Hypofractionated radiotherapy for breast cancer acceleration of the START A treatment regime: intermediate tolerance and efficacy

Pain prevalence and characteristics in survivors of solid cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PURPOSE

The latest systematic review on the prevalence of pain in cancer survivors was published 5 years ago. The current review aims to provide an extended overview on the prevalence of pain, pain mechanisms, pain characteristics, and assessment methods in cancer survivors.

METHODS

A systematic research was conducted on 17th of April 2020 using MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane looking at studies from 2014 to 2020. Studies had to report pain prevalence rates in cancer survivors with a solid tumor who finished curative treatment at least 3 months ago. Methodological quality was assessed by two independent reviewers using the Joanna Briggs Institute quality appraisal tool. Characteristics of the included studies, participants and reported pain prevalence rates were extracted. The reported prevalence rates of the individual studies were pooled within a meta-analysis. Meta-regressions were performed to identify possible determinants of the pooled pain prevalence.

RESULTS

After deduplication, 7300 articles were screened, after which 38 were included in the meta-analysis. Risk of bias was rated low in 26 articles and moderate in 12 articles. The pooled pain prevalence was 47% (95%CI 39-55), with a heterogeneity of 98.99%.

CONCLUSION

This meta-analysis suggests that nearly half of cancer survivors report pain after completing curative treatment at least 3 months ago. However, substantial unexplained heterogeneity warrants cautious interpretation of these results. Meta-regression using cancer type, treatment location, pain measurement, and follow-up time as a covariate could not explain influencing factors explaining the high heterogeneity.

Acute skin toxicity of conventional fractionated versus hypofractionated radiotherapy in breast cancer patients receiving regional node irradiation: the real-life prospective multicenter HYPOBREAST cohort

BACKGROUND

Large-scale trials have shown that hypofractionated adjuvant breast radiotherapy was as effective in terms of survival and local control as conventional fractionated radiotherapy, and acute toxicity was reduced with hypofractionated radiotherapy. However, there is a lack of data about the toxicity of breast with regional nodal irradiation (RNI). The aim of this study was to assess the effect of fractionation on radiation-related acute skin toxicity in patients receiving RNI in addition to whole-breast or chest wall irradiation, using real-life data.

METHODS

We conducted a prospective, multicenter cohort study with systematic computerized data collection integrated into Mosaiq®. Three comprehensive cancer centers used a standardized form to prospectively collect patient characteristics, treatment characteristics and toxicity.

RESULTS

Between November 2016 and January 2022, 1727 patients were assessed; 1419 (82.2%) and 308 (17.8%) patients respectively received conventional fractionated and hypofractionated radiation therapy. Overall, the incidence of acute grade 2 or higher dermatitis was 28.4% (490 patients). Incidence was lower with hypofractionated than with conventional fractioned radiation therapy (odds ratio (OR) 0.34 [0.29;0.41]). Two prognostic factors were found to increase the risk of acute dermatitis, namely 3D (vs IMRT) and breast irradiation (vs chest wall).

CONCLUSION

Using real-life data from unselected patients with regional nodal irradiation, our findings confirm the decreased risk of dermatitis previously reported with hypofractionated radiation therapy in clinical trials. Expansion of systematic data collection systems to include additional centers as well as dosimetric data is warranted to further evaluate the short- and long-term effects of fractionation in real life.

Pain Prevalence During Cancer Treatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

CONTEXT

Pain is one of the most complex and prevalent symptoms in the cancer population. Despite the protective role of acute cancer-related pain, it is also an important predictor for the likelihood of developing chronic pain after cancer treatment.

OBJECTIVES

Since the last systematic review on pain prevalence rates during cancer treatment dates already from 2016, the aim of the present systematic review was to provide an overview of pain prevalence rates during cancer treatment since this previous review.

METHODS

A systematic search of the literature, including studies between 2014 and 2020, was conducted using the databases Pubmed, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science and Cochrane. Studies reporting pain prevalence rates during or within three months after curative cancer treatment was included. Title/abstract and full-text was screened double-blinded, followed by independent evaluation of the risk of bias. All prevalence rates were pooled within meta-analyses and a meta-regression was performed to clarify the amount of heterogeneity.

RESULTS

Of the 9052 studies, 12 studies were included in the meta-analysis of which 10 included breast cancer and two lung cancer patients. The pooled pain prevalence rate was 40% (95%CI 0.29-0.51), with a heterogeneity of 96%. Out of the meta-regression, only the covariate "method of pain measurement" significantly clarified the heterogeneity (P < 0.05), resulting in a residual heterogeneity of 94.88%.

CONCLUSION

Five years after the last systematic review published on this topic, pain is still very prevalent during cancer treatment. However, the pain prevalence rates were also very heterogeneous. These two findings emphasize the need for further research on the development of adequate pain assessment and pain management approaches during cancer treatment.

Precision Medicine and the Role of Biomarkers of Radiotherapy Response in Breast Cancer

Radiotherapy remains an important treatment modality in nearly two thirds of all cancers, including the primary curative or palliative treatment of breast cancer. Unfortunately, largely due to tumor heterogeneity, tumor radiotherapy response rates can vary significantly, even between patients diagnosed with the same tumor type. Although in recent years significant technological advances have been made in the way radiation can be precisely delivered to tumors, it is proving more difficult to personalize radiotherapy regimens based on cancer biology. Biomarkers that provide prognostic or predictive information regarding a tumor's intrinsic radiosensitivity or its response to treatment could prove valuable in helping to personalize radiation dosing, enabling clinicians to make decisions between different treatment options whilst avoiding radiation-induced toxicity in patients unlikely to gain therapeutic benefit. Studies have investigated numerous ways in which both patient and tumor radiosensitivities can be assessed. Tumor molecular profiling has been used to develop radiosensitivity gene signatures, while the assessment of specific intracellular or secreted proteins, including circulating tumor cells, exosomes and DNA, has been performed to identify prognostic or predictive biomarkers of radiation response. Finally, the investigation of biomarkers related to radiation-induced toxicity could provide another means by which radiotherapy could become personalized. In this review, we discuss studies that have used these methods to identify or develop prognostic/predictive signatures of radiosensitivity, and how such assays could be used in the future as a means of providing personalized radiotherapy.

A Comparative Study of Daily 3-Gy Hypofractionated and 1.8-Gy Conventional Breast Irradiation in Early-Stage Breast Cancer

We retrospectively compared accelerated hypofractionation (AHF) with conventional fractionation (CF) in the radiation therapy (RT) for early-stage breast cancer patients.Three hundred seventy-nine early-stage (pT1-2 and pN0-1a) breast cancer patients who received RT with AHF after breast-conserving surgery (BCS) were included. These patients were matched with 379 corresponding patients who received BCS and RT with CF at a different center with respect to the year BCS was performed, patient age (±3 years), and cancer stage. The AHF regimen consisted of 39 Gy in 13 fractions to the whole breast and a consecutive boost of 9 to 12 Gy in 3 to 4 fractions to the tumor bed. CF comprised whole-breast irradiation up to 50.4 Gy in 28 fractions and a boost of 9 to 14 Gy in 5 to 7 fractions to the tumor bed.The median follow-up period was 75 months (range, 3.8-110.8 months). There was no statistically significant difference between the AHF and CF groups in terms of age distribution, T and N stage, resection margin, and histologic grade. There were 5 ipsilateral breast tumor relapse (IBTR) cases in the AHF group compared with 7 cases in the CF group. Seven and eight locoregional relapse (LRR) cases were observed in the AHF and CF groups, respectively. The 7-year rates of IBTR-free survival, LRR-free survival, and disease-free survival were 98.9%, 98.4%, and 97.1% in the AHF group and 98.1%, 97.9%, and 96.0% in the CF group, respectively (P > 0.05). The incident rates of grade 3 edema, hyperpigmentation, or wet desquamation at the end of RT were higher in the CF group than in the AHF group (16.4% vs 0.2%, respectively; P < 0.01).AHF RT of 39 Gy to the whole breast plus a 9-Gy boost in 16 fractions showed excellent tumor control and tolerable skin toxicity, a finding that is comparable to CF RT in patients with early-stage breast cancer.