Current Issue : April - June Volume : 2021 Issue Number : 2 Articles : 5 Articles
Almost 32.5 million people are diagnosed with cancer annually. The huge number of cancer patients with deteriorating health renders a far greater number of informal caregivers bearing the burden of care in different forms and magnitude. The main purpose of the study was to explore the types of burden perceived by the informal caregivers and the factors associated with the caregiving burden. Methods: A quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted to answer the research questions from April to May 2016. Around 200 informal caregivers were recruited from one of the tertiary hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan. The modified ZBIS was used to collect data which was analyzed by using Chi-square test to find the associations between the demographic characteristics of informal caregivers and the perceived burden of care. Results : Findings of the study identified the employment status (P ≤ 0.020) and the religion of the informal caregivers (P ≤ 0.027) as significant, demographic variables. The functional level of care receivers was also found to be significant (P ≤ 0.002). The study also recognized four forms of burdens, with significant mean values, including financial (2.85), psychological (2.50), social (2.58), and physical (2.44). Most of the participants reported experiencing a moderate magnitude of burden, ranging from 40 - 60, on the scale of 0 - 80. Conclusion : The study highlighted four different forms of burdens, that is, financial, psychological, social, and physical, along with their associated demographic factors. Health care agencies and public health personnel should work with informal caregivers to reduce burden of care....
Recently there have been many advances in cancer treatment, however, treatment results would be much better if clinical oncologists were educated on the research of cancer metabolism and basic cancer immunology. Many medical oncologists have deficiency in these areas and are devoted to treatment protocols and totally against integrative oncology. One neglected problem is a lack of attention to the cancer patient’s host immunity, which should be evaluated at diagnosis. This huge barrier between integrative and conventional oncology should be eliminated for the benefit of the cancer patient. This communication is an attempt to resolve these important treatment details and bring awareness to this problem....
The principal postoperative complication of mastectomies with axillary dissection is the lymphocele that can last many months after surgery. The purpose of our study was to prevent its formation using the padding. Methods: Sixty-one patients have been included in our study. The follow-up was 6 months. The patients were divided in two groups through a random draw (simple drainage and drainage associated with padding). All patients had a mastectomy with axillary dissection following the Madden technique. All quantities of lymphoceles during postoperative hospitalization and ambulatory care have been noted. Results: Twenty-five patients had benefited from the padding and 36 of a simple axillary drainage. Six months after the surgery, the patients benefitting from the padding had a quantity of lymphocele equal to half that of the control group (761.83 mL against 1373.60 mL; p = 0.01). During the postoperative hospitalization, the quantities were of 362.80 mL for the padding group versus 630.83 mL; p < 0.01. The hospitalization period was shorter for the padding patients (3.72 days vs 5.14 days; p = 0.01). However, pain was greater for the padding group upon 6 months (0.26 vs 0.10; p = 0.04). On another note, padding does not influence the duration of the surgery. Conclusion: The production of postoperative lymphocele is heterogenous, varying from one patient to another. Nevertheless, the padding of the mastectomy compartment and of the axillary cavity allows a noticeable reduction of the produced quantity and of the hospitalization period at the expense of more pain....
Immunotherapy is one of the strategies to boost natural defenses to fight cancer. Immuno-oncology is an artificial stimulation of the human immune system to recognize and kill selectively neoplastic cells at different stage of transformation. Cancer cells have tumor antigens and the antibody of the immune system, binding them, can detect molecules on their extracellular side of cell membrane. Among these proteins, it is rising in interest and used for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) Glypican-3 (GPC-3) protein. It is a heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG), anchored to the cell membrane of transformed hepatocytes. We investigated its function as key regulator of hepatocytes neoplastic transformation. Noteworthy, GPC-3 protein has been implicated in different pathways from cell growth to cell motility and migration. More recently, GPC-3 has been evaluated as a useful marker for HCC due to its increased expression in the liver during tumorigenesis and its absence in normal liver. Immunotherapy that targets GPC-3 domains and its connected proteins are currently under investigation. These new biomarkers may hold potential for the detection and treatment of HCC and other diseases in which GPC-3 may be overexpressed and/or play a crucial role. This review will summarize the current knowledge regarding the active immunotherapy developed to treat HCC and it will evaluate aspects of GPC-3 (structure and biology) as advantages and potential pitfalls for considering it as a valuable immunotherapeutic target. We also elaborated the current literature with the aim to better understand its biological interactions at a molecular and cellular level to identify alternative or combined targets, due to the existing gap in the literature surrounding GPC-3. The role GPC-3 plays in the hepatocellular carcinoma phenotype can be targeted for a novel immunotherapy strategy that can specify cell-mediated destruction of neoplastic cell that spares normal liver tissue, and it can be exploited as a new serum marker to trend for diagnosis and disease progression measurements. We believe further investigation of its functions and structure, including alternative cellular localizations, is necessary to evaluate GPC-3 as valuable target to cure this cancer....
Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are rare neoplasm with frequencies around 1% of all neoplasms. Although it consists of a high heterogeneous group of tumors, surgery is the mean treatment. The STS surgery is still challenging and complex procedure is usually required: this is because STS requires different types of resection and reconstruction due to various tissue-commitments (nerve, arteries, skin and muscle). So, a multidisciplinary team must be prepared for STS approach to obtain the maximum local control and a limited extremity functional impairment. We, here, showing our experience, wish to introduce some technical contrivances in STS surgery, with special reference to tissue reconstruction. This may illustrate the necessity of a multidisciplinary team approach in this surgery....
Loading....