Exemestane represents an active and well-tolerated treatment option in pretreated patients with advanced breast cancer who have received standard first- and second line hormonal therapies. By extending the sequence of hormonal therapy, disease progression and the need for chemotherapy may be significantly delayed.

The MTD of Caelyx given concurrently with CDDP and RT was determined at the 12 mg/m2/week dose level. The above CCRT schema is a well-tolerated regimen, easy to administer in ambulatory patients, and results appear promising.

Background: Inclusion of inguinal lymphadenectomy in the surgical procedure is a potential prognostic factor for squamous cell vulvar carcinoma. Patients and Methods: A total of 33 women with early-stage squamous cell vulvar carcinoma were analyzed retrospectively. Before the establishment of FIGO criteria in 1983, 17 patients with stage I and 2 patients with stage II were evaluated clinically without inguinal lymphadenectomy. All patients underwent post-operative radiotherapy with a median dose of 45 Gy to the pelvis (vulva included) and boost dose to the vulva ranging from 10 to 20 Gy. Factors assessed for prognostic value included age, inguinal lymph node dissection, differentiation grade, and total irradiation dose to the vulva and pelvis. Results: The log-rank test and the univariate regression analysis revealed that all above factors except irradiation dose decreased the overall survival. In the multivariate regression analysis, differentiation grade and the absence of inguinal dissection were independent predictors for decreased survival with a relative risk up to 2.6 (95% CI = 1.3, 5.6) and 2.7 (95% CI = 1.31, 5.44), respectively. Conclusion: Clinical evaluation of inguinal lymph node involvement is inadequate and node dissection is definitely the only appropriate surgical procedure for vulvar carcinoma.

The charts of 50 women with invasive squamous cell vulvar carcinoma were reviewed retrospectively, and pathologic, medical and life style factors were analyzed for their possible influence on survival using the Cox regression univariate model. The median age of the cohort was 73.5 years. The patient distribution according to stage was as follows: stage I: 17; stage II: 16; stage III: 12, and stage IVa: 5 patients. The median follow-up was 61 months. The univariate analysis revealed that the overall survival was decreased by age ≧73.5 years (p = 0.0185), advanced stage (p = 0.0026), grade III differentiation (p < 0.0001), ulcerative type of the tumor (p = 0.0055), tumor diameter >40 mm (p = 0.0053), obesity (p = 0.011), smoking (p = 0.0177), diabetes (p = 0.0122) and hypertension (p = 0.044), but not with clitoral involvement.

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