February 2014, Vol 5, No 1

In September 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the cytotoxic agent nab-paclitaxel (paclitaxel protein-bound particles for injectable suspension, albumin-bound; Abraxane; Celgene Corporation) for first-line treatment of patients with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas in combination with gemcitabine.
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The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is recommending that individuals aged >55 years who have a history of heavy smoking be screened annually for lung cancer.
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San Francisco, CA—The majority of patients with stage II colorectal cancer (CRC) have a good prognosis with surgery and gain little with adjuvant chemotherapy, said Richard M. Goldberg, MD, Physician-in-Chief, Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, OH, at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
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San Francisco, CA—A dual-vaccine strategy improved survival more than single vaccination of patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Data from a randomized phase 2 trial were reported by Dung T. Le, MD, Assistant Professor of Oncology, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
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New Orleans, LA—Those frustrated with low long-term remission rates in adult patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) can find hope in the superior outcomes associated with treatment for pediatric ALL.
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The quest for personalized medicine has come full circle with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval of the first high-throughput genomic sequencer, MiSeqDx, but challenges remain on several fronts before the technology’s full potential can be realized, according to the nation’s top health research administrator.
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San Antonio, TX—Veliparib plus carboplatin was identified as a worthy combination to move forward in trials of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC; ie, estrogen receptor–negative, progesterone receptor–negative, HER2-negative), a subtype of breast cancer with a very poor prognosis.
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>San Antonio, TX—Patients with HER2-­positive breast cancer harboring a PIK3CA mutation had a significantly lower likelihood of achieving a pathologic complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant anti-HER2 therapy, the results of 2 large clinical trials presented at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) showed.
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New Orleans, LA—Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is associated with high resource utilization rates and high overall costs, according to a multicenter study presented at ASH 2013.
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>New Orleans, LA—New research has confirmed that 30-day readmission for reduced-toxicity conditioning allogeneic hematopoietic-cell transplantation (allo-HCT) is linked to greater 100-day posttransplant hospital charges.
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