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Testosterone replacement therapy is becoming more and more popular in men as "anti-aging medicine". Testosterone has beneficial effects on body mass and muscle gain, and much research has examined testosterone in palliative cancer therapy for oncology patients. In addition to direct effects on weight gain, testosterone improves mood and self-confidence, strength, libido, muscle mass, bone density, and cognitive functions and reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease. Lower testosterone levels are found in 65 % of male patients with progressive tumors compared to only 6 % of men in the general population. We hypothesize that perioperative substitution testosterone therapy (PSTT) together with a balanced diet, may be more effective than balanced diet alone in the overall treatment outcome of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinomas. Therefore, PSTT in combination with a balanced diet should be considered as an additional tool for head and neck carcinoma treatment., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Abstract: To investigate whether laryngeal cancer cells express erythropoietin (Epo) and erythropoietin receptor (EpoR) and what is their possible relationship with clinical and pathological features of the tumor.We performed immunohistochemical analysis of Epo and EpoR expression on 78 tissue samples of invasive and in situ squamous cell laryngeal carcinoma.The statistical analysis showed a weak positive and statistically significant correlation of EpoHS and EpoR HS expression levels. Epo HS and EpoR HS levels did not correlate with patient sex or age, type of diagnosis, cancer stage, histological tumor grade, presence or absence of disease recurrence, type of oncologic cancer therapy provided, or results of selected laboratory blood work. The results show a statistically significant difference in Epo expression with respect to survival.We confirmed the presence of Epo an EpoR in malignant laryngeal tumors and demonstrated the correlation between Epo expression and survival. Further studies are needed to more precisely define the role of Epo and EpoR in treatment of patients with laryngeal cancer., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to the publication of this article., (Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Tuberculosis is an airborne disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. In 15-20% cases of active disease extrapulmonary tuberculosis may occur, most commonly in the head and neck region. Tuberculous otitis media accounts for 0,1% of the total number of tuberculosis patients. This paper provides insight into current state of literature of tuberculous otitis media. It also includes the case of a 53-year-old patient with tuberculous otitis media. The patient had a liver transplantation and she showed an atypical manifestation of the disease including acute otitis media and coinfection with Achromobacter xylosoxidans. The paper describes in detail the methods of diagnosis and the infection treatment. Considering the polymorphic clinical presentation of tuberculous otitis media in cases with long lasting otorrhoea differential diagnosis should include an infection with Mycobacerium tuberculosis., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Background: Although asthma is one of the most serious diseases causing complications during pregnancy, half of the women discontinue therapy thus diminishing the control of the disease, mostly due to the inadequate education and fear of adverse events. Sadly, this is sometimes encouraged by insufficiently educated physicians. Since the incidence and the prevalence of asthma is increasing, it is important to arouse the importance of proper asthma therapy during pregnancy. Inadequate therapy, as well as interrupting or discontinuing therapy, may result in adverse perinatal outcomes for both mother and child., Main Body: The main goal of asthma control during pregnancy is control of symptoms and prevention of exacerbations, same as in every asthmatic, but even more important. Maintaining optimal lung function, as well as regular daily activities, ensures maintenance of optimal fetal oxygenation. The therapy should be adapted depending on the frequency and severity of daily and nocturnal symptoms, demand for reliever therapy, by the limitations in everyday activities and the frequency of emergency asthma-related hospitalizations. Pre-conceptual education and therapy are very important and should be supported by an asthma action plan adjusted for the period of pregnancy. It is very important to note that most of the drugs used before pregnancy can be safely continued during pregnancy. Pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapy should be used in parallel. Pregnant women should be informed about the nature of the disease, therapy used during pregnancy, possible complications, avoidance of triggers, proper administration of therapy and, most important, why should the therapy be continued throughout the pregnancy on individual basis. Although drug treatment should be based on using drugs with less harm risk, if control of severe symptoms is needed to be achieved in order to protect both mother and child, any anti-asthmatic drug would have the beneficial benefit/harm ratio., Conclusion: There is no solid evidence that asthma treatment during pregnancy causes adverse outcomes for the mother and child but for many, especially new drugs, there is not enough data gathered. On the other hand, harmfulness of uncontrolled asthma during pregnancy is well documented so every effort should be put on preserving good control of asthma during pregnancy., Competing Interests: Not applicable.Not applicable.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Erythropoietin (Epo) is a glycoprotein hormone responsible for erythropoiesis. Its effect is realized by binding erythropoietin receptor (EpoR) expressed on erythroid progenitor cells. Hypoxia is the main stimulus for the secretion of erythropoietin. Anemia is an independent negative prognostic factor for survival in patients with malignant diseases. Synthetic forms of erythropoietin are used in clinical oncology practice to increase the level of hemoglobin. As well as endogenous they can bind to EpoR. Considering the fact that most effects of synthetic Epo are negative, the role of endogenous Epo/EpoR has become an extremely important issue. The authors do not agree on most items related to the effects of exogenous Epo and EpoR in patients with head and neck carcinomas. We are investigating the expression of Epo/EpoR in the tissue of malignant laryngeal carcinoma. Our hypothesis is that less differentiated laryngeal carcinomas will have a higher level of endogenous Epo/EpoR expression. Therefore, in patients with positive Epo/EpoR we expect shorter survival and poorer locoregional disease control. We anticipate that our hypothesis may help to provide the role of endogenous Epo/EpoR in patients with malignant tumors of the larynx. If the assumptions of this study are confirmed, the patients with laryngeal carcinomas whose tumor cells express Epo/EpoR should not be considered for the treatment of anemia with recombinant erythropoietin in any case. We also point out that our research will expand the knowledge of the biology of laryngeal tumor cells and that the results could be utilized as basic knowledge in development of future therapeutic strategies., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background/aims: Early intervention with nutritional supplementation has been shown to halt malnutrition and may improve outcome in some patients with colorectal cancer. The aim of this study was to investigate whether dietary counseling, oral nutrition and megestrol acetate during chemotherapy affected nutritional status and survival in patients with advanced disease., Methodology: Six hundred and twenty-eight patients with colorectal advanced disease were included in the study from January 2000 through December 2009 and divided into one of two groups. Group I consisted of 315 patients who were monitored prospectively and were given nutritional support. Group II included 313 patients without nutritional counseling and support. After the completion of chemotherapy all patients were evaluated (BMI, NST, Appetite Loss Scale and ECOG)., Results: After the completion of chemotherapy, there were lower proportions of patients in Group I with a BMI<20, NST>=5, loss of appetite and decreased weight gain. Nutritional counseling and supplemental feeding temporarily halted weight loss and improved appetite. This improvement may have implications for patient survival. Patients with early nutritional support lived 19.1 months while patients in the control group had a survival of 12.4 months (p=0.022)., Conclusions: This study demonstrated that concurrent individualized dietary counseling and nutritional support are effective in improving nutritional status thereby lessening chemotherapy-induced morbidity.

Recent studies have established that the gap junction protein connexin43 is a major structural component of gap junctions between astrocytes in rat brain. Here, we investigated by immunohistochemical methods the effect of kainic acid-induced neuronal degeneration on connexin43 expression by astrocytes. Stereotaxic injections of kainic acid into the thalamus were found to cause a near total depletion of connexin43-immunoreactivity at the lesion site. Areas depleted of connexin43 corresponded to those exhibiting substantial neuronal loss and intense gliosis. These results implicate a neuronal contribution to the regulation of connexin43 expression by astrocytes and, hence, to local control of the potassium spatial buffering capacity afforded by astrocyte gap junctions.