PURPOSE Persistent/recurrent disease in the neck is frequent in patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). The goal of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the reoperation and radioiodine (RAI) treatment for persistent/recurrent disease after the initial treatment.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/rin1.html  METHODS A total of 30 patients (13 M/17 F) with PTC were enrolled in this study. All had been submitted to total thyroidectomy for PTC and subsequently to reoperation for local persistent/recurrent disease. All had received RAI, before and/or after reoperation. The mean age at initial thyroidectomy and cancer diagnosis was 41.4±15.2 years. Initial T status was T1 in 22 cases (73.3%), T2 in 4 cases (13.3%) and T3 in 4 cases (13.3%). Initial N status was N0 in 2 cases (6.6%), N1 in 15 cases (50%) and Nx in 13 cases (43.3%). RESULTS Reoperation reduced the mean stimulated thyroglobulin (stimTg) serum concentration from 76.1±165.5 ng/mL to 20.1±28.8 ng/mL, p=0.002. The RAI treatment provided to 19 patients after reoperation reduced further the stimTg values from 28.6±32.4 ng/mL after reoperation, to 11.3±20.4 ng/mL, p=0.003. According to the dynamic risk stratification after the reoperation 7 patients (23.3%) had excellent response, 4 (13.3%) had biochemically incomplete response, 9 (30.0%) had indeterminate response and 10 (33.3%) had still structural incomplete response. CONCLUSION Surgery for local persistent/recurrent disease in papillary thyroid carcinoma reduces tumor burden, improves the biochemical and structural disease. Administration of therapeutic RAI after lymph node resections appears to further improve biochemical disease.PURPOSE The incidence of histologically proven lymph node metastases (LNM) in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) reaches 80%. According to different guidelines surgical management in clinically N0 (cN0) patients with PTC remains controversial. The purpose of this study was to investigate if sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNb) using methylene blue dye is accurate in the detection of LNM in the lateral neck compartment in cN0 patients with PTC. METHODS Enrolled were 153 cN0 patients with PTC. All underwent total thyroidectomy with central neck dissection and SLNb in the lateral neck compartment, using methylene blue dye as marker. Selective modified radical neck dissection was performed in cases of metastatic SLNs. RESULTS Neck LNMs were histologically verified in 40.9% of the cases. Predictive factors for LNM were males, younger than 45 years, tumors greater than 1cm, capsular and vascular invasion. The central neck compartment of LNM was predictive for lateral LNM in 80.5% of the cases. LNM were confirmed in 24% of SLNs in the lateral neck compartment, which were over 56% predictive of LNM to other dissected lateral LN. SLN identification rate (IR) was 91.8%. Sensitivity, specificity, positive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were 85.7, 96.7, 88.3 and 95.9%, respectively. The overall accuracy of the method was 94.3%, with probability of 91.2% (ROC AUC, 95% CI; 84.2-98.3). CONCLUSION The proposed method of SLN biopsy using methylene blue dye is feasible, safe and accurate in the detection of LNM in the lateral neck compartment and may help in the decision to perform selective modified radical neck dissection in cN0 patients with PTC.PURPOSE To investigate the prognostic value of pre-treatment neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and hemoglobin level in patients treated with definitive chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. METHODS We retrospectively analyzed 97 patients who received definitive CRT for nasopharyngeal cancer. An NLR cut-off value of 4.42 was identified using receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis, an PLR cut-off value of 128.6 was identified using ROC analysis and a hemoglobin cut-off value of 13g/dl was identified using ROC analysis with overall survival (OS) as an endpoint. RESULTS The 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) for all patients were 67.1% and 72.6%, respectively. The patients with a high NLR (20.6%) had a significantly lower 5-year OS than those with a low NLR (79.4%) (OS 46.9% vs. 79.7%, p less then 0.001). The patients with a high PLR (66.3%) had a borderline significant lower 5-year OS than those with a low PLR (32.7%) (OS 66.1% vs. 87.9%, p=0.055). The patients with a low hemoglobin (18.4%) had a significantly lower 5-year OS than those with a high hemoglobin (80.6%) (OS 46.6% vs. 78.9%, p less then 0.001). In univariate analysis, older age, IMRT technique, low hemoglobin and high NLR were prognostic factors. In multivariate analysis, high NLR, low hemoglobin and older age remained independent prognostic factors for OS. CONCLUSIONS Nasopharyngeal cancer tends to be more aggressive in patients with a high NLR and low hemoglobin. These patients should be treated more aggressively, given their unfavorable prognosis.PURPOSE Laryngeal cancer is one of most common and aggressive head and neck cancers with poor prognosis and great necessity for improvement of treatment modalities. MicroRNAs (miRs) are among the most investigated molecules recently due to their potential as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in cancer. The purpose of our study was to explore the association of certain clinicopathological features with the expression levels of some known cancer associated non-coding (nc) RNAs miR-21 and miR-31 in both of their isoforms, miR-145-5p, miR-55-5p, miR-196a-5p, miR-210-3p, miR-221-3p, miR-222-3p, miR-424-5p, lncRNA MALAT1 and lncRNA HOTAIR. METHODS Expression levels of the chosen markers were investigated in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) and normal samples in 82 Bulgarian patients via RT-qPCR, and the results were analyzed with SPSS v23.0 statistical software. RESULTS All of the explored ncRNAs were significantly deregulated in LSCC samples, suggesting their involvement in laryngeal carcinogenesis. New significant association were found between the expression levels of miR-21-5p, miR-222-3p, HOTAIR and family history. Moreover, miR-424-5p showed potential as marker for subglottic LSCC location, and "passenger" miR-31-3p was significantly upregulated in well and moderately differentiated LSCC. CONCLUSION Our results enrich the knowledge about ncRNA involvement in LSCC tumorigenesis. Further studies are needed to evaluate the clinical utility of the differently expressed ncRNAs as potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in LSCC.