Cancer-Related Fatigue in Adolescents and Young Adults After Cancer Treatment: Persistent and Poorly Managed.

Cancer-related fatigue is the most prevalent and distressing symptom experienced by adolescents and young adults (AYAs). An electronic survey was undertaken to ascertain current fatigue management and perceptions of its effectiveness. Eighty-five percent of responders (68/80) experienced fatigue, and it was worse more than 1 year after cancer treatment ended, compared to <1 year (p = 0.

Tuboimpedance: A New Test of Eustachian Tube Function.

Objective Eustachian tube (ET) dysfunction is most frequently caused by a failure of the ET to adequately open; however, there is currently no reliable method of assessing this. Tubomanometry has recently shown good interindividual repeatability as a measure of ET function by measuring middle ear pressure after the application of regulated nasopharyngeal pressures during swallowing. We present the first reports of a novel test: middle ear impedance measurements during standard nasopharyngeal pressure application (tuboimpedance).

Recalculation of dose for each fraction of treatment on TomoTherapy.

Objective: The VoxTox study, linking delivered dose to toxicity requires recalculation of typically 20-37 fractions per patient, for nearly 2000 patients. This requires a non-interactive interface permitting batch calculation with multiple computers.

Methods: Data are extracted from the TomoTherapy(®) archive and processed using the computational task-management system GANGA.

Efficacy, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile of belimumab for systemic lupus erythematosus.

Introduction: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a severe autoimmune disease and a sizeable proportion of patients remain refractory to currently available immunosuppressive agents. The burden of uncontrolled disease is significant as disease flare and persistent inflammation lead to long-term damage accrual and increased morbidity. Belimumab , a humanized monoclonal antibody that inhibits B-lymphocyte stimulator (BLyS), is the first drug to be approved by the US FDA for the treatment of SLE in 50 years.

VHL, the story of a tumour suppressor gene.

Since the Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease tumour suppressor gene VHL was identified in 1993 as the genetic basis for a rare disorder, it has proved to be of wide medical and scientific interest. VHL tumour suppressor protein (pVHL) plays a key part in cellular oxygen sensing by targeting hypoxia-inducible factors for ubiquitylation and proteasomal degradation. Early inactivation of VHL is commonly seen in clear-cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC), and insights gained from the functional analysis of pVHL have provided the foundation for the routine treatment of advanced-stage ccRCC with novel targeted therapies.