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model. Clin Cancer Res 2007, 13: 4261–4270.CrossRefPubMed 33. Dowling RJ, Zakikhani M, Fantus IG, Pollak M, Sonenberg N: Metformin inhibits mammalian target of rapamycin-dependent translation initiation in breast cancer cells. Cancer Res 2007, 67: 10804–10812.CrossRefPubMed 34. Okada T, Sawada T, Kubota K: Rapamycin enhances the anti-tumor effect of gemcitabine in pancreatic cancer cells. Hepatogastroenterology 2007, 54: 2129–2133.PubMed Competing interests The authors declare that they Apoptosis Compound Library screening have no competing interests. Authors’ contributions PLR and BP carried out cell cultures, performed the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript, RE participated in its design, OPA helped to draft the manuscript and revised the manuscript, SL supervised experimental work and revised the manuscript. All click here authors read and approved the final manuscript.”
“Background External beam radiotherapy is a well-recognized and effective modality in the palliation of symptomatic bone metastases and

complication control [1]. Under- or overdosing the target volume and dose heterogeneity may not be major concerns, since many patients treated for palliative purposes have short survival. However, long term symptom control associated with bone involvement and normal tissue complications becomes more vital in cancer

patients with long life-expectancy. Some breast and prostate cancer patients even with spinal cord compression may live for several years after radiotherapy. Single posterior field or two opposed anterior-posterior fields (AP-PA) conventional two-dimensional (2D) radiotherapy planning without dose volume information is widely used for palliative Verteporfin datasheet spinal bone irradiation using the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements reference points (ICRUrps) and the International Bone Metastasis Consensus Working Party reference points (IBMCrps) [2, 3]. To our knowledge, dosimetric assessment of conventional 2D palliative spinal bone irradiation using three-dimensional (3D) dose information has not been reported. This study aimed to analyze 3D dosimetric data of palliative spinal bone irradiation using different reference points and treatment plans with respect to the International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) Report 50 [2]. Methods CT simulation Forty-five simulation CT scans of 39 patients previously treated for thoraco-lumbar spinal bone metastases were used for treatment planning. CT scanning was performed with a 6 detector helical CT (Brilliance, Philips Medical Systems, Netherlands) and with a 5-mm slice thickness.