"Baseline physical functioning status of metastatic colorectal cancer patients predicts the overall survival but not the activity of a front-line oxaliplatin-fluoropyrimidine doublet"

BACKGROUND: No differences in response rate (RR), progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS) and quality of life (QoL) were seen in patients randomly treated with biweekly oxaliplatin plus either fluorouracil/folinic acid or capecitabine. METHODS: We investigated the independent effect of baseline clinical characteristics and physical functioning (PF) domain on RR, PFS, and OS in 310 patients who completed the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire. Multivariate analyses stratified by treatment were performed. An exploratory analysis was done by grouping patients with a PF score superior or equal to the highest quartile (n = 111), included between the highest and the lowest quartiles (n = …

“Bevacizumab (Bev) with irinotecan (IRI), folinic acid (FA), and 5-fluorouracil (FU) i.v. every 2 weeks (BIFF regimen) as first-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC) patients (pts): an observational study of the Southern Italy Cooperative Oncology Group (SICOG)”

“Bevacizumab (BEV),irinotecan (IRI), folinic acid (FA) and fluorouracil (FU) every 2 weeks (BIFF regimen) as first-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC) patients (pts): the Southern Italy Cooperative Oncology Group (SICOG) experience”

Prevalence and treatment of cancer pain in Italian oncological wards centres: a cross-sectional survey.

The aim of this national cross-sectional survey was to draw information on pain prevalence and intensity from a large sample of patients who were admitted to oncologic centres for different reasons and to evaluate the pain treatment and possible influencing factors.A total of 2,655 patients completed the study. Nine hundred and one patients (34%) reported pain.Higher pain levels were observed in inpatients, in the presence of bone metastases, and with low levels of Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group status. The number of patients receiving strong opioids increased with the highest levels of pain. However, a significant part of patients with moderate-severe pain were not receiving appropriat…