surgery
2 articles
Outcome analysis of the traditional therapeutic approach in patients with bronchopulmonary cancer and advanced anesthetic-surgical risk
Background
Lung cancer exhibits high global incidence and mortality rates. Surgical resection remains crucial to diagnosis, staging, and treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, advanced stages often require multimodal approaches. Prehabilitation, innovative perioperative techniques, and the exploration of immunotherapy hold promise for improving outcomes.
Materials and methods
This two-phase observational cohort study included a retrospective arm (100 patients, traditional treatment) and a prospective arm (100 patients, innovative perioperative management, and risk stratification). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to evaluate data, identify risk factors, and compare the 2-year survival between treatment groups.
Results
Despite advances, lung cancer prognosis remains poor, with limited cure rates. Mean survival in the traditional approach was 1.3 years with a 5-year survival of only 1%. While prehabilitation and innovative techniques showed potential, no statistically significant differences in survival times were observed between the treatment groups. Patients with stage III (Charlson score 0-4) and stage I-II (Charlson score 5-12) demonstrated comparable outcomes, highlighting the importance of comorbidity burden.
Conclusions
Targeted screening protocols are of paramount importance for early detection and intervention. Population-wide smoking cessation programs, environmental protection measures, and the promotion of healthy lifestyles are vital for prevention and reducing incidence. Standard chemotherapy and radiotherapy offer limited therapeutic benefits in advanced lung cancer. This highlights a pressing need for breakthroughs in basic research to develop novel treatment paradigms that significantly improve outcomes. While this study did not reveal statistically significant survival differences between traditional and innovative perioperative approaches, prehabilitation and optimization techniques hold promise and deserve further research. The development of anti-tumor immunotherapy offers a significant potential in non-surgical lung cancer treatment, especially given the limitations in advanced-stage disease management. Harnessing the immune system to fight cancer represents a promising new frontier.
The current assessment and management of thyroid nodules
Introduction
The widespread use of diagnostic imaging favored the increasing incidence of thyroid nodules. Although most of nodules are benign, their clinical importance lies in the need to exclude malignancy. In assessing and managing thyroid nodules may occur the phenomenon of overdiagnosis and overtreatment on one hand and the risk of missing an aggressive thyroid cancer on the other hand. The equilibrium that has to be reached by health care providers.
Materials and methods
We conducted a PubMed, MEDLINE, ISI Web of Science, Cochrane databases search for the relevant and recent guidelines, meta-analysis, randomized controlled trial, reviews articles related to „thyroid nodules assessment”, „thyroid nodules management”, „thyroid nodules guidelines”, „thyroid nodules surgery”.
Results
The initial assessment of thyroid nodules includes an evaluation of clinical, laboratory and sonographic risk factors. Due to the sonographic features and size, the nodules are selected for biopsy. Cytologically benign nodules are usually followed-up, minimally invasive techniques may be required in certain cases. In suspected or confirmed malignancy, the treatment options of thyroid nodules include surgery or active surveillance. The main controversies appear in management of nodules with inconclusive cytology, low-risk cancers, multinodular goiters, hyperfunctioning nodules, and thyroid incidentalomas.
Conclusions
Thyroid nodules due to the high incidence and heterogeneity of background diseases cannot be evaluated and managed in one standardized approach. In the existing literature, there are discussed multiple options for diagnosis and treatment of thyroid nodules. We have reviewed the guidelines recommendations, novel published data, and controversial questions for health care professionals, to understand and provide efficient, personalized, and cost-effective management of patients with thyroid nodules in order to avoid automatic intensive testing and intervention and balancing each case from the patient expectations and demands.