Under the section "Adjuvant chemotherapy for early-stage disease"Long-term follow-up of the ICON 1 trial confirms the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy, particularly in those patients at higher risk of recurrence (stage 1B/C grade 2/3, any grade 3 or clear-cell histology) [34]. Therefore, adjuvant chemotherapy should be offered not only to suboptimally staged patients but also to those optimally staged at higher risk of recurrence [I, A].

Gemcitabine is a drug with documented anti-tumor activity in patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Background: During an international workshop held in September 1998, a group of specialists in the field of ovarian cancer reached consensus on a number of issues with implications for standard practice and for research of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer.Methods: Five groups of experts considered several issues which incl uded: biologic factors, prognostic factors, surgery, init ial chemotherapy, second-line treatment, the use of CA 125, investigational drugs, intra-peritoneal treatment and high-dose chemotherapy. The group attempted to arrive at answers to questions such as: Are there prognostic factors, which help to identify patients who will not do well with CUITent therapy? What is the current best therapy for advanced ovarian carcinoma? What directions sho uld research take in advanced ovarian cancer? T hese issues were discussed in a plenary meeting.

In daily practice, a combination of oral dexamethasone and oral granisetron achieves an extremely high control of acute emesis (86% protection). Our data suggest that routine prescription of setrons for delayed phase control is not advisable as it increases costs without any benefit for the majority of patients. Delayed emesis in the rare patients with acute phase emesis remains an unsolved problem.

A direct patient estimation of overall treatment burden by a LASA indicator may serve as an end point in clinical trials, particularly when treatments with different toxicity profiles are being compared. It is complementary to physicians' ratings of specific toxicities and a major component of patient-rated symptom checklists and quality-of-life measures.