The lancet oncology
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The lancet oncology · Apr 2014
Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative StudyDoxorubicin alone versus intensified doxorubicin plus ifosfamide for first-line treatment of advanced or metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma: a randomised controlled phase 3 trial.
Effective targeted treatment is unavailable for most sarcomas and doxorubicin and ifosfamide-which have been used to treat soft-tissue sarcoma for more than 30 years-still have an important role. Whether doxorubicin alone or the combination of doxorubicin and ifosfamide should be used routinely is still controversial. We assessed whether dose intensification of doxorubicin with ifosfamide improves survival of patients with advanced soft-tissue sarcoma compared with doxorubicin alone. ⋯ Cancer Research UK, EORTC Charitable Trust, UK NHS, Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute, Amgen.
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The lancet oncology · Apr 2014
ReviewAtypical Spitz tumours and sentinel lymph node biopsy: a systematic review.
Sentinel lymph node biopsy has been proposed as a diagnostic method for estimation of the malignant potential of atypical Spitz tumours. However, although cell deposits are commonly detected in the sentinel lymph nodes of patients with atypical Spitz tumours, their prognosis is substantially better than that of patients with melanoma and positive sentinel lymph node biopsies. ⋯ The results of our analysis did not show any prognostic benefit of sentinel lymph node biopsy; having a positive sentinel lymph node does not seem to predict a poorer outcome for patients with atypical Spitz tumours. These findings indicate that, especially in the paediatric population, it might be prudent initially to use complete excision with clear margins and careful clinical follow-up in patients with atypical Spitz tumours.