• The Journal of the Korean bone and joint tumor society
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.36-40
• /
• 2014

Limb salvage operations for osteosarcoma of the extremity usually consist of wide excision and skeletal reconstruction. Most osteosarcoma patients are anemic prior to the surgery as majority of them undergo preoperative neo-adjuvant chemotherapy; thus, it is necessary to treat anemia before and after the surgery since limb salvage operation tends to accompany significant blood loss. Despite the fact that blood transfusion has bad influence on prognosis, complication, and postoperative outcome of cancer patients, it is still considered as a standard management to fix anemia for limb salvage operations. We would like to present a case report in which the authors succeeded in performing limb salvage operations on patients with distal femur osteosarcoma without transfusion.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.40 no.11
• /
• pp.786-788
• /
• 2007

Primary malignant fibrous histiocytoma of the lung is extremely rare, A 12-year-old child was admitted to the hospital due to an incidentally detected lung mass. A $2.5{\times}2.5 cm$ sized mass located in the right lower lobe was seen on the chest X-ray, the chest computed tomogram and the positron emission tomogram. We resected the mass through a right lateral thoracotomy and the mass was revealed to be a malignant spindle cell neoplasm on the frozen section diagnosis. So, we performed lobectomy of the right lower lobe with systemic dissection of the mediastinal lymph nodes; the final histopathological diagnosis of the mass was malignant fibrous histiocytoma. The patient was discharged on postoperative day 7 and adjuvant chemotherapy was not applied.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.175-178
• /
• 2014

Background: Resection rates of lung cancer are low in general and especially in countries like Nepal. Advanced stage at presentation and poor general condition of the patient are the usual causes. Materials and Methods: In this prospective observational study, one hundred cases of lung cancer who presented at the Thoracic Surgery Unit between October 2011 and October 2012 were included. Results: Those aged in the $6^{th}$ and $7^{th}$ decades together accounted for 72/100 patients. The male to female ratio was 2:1. There was a mean-$29.2{\pm}14.2$ pack yrs smoking history with only five non-smokers. Seventy-six patients presented with locally advanced disease while 21 had metastases. Only three had local disease. The average time between onset of symptoms to first contact with a doctor was $2.3{\pm}5.3$ months (range: 0-35.6 months). Average time between first contact to referral was $50.4{\pm}65.7$ days (range-0-365). Only three patients were resected, one after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Advanced disease was the cause of unresectability in 95 cases. One of three patients with local disease had pulmonary functions allowing the warranted resection. $N_2$ disease with $T_{1-3}$ on CT scan was found in 47. Three of these patients underwent mediastinoscopy and all confirmed uninvolved $N_2$. Conclusions: Lung resection rates in our center remain low. Late presentation leading to advanced disease and poor pulmonary reserves preclude resection in most cases. More liberal use of mediastinal staging and better assessment of pulmonary functions may allow us to improve resection rates.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
• /
• v.17 no.8
• /
• pp.3897-3901
• /
• 2016

Background: Breast cancer is by far the most frequent cancer of women (23% of all cancers), ranking second overall when both sexes are considered together. Since there has been change in clinico-pathological factors and treatment profiles for breast cancer patients over the years, the present study to evaluate the change trends in India. Materials and Methods: A detailed analysis was carried out with respect to age, menopausal status, family history, disease stage, surgery performed, histopathology, hormone receptor status, and use of chemotherapy or hormonal therapy. Change in various clinico-pathological factors and treatments of breast cancer cases was recorded and analysed. Results: Mean age at presentation was found to be earlier in 2005-2006 compared with 1997-98 (p value: 0.046). More premenopausal women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005-2006 when this was compared with initial years of assessment (p value ${\leq}0.001$). When change in the receptor status was evaluated, we observed that there was a decrease in cases of ER and PR receptor positivity which was significant (p value: 0.007). Over the period of time, more f patients were not offered surgery initially in view of advanced disease when the two time periods were compared (p value: ${\leq}0.001$). There was a significant increase in patients who were initially offered neo-adjuvant chemotherapy in view of advanced disease at presentation (p value: ${\leq}0.001$). There was increasing number of patients who received palliative treatment for symptoms in 2005-2006 when compared to patients treated in 1997-98((p value: ${\leq}0.001$). Conclusions: Changes in mean age at presentation, premenopausal status, and stage at presentation have occurred over the years. More aggressive patterns of disease have become more common with early age at presentation and aggressive biological behaviour with receptor negative tumours.

• Anxiety and mood
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.128-134
• /
• 2013

Objective : As treatments for breast cancer require long period of time, the patients need continuous monitoring and management of their health related quality of life. The purpose of this preliminary study is to explore the utility of monitoring quality of life using a mobile phone based application, which was developed to enable the patients to report daily quality of life more efficiently. Methods : Department of psychiatry, breast cancer center and U-health team of Asan Medical Center collaborated in developing a mobile application titled 'DugunDugun'. Through the application, patients with breast cancer receiving neo-adjuvant chemotherapy could report on various questions about their daily quality of life. We extracted and explored the daily basis of the data of sleep duration, number of awake, sleep satisfaction, mood and anxiety from nine patients who reported on the questionnaire for more than a month. Results : The longitudinal data collected using our mobile application well represented the characteristics of individual sleep patterns and daily emotional changes. Most of the patients showed high daily variations in the scores of their quality of life while their averaged scores were similar among patients. The patient with highest daily variations in the subjective sleep quality and daily emotional change had highest score corresponding to moderate depression in Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Conclusion : The results suggest that mobile application could be a useful tool for monitoring and collecting the daily quality of life in the patients with breast cancer. We expect that mobile application could facilitate early detection and proper intervention for the cancer patients at psychological crisis.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
• /
• v.36 no.3
• /
• pp.157-163
• /
• 2003

Traditionally, patients with stage IIIB non small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been con-sidered Inoperable due to the short-term survival rate of this disease. However, some recent papers have reported good surgical treatment results for T4 lesions in stage IIIB NSCLC. This study reports the results of stage IIIB NSCLC patients who underwent surgical treatment at our institute. Material and Method: This study includes 109 patients who were diagnosed with pathological stage IIIA lung cancer and 59 patients who were diagnosed with pathological stage IIIB at our institute between 1994 to December 2001. Patients who underwent neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and radiation therapy were excluded from this study. According to the TNM classification, 13 patients from stage IIIA were classified into T3N1, 12 into T1N2, 73 into T2N2 and 11 into T3N2. Stage IIIB patients consisted of 26 patients with T4N0, 18 with T4Nl, 14 with T4N2, and 1 with T4N3. Result: The 30-day mortality for stage IIIA and IIIB were 4.58% and 5.08% respectively. The overall survival rate at the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th year were 69.1%, 53.7%, 41.6%, and 30.7% respectively in stage IIIA and 68.8%, 55.6%, 42.9%, and 35.9% respectively in stage IIIB. Patients with satellite nodules in the same lobe & no Iymph node involvement had a survival rate of 53.9% in 3 years compared with 15.2% in patients with satellite nodules in the same lobe with Iymph node involvement. Conclusion: Surgical treatment is recommended for selected stage IIIB NSCLC patients (pathological N0 stage & completely resectable patients), particularly for patients with satellite nodules in the same lobe & no lymph node involvement.