PAM-13 in clinical cancer care: A systematic review.

Background: The Patient Activation Measure-13 (PAM-13) assesses patients' ability to manage their healthcare. This systematic review aimed to summarize the relationship between the PAM-13 and patient characteristics, as well as program effectiveness.

Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted using the PubMed database and following the PRISMA guidelines.

Heart is a heavy burden: cardiac toxicity in radiation oncology.

Over the years, radiotherapy has seen continual improvements and has become a standard treatment for most malignant tumors. Cardiotoxicity is a well-known radiotherapy side effect, leading to the risk of long-term morbidity and mortality in cancer survivors. Therefore, minimizing radiotherapy-related cardiotoxicity remains an important challenge in cancer care management.

Baseline DSB repair prediction of chronic rare Grade ≥ 3 toxicities induced by radiotherapy using classification algorithms.

Small fractions of patients suffer from radiotherapy late severe adverse events (AEs Grade ≥ 3), which are usually irreversible and badly affect their quality of life. A novel functional DNA repair assay characterizing several steps of double-strand break (DSB) repair mechanisms was used. DNA repair activities of peripheral blood mononuclear cells were monitored for 1 week using NEXT-SPOT assay in 177 breast and prostate cancer patients.

Chemotherapy Primary Dose Reduction in Older Cancer Patients: A Retrospective Cohort.

Primary dose reduction (PDR) in the first course of chemotherapy is an empirical practice, commonly used in older population. Patients over 70 years old receiving a first course of chemotherapy for a solid tumor were enrolled. A total of 179 patients were included.