No abstract

Background: Acute skin toxicity is a common and usually transient side-effect of breast radiotherapy although, if sufficiently severe, it can affect breast cosmesis, aftercare costs and the patient's quality-of-life. The aim of this study was to develop predictive models for acute skin toxicity using published risk factors and externally validate the models in patients recruited into the prospective multi-center REQUITE (validating pREdictive models and biomarkers of radiotherapy toxicity to reduce side-effects and improve QUalITy of lifE in cancer survivors) study.Methods: Patient and treatment-related risk factors significantly associated with acute breast radiation toxicity on multivariate analysis were identified in the literature. These predictors were used to develop risk models for acute erythema and acute desquamation (skin loss) in three Radiogenomics Consortium cohorts of patients treated by breast-conserving surgery and whole breast external beam radiotherapy (n = 2,031). The models were externally validated in the REQUITE breast cancer cohort (n = 2,057).Results: The final risk model for acute erythema included BMI, breast size, hypo-fractionation, boost, tamoxifen use and smoking status. This model was validated in REQUITE with moderate discrimination (AUC 0.65), calibration and agreement between predicted and observed toxicity (Brier score 0.17). The risk model for acute desquamation, excluding the predictor tamoxifen use, failed to validate in the REQUITE cohort.Conclusions: While most published prediction research in the field has focused on model development, this study reports successful external validation of a predictive model using clinical risk factors for acute erythema following radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery. This model retained discriminatory power but will benefit from further re-calibration. A similar model to predict acute desquamation failed to validate in the REQUITE cohort. Future improvements and more accurate predictions are expected through the addition of genetic markers and application of other modeling and machine learning techniques.

Background: This study assessed the views of patients undergoing breast surgery for breast cancer with a planned overnight stay, asking whether they would be happy to be discharged home on the same day of surgery. Methods: A structured questionnaire sent out in the 6 weeks following surgery was used to ascertain the patients' views. Results: The majority of patients undergoing mastectomy and axillary node clearance preferred an overnight stay, primarily for psychological reasons. Conclusions: Patients undergoing breast-conserving surgery were more prepared to go home on the day of surgery.

Aim: To identify the effect of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) interactions on the risk of toxicity following radiotherapy (RT) for prostate cancer (PCa) and propose a new method for polygenic risk score incorporating SNP-SNP interactions (PRSi). Materials and methods: Analysis included the REQUITE PCa cohort that received external beam RT and was followed for 2 years. Late toxicity endpoints were: rectal bleeding, urinary frequency, haematuria,

SummaryBetween 1980 and 1992, 116 The 116 patients presented in the study are those who had intra-abdominal surgery (84; 53 women, 31 men) or simple mastectomy (32). The median age was 74 years (range and all the patients were grade III or worse on