Junhwan Kim

Impact of Clostridium difficile Infection on Chemotherapy in Patients With Primary Ovarian Cancer

To investigate the impact of This retrospective study included patients with primary ovarian cancer diagnosed with CDI at the National Cancer Center, Korea, between January 2014 and December 2023. Patients with gastrointestinal symptoms and positive A total of 111 CDI episodes were identified in 90 patients, with 17 patients experiencing recurrent CDI. Among initial CDI episodes, 51.1% occurred during the first or second cycle of adjuvant chemotherapy after cytoreductive surgery. Adjuvant chemotherapy cycles were delayed in 81.1% of cases, with a median delay of 13 days. Additionally, 7.8% of patients discontinued chemotherapy, and CDI-related mortality was 2.2%. Severe or fulminant CDI was associated with higher rates of intensive care unit admission, bowel surgery, or death (38.9% vs. 4.2%; CDI can cause chemotherapy delays and severe adverse outcomes, such as septic shock or death. Early identification of CDI and a multidisciplinary approach are essential to minimize CDI-related complications in patients with ovarian cancer. Further research is needed to develop preventive strategies and evaluate the long-term impact of CDI on cancer prognosis.

Practice guidelines for management of uterine corpus cancer in Korea: a Korean Society of Gynecologic Oncology consensus statement

The Korean Society of Gynecologic Oncology (KSGO) had been making an effort to standardize and enhance the quality of domestic uterine corpus cancer treatment by developing updated clinical practice guidelines in 2021. The KSGO revised the guidelines based on a literature search using 4 key elements: Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome framework. These elements include the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in recurrent/advanced endometrial cancer patients who have failed platinum-based chemotherapy, as well as the effect of combined treatment with trastuzumab in patients with HER2/neu-positive endometrial cancer. Additionally, the guideline assessed the efficacy and safety of omitting lymph node dissection in low-risk endometrial cancer patients, investigated the effect of sentinel lymph node mapping in early-stage endometrial cancer surgery, addressed the outcome of chemoradiation therapy as a postoperative treatment in patients with advanced (stage III-IVA) endometrial cancer, and explored the impact of initial treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors on survival in patients with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer patients.