B. Bari - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by B. Bari

Tumori Journal, 2010

Aims and background Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare skin tumor occurring mostly in older pe... more Aims and background Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare skin tumor occurring mostly in older people. Postoperative radiotherapy is strongly recommended to improve local control. A case of a MCC treated by radiotherapy associated with imiquimod (Aldara) is presented. A possible physiopathological rationale for this concomitant treatment is also given. Materials and methods We treated a diabetic 82-year-old man presenting with a MCC of the right zygomatic area. Despite surgery, postoperative ultrasonography showed a firm, painless residual mass of about 11 × 10 cm, fixed to the deep tissues. Parotid and zygomatic areas were treated along with the ipsilateral laterocervical lymph nodes. The total dose to the planning target volume was 50.4 Gy (1.8 Gy/day). Imiquimod was applied once a day to the zygomatic area with macroscopic infiltration and to the surrounding erythema. Results During the combination treatment, the patient showed acute G3 skin toxicity (RTOG) and a scab that resolv...

Radiotherapy and Oncology, 2015

perform the validation (Table 1). Our validation resulted in an AUC of 0.62. The AUC increased to... more perform the validation (Table 1). Our validation resulted in an AUC of 0.62. The AUC increased to 0.76 after we removed all duplicate patients due to multiple false-positive tumor length 'hits' per patient during automated free text search. Conclusions: We describe a method to extract data from multiple sources, and to apply a prediction model on routine clinical patient data. Although the free text extraction was not perfect and the number of patients in our validation was low (N=38), we have successfully shown a method for automatically (nightly) applying prediction models in clinical practice, and thus enabling use of prediction results for treatment decisions. Unfortunately, there is still a need to enhance data collection at the source. For example, the availability of pCR was our most limiting factor (only 4% of patients). Furthermore, the extraction of tumor length from free text reports remains necessary until available in a structured format. Based on this method, future work consists of adding more data sources and routine clinical validation of prediction models.

Radiotherapy and Oncology, 2015

S658 3rd ESTRO Forum 2015 Conclusions: Definitive chemoradiotherapy using Carboplatin and Paclita... more S658 3rd ESTRO Forum 2015 Conclusions: Definitive chemoradiotherapy using Carboplatin and Paclitaxel for inoperable esophageal cancer led to symptom relieve and a median overall survival of 13 months. Although acute toxicity grade ≥ 3 was common, the majority of patients were able to finish treatment. Given the toxicity profile and relatively short median survival, adequate selection of patients for this intensive treatment is required. In addition, as local recurrence rate was high, further dose escalation may be beneficial.

Studies in health technology and informatics

Taking decisions in the medical domain is a very complex task. The context is strongly affected b... more Taking decisions in the medical domain is a very complex task. The context is strongly affected by uncertainty and the possible undesired side effects of the treatments have to be carefully considered. Currently, these decisions are based on the physician's own experience and the evidences of the published literature, according, when available, with the philosophy of Evidence Based Medicine. The main issues of this approach are that the own experience can be different, and the results in the literature are sometimes contrasting. For helping physicians while taking medical decisions, we are proposing an innovative approach based on the idea of the clinical similarity. Given a set of clinical variables, the proposed approach selects patients that are similar, presenting to the physician the respective decisions taken and the corresponding clinical effects.

Cancer/Radiothérapie, 2011

Reports of Practical Oncology & Radiotherapy, 2015

Aim: We retrospectively analyzed our Institution experience with these patients. The endpoints of... more Aim: We retrospectively analyzed our Institution experience with these patients. The endpoints of the analysis were overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), local control (LC), metastasis free survival (MFS); results were compared with the literature. Background: Medulloblastoma in adult patients is a very rare disease; the 5 and 10-year overall survival rates range between 33-78% and 27-56%, respectively. The collection of more clinical data is strongly needed.

Cancer radiothérapie : journal de la Société française de radiothérapie oncologique, 2013

Gold markers are frequently used for a better daily repositioning of the prostate before irradiat... more Gold markers are frequently used for a better daily repositioning of the prostate before irradiation. The purpose of this work was to analyze if the combination of an androgen deprivation with the external irradiation could modify the position of the gold markers in the prostate. Ten patients have been treated for a prostate cancer, using three implanted gold markers. The variations of the intermarker distances in the prostate were measured and collected on daily OBI(®) kilovoltage images acquired at 0° and 90°. Five patients had a 6-month androgen deprivation started before the external irradiation (H group) and five did not (NH group). A total number of 1062 distances were calculated. No distance variation greater than 3.7mm was seen between two markers, in any of the two groups. The median standard deviations of the daily intermarker distance differences were 0.7mm (range 0.3-1.2mm) for the H group and 0.6mm (range 0.2-1.2mm) for the NH group. The intermarker distances variations...

Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment, 2015

Purpose: To analyze the impact of mobile electronic devices (MEDs) and apps in the daily clinical... more Purpose: To analyze the impact of mobile electronic devices (MEDs) and apps in the daily clinical activity of young radiation or clinical oncologists in 5 Western European countries (Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark). Methods: A web-based questionnaire was sent to 462 young (≤40 years) members of the national radiation or clinical oncology associations of the countries involved in the study. The 15 items investigated diffusion of MEDs (smartphones and/or tablets), their impact on daily clinical activity, and the differences perceived by participants along time. Results: A total of 386 (83.5%) of the 462 correctly filled questionnaires were statistically evaluated. Up to 65% of respondents declared to use an electronic device during their clinical activity. Conversely, 72% considered low to moderate impact of smartphones/tables on their daily practice. The daily use significantly increased from 2009 to 2012: users reporting a use ≥6 times/d raised from 5% to 39.9%. Profes...

The clinical documents stored in a textual and unstructured manner represent a precious source of... more The clinical documents stored in a textual and unstructured manner represent a precious source of information that can be gathered by exploiting Information Retrieval techniques. Classification algorithms can be used for organizing this huge amount of data, but are usually tested on standardized corpora, which significantly differ from actual clinical documents that can be found in a modern hospital. The result is that observed performance are different from expected ones. Given such differences, it is unclear how should be the "right" training set, and how its characteristics affects the classification performance. In this paper we present the results of an experimental analysis, conducted on actual clinical documents from a medical Department, which aims to evaluate the impact of differently sized and assembled training sets on well-known classification techniques.

Radiologia Medica, 2013

Purpose. Radiotherapy (RT) has an established role in the treatment of prostate cancer patients. ... more Purpose. Radiotherapy (RT) has an established role in the treatment of prostate cancer patients. Despite the large number of patients treated with RT, some issues about optimal techniques, doses, volumes, timing, and association with androgen deprivation are still subject of debate. The aim of this survey was to determine the patterns of choice of Italian radiation oncologists in two different clinical cases of prostate cancer patients treated with radical RT. Study design. During the 2010 Italian Association of Radiation Oncology (AIRO) National congress, four different clinical cases were presented to attending radiation oncologists. Two of them were prostate cancer cases that could be treated by RT +/-hormonal therapy (HT), different for T stage of primary tumour according to TNM, preoperative diagnostic procedures for staging, initial prostate specific antigen (iPSA), and Gleason Score sum of biopsy. For each clinical case, radiation oncologists were asked to: (a) give indication to pretreatment procedures for staging; (b) give indication to treatment; (c) define specifically, where indicated, total dose, type of fractionation, volumes of treatment, type of technique,

The diagnostic and therapeutic approach to prostate cancer has evolved rapidly in last decades. Y... more The diagnostic and therapeutic approach to prostate cancer has evolved rapidly in last decades. Young professionals need an update about these recent developments in order to improve the care of patients treated in their daily clinical practice. On May 18, 2013, AIRO Giovani (the young section of the Italian Association of Radiation Oncology) organized a multidisciplinary meeting involving, as speakers, several young physicians from many parts of Italy actively involved in the diagnostic and therapeutic approach to prostate cancer. The meeting was specifically addressed to young physicians (radio-oncologists, urologists, medical oncologists) and presented the state-of-the-art of the diagnostic/therapeutic approach based on the latest evidence on the issue. Highlights of the congress are summarized and presented in this report. The large participation in the meeting (more than 120 participants were present) confirmed the interest of young radiation oncologists in improving their skills in prostate cancer management. The contributions of the speakers confirmed the need for regular updates, considering the promising results of recently published studies and the many new ongoing trials, on the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to prostate cancer. Multidisciplinary meetings are helpful to improve the skills of young professionals.

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 2013

Prostate cancer is the second cause of cancer in males. The prophylactic pelvic irradiation is us... more Prostate cancer is the second cause of cancer in males. The prophylactic pelvic irradiation is usually needed for treating prostate cancer patients with Subclinical Nodal Metestases. Currently, the physicians decide when to deliver pelvic irradiation in nodal negative patients mainly by using the Roach formula, which gives an approximate estimation of the risk of Subclinical Nodal Metestases. In this paper we study the exploitation of Machine Learning techniques for training models, based on several pre-treatment parameters, that can be used for predicting the nodal status of prostate cancer patients. An experimental retrospective analysis, conducted on the largest Italian database of prostate cancer patients treated with radical External Beam Radiation Therapy, shows that the proposed approaches can effectively predict the nodal status of patients.

Neuro-Oncology, 2011

We explored the feasibility of concurrent palliative chemotherapy and low-dose fractionated radio... more We explored the feasibility of concurrent palliative chemotherapy and low-dose fractionated radiotherapy (LD-FRT) in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Patients with recurrent/progressive GBM at least 3 months after the end of primary radiotherapy received 0.3 Gy twice daily with cisplatin and fotemustine if progressing on temozolomide, or 0.4 Gy twice daily with temozolomide if recurrent 4-6 months later (retreatment group). Newly diagnosed GBM with gross residual mass received 30 Gy with concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide and 0.4 Gy twice daily from the second adjuvant cycle (naive group) for 2-4 cycles. Twenty-six patients were enrolled. In the retreatment group (n 5 17; median LD-FRT total dose 7.2 Gy [range 2.4-11.6]), grade 3 or 4 hematological toxicity was observed in 5.9% of patients. Median follow-up time was 20 months (range 4-35). Median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) from the time of recurrence or progression were 4 and 8 months, respectively (OS at 6 months, 69%; at 12 months, 16.7%). In the naive group (n 5 9; median LD-FRT total dose 8 Gy [range 3.2-16]), grade 3 or 4 hematological toxicity was observed in 11.1% of patients. Median follow-up time was 17 months (range 8-20

Journal of Neuro-Oncology, 2011

Medulloblastoma (MB) occurs infrequently in adult patients and standard treatment is still contro... more Medulloblastoma (MB) occurs infrequently in adult patients and standard treatment is still controversial. We report our long-term, single-institution experience of adult MB and a review of the literature. We analysed adult patients with histologically proved MB treated by postoperative radiotherapy. Primary endpoints were local control (LC), disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). Acute toxicity was reported according to CTC-NCI score vers. 3.0 and specific neuropsychological assessment analysis was performed to define late brain toxicity. From 1990-2008, 13 patients were treated by craniospinal (CSI, 12/13) or cranial irradiation (1/13, because of bad clinical conditions). Median follow up was 101 months (64-218). Complete radiological response was observed in 12/13 patients and a partial response in 1/13. Ten-year LC, OS, and DFS were 91, 76, and 84%, respectively. Two patients died because of local and spinal progression after 13 and 62 months. Acute G3 haematological toxicity (RTOG score) was observed for one patient only. The neuropsychological analysis did not reveal late toxicity related to brain radiotherapy. This experience confirms the efficacy and safety of radiotherapy in adult MB patients, resulting in very interesting 10-year LC and OS. Keywords Adult medulloblastoma Á Radiotherapy Á Cranio-spinal irradiation Á CSI Á Toxicity Á Review Materials and methods We performed a retrospective analysis of all adult patients (C18 years old) with histological diagnosis of MB treated in the Radiation Therapy Department of the Catholic University (Rome). All patients that received surgery and postoperative radiotherapy were considered for this analysis. All patients signed an informed consent to treatment and were treated in accordance with the local quality

International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, 2010

Background: The development of new techniques for prostate irradiation such as intensity modulati... more Background: The development of new techniques for prostate irradiation such as intensity modulation, hypo-fractionation or stereotactic schema demands a high level of accuracy in prostate localization. Intra-prostatic gold markers are recommended to be implanted into ...

Cancer Investigation, 2013

Few data exist about the prevalence of burnout syndrome among young radiation oncologists. A nati... more Few data exist about the prevalence of burnout syndrome among young radiation oncologists. A national survey to assess its prevalence among junior members (under 40 yrs of age) of the Italian Society of Radiation Oncology was conducted. One hundred and twelve young radiation oncologists completed the questionnaire: the prevalence of burnout syndrome was 35%, and it was related to the presence of different personal, organizational, and work-related aspects, with an impact also on the private life (p < .005). Burnout syndrome is relatively common among young Italian radiation oncologists, and specific educational tools to help improve the management of workload and stress are needed.

Tumori Journal, 2010

Aims and background Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare skin tumor occurring mostly in older pe... more Aims and background Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare skin tumor occurring mostly in older people. Postoperative radiotherapy is strongly recommended to improve local control. A case of a MCC treated by radiotherapy associated with imiquimod (Aldara) is presented. A possible physiopathological rationale for this concomitant treatment is also given. Materials and methods We treated a diabetic 82-year-old man presenting with a MCC of the right zygomatic area. Despite surgery, postoperative ultrasonography showed a firm, painless residual mass of about 11 × 10 cm, fixed to the deep tissues. Parotid and zygomatic areas were treated along with the ipsilateral laterocervical lymph nodes. The total dose to the planning target volume was 50.4 Gy (1.8 Gy/day). Imiquimod was applied once a day to the zygomatic area with macroscopic infiltration and to the surrounding erythema. Results During the combination treatment, the patient showed acute G3 skin toxicity (RTOG) and a scab that resolv...

Radiotherapy and Oncology, 2015

perform the validation (Table 1). Our validation resulted in an AUC of 0.62. The AUC increased to... more perform the validation (Table 1). Our validation resulted in an AUC of 0.62. The AUC increased to 0.76 after we removed all duplicate patients due to multiple false-positive tumor length 'hits' per patient during automated free text search. Conclusions: We describe a method to extract data from multiple sources, and to apply a prediction model on routine clinical patient data. Although the free text extraction was not perfect and the number of patients in our validation was low (N=38), we have successfully shown a method for automatically (nightly) applying prediction models in clinical practice, and thus enabling use of prediction results for treatment decisions. Unfortunately, there is still a need to enhance data collection at the source. For example, the availability of pCR was our most limiting factor (only 4% of patients). Furthermore, the extraction of tumor length from free text reports remains necessary until available in a structured format. Based on this method, future work consists of adding more data sources and routine clinical validation of prediction models.

Radiotherapy and Oncology, 2015

S658 3rd ESTRO Forum 2015 Conclusions: Definitive chemoradiotherapy using Carboplatin and Paclita... more S658 3rd ESTRO Forum 2015 Conclusions: Definitive chemoradiotherapy using Carboplatin and Paclitaxel for inoperable esophageal cancer led to symptom relieve and a median overall survival of 13 months. Although acute toxicity grade ≥ 3 was common, the majority of patients were able to finish treatment. Given the toxicity profile and relatively short median survival, adequate selection of patients for this intensive treatment is required. In addition, as local recurrence rate was high, further dose escalation may be beneficial.

Studies in health technology and informatics

Taking decisions in the medical domain is a very complex task. The context is strongly affected b... more Taking decisions in the medical domain is a very complex task. The context is strongly affected by uncertainty and the possible undesired side effects of the treatments have to be carefully considered. Currently, these decisions are based on the physician's own experience and the evidences of the published literature, according, when available, with the philosophy of Evidence Based Medicine. The main issues of this approach are that the own experience can be different, and the results in the literature are sometimes contrasting. For helping physicians while taking medical decisions, we are proposing an innovative approach based on the idea of the clinical similarity. Given a set of clinical variables, the proposed approach selects patients that are similar, presenting to the physician the respective decisions taken and the corresponding clinical effects.

Cancer/Radiothérapie, 2011

Reports of Practical Oncology & Radiotherapy, 2015

Aim: We retrospectively analyzed our Institution experience with these patients. The endpoints of... more Aim: We retrospectively analyzed our Institution experience with these patients. The endpoints of the analysis were overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), local control (LC), metastasis free survival (MFS); results were compared with the literature. Background: Medulloblastoma in adult patients is a very rare disease; the 5 and 10-year overall survival rates range between 33-78% and 27-56%, respectively. The collection of more clinical data is strongly needed.

Cancer radiothérapie : journal de la Société française de radiothérapie oncologique, 2013

Gold markers are frequently used for a better daily repositioning of the prostate before irradiat... more Gold markers are frequently used for a better daily repositioning of the prostate before irradiation. The purpose of this work was to analyze if the combination of an androgen deprivation with the external irradiation could modify the position of the gold markers in the prostate. Ten patients have been treated for a prostate cancer, using three implanted gold markers. The variations of the intermarker distances in the prostate were measured and collected on daily OBI(®) kilovoltage images acquired at 0° and 90°. Five patients had a 6-month androgen deprivation started before the external irradiation (H group) and five did not (NH group). A total number of 1062 distances were calculated. No distance variation greater than 3.7mm was seen between two markers, in any of the two groups. The median standard deviations of the daily intermarker distance differences were 0.7mm (range 0.3-1.2mm) for the H group and 0.6mm (range 0.2-1.2mm) for the NH group. The intermarker distances variations...

Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment, 2015

Purpose: To analyze the impact of mobile electronic devices (MEDs) and apps in the daily clinical... more Purpose: To analyze the impact of mobile electronic devices (MEDs) and apps in the daily clinical activity of young radiation or clinical oncologists in 5 Western European countries (Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Denmark). Methods: A web-based questionnaire was sent to 462 young (≤40 years) members of the national radiation or clinical oncology associations of the countries involved in the study. The 15 items investigated diffusion of MEDs (smartphones and/or tablets), their impact on daily clinical activity, and the differences perceived by participants along time. Results: A total of 386 (83.5%) of the 462 correctly filled questionnaires were statistically evaluated. Up to 65% of respondents declared to use an electronic device during their clinical activity. Conversely, 72% considered low to moderate impact of smartphones/tables on their daily practice. The daily use significantly increased from 2009 to 2012: users reporting a use ≥6 times/d raised from 5% to 39.9%. Profes...

The clinical documents stored in a textual and unstructured manner represent a precious source of... more The clinical documents stored in a textual and unstructured manner represent a precious source of information that can be gathered by exploiting Information Retrieval techniques. Classification algorithms can be used for organizing this huge amount of data, but are usually tested on standardized corpora, which significantly differ from actual clinical documents that can be found in a modern hospital. The result is that observed performance are different from expected ones. Given such differences, it is unclear how should be the "right" training set, and how its characteristics affects the classification performance. In this paper we present the results of an experimental analysis, conducted on actual clinical documents from a medical Department, which aims to evaluate the impact of differently sized and assembled training sets on well-known classification techniques.

Radiologia Medica, 2013

Purpose. Radiotherapy (RT) has an established role in the treatment of prostate cancer patients. ... more Purpose. Radiotherapy (RT) has an established role in the treatment of prostate cancer patients. Despite the large number of patients treated with RT, some issues about optimal techniques, doses, volumes, timing, and association with androgen deprivation are still subject of debate. The aim of this survey was to determine the patterns of choice of Italian radiation oncologists in two different clinical cases of prostate cancer patients treated with radical RT. Study design. During the 2010 Italian Association of Radiation Oncology (AIRO) National congress, four different clinical cases were presented to attending radiation oncologists. Two of them were prostate cancer cases that could be treated by RT +/-hormonal therapy (HT), different for T stage of primary tumour according to TNM, preoperative diagnostic procedures for staging, initial prostate specific antigen (iPSA), and Gleason Score sum of biopsy. For each clinical case, radiation oncologists were asked to: (a) give indication to pretreatment procedures for staging; (b) give indication to treatment; (c) define specifically, where indicated, total dose, type of fractionation, volumes of treatment, type of technique,

The diagnostic and therapeutic approach to prostate cancer has evolved rapidly in last decades. Y... more The diagnostic and therapeutic approach to prostate cancer has evolved rapidly in last decades. Young professionals need an update about these recent developments in order to improve the care of patients treated in their daily clinical practice. On May 18, 2013, AIRO Giovani (the young section of the Italian Association of Radiation Oncology) organized a multidisciplinary meeting involving, as speakers, several young physicians from many parts of Italy actively involved in the diagnostic and therapeutic approach to prostate cancer. The meeting was specifically addressed to young physicians (radio-oncologists, urologists, medical oncologists) and presented the state-of-the-art of the diagnostic/therapeutic approach based on the latest evidence on the issue. Highlights of the congress are summarized and presented in this report. The large participation in the meeting (more than 120 participants were present) confirmed the interest of young radiation oncologists in improving their skills in prostate cancer management. The contributions of the speakers confirmed the need for regular updates, considering the promising results of recently published studies and the many new ongoing trials, on the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to prostate cancer. Multidisciplinary meetings are helpful to improve the skills of young professionals.

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, 2013

Prostate cancer is the second cause of cancer in males. The prophylactic pelvic irradiation is us... more Prostate cancer is the second cause of cancer in males. The prophylactic pelvic irradiation is usually needed for treating prostate cancer patients with Subclinical Nodal Metestases. Currently, the physicians decide when to deliver pelvic irradiation in nodal negative patients mainly by using the Roach formula, which gives an approximate estimation of the risk of Subclinical Nodal Metestases. In this paper we study the exploitation of Machine Learning techniques for training models, based on several pre-treatment parameters, that can be used for predicting the nodal status of prostate cancer patients. An experimental retrospective analysis, conducted on the largest Italian database of prostate cancer patients treated with radical External Beam Radiation Therapy, shows that the proposed approaches can effectively predict the nodal status of patients.

Neuro-Oncology, 2011

We explored the feasibility of concurrent palliative chemotherapy and low-dose fractionated radio... more We explored the feasibility of concurrent palliative chemotherapy and low-dose fractionated radiotherapy (LD-FRT) in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Patients with recurrent/progressive GBM at least 3 months after the end of primary radiotherapy received 0.3 Gy twice daily with cisplatin and fotemustine if progressing on temozolomide, or 0.4 Gy twice daily with temozolomide if recurrent 4-6 months later (retreatment group). Newly diagnosed GBM with gross residual mass received 30 Gy with concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide and 0.4 Gy twice daily from the second adjuvant cycle (naive group) for 2-4 cycles. Twenty-six patients were enrolled. In the retreatment group (n 5 17; median LD-FRT total dose 7.2 Gy [range 2.4-11.6]), grade 3 or 4 hematological toxicity was observed in 5.9% of patients. Median follow-up time was 20 months (range 4-35). Median progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) from the time of recurrence or progression were 4 and 8 months, respectively (OS at 6 months, 69%; at 12 months, 16.7%). In the naive group (n 5 9; median LD-FRT total dose 8 Gy [range 3.2-16]), grade 3 or 4 hematological toxicity was observed in 11.1% of patients. Median follow-up time was 17 months (range 8-20

Journal of Neuro-Oncology, 2011

Medulloblastoma (MB) occurs infrequently in adult patients and standard treatment is still contro... more Medulloblastoma (MB) occurs infrequently in adult patients and standard treatment is still controversial. We report our long-term, single-institution experience of adult MB and a review of the literature. We analysed adult patients with histologically proved MB treated by postoperative radiotherapy. Primary endpoints were local control (LC), disease-free survival (DFS), and overall survival (OS). Acute toxicity was reported according to CTC-NCI score vers. 3.0 and specific neuropsychological assessment analysis was performed to define late brain toxicity. From 1990-2008, 13 patients were treated by craniospinal (CSI, 12/13) or cranial irradiation (1/13, because of bad clinical conditions). Median follow up was 101 months (64-218). Complete radiological response was observed in 12/13 patients and a partial response in 1/13. Ten-year LC, OS, and DFS were 91, 76, and 84%, respectively. Two patients died because of local and spinal progression after 13 and 62 months. Acute G3 haematological toxicity (RTOG score) was observed for one patient only. The neuropsychological analysis did not reveal late toxicity related to brain radiotherapy. This experience confirms the efficacy and safety of radiotherapy in adult MB patients, resulting in very interesting 10-year LC and OS. Keywords Adult medulloblastoma Á Radiotherapy Á Cranio-spinal irradiation Á CSI Á Toxicity Á Review Materials and methods We performed a retrospective analysis of all adult patients (C18 years old) with histological diagnosis of MB treated in the Radiation Therapy Department of the Catholic University (Rome). All patients that received surgery and postoperative radiotherapy were considered for this analysis. All patients signed an informed consent to treatment and were treated in accordance with the local quality

International Journal of Radiation Oncology*Biology*Physics, 2010

Background: The development of new techniques for prostate irradiation such as intensity modulati... more Background: The development of new techniques for prostate irradiation such as intensity modulation, hypo-fractionation or stereotactic schema demands a high level of accuracy in prostate localization. Intra-prostatic gold markers are recommended to be implanted into ...

Cancer Investigation, 2013

Few data exist about the prevalence of burnout syndrome among young radiation oncologists. A nati... more Few data exist about the prevalence of burnout syndrome among young radiation oncologists. A national survey to assess its prevalence among junior members (under 40 yrs of age) of the Italian Society of Radiation Oncology was conducted. One hundred and twelve young radiation oncologists completed the questionnaire: the prevalence of burnout syndrome was 35%, and it was related to the presence of different personal, organizational, and work-related aspects, with an impact also on the private life (p < .005). Burnout syndrome is relatively common among young Italian radiation oncologists, and specific educational tools to help improve the management of workload and stress are needed.