View clinical trials related to Parotid Cancer.
Filter by:Proton Beam Therapy (PBT) is an advanced radiotherapy technique. There are two National Health Service (NHS) PBT treatment centres in the UK, one in Manchester and one in London. The NHS is committed to ensuring the best use of this limited resource by investigating which patients will benefit from PBT treatment. Evaluative Commissioning in Protons (ECIP) is a programme of studies that explore the role of PBT for patients with different types of cancer. They are funded by NHS England. ECIP studies are not randomised studies, which means that all eligible patients will be offered proton therapy. Any patient in the United Kingdom (UK) can be referred, and for patients that need to travel far to their nearest centre, accommodation will be available. The main benefit of PBT, compared with photon radiotherapy, is the predicted reduction in radiation dose to surrounding healthy tissues. With photon radiotherapy, some radiation passes beyond the target area, affecting healthy tissues and causing side-effects. With PBT, the radiation dose stops within the target area, causing less damage to surrounding tissues, and limiting side effects. PRONTO is a study within the ECIP programme exploring whether PBT can reduce treatment side effects for patients with salivary gland cancers who need radiotherapy following surgery. Whilst radiotherapy is associated with good cancer control, it commonly causes problematic side-effects such as loss of taste and dry mouth. These can be permanent and can negatively affect someone's quality of life. PRONTO's main aim is to see if PBT can reduce the loss of taste following radiotherapy. Participants in PRONTO will be closely monitored by the medical team and with questionnaires. The patient experience will be compared to what we would expect with standard photon radiotherapy.
Parotid gland tumors are mostly treated surgically, but the extent of parotidectomy is decided upon preoperative work-up information. Preoperative management generally includes clinical evaluation, collection of a pathological sample, most often through fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC), and imaging. FNAC, despite its high sensitivity and specificity, has the drawback of an approximately 20 per cent rate of nondiagnostic or indeterminate result. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides the best morphological description of the lesion, which is helpful to the surgeon for the planning of the intervention. Recently, advanced functional techniques have been introduced, in association to the conventional morphologic ones: diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging (DCEI) demonstrated the ability to provide information about the possible histological origin of parotid lesions. Multiparametric MRI (mp-MRI) comes from the combination of anatomical and functional sequences. The Authors postulate that mp-MRI evaluation may be able to provide information not only about the extension of the lesion, but also about histology, with a high accuracy, at least comparable to ultrasound-guided FNAC. In the present study, the Authors aim to define the value of FNAC and mp-MRI in the preoperative management of parotid gland tumors, comparing their success intended as the capability of the exam to be both diagnostic and accurate in formulating the correct histological suspect of malignancy. Participants are patients affected by parotid gland neoplasms, candidates for surgical resection. The lesion will preoperatively be assessed with both clinical evaluation, ultrasound-guided FNAC and mp-MRI in our Institution. Mp-MRI includes conventional sequences, DWI and DCEI; its interpretation will allow the definition of the suspect histology. FNAC and mp-MRI suspects will be compared to the final histopathological report after surgical removal of the neoplasm. The study considers a total of 100 patients, of whom 50 are analyzed retrospectively (being already operated after obtaining both FNAC and mp-MRI preoperatively) and the remaining 50 to be enrolled prospectively.