Cardiac magnetic resonance in advanced heart failure.

Heart failure (HF) is a chronic and progressive disease that often progresses to an advanced stage where conventional therapy is insufficient to relieve patients' symptoms. Despite the availability of advanced therapies such as mechanical circulatory support or heart transplantation, the complexity of defining advanced HF, which requires multiple parameters and multimodality assessment, often leads to delays in referral to dedicated specialists with the result of a worsening prognosis. In this review, we aim to explore the role of cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) in advanced HF by showing how CMR is useful at every step in managing these patients: from diagnosis to prognostic stratification, hemodynamic evaluation, follow-up and advanced therapies such as heart transplantation.

Exploiting Nanomedicine for Cancer Polychemotherapy: Recent Advances and Clinical Applications.

The most important limitations of chemotherapeutic agents are severe side effects and the development of multi-drug resistance. Recently, the clinical successes achieved with immunotherapy have revolutionized the treatment of several advanced-stage malignancies, but most patients do not respond and many of them develop immune-related adverse events. Loading synergistic combinations of different anti-tumor drugs in nanocarriers may enhance their efficacy and reduce life-threatening toxicities.

A Modified Technique for Harvesting Scapular Tip Flap and to Allow 2 Teams to Work at the Same Time.

Aim: The main aim of the present report is to describe a modified technique of tip scapular flap harvesting to allow 2 surgical teams to work at the same time and to shorten surgical times.

Materials And Methods: The medical records of 25 patients that had undergone maxillary or mandibular reconstruction by using a free scapular tip flap were retrospectively reviewed to identify the possible advantages and disadvantages of this type of flap.

Results: Thirteen patients analyzed in this series underwent maxillary reconstruction with tip scapular flap, while the other 12 patients underwent mandibular reconstruction.

Impact of histological tumor grade on the behavior and prognosis of squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity.

Introduction: Unlike other types of cancers, the prognostic value of histological tumor grade is not well determined for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). This study therefore aimed to evaluate the impact of tumor differentiation on prognosis and overall survival of patients affected by squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity.

Materials And Method: A retrospective analysis was conducted using the records of patients diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity between 2010 and 2015.

Clinical behavior of T1-T2 squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity.

Objectives: The main aim of the present study is to analyze the differences in the clinical behavior of pT1 and pT2 oral squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity and the importance of tumor thickness in these groups of patients.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted using the records of patients diagnosed with pT1 and pT2 oral squamous cell carcinoma between 2006 and 2015 to identify significant differences between these two groups of patients. Several pathological features such as T-stage, N-stage, tumor thickness, surgical margins, and locoregional failure were analyzed.

Advantages of intraoperative implant for interstitial brachytherapy for accelerated partial breast irradiation either frail patients with early-stage disease or in locally recurrent breast cancer.

Purpose: To describe the intraoperative multicatheter implantation technique for accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) delivered with high-dose-rate brachytherapy (HDR-BT). Secondarily, to evaluate outcomes and toxicity in a series of 83 patients treated with this technique at our institution.

Material And Methods: Retrospective analysis of a series of patients treated with HDR-BT APBI after intraoperative multicatheter interstitial implant between November 2006 and June 2017 at our institution.