Cancer-testis antigens PRAME and NY-ESO-1 correlate with tumour grade and poor prognosis in myxoid liposarcoma.

Myxoid liposarcoma is the second most common liposarcoma. Although myxoid liposarcoma is relatively chemosensitive and thus a good candidate for chemotherapy, cases with relapsed or metastatic disease still have poor outcome. Here, we performed a gene microarray analysis to compare the gene expression profiles in six clinical myxoid liposarcoma samples and three normal adipose tissue samples, and to identify molecular biomarkers that would be useful as diagnostic markers or treatment targets in myxoid liposarcoma.

Percutaneous vertebroplasty in the treatment of pain caused by metastatic tumor.

Percutaneous vertebroplasty is a radiologically guided therapeutic procedure that consists of percutaneous injection of polymethylmetacrylate (PMMA) into pathologic vertebral bodies. It is a minimally invasive procedure that is effective in the treatment of pain resulting from bone metastasis. This procedure has the advantage of providing rapid pain relief and spinal stabilization.

An easily customized, random allocation system using the minimization method for multi-institutional clinical trials.

In a randomized clinical trial, random allocation of patients to treatment groups should be done to balance in the distribution of prognostic factors. Random allocation in a multi-institutional randomized clinical trial is conducted by a coordinating center, independent of the medical institution the attending doctor uses for his/her practice. This study provides a sophisticated system for doing an exact random allocation of patients to treatment groups.