Methods: A total of 325 patients with stage III melanoma were identified from the prospective melanoma database at the Institute of Oncology Ljubljana, Slovenia; 164 had delayed therapeutic lymph node

dissection (DLND), 111 had a positive sentinel lymph node biopsy followed by completion lymph node dissection (CLND) and 50 had synchronous primary melanoma and regional lymph node metastases that were treated with radical excision of the primary tumor and therapeutic lymph node dissection (TLND). Univariate and multivariate analyses were used for the assessment of the factors associated with OS and for comparison of OS between different subgroups of patients.

Results: The worst 5-year OS had the patients with synchronous 5-Fluoracil nmr primary melanoma and regional lymph node metastases. The patients with SN metastases with a diameter of 5.0 mm or less had significantly

better OS than those selleck compound with DLND, while the patients with SN metastases with a diameter of more than 5.0 mm had similar survival to those patients with synchronous primary melanoma and regional lymph node metastases.

Conclusion: Melanoma patients within AJCC 2002 stage III group have very different survival rates. The group of patients with positive SN is also prognostically heterogenic because it contains patients that have better survival than those after DLND as well as patients with more aggressive disease, that have similar survival as those with synchronous primary melanoma and regional lymph node metastases. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Systemic lupus erythematosus is a multisystem autoimmune disease characterized by the formation of autoantibodies that target a variety of self antigens. B cells are fundamental to the development of these P505-15 ic50 antibodies and are a target for

intervention in the disease. This review discusses four therapies that target B cells by inducing B-cell depletion, reduction in B-cell proliferation and differentiation, or modulation of B-cell function. Rituximab is an anti-CD20 chimeric monoclonal antibody that depletes B cells but not plasma cells. Systematic reviews of open label studies, particularly in lupus patients refractory to conventional therapy, have suggested that rituximab can be an effective treatment for non-renal lupus and lupus nephritis. However, randomized, double-blind, controlled trials comparing rituximab with placebo in addition to standard of care therapy for non-renal lupus and lupus nephritis over 12 months failed to demonstrate efficacy using the planned primary endpoints, although there were some post-hoc analyses suggesting that rituximab may have beneficial effects that would be worthy of further study as no significant toxicity has been demonstrated.