Browsing by Author "Oral, Ethem N."

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Access to Radiation Therapy by Syrian Refugees Displaced to Turkey
(ELSEVIER INC, 2022-01-01) Dagoglu, Nergiz; Karaman, Sule; Atalar, Banu; Miller, Robert C.; Oral, Ethem N.
For over 10 years, the Syrian conflict has caused millions of people to leave their homeland, causing one of the biggest refugee crises in modern history. Considering its prevalence, cancer is an important care burden among Syrian refugees. Radiation therapy is one of the essential parts of cancer treatment, and radiation oncology departments must guarantee optimal cancer treatments even in such a challenging setting when patients are displaced forcefully from their homes. National and institutional measures are highlighted in this manuscript to provide suggestions for the delivery of care during refugee crises. There are two issues creating barriers to serving refugee populations: the loss of access to their original care records in Syria for those with a previous diagnosis of cancer referred for continuation of radiation therapy or reirradiation, and the effect of acute radiation therapy toxicity on treatment compliance. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of American Society for Radiation Oncology. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Neoadjuvant hyperfractionated accelerated radiotherapy plus concomitant 5-fluorouracil infusion in locally advanced rectal cancer: A phase. study
(BAISHIDENG PUBLISHING GROUP INC, 2018-01-01) Gural, Zeynep; Saglam, Sezer; Yucel, Serap; Kaytan-Saglam, Esra; Asoglu, Oktar; Ordu, Cetin; Acun, Hediye; Sharifov, Rasul; Onder, Semen; Kizir, Ahmet; Oral, Ethem N.
AIM To evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of neoadjuvant hyperfractionated accelerated radiotherapy (HART) and concurrent chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced infraperitoneal rectal cancer. METHODS A total of 30 patients with histopathologically confirmed T2-3/N0+ infraperitoneal adenocarcinoma of rectum cancer patients received preoperative 42 Gy/1.5 Gy/18 days/bid radiotherapy and continuous infusion of 5-fluorouracil (325 mg/m(2)). All patients were operated 4-8 wk after neoadjuvant concomitant therapy. RESULTS In the early phase of treatment, 6 patients had grade III- IV gastrointestinal toxicity, 2 patients had grade III-IV hematologic toxicity, and 1 patient had grade V toxicity due to postoperative sepsis during chemotherapy. Only 1 patient had radiotherapy-related late side effects, i.e., grade IV tenesmus. Complete pathological response was achieved in 6 patients (21\%), while near-complete pathological response was obtained in 9 (31\%). After a median follow-up period of 60 mo, the local tumor control rate was 96.6\%. In 13 patients, distant metastasis occurred. Disease-free survival rates at 2 and 5 years were 63.3\% and 53\%, and corresponding overall survival rates were 70\% and 53.1\%, respectively. CONCLUSION Although it has excellent local control and complete pathological response rates, neoadjuvant HART concurrent chemotherapy appears to not be a feasible treatment regimen in locally advanced rectal cancer, having high perioperative complication and intolerable side effects. Effects of reduced 5-fluorouracil dose or omission of chemotherapy with the aim of reducing toxicity may be examined in further studies.