were acquired from 471 patients-lung masses with CT-guided biopsy, convex probe transthorasic biopsy, and EBUS-TBNA convex probe with 18 G needles and 19 G needles.

Lung cancer biopsies: Comparison between simple 22G, 22G upgraded and 21G needle for EBUS-TBNA.

Novel technologies are currently used for lung cancer diagnosis. EBUS-TBNA 22G is considered one of the most important tools. However; there are still issues with the sample size.

PD-1 and PD-L1 Protein Expression Predict Survival in Completely Resected Lung Adenocarcinoma.

Background: We assessed the prognostic value of programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) in patients with completely resected lung adenocarcinoma.

Patients And Methods: PD-1 and PD-L1 expression was determined using immunohistochemistry in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded surgical specimens and correlated with the clinicopathologic features and survival of 161 patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Results: PD-1 expression on immune cells was observed in 71 of 159 evaluable tumor samples (45%) and was not significantly associated with the clinicopathologic features.

Clinicopathological features and relation between anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutation and histological subtype of lung adenocarcinoma in Eastern European Caucasian population.

: The incidence of echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like4-anaplastic lymphoma kinase (EML4-ALK) mutation among surgically treated patients with adenocarcinoma of the lung of the Eastern European ethnicity is underreported. The aim of this trial was the determination of EML4-ALK mutation frequency in investigated population, and the evaluation of correlations between lung adenocarcinoma subtype and clinical characteristics with mutation status. : This was a prospective trial which included 195 patients with adenocarcinoma of the lung who underwent surgical treatment.

Radial Endobronchial Ultrasound (EBUS) Guided Suction Catheter-Biopsy in Histological Diagnosis of Peripheral Pulmonary Lesions.

Background: EBUS guided trans-bronchial biopsy became routine in diagnosis of peripheral pulmonary lesions (PPL). Suction catheter-biopsy is a technique for obtaining a tissue sample from peripheral lung parenchyma. Aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic efficiency, feasibility and safety of EBUS guided suction catheter-biopsy (SCB) in comparison to trans-bronchial biopsy (TBB) in diagnosis of PPL.

EGFR-TKIs in adjuvant treatment of lung cancer: to give or not to give?

Epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine-kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) brought a significant revolution in the treatment of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In a short period of time, EGFR-TKIs became the standard of treatment for mutation-positive, advanced stage non-squamous NSCLC. In recent years, second- and third-generation EGFR-TKIs are emerging, further widening the clinical use.

Clinical characteristics, tumor, node, metastasis status, and mutation rate in domain of epidermal growth factor receptor gene in serbian patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Objective: Mutation rate in domain of EGFR gene varies between populations of lung cancer patients. Primary aim of this study was to analyze clinical and pathological characteristics, and tumor, node, metastasis status and stage of diseases, in relation to mutation status.

Methods: After histological confirmation of lung adenocarcinoma tissue obtained during bronchoscopy was consecutively sent for EGFR testing.

Adjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Lung cancer is one of the most common human malignancies and remains the leading cause of cancer related deaths worldwide. Many recent technological advances led to improved diagnostics and staging of lung cancer. With development of new treatment options such as targeted therapies there might be improvement in progression free survival of patients with advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Advanced bronchoscopic techniques in diagnosis and staging of lung cancer.

The role of advanced brochoscopic diagnostic techniques in detection and staging of lung cancer has steeply increased in recent years. Bronchoscopic imaging techniques became widely available and easy to use. Technical improvement led to merging in technologies making autofluorescence or narrow band imaging incorporated into one bronchoscope.

Linear and radial endobronchial ultrasound in diagnosis and staging of lung cancer.

Endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) in recent years has become a routine diagnostic procedure in bronchology. Linear EBUS shows high diagnostic yield in evaluation of mediastinal lymph nodes. It is mainly used for nodal evaluation in lung cancer, but has also proven to be efficient in diagnostic evaluation of mediastinal masses.

Detection of premalignant bronchial lesions can be significantly improved by combination of advanced bronchoscopic imaging techniques.

Background: The search for the most efficient bronchoscopic imaging tool in detection of early lung cancer is still active. The major aim of this study was to determine sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of each bronchoscopic technique and their combination in detection of premalignant bronchial lesions.

Methods: This was a prospective trial that enrolled 96 patients with indication for bronchoscopy.

Diagnostic value of autofluorescence bronchoscopy in lung cancer.

The role of autofluorescence bronchoscopy (AFB) was primarily investigated in regard to the detection of precancerous lesions of bronchial mucosa. Most of the results confirmed higher sensitivity for the detection of precancerous bronchial lesions, when compared to white light bronchoscopy (WLB) alone. However, it is commonly known that the specificity of AFB remains low.

Relation between vascular patterns visualized by Narrow Band Imaging (NBI) videobronchoscopy and histological type of lung cancer.

Narrow Band Imaging (NBI) videobronchoscopy is a new technique for visualization of microvascular changes in bronchial mucosa. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate relation between vascular patterns visualized by NBI and histology of lung cancer. We prospectively evaluated 65 patients with suspected lung cancer scheduled for bronchoscopy.