Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori

Pimicotinib versus placebo in tenosynovial giant cell tumor (TGCT): a plain language summary of the MANEUVER clinical trial

Plain Language SummaryWhat is this summary about?This summary describes the main findings of the MANEUVER clinical trial for pimicotinib, a once-daily treatment. The goal was to see if pimicotinib could significantly reduce tumor size after 24 weeks of treatment in clinical trial...

Spirituality in Multicultural Pediatric Oncology End-of-Life Care: Four Cases

Attention to spiritual needs at the end-of-life remains an issue that deserves to be implemented in oncology, especially when it comes to pediatric patients. Using different end-of-life stories experienced at the pediatric oncology unit of the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale...

Toward personalized shared decision-making: a pilot study on an individualized patient decision aid

Decision aids are tools that can reduce decisional conflict and enhance patient satisfaction in the decision-making process. However, tool heterogeneity and clinical barriers, such as physician time constraints, hinder their implementation. This study introduces an individualized...

PET/CT-first staging in anal cancer: reconsidering the role of routine MRI

Multimodal imaging with pelvic MRI and FDG PET/CT is currently recommended for staging anal squamous cell carcinoma (ASCC). However, accumulating data suggest that PET/CT frequently alters staging and radiotherapy planning, raising questions about whether routine MRI is necessary...

Tools for providing information to patients about high-tech medical resources for treatment of cancer

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: High-tech medical resources play an increasingly important role in cancer diagnosis and treatment. However, accessing information about these technologies remains challenging due to their complexity and a lack of clear information pathways to obtain reliab...

Advancing cancer care for adolescents and young adults: the role of the European Network of Expertise

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs, aged 15-39 years at cancer diagnosis) are recognized as a distinct patient group with specific clinical and psychosocial needs requiring tailored care. This article presents the Network of Expertise (NoE) on AYAs with cancer developed through t...

A physics-informed neural network approach to diffusion and auto-oxidation in Fricke gel dosimeters

Precise dose quantification is critical for advanced radiation-based medical applications, particularly in emerging high dose-rate and mini-beam therapies. Fricke gels (FGs) are promising tissue-equivalent dosimeters based on the radiation-induced oxidation of \(Fe^{2+}\) to \(Fe...

Circulating tumor DNA-guided de-escalation or escalation of adjuvant therapy in high-risk stage II and stage III colon cancer: the phase 2 PEGASUS trial

Oxaliplatin–fluoropyrimidine combinations are standard adjuvant therapy after radical resection of high-risk stage II and stage III colon cancer but expose many patients to toxicity while failing to prevent relapse in others. PEGASUS was a multicenter, single-arm, phase 2 trial e...

Clinical usability of an explainable AI decision support tool and evaluation of multimodal models in NSCLC

Abstract Despite a decade in, immunotherapy (IO) treatment selection in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains largely guided by subgroup analyses and imperfect programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and clinical scores. To our knowledge, I 3 LUNG ( NCT05537922 ) is currently the...

Management of Soft Tissue and Visceral Leiomyosarcomas

Importance Leiomyosarcoma is a rare and heterogeneous malignant mesenchymal neoplasm associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. Given recent advances in biologic understanding and the complexity of leiomyosarcoma, a consensus-driven approach is needed to harmonize manag...

Prognostic Role of Adverse Events in a Worldwide Population of Patients with Biliary Tract Cancer Treated with Chemo-Immunotherapy

Background: Biliary tract cancers (BTCs) are aggressive malignancies with limited treatment options. The addition of durvalumab or pembrolizumab to cisplatin–gemcitabine improves overall survival (OS), but validated biomarkers of benefit remain limited. Immune-mediated adverse ev...

Impact of postoperative pulmonary complications on survival after gastrectomy for cancer: individual patient data meta-analysis

Abstract Background Pulmonary complications (PC) may occur in up to 6.8% of patients after gastrectomy. Although PC are associated with prolonged hospital stay and increased overall healthcare costs, their impact on long-term survival remains controversial. This study aimed to an...

Lynch syndrome–associated urothelial carcinoma: clinical and molecular findings from a single-institution cohort

Lynch syndrome–associated urothelial carcinoma (LS-UC) is a rare and undercharacterized clinical entity. While FGFR3 alterations are well described in sporadic urothelial carcinoma, their prevalence and clinical implications in LS-UC remain unclear. We aimed to provide a comprehe...

Cemiplimab in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma: a longer follow‐up study focusing on the late toxicities

Summary Background and Objectives Cemiplimab was the first systemic therapy approved for advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). Patients and Methods We report findings from the Italian early access program cohort, comprising 134 patients treated with cemiplimab, with...

Deep molecular profiling of lung neuroendocrine tumours and supra-carcinoids

BACKGROUND: Lung neuroendocrine tumours (NETs, also known as carcinoids) are rapidly rising in incidence worldwide but have unknown aetiology and limited therapeutic options beyond surgery. The current WHO classification, based on mitotic count and presence or absence of necrosis...

Paediatric therapeutic development workshop on osteosarcoma

The fourth Paediatric Therapeutic Development Workshop focused on osteosarcoma, the most common primary bone cancer in children and young adults. Current treatment of osteosarcoma comprises surgery and chemotherapy. Outcome has shown very little improvement over the last four dec...

The New Cardio-Oncology Frontier in Hematologic Cancers: Cardiovascular Toxicities of CAR-T Cells and Bispecific T-Cell Engagers

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy and bispecific T-cell engagers have transformed treatment of relapsed and refractory hematologic malignancies, achieving unprecedented response rates. However, their clinical adoption has revealed a complex spectrum of cardiovascular toxic...

Global Real‐World Outcomes of Olaparib in Metastatic Castration‐Resistant Prostate Cancer Patients With Homologous Recombination Repair Alterations

Evidence to guide the treatment for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) and Homologous Recombination Repair (HRR) gene alterations outside of clinical trials remains limited. This was an observational, cohort study, including mCRPC patients with...

Technical note: reconstructing dose distributions from manually planned electron boosts in breast radiotherapy

Purpose In breast radiotherapy, delivery of manually-calculated electron boosts limits retrospective dose–response analyses as dose distribution is unavailable. This work evaluates the feasibility of reconstructing dose distributions from manually planned electron boosts in breas...

In-depth characterisation of the tumour microenvironment reveals HHV-8-dependent immune regulation in HIV-associated and classic Kaposi sarcoma

BACKGROUND: Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is the most common malignancy occurring in people living with HIV (PLWH). The clinical course of KS in PLWH established on combined anti-retroviral therapy (cART) resembles that of classic KS. OBJECTIVES: To compare the clinical and biological ch...