N. Karamyan

Radiotherapy (RT) for bone metastases comprise a substantial workload in modern radiation oncology (RO) clinics. In these patients pain control and maintenance of the quality of life (PC&QoL) are the key endpoints of treatment. For patient-based evaluation of PC&QoL different questionnaires are used: ESAS, EORTC-QLQ-C30, Brief Pain Inventory, to name a few. These questionnaires should generally be completed by patients with or without caregivers‘ help on a weekly basis, which may require multiple hospital visits causing additional inconvenience to the patients. As an alternative, contacts via telephone have been used for years, however this option is also time and workforce consuming (a dedicated medical personal, manual and/or paper based input of data into databases, etc.), and may pose a risk of patients‘ assessment being influenced by the interviewer. Current development and wide implementation of telehealth technologies along with growing computer and internet literacy of commu...

Background: Telemedicine has been posited as a potential means of bolstering radiation therapy delivery in developing nations. World Aid Exchange (WaidX) is an innovative intercontinental telemedicine platform oriented to oncology specialties. This platform, devoted to reducing the digital divide on health practice, provides telecommunication services between health care facilities in developed and developing countries. It conveys the ability to safely share radiologic images and patient medical records for diagnostic and care purposes. It was successfully piloted in Mwanza, Tanzania in 2015. Since then, it has been implemented in varied settings such as Ethiopia, Djibouti and Brazil. After conducting a site visit and a focused needs assessment, we recognized the need for teleconferencing with the Radiation Department of National Center of Oncology, Yerevan, Armenia, to share expertises in general patient management and contouring and planning for radiotherapy. Aim: To develop a Tel...

Purpose. To evaluate the role of a number of clinical factors for overall survival (OS) in patients treated with radiotherapy (RT) for bone metastases (BM). Material and Methods. Overall, data of 515 patients treated with RT for BM during the period of 2007-2011 were included in the analysis. The role of age, gender, primary site, performance status, primary status, time to development of bone metastases, site and number of bone lesions, presence of extraskeletal distant metastases and presence of skeletal complications for overall OS was evaluated. Results. The most significant factors affecting OS were performance status (median survival for ECOG 0-2, 3 and 4 were 14.7, 6.8 and 2.7 months, respectively, p<0.001) and primary site (median for for “favorable”, “intermediate” and “unfavorable” primary groups were 15.3, 7.1 and 5.5 months, p<0.001). Gender, time to development of BM, primary status, presence of visceral metastases and presence of skeletal complications also were ...

The paper presents challenges of radiation therapy of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in the countries with low income, where the technical possibilities are limited. Some preliminary results of ongoing own clinical trial, investigated the ways of improvement for radiotherapy results in low-income countries, are presented. The collected data based on the results of treatment of 397 HNSCC patients shows the considerable improvement of therapeutic gain, reached by the use of altered regimens of fractionation, concomitant radio-chemotherapy and preventive treatment of expected acute and late toxicities. Some preliminary conclusions are suggested for further discussion.