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Summary
CIPN is a clinically-relevant side effect of the modern treatment of
solid and hematologic malignancies. However, frequently CIPN is
not properly assessed in clinical practice and treatment is difficult.
This presentation shows examples of simple methods to perform an
objective neurological examination aimed at the detection and
assessment of CIPN.
The role of nerve conduction studies in CIPN patients is also
critically reviewed.
Finally, the presence of possible pitfalls in the routine use of several
of the currently available scales used to score the severity of CIPN is
highlighted.
Biographies of the authors Institutions Acknowledgements
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Biographies of the authors
Prof. Guido Cavaletti is a neurologist at the Department of Neurology of the S. Gerardo
Hospital in Monza and is the head of the Experimental Neurology Unit at the
Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Technologies (DNTB) of the University of
Milano “Bicocca”, Monza, Italy.
He performed his earliest clinical studies on CIPN in 1990 and subsequently he
developed most of the CIPN preclinical models currently available to study the
mechanisms of this severe complication of cancer treatment.
He is the principal investigator of the CI-PERINOMS international study devoted to the
identification of validated methods to assess CIPN.
Prof. Wolfgang Grisold is a neurologist at the Kaiser Franz Josef Hospital and Ludwig
Boltzmann Institute (LBI) for neuro-oncology in Vienna. He is both trained in
electrophysiology and in neuropathologic evaluation of peripheral nerves. He has a long
standing interest in neuro-oncology, in particular the side effects of tumour treatment
in the peripheral nervous system.
The neuro-oncologic group in Vienna is also interested in primary brain
tumours, leptomeningeal metastasis and paraneoplastic syndroms.
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Institutions
The University of Milano “Bicocca” was founded in 1998 and despite it is one of the
youngest in Italy it was ranked in 2009 at the 6th position among the 82 Italian
Universities by the Italian University and Research Ministry.
The DNTB is settled at the U8 Building of the University of Milano “Bicocca”. It is one of
the four Departments composing the Medical Faculty and it is located at the Medical
campus in Monza, close to the 800 beds S. Gerardo University Hospital where the
assessment of chemotherapy-treated patients is performed by a collaborative
neurology-oncology team.
The Kaiser Franz Josef Hospital (SMZ Süd) of the city of Vienna, is one of the largest
hospitals in Vienna and is a teaching hospital of the University of Vienna. In total it has
about 1000 beds. One of its designated activities is Oncology
Neuro-oncology is performed within a tumour board, assembled from
neurology, neurosurgery, general oncology, radiotherapy, with a close cooperation with
pathology and radiology. National and international clinical neuro-oncological
studies, mainly on brain tumor patients, chemotherapy-induced neuropathies and
paraneoplastic syndromes, are performed within the LBI-Neurooncology at the KFJ
HospItal in Vienna
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Acknowledgements
The assistance provided by the European Association for
Neuro-Oncology (EANO) in the revision of this video is
gratefully acknowledged.
The authors are also grateful to the patients who agreed to
collaborate in the preparation of the medical interview and
to the friends who gifted their voices.
This presentation has been realized by the Multimedia
Production Center of the University of Milano-Bicocca with
the collaboration of the S. Gerardo Hospital in Monza.
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