They have more complex toxic effects, particularly graft-versus-host disease, and the treatment-related mortality can be up to 30%, but they may offer cures to the small number of patients fit enough to have them carried out for low-grade lymphoma, which would otherwise pursue a course of serial recurrences (Morris et al, 2004).
Serial biopsies following recurrence of disease demonstrated consistent results.
To evaluate the utility of c-erbB-2, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and CA 15.3 in the early diagnosis of recurrence, serial serum determinations of these antigens were performed in 200 patients (follow-up 1-4 years, mean 2.2 years) with primary breast cancer and no evidence of residual disease (NED) after radical treatment (radical mastectomy or simple mastectomy and radiotherapy).
More needs to be done, however, to make the recurrence of serial deceit such as Mr. Blair's even less likely.
Delayed radiation injury was differentiated from tumor recurrence using serial MR imaging [ 17] and, in selected cases, C-methionine positron emission tomography.
Despite this, endoscopy remains the preferred method to diagnose mucosal recurrences with serial follow up and PET scans contributing to the detection of deep recurrence[ 8 ].
Serial levels of inhibin predicted recurrence before overt clinical relapse in two patients.
Although pretreatment tumour tissue was not available, the methylation state of a four-gene panel previously associated with rapid tumour recurrence was studied in serial plasma specimens (Juergens et al, 2011).
Serial monitoring of serum CEA for predicting recurrence and prognosis of CRC has been established [ 4].
In the 12 patients who presented with elevated tumour markers before imaging, there was a median lag period of 3 months (range 1 21) in recurrence being detected on further serial imaging.
Clearly, the development of a new pelvic soft tissue mass on serial post-operative imaging is suggestive of a recurrence.
