OriginalienDer ideale Arzt soll seelisch stabil, immer hilfsbereit und möglichst anhaltend belastbar sein. Zu fragen wä-re, ob ein solches Ideal durchzuhalten ist und falls ja, um welchen Preis, insbesondere im Hinblick auf die psychische Gesundheit.

The course of condylar metastases in general is similar to other metastases involving the jaw. Breast cancer as the primary tumor is most frequent, followed by lung cancer. There are no specific clinical or radiological parameters leading to diagnosis. The clinician should take a potential metastasis into account when dealing with TMJ complaints, radiological oddities, and medical history of malignant tumors. For proper treatment planning, diagnosis should be based on histology. Since the diagnosis of metastasis is usually made at an advanced stage of disease, therapy will be mainly intended as palliative.

Case Report on a Breast Cancer Patient: A description of medical history, diagnosis and therapy of a patient with breast cancer is presented. The patient showed primary symptoms of vertigo and truncal and gait ataxia. The cause of this cerebellar disorder was a paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD) characterized by anti-Purkinje cell antibodies (anti-Yo) directed against specific epitops shared by Purkinje and tumour cells. The presence of these antibodies in some patients suggests an autoimmune mechanism, although their role in pathogenesis has not been established. Usually malignancies of the breast and the ovaries are associated with anti-Yo positive PCD. The intensive search for the underlying neoplasma led to the identification of a malignant tumour of the right breast. Tumour excision of subsequent immunosuppressive treatment resulted in a progression of PCD. Antibody titers remained nearly unchanged during the course of the disease.

Therapeutic results in advanced cervical cancer have not been showing any progress for more than 30 years. Only by means of systemic therapy does it seem possible, that further treatment results may be obtained similar to those in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Therefore, between 1985 and 1990 we tried to apply an aggressive polychemotherapy regimen for 5 days with cisplatinum and 5-fluorouracil with supportive treatment in 47 patients with either primary advanced inoperable (n = 25) or recurrent (n = 22) cervix carcinomas. Complete (n = 12) and partial remissions (n = 24) could be obtained in 36 out of 47 cases (= 77%). However, this high response rate conceals the fact, that this aggressive palliative treatment in case of recurrence and/or distant metastases means a considerable deterioration of quality of life with a median survival time of only 9.5 months. Although primary therapy with combined chemoradiotherapy shows good results, it is, however, only a real advantage for patients with complete response. Taking into account the short period of observation (median 25 months), the overall survival of all primary advanced cervix carcinomas is 13 + months, in case of complete remission 20 + months. It remains to be seen, whether sequential or simultaneous chemoradiotherapy will prove superior. Due to severe haematoxicity (WHO grade IV) after the first 3 treated patients, a dose reduction of 20% of chemotherapy was necessary. No further severe toxicities occurred. By means of supportive care, other side effects could also be well controlled, so that this effective polychemotherapy regimen is not only efficacious but also practicable. Prospective randomised studies are required to determine the importance of exclusive or combined chemoradiotherapy in advanced as well as in operable cancer of the cervix.

No abstract