BACKGROUND Locoregional recurrence of breast cancer is challenging for clinicians, due to the various former treatments patients have undergone. However, treatment of the recurrence with systemic therapy and subsequent reirradiation of chest wall is accompanied by increased toxicities, particularly radiation-induced cardiovascular disease. Reirradiation by proton beam therapy (PBT) enables superior preservation of adjacent organs at risk as well as concurrent dose escalation for delivery to the gross tumor. This technology is expected to improve the overall outcome of recurrent breast cancer. CASE SUMMARY A 47-year-old female presented with an extensive locoregional recurrence at 10 yr after primary treatment of a luminal A breast cancer. Because of tumor progression despite having undergone bilateral ovarectomy and systemic therapy, the patient was treated with PBT total dose of 64.40 Gy to each gross tumor and 56.00 Gy to the upper mediastinal and retrosternal lymphatics including the entire sternum in 28 fractions. Follow-up computed tomography showed a partial remission, without evidence of newly emerging metastasis. At 19 mo after the PBT, the patient developed a radiation-induced pericardial disease and pleural effusions with clinical burden of dyspnea, which were successfully treated by drainage and corticosteroid. Cytological analysis of the puncture fluid showed no malignancy, and the subsequent computed tomography scan indicated stable disease as well as significantly decreased pericardial and pleural effusions. The patient remains free of progression to date. CONCLUSION PBT was a safe and effective method of reirradiation for locoregionally recurrent breast cancer in our patient.

Purpose/Objective(s)Multimodality treatments together with local proton therapy (PT) are commonly used in unresectable primary bone malignancies in order to provide better tumor control rate while maintaining good feasibility. The aim of this study is to provide data on outcome of PT for the challenging cohort of pelvic and lumbar bone tumors.Methods and MaterialsThis retrospective study includes all patients with primary bone malignancy of the pelvis and lumbar spine receiving PT in our institution between May 2013 and December 2019 enrolled in the prospective registries KiProReg and ProReg collecting information on demographics, treatment, tumor characteristics, toxicities, and outcome.ResultsEighty-one patients were enrolled with a median age of 19.7 years (1.3–85.8). The median follow-up time was 27.5 months (1.2–83.2). The majority of patients was male (64.2%), ECOG status of 0–1 (75.2%), underwent only biopsy (50.6%), received chemotherapy (69.1%) and was assigned for definite PT (70.4%). The predominant tumor characteristics were as follows: Ewing’s sarcoma histology (58%), negative nodal involvement (97.5%) and no metastasis at diagnosis (81.5%). Median maximal diameter of tumor was 8 cm (1.4–20). LC, EFS and OS rate were 76.5, 60, and 88.1% at two years and 72.9, 45.7, and 68.9% at three years, respectively. Age over 20 years was a significant negative factor for LC, EFS, and OS. Metastatic disease at initial diagnosis affected OS and ECOG status of 2–4 affected EFS only. Regarding 17 relapsed cases (21%), isolated distant relapse was the most common failure (46.9%) followed by local failure (40.6%). Eleven out of 14 evaluable patients relapsed within high-dose region of radiotherapy. Acute grade 3–4 toxicity was found in 41 patients (50.6%) and all toxicities were manageable. Late grade 3 toxicity was reported in 7 patients (10.4%) without any of grade 4. Most common higher grade acute and late side effects concerned hematologic and musculoskeletal toxicity.ConclusionProton therapy resulted in good oncological outcomes when being part of the multimodality treatment for pelvic and lumbar primary bone malignancies. However, distant metastases and local failures within the high-dose region of radiotherapy are still a common issue. Acute and late toxicities of combined therapy were acceptable.

Background Accurate prediction of survival is crucial for both physicians and women with breast cancer to enable clinical decision making on appropriate treatments. The currently available survival prediction tools were developed based on demographic and clinical data obtained from specific populations and may underestimate or overestimate the survival of women with breast cancer in China. Objective This study aims to develop and validate a prognostic app to predict the overall survival of women with breast cancer in China. Methods Nine-year (January 2009-December 2017) clinical data of women with breast cancer who received surgery and adjuvant therapy from 2 hospitals in Xiamen were collected and matched against the death data from the Xiamen Center of Disease Control and Prevention. All samples were randomly divided (7:3 ratio) into a training set for model construction and a test set for model external validation. Multivariable Cox regression analysis was used to construct a survival prediction model. The model performance was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Brier score. Finally, by running the survival prediction model in the app background thread, the prognostic app, called iCanPredict, was developed for women with breast cancer in China. Results A total of 1592 samples were included for data analysis. The training set comprised 1114 individuals and the test set comprised 478 individuals. Age at diagnosis, clinical stage, molecular classification, operative type, axillary lymph node dissection, chemotherapy, and endocrine therapy were incorporated into the model, where age at diagnosis (hazard ratio [HR] 1.031, 95% CI 1.011-1.051; P=.002), clinical stage (HR 3.044, 95% CI 2.347-3.928; P<.001), and endocrine therapy (HR 0.592, 95% CI 0.384-0.914; P=.02) significantly influenced the survival of women with breast cancer. The operative type (P=.81) and the other 4 variables (molecular classification [P=.91], breast reconstruction [P=.36], axillary lymph node dissection [P=.32], and chemotherapy [P=.84]) were not significant. The ROC curve of the training set showed that the model exhibited good discrimination for predicting 1- (area under the curve [AUC] 0.802, 95% CI 0.713-0.892), 5- (AUC 0.813, 95% CI 0.760-0.865), and 10-year (AUC 0.740, 95% CI 0.672-0.808) overall survival. The Brier scores at 1, 5, and 10 years after diagnosis were 0.005, 0.055, and 0.103 in the training set, respectively, and were less than 0.25, indicating good predictive ability. The test set externally validated model discrimination and calibration. In the iCanPredict app, when physicians or women input women’s clinical information and their choice of surgery and adjuvant therapy, the corresponding 10-year survival prediction will be presented. Conclusions This survival prediction model provided good model discrimination and calibration. iCanPredict is the first tool of its kind in China to provide survival predictions to women with breast cancer. iCanPredict will increase women’s awareness of the similar survival rate of different surgeries and the importance of adherence to endocrine therapy, ultimately helping women to make informed decisions regarding treatment for breast cancer.

BACKGROUND Sinonasal malignancies are rare but demanding due to complex anatomy, usually late diagnosis, and inconsistent therapy strategy based on multimodality approaches. Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most common histology, with poorer prognosis. In the setting of orbital invasion, an orbital exenteration may be required. However, in case of primary rejection of disfiguring surgery or unresectable disease, proton beam therapy (PBT) should be largely considered, allowing for better sparing of neighboring critical structures and improved outcomes by dose escalation. CASE SUMMARY A 62-year-old male presented with a recurrent SCC in the nasal septum abutting frontal skull base and bilateral orbits at 7 mo after primary partial nasal amputation. Because of refusal of face-deforming surgery and considerable adverse effects of conventional radiotherapy, the patient underwent a PBT by hyperfractionated accelerated scheme, resulting in complete response and moderate toxicities. After 2 years, a nasal reconstruction was implemented with satisfactory appearance and recurrence-freedom to date. Another patient with an initially extended sinonasal SCC, invading right orbit and facial soft tissue, declined an orbital exenteration and was treated with a normofractionated PBT to the gross tumor and elective cervical lymphatics. The follow-up showed a continuous tumor remission with reasonable late toxicities, such as cataract and telangiectasia on the right. Despite T4a stage and disapproval of concurrent chemotherapy owing to individual choice, both patients still achieved outstanding treatment outcomes with PBT alone. CONCLUSION PBT enabled orbit preservation and excellent tumor control without severe adverse effects on both presented patients with locally advanced sinonasal SCC.

BACKGROUND Accurate prediction of survival is crucial for both physicians and women with breast cancer to enable clinical decision making on appropriate treatments. The currently available survival prediction tools were developed based on demographic and clinical data obtained from specific populations and may underestimate or overestimate the survival of women with breast cancer in China. OBJECTIVE This study aims to develop and validate a prognostic app to predict the overall survival of women with breast cancer in China. METHODS Nine-year (January 2009-December 2017) clinical data of women with breast cancer who received surgery and adjuvant therapy from 2 hospitals in Xiamen were collected and matched against the death data from the Xiamen Center of Disease Control and Prevention. All samples were randomly divided (7:3 ratio) into a training set for model construction and a test set for model external validation. Multivariable Cox regression analysis was used to construct a survival prediction model. The model performance was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Brier score. Finally, by running the survival prediction model in the app background thread, the prognostic app, called iCanPredict, was developed for women with breast cancer in China. RESULTS A total of 1592 samples were included for data analysis. The training set comprised 1114 individuals and the test set comprised 478 individuals. Age at diagnosis, clinical stage, molecular classification, operative type, axillary lymph node dissection, chemotherapy, and endocrine therapy were incorporated into the model, where age at diagnosis (hazard ratio [HR] 1.031, 95% CI 1.011-1.051; <i>P</i>=.002), clinical stage (HR 3.044, 95% CI 2.347-3.928; <i>P</i>&lt;.001), and endocrine therapy (HR 0.592, 95% CI 0.384-0.914; <i>P</i>=.02) significantly influenced the survival of women with breast cancer. The operative type (<i>P</i>=.81) and the other 4 variables (molecular classification [<i>P</i>=.91], breast reconstruction [<i>P</i>=.36], axillary lymph node dissection [<i>P</i>=.32], and chemotherapy [<i>P</i>=.84]) were not significant. The ROC curve of the training set showed that the model exhibited good discrimination for predicting 1- (area under the curve [AUC] 0.802, 95% CI 0.713-0.892), 5- (AUC 0.813, 95% CI 0.760-0.865), and 10-year (AUC 0.740, 95% CI 0.672-0.808) overall survival. The Brier scores at 1, 5, and 10 years after diagnosis were 0.005, 0.055, and 0.103 in the training set, respectively, and were less than 0.25, indicating good predictive ability. The test set externally validated model discrimination and calibration. In the iCanPredict app, when physicians or women input women’s clinical information and their choice of surgery and adjuvant therapy, the corresponding 10-year survival prediction will be presented. CONCLUSIONS This survival prediction model provided good model discrimination and calibration. iCanPredict is the first tool of its kind in China to provide survival predictions to women with breast cancer. iCanPredict will increase women’s awareness of the similar survival rate of different surgeries and the importance of adherence to endocrine therapy, ultimately helping women to make informed decisions regarding treatment for breast cancer.