Active clinical trials for "Neoplasms"

The aim of the study is to evaluate the diagnostic procedures emission tomography in combination with a CT scan (PET/CT) and endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) in the preoperative evaluation of resectability of patients with primary or secondary liver cancers.

The purpose of this study is to determine duration before progression of first-line treatment chemotherapy following erlotinib in second-line comparing erlotinib in first-line following chemotherapy in second-line in old patients with none small cell lung cancer.

Prospective Assessment of Symptoms and Quality of Life in Rectal Cancer Patients Receiving Chemo-Radiotherapy.

The purpose of this study is to determine how long the skin lesions usually last and what kind of symptoms and signs children with urticaria pigmentosa may develop over the years. This information will allow physicians to better care for patients who have been diagnosed with this disease and to provide their parents with more complete information regarding what to expect for the future of their child. This research is being done because many unanswered questions remain regarding children with urticaria pigmentosa and its course.

Dopamine agonists are first-line agents for the treatment of prolactinomas (1) and Parkinson's disease (2). There is evidence supporting a causal relationship between the occurrence of drug-induced "restrictive" valvular heart disease and treatment with pergolide (3): in several cases, the valvulopathy improved when pergolide was discontinued (4). Valvular heart damage has also been reported with the ergot-derived dopamine agonists bromocriptine and cabergoline (5,6). Two recent studies (7,8) have further demonstrated that both pergolide and cabergoline are associated with an increased risk of new cardiac valve regurgitation in patients treated for Parkinson's disease. The valvular abnormalities seen with ergot-derived dopamine agonists are similar to those observed in patients receiving ergot alkaloid agents (such as ergotamine and methysergide) in the treatment of migraine, or fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine in the treatment of obesity. These abnormalities also closely resemble carcinoid-related valvulopathies (9). Cardiac valve disease has never been reported in patients with prolactinomas who require treatment with dopamine-agonists even life-long (1). At variance with patients with Parkinson's disease, patients with prolactinomas are younger and are treated with an average dose of dopamine-agonists that is significantly lower (median bromocriptine dose 5 mg/day and median cabergoline dose 1 mg/week). Because of the young age of treatment beginning (most patients with microprolactinomas start dopamine-agonist treatment in early adulthood), treatment might be continued for over 3 decades: the cumulative risk of low doses of dopamine agonists for such a long period of treatment is currently unknown. To assess the prevalence of cardiac valve disease in patients treated with cabergoline, we wish to perform an echocardiography screening in a large representative sample of patients with prolactinoma who were treated with cabergoline for at least 12 months and in a group of control subjects recruited prospectively. We wish to evaluate the severity of regurgitation for the mitral, aortic, and tricuspid valves. Changes in cardiac valve apparatus was compared with treatment duration and cumulative cabergoline dose.

This study is collecting data on quality of life, (care)needs and socio-economic factors in colorectal (ex-)cancer patients via a written questionnaire completed by the patient him/herself. The collected data will be linked with the patient- and tumour characteristics available in the database of the Belgian Cancer Registry and with the facturation data supplying information about diagnostic techniques and performed treatments (available via the insurance companies). Based on the selection criteria, 1220 patients were finally selected from the database of the Belgian Cancer Registry. These patients received an invitation letter by regular mail, a detailed questionnaire and an informed consent. The questionnaire contains topics as sociodemographic, life style, comorbidity, satisfaction with the provided information, care needs, quality of life, anxiety and depression, financial situation etc. The patients were asked to complete the questionnaire and send it back, together with the signed informed consent, to the study-collaborators. After 2-4 weeks, a reminder was sent. At that time, a reply card was added. If a patient doesn't want to participate in this study, a reason can be mentioned on the reply card. The collected data are linked with the clinical data. The dataset will be coded before analyses will start.

This is a descriptive, prospective, observational and epidemiological study on participants recently diagnosed with breast cancer to evaluate the HER2 status by IHC and SISH procedures.

Mycosis fungoides (MF) is an epidermotropic cutaneous T cell lymphoma characterized by the accumulation of CD4+ T-lymphocytes in the skin. Early MF presents as erythematous patches and/or infiltrated plaques. The diagnosis of early MF is a major diagnostic challenge and the differential diagnosis with inflammatory dermatoses is often very difficult. The histopathological diagnosis is also difficult and delayed. Therefore, it is important to develop biomarkers and/or a combination of biomarkers in order to improve the early diagnostic of MF. In a previous trial, investigators included 490 patients in a study aiming at identifying skin biomarkers of early MF. Several activating and inhibiting KIRs were found to be interesting for the skin diagnostic of MF, mainly KIR2DL4 and KIR3DL2. Investigators later evaluated blood biomarkers in patients with erythrodermic MF and Sezary Syndrome (SS). This French institutional study demonstrated that the identification by PCR of a combination of 4 blood markers (CD158k/KIR3DL2, PLS3/T-Plastin, Twist and NKp46) allowed a reliable diagnosis of lymphoma in erythrodermic patients. This previously published study interestingly showed that 30% to 50% of patients with early MF expressed at least one of these biomarkers in the blood (unpublished data). Other groups also recently showed that TOX can be a diagnostic tool for MF. The aim of this study is to establishing an accurate blood diagnosis for early suspected MF by demonstrating that newly identified biomarkers or their combination [5 cutaneous KIR receptor markers (KIR2DS1, KIR2DS3, KIR3DL1, KIR2DL4, KIR3DL2) and 5 blood biomarkers (TOX, Twist-1, PLS3/T-plastin, KIR3DL2, NKp46)] are differentially expressed by patients with MF and patients with inflammatory dermatoses closely resembling MF lesions. Statistical analysis will establish the best combination of blood biomarkers allowing the differentiation between the two groups of patients, combination that could represent a suitable diagnostic tool for early MF.

The purpose of this study is to test a method for analyzing interactions between patients and doctors, the Roter Interaction Analysis System (RIAS). The RIAS measures the quality of communication between patients and their cancer doctors.

The purpose of this study is to measure the diagnostic performance of whole body (WB) MR-PET for staging rectal cancer, compared with current standard of care (chest/abdominopelvic CT and rectal MRI) to investigate clinical feasibility of WB MR-PET as a one-stop preoperative imaging modality in patients with rectal cancer.