Articles

Welcome to the inaugural edition of our annual Mechanism of Action Magnifier™! The Magnifier series is an exclusive supplement brought to you by the publishers of Personalized Medicine in Oncology (PMO) to delve into the biochemical interaction through which an oncology drug produces its pharmacological effect.

More than 33% of patients with heavily pretreated advanced melanoma are still alive at 5 years after starting nivolumab (Opdivo) monotherapy, reported F. Stephen Hodi, Jr, MD, Director of the Melanoma Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, at the 2016 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting.

“Intralesional therapy is here to stay,” said Sanjiv S. Agarwala, MD, Section Chief, Hematology/­Oncology, St Luke’s University Health Network, Easton, PA, who moderated a debate on this topic at the recent HemOnc Today Melanoma and Cutaneous Malignancies meeting.

The term telehealth is used interchangeably with telemedicine by some organizations. However, telemedicine is typically associated with the delivery of traditional clinical diagnosis and monitoring by using some form of medical technology, whereas telehealth has a much broader definition that comprises education, disease awareness, and wellness, in addition to the use of technology to connect physicians to patients.

Contemporary treatment has led to improvements in survival for all patients with metastatic testicular germ-cell tumors (GCTs), including poor-risk patients, although they still have worse survival. A new study shows that if poor-risk patients receive curative therapy and survive for at least 2 years, their survival approaches that of favorable-risk and intermediate-risk patients. The study supports no further routine scanning 2 years after diagnosis in surviving patients.

More than 50% of women with early-stage endometrial cancer had open surgery, in contradiction to recommendations in clinical guidelines, according to a study reported at the 2016 Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) annual meeting.