Centro di Riferimento Oncologico

Accurate assessment of axillary lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer is essential for prognosis and treatment planning. Staging and surgical management have evolved from axillary lymph node dissection to sentinel lymph node biopsy to minimize morbidity. However, sentinel lymph node biopsy has non-negligible morbidity, and more than 70% of biopsies are negative, calling into question its routine use. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to detect and stage lymph node metastases in situ, but its sensitivity and specificity are moderate to poor. Few studies have employed artificial intelligence to detect lymph node metastases on MRI images, and none have used an integrative multidata approach (IMA), defined as modeling the combination of clinical and laboratory data with multiparametric MRI.
The primary objective of this retrospective observational study is to improve the accuracy of detecting lymph node involvement in breast cancer using IMA. The secondary objective is to allow longitudinal monitoring of the effects of neoadjuvant therapy on lymph node involvement

High-risk meningiomas always require postsurgical radiation treatment. Recent evidence has shown that increased radiation therapy dose may be associated with increased intracranial control of disease. In order to better define the volume of radiation treatment, the addition of PET imaging with somatostatin receptor tracers adds additional information compared to encephalon MRI with MoC alone.The present study aims to investigate whether radiation treatment with higher doses than the standard and defined using PET imaging can be safe and at the same time effective in order to increase progression-free survival in high-risk meningiomas.

In locally advanced rectal cancer the pathological complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy (nCRT) is associated with a favourable long-term prognosis. The identification of markers predictive of response to therapy would therefore optimise treatment by allowing personalised therapy. It has been shown that the genetic profile of the patient could influence the activation of the immune system in combination with chemoradiation therapy in targeting tumour cells. In addition, genetic features of molecular pathways correlated with response to chemoradiotherapy, may in turn affect the probability of a good response to treatment in these patients, but also the occurrence of adverse events. The main objective of the study is to define the role of genetic markers related to immune system activation and other molecular pathways in predicting the complete pathological response to preoperative chemoradiation therapy in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer.