[Assessment of psychological distress and depression in cancer patients].

Introduction: The quality of cancer patients' life, especially experienced distress and depression, is an important topic of public health. This is due to common (but underestimated) coincidence of those problems and their unfavorable influence on patients' prognosis.

The Aim Of The Study: To assess the predictive power of depression and general mental health for the perceived distress and related problems in two groups of patients: patients with breast cancer and patients with lung cancer.

Differences in breast cancer incidence and stage distribution between urban and rural female population in Podlaskie Voivodship, Poland in years 2001-2002.

The aim of the study was to evaluate differences in breast cancer incidence and stage of disease between the urban and rural female population in Podlaskie Voivodship in 2001-2002, before the introduction of the Population Screening Programme in 2006. Analysis was based on 696 breast cancer cases diagnosed in years 2001-2002 and registered in the CR in Bialystok (Voivodship Cancer Registry). An average annual number of incidence, as well as crude and standardised incidence rates, were calculated.

[Ureter injury as a gynecologic surgery complication--prospects for conservative treatment].

There we presented three cases of ureteral injury after gynecological operations. In two cases partial ureteral obstruction was treated by creating percutaneous renal fistula. In the latter case, in spite of conservative treatment (double J catheter), a uretero-vaginal fistula was detected.

A report comparing the use of tropisetron (Navoban), a 5-HT3 antagonist, with a standard antiemetic regimen of dexamethasone and metoclopramide in cisplatin-treated patients under conditions of severe emesis.

This report of a double-blind, randomized study performed to evaluate the comparative antiemetic efficacy of tropisetron (Navoban; Sandoz Pharma Ltd, Basel, Switzerland), a new 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor antagonist, focuses on treatment during stages of chemotherapy when nausea and vomiting are particularly severe. One hundred fifteen chemotherapy-naive patients with malignant disease were administered either tropisetron (n = 58) or a dexamethasone dose plus a metoclopramide dose (n = 57) during 5 days of two successive cycles of chemotherapy. Within the first 24 hours after receiving cisplatin-based chemotherapy, 76% of patients in the tropisetron group remained free of vomiting (with 59% of patients free of nausea) compared with 39% of patients free of vomiting in the conventionally treated group (30% of patients free of nausea).

Potential role of oral anthracyclines in older patients with cancer.

Two anthracycline analogues, idarubicin and menogaril, have acceptable bioavailability via the oral route of administration. Encouraging antitumour activity of oral idarubicin has been reported in breast cancer, non-lymphocytic leukaemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and myeloma. The outlook for menogaril is less clear, given the modest antitumour activity reported so far.