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This cancer is typically aggressive, presents at an advanced stage when the cancer has already metastasized, and is resistant to chemotherapy. It therefore poses a significant management challenge. Current treatment options include surgical resection and chemotherapy with a variety of agents, including (but not limited to) ifosfamide, etoposide, carboplatin, and topotecan. A recent study looked at the use of methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin in 3 patients and saw a partial response and longer survival than historical reports. Carboplatin, gemcitibine, and paclitaxel provided a complete response in a patient with advanced disease. The role of radiation is unclear; some tumors have shown a response to radiation. Due to the apparent propensity for the tumor to spread to the central nervous system, it has been suggested that prophylactic craniospinal irradiation should be considered.
The treatment options for autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease, given there is no current cure, are:
- Medications for hypertension
- Medications and/or surgery for pain
- Antibiotics for infection
- Kidney transplantation(in serious cases)
- Dialysis (if renal failure)
Renal medullary carcinoma is extremely rare and it is not currently possible to predict those individuals with sickle cell trait who will eventually develop this cancer. It is hoped that early detection could result in better outcomes but screening is not feasible.
There is no FDA-approved treatment. However, it has been shown that mild to moderate dietary restrictions slow the progression of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD).
If and when the disease progresses enough in a given case, the nephrologist or other practitioner and the patient will have to decide what form of renal replacement therapy will be used to treat end-stage kidney disease (kidney failure, typically stage 4 or 5 of chronic kidney disease).
That will either be some form of dialysis, which can be done at least two different ways at varying frequencies and durations (whether it is done at home or in the clinic depends on the method used and the patient's stability and training) and eventually, if they are eligible because of the nature and severity of their condition and if a suitable match can be found, unilateral or bilateral kidney transplantation.
A Cochrane Review study of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease made note of the fact that it is important at all times, while avoiding antibiotic resistance, to control infections of the cysts in the kidneys, and if affected, the liver, when needed for a certain duration to combat infection, by using, quote: "bacteriostatic and bacteriocidal drugs".
The management of this condition can be done via-improvement of any electrolyte imbalance, as well as, hypertension and anemia treatment as the individuals condition warrants.
As metanephric adenomas are considered benign, they can be left in place, i.e. no treatment is needed.
In addition to measures for chronic kidney disease (CKD) of any cause, there is evidence that ACE inhibitors can slow the deterioration of kidney function in Alport syndrome, delaying the need for dialysis or transplantation. The development of proteinuria has been recommended as an indication for commencing treatment.
Once kidney failure has developed, patients usually do well on dialysis or with a kidney transplant. Very rarely the Alport molecule in the donor kidney causes an aggressive immune response in the recipient, 'Alport post-transplant anti-GBM disease'.
Gene therapy has been frequently discussed, but delivering it to the podocytes in the glomerulus that normally produce the type IV collagen in the glomerular basement membrane is challenging.
Management of sickle nephropathy is not separate from that of overall patient management. In addition, however, the use of ACE inhibitors has been associated with improvement of the hyperfiltration glomerulopathy. Three-year graft and patient survival in kidney transplant recipients with sickle nephropathy is lower when compared to those with other causes of end-stage kidney disease.
First-line chemotherapy regimens for advanced or metastatic TCC consists of gemcitabine and cisplatin) (GC) or a combination of methotrexate, vinblastine, adriamycin, and cisplatin (MVAC).
Taxanes or vinflunine have been used as second-line therapy (after progression on a platinum containing chemotherapy).
Immunotherapy such as pembrolizumab is often used as second-line therapy for metastatic urothelial carcinoma that has progressed despite treatment with GC or MVAC.
In May 2016 FDA granted accelerated approval to atezolizumab for locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma treatment after failure of cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The confirmatory trial (to convert the accelerated approval into a full approval) failed to achieve its primary endpoint of overall survival.
Based on a survey of >800, surgical removal of the entire involved kidney plus the peri-renal fat appeared curative for the majority of all types of mesoblastic nephroma; the patient overall survival rate was 94%. Of the 4% of non-survivors, half were due to surgical or chemotherapeutic treatments. Another 4% of these patients suffered relapses, primarily in the local area of surgery rare cases of relapse due to lung or bone metastasis.. About 60% of these recurrent cases had a complete remission following further treatment. Recurrent disease was treated with a second surgery, radiation, and/or chemotherapy that often vincristine and actinomycin treatment. Removal of the entire afflicted kidney plus the peri-renal fat appears critical to avoiding local recurrences. In general, patients who were older than 3 months of age at diagnosis or had the cellular form of the disease, stage III disease, or involvement of renal lymph nodes had a higher recurrence rate. Among patients with these risk factors, only those with lymph node involvement are recommended for further therapy.
It has been suggested that mesoblastic nephroma patients with lymph node involvement or recurrent disease might benefit by adding the ALK inhibitor, crizotinib, or a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, either larotrectinib or entrectinib, to surgical, radiation, and/or chemotherapy treatment regimens. These drugs inhibit NTRK3's tyrosine kinase activity. Crizotinib has proven useful in treating certain cases of acute lymphoblastic leukemia that are associated with the "ETV6-NTRK3" fusion gene while larotrectinib and entrectinib have been useful in treating various cancers (e.g. a metastatic sarcoma, papillary thyroid cancer, non-small-cell lung carcinoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, mammary analog secretory carcinoma, and colorectal cancer) that are driven by mutated, overly active tyrosine kinases. Relevant to this issue, a 16-month-old girl with infantile fibrosarcoma harboring the "ETV6–NTRK3" fusion gene was successfully trated with larotrectinib. The success of these drugs, howwever, will likely depend on the relative malignancy-promoting roles of ETV6-NTRK3 protein's tyrosine kinase activity, the lose of ETV6-related transcription activity accompanying formation of ETV6-NTRK3 protein, and the various trisomy chromosomes that populate mesoblastic nephroma.
Transitional cell carcinoma (TCC) can be very difficult to treat. Treatment for localized stage TCC is surgical resection of the tumor, but recurrence is common. Some patients are given mitomycin into the bladder either as a one-off dose in the immediate post-operative period (within 24 hrs) or a few weeks after the surgery as a six dose regimen.
Localized/early TCC can also be treated with infusions of BCG into the bladder. These are given weekly for either 6 weeks (induction course) or 3 weeks (maintenance/booster dose). Side effects include a small chance of developing systemic tuberculosis or the patient becoming sensitized to the BCG causing severe intolerance and a possible reduction in bladder volume due to scarring.
In patients with evidence of early muscular invasion, radical curative surgery in the form of a cysto-prostatectomy usually with lymph node sampling can also be performed. In such patients, a bowel loop is often used to create either a "neo-bladder" or an "ileal conduit" which act as a place for the storage of urine before it is evacuated from the body either via the urethra or a urostomy respectively.
ADPKD individuals might have a normal life; conversely, ARPKD can cause kidney dysfunction and can lead to kidney failure by the age of 40-60. ADPKD1 and ADPKD2 are very different, in that ADPKD2 is much milder.
Currently, there are no therapies proven effective to prevent the progression of polycystic kidney disease (autosomal dominant).
It is not known whether ACE inhibitors or other treatments affect hearing loss. For those with classic Alport syndrome, hearing aids are often required in teenage or young adult years.
These lesions rarely require surgery unless they are symptomatic or the diagnosis is in question. Since these lesions do not have malignant potential, long-term observation is unnecessary. Surgery can include the removal of the head of the pancreas (a pancreaticoduodenectomy), removal of the body and tail of the pancreas (a distal pancreatectomy), or rarely removal of the entire pancreas (a total pancreatectomy). In selected cases the surgery can be performed using minimally invasive techniques such as laparoscopy.
This is relatively straightforward. It involves correction of the acidemia with oral sodium bicarbonate, sodium citrate or potassium citrate. This will correct the acidemia and reverse bone demineralisation. Hypokalemia and urinary stone formation and nephrocalcinosis can be treated with potassium citrate tablets which not only replace potassium but also inhibit calcium excretion and thus do not exacerbate stone disease as sodium bicarbonate or citrate may do.
Resection of the tumor is the ideal treatment and results in correction of hypophosphatemia (and low calcitriol levels) within hours of resection. Resolution of skeletal abnormalities may take many months.
If the tumor cannot be located, treatment with calcitriol (1-3 µg/day) and phosphorus (1-4 g/day in divided doses) is instituted. Tumors which secrete somatostatin receptors may respond to treatment with octreotide. If hypophosphatemia persists despite calcitriol and phosphate supplementation, administration of cinacalcet has been shown to be useful
As the condition is quite rare, opinions among experts about how to treat OKCs differ.
Treatment options:
- Wide (local) surgical excision.
- Marsupialization - the surgical opening of the (OKC) cavity and a creation of a marsupial-like pouch, so that the cavity is in contact with the outside for an extended period, e.g. three months.
- Curettage (simple excision & scrape-out of cavity).
- Peripheral ostectomy after curettage and/or enucleation.
- Simple excision.
- Carnoy's solution - usually used in conjunction with excision.
- Enucleation and cryotherapy
The treatment of choice for main-duct IPMNs is resection due to approximately 50% chance of malignancy. Side-branch IPMNs are occasionally monitored with regular CT or MRIs, but most are eventually resected, with a 30% rate of malignancy in these resected tumors. Survival 5 years after resection of an IPMN without malignancy is approximately 80%, 85% with malignancy but no lymph node spread and 0% with malignancy spreading to lymph nodes. Surgery can include the removal of the head of the pancreas (a pancreaticoduodenectomy), removal of the body and tail of the pancreas (a distal pancreatectomy), or rarely removal of the entire pancreas (a total pancreatectomy). In selected cases the surgery can be performed using minimally invasive techniques such as laparoscopy or robotic surgery. A study using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Result Registry (SEER) data suggested that increased lymph node counts harvested during the surgery were associated with better survival in invasive IPMN patients.
Thyroidectomy and neck dissection show good results in early stages of SCTC. However, due to highly aggressive phenotype, surgical treatment is not always possible. The SCTC is a radioiodine-refractory tumor. Radiotherapy might be effective in certain cases, resulting in relatively better survival rate and quality of life. Vincristine, Adriamycin, and bleomycin are used for adjuvant chemotherapy, but their effects are not good enough according to published series.
There is no cure for Alström syndrome; however, there are treatment aims to reduce the symptoms and prevent further complications. Some of these treatment aims include:
- Corrective lenses: tinted lenses that help with the sensitivity from bright lights. The patients may have to adapt to reading in Braille, use adaptive equipment, mobility aids, and adaptive computing skills.
- Education: patients with Alström syndrome suffering from intellectual disabilities must have access to education. They must be able to receive free and appropriate education. Some Alström syndrome patients are educated in normal classrooms. Other patients have to take special education classes or attend to specialized schools that are prepared to teach children with disabilities. Staff members from schools have to consult with patient's parents or caregivers in order to design an education plan based on the child's needs. In addition, the school may document the progress of the child in order to confirm that the child's needs are being met.
- Hearing aids: the battery-operated devices are available in three styles: behind the ear, in the ear, and inside the ear canal. Behind the ear aims for mild-to-profound hearing loss. In the ear aims for mild to severe hearing loss. Lastly, the canal device is aimed for mild to moderately severe hearing loss. Patients that have severe hearing loss may benefit from a cochlear implant.
- Diet: an appropriate and healthy diet is necessary for individuals with Alström syndrome because it could potentially decreases chances of obesity or diabetes.
- Occupational therapy: the therapist helps the child learn skills to help him or her perform basic daily tasks like eating, getting dressed, and communicating with others.
- Physical Activity: exercising reduces chances of being obese and helping control blood sugar levels.
- Dialysis: helps restore filtering function. With hemodialysis, a patient's blood circulates into an external filter and clean. The filtered blood is then returned into the body. With peritoneal dialysis, fluid containing dextrose is introduced into the abdomen by a tube. The solution then absorbs the wastes into the body and is then removed.
- Transplantation: patients that endure a kidney failure may undergo a kidney transplantation.
- Surgery: if the patient endures severe scoliosis or kyphosis, surgery may be required.
Metanephric adenoma (MA)is a rare, benign tumour of the kidney, that can have a microscopic appearance similar to a nephroblastoma (Wilms tumours), or a papillary renal cell carcinoma.
It should not be confused with the pathologically unrelated, yet similar sounding, "mesonephric adenoma".
The first treatment for Fabry's disease was approved by the US FDA on April 24, 2003. Fabrazyme (agalsidase beta, or Alpha-galactosidase) was licensed to the Genzyme Corporation. It is an enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) designed to provide the enzyme the patient is missing as a result of a genetic malfunction. The drug is expensive — in 2012, Fabrazyme's annual cost was about US$200,000 per patient, which is unaffordable to many patients around the world without enough insurance. ERT is not a cure, but can allow improved metabolism and partially prevent disease progression, as well as potentially reverse some symptoms.
The pharmaceutical company Shire manufactures agalsidase alpha (which differs in the structure of its oligosaccharide side chains) under the brand name Replagal as a treatment for Fabry's disease, and was granted marketing approval in the EU in 2001. FDA approval was applied for the United States. However, Shire withdrew their application for approval in the United States in 2012, citing that the agency will require additional clinical trials before approval.
Clinically the two products are generally perceived to be similar in effectiveness. Both are available in Europe and in many other parts of the world, but treatment costs remain very high.
Besides these drugs, a gene therapy treatment is also available from the Canadian Institutes of Health. Other treatments (oral chaperone therapy -Amicus-, plant-based ERT -Protalix-, substrate reduction therapy -Sanofi-Genzyme-, bio-better ERT -Codexis-, gene editing solution -Sangamo- are currently being researched.
Pain associated with Fabry disease may be partially alleviated by ERT in some patients, but pain management regimens may also include analgesics, anticonvulsants, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, though the latter are usually best avoided in renal disease.
No specific treatment exists for Pendred syndrome. Speech and language support and hearing aids are important. Cochlear implants may be needed if the hearing loss drops to severe to profound levels and can improve language skills. If thyroid hormone levels are decreased, thyroid hormone supplements may be required. Patients are advised to take precautions against head injury.
In season 2 of the USA Network series Royal Pains, Reshma Shetty (as Divya Katdare) diagnoses a storm chaser (Jamie Ray Newman) with recurring fractures to have tumor-induced osteomalacia.
Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD) is the recessive form of polycystic kidney disease. It is associated with a group of congenital fibrocystic syndromes. Mutations in the "PKHD1" (chromosomal locus 6p12.2) cause ARPKD.