View clinical trials related to Radiotherapy.
Filter by:In Hong Kong, every 30 and 12.9 in 100,000 males and females respectively has nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). With early detection and advances in medical care, the number of NPC survivors post radiotherapy is rapidly growing in Hong Kong. One of the most distressing consequences post radiotherapy for NPC patients is swallowing disorder, or dysphagia. Dysphagia in NPC patients almost certainly cause frequent chest infection, dehydration, malnutrition and limitations to concurrent treatment such as oral medication. Given the existing large costs NPC patients incur to the healthcare system, dysphagia only serves to further inflate the soaring costs. In an attempt to reduce dysphagia related costs to the healthcare system, swallowing rehabilitation is offered to NPC patients. Currently, two major swallowing rehabilitation approaches are commonly adopted. The first is traditional rehabilitation, which involves patients performing various oropharyngeal exercises aimed at improving swallowing physiology. The other swallowing rehabilitation approach is transcutaneous electrical stimulation, which entails using small amount of electric current to increase muscle strength while patients are engaged in swallowing activities. These two methods are proven as effective in patients with stroke and head and neck carcinoma patients. Neither of these methods, nevertheless, yields any efficacy studies in treating NPC patients. Yet, clinicians continue to use either one or both rehabilitation methods as swallowing rehabilitation. This study aims to address the gap in efficacy studies on swallowing rehabilitation for NPC patients post radiotherapy. The research results should provide justification for rehabilitation time, clinicians' efforts, costs involved and resources used in rehabilitating the swallowing difficulties of the NPC patients.
The purpose of this study is to: - estimate the degree of memory loss, if any following radiotherapy to the base of skull or brain as measured by standard neurocognitive battery testing. - describe radiotherapy dose-related changes in vascular perfusion, in spectroscopic parameters of neuronal injury and changes in the degree and directionality of tissue water diffusivity (diffusion tensor imaging) as a measure of white axonal injury. - to relate these imaging characteristics to the degree of memory loss.
Rationale: Dose escalation in external-beam irradiation has proven to benefit outcome in local prostate cancer. Randomized trials were performed up to doses of 78 Gy in 2 Gy fractions. Nevertheless, the five-year biochemical relapse rate still was approximately 35% in the high-dose arm. Therefore further dose escalation seems to be required. A feasibility study up to appr. 85 Gy on the entire prostate has already been performed and showed acceptable toxicity when combined with adequate position verification. Higher doses to the entire prostate are expected to increase severe toxicity. As local recurrences only occur at the site of the primary macroscopic tumour area the next step in increasing the dose should be an ablative boost to the macroscopic tumour alone, while electively irradiating the rest of the prostate to the current gold standard dose. Feasibility of this approach has been shown for an ablative dose of 95 Gy to the macroscopic tumour within the prostate.
Many breast cancer patients will taking Chinese herbal medicine during receiving radiotherapy. The investigators conducted the pilot study showing Compound Herbal Formula (TPE-1) have the effect of improving the fatigue and leukopenia during radiotherapy. So the investigators designed this double blind and controlled trial to evaluate whether TPE-1 have the effects for leukopenia and cancer-related fatigue in breast cancer patients with radiotherapy. From our initial observation for 2 years, TPE-1 is safety. The study is also designed to evaluate the safety when patients taking this formula.
This study examines the aesthetic outcomes of breast reconstruction after mastectomy for breast cancer in patients who require post-mastectomy radiation treatment. Patients will undergo autologous tissue breast reconstruction either in immediate fashion, prior to radiation treatment, or in delayed fashion, after radiation treatment. Both approaches are acceptable and are practiced clinically. this will be an observational prospective cohort study. The investigators hypothesize that immediate autologous reconstruction patients who undergo subsequent radiation therapy have equivalent aesthetic outcome when compared to those in whom reconstruction is delayed until after radiation, with the additional benefit of avoiding the psychological side effects of breast amputation.
The cognitive function of 150 patients that undergone any Radiotherapy treatment to the brain will be assessed at 3 time points before and after the treatment.
Phase I study. Side-effects when combined with standard palliative radiotherapy.
Uveal Melanoma is the most common primary intraocular tumor in adults. Most tumors metastasize to the liver. So far no sensitive or specific serological tumor marker is routinely used. The marker "Melanoma inhibitory activity" is a promising marker. Study hypothesis is to detect metastatic lesions in an early stage. This would increase life expectance of our patients
The purpose of this study is to compare the baseline incidence of variant alleles in the ATM and/or other DNA repair genes present in the Native American population versus the non-Native American population. It is thought that a higher baseline incidence of the variant alleles in the ATM gene may correlate to higher rates and higher grades of radiation toxicities noted in the Native American population.