Articles

San Francisco, CA—Within weeks of a government-backed recommendation against routine screening mammography in women aged <50 years, the screening rate had fallen below historic levels and subsequently has remained lower than the baseline rate, a group of researchers reported.

Vienna, Austria—“Is personalized cancer care affordable?” asked Richard Sullivan, MD, PhD, Director of Kings Health Partners Institute of Cancer Policy and Global Health in the United Kingdom, in an invited presentation at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.

Vienna, Austria—“One of our themes at the 2012 ESMO Congress is personalized oncology,” European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Presi­dent Martine J. Piccart-Gebhart, MD, PhD, Professor of Oncology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and Director of the Medicine Department at Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium, said at a press briefing at the meeting.

Vienna, Austria—In a head-to-head comparison of 2 treatments for meta­static renal-cell carcinoma (mRCC), pazopanib (Votrient) showed similar efficacy to sunitinib (Sutent), with a 1-month survival advantage for sunitinib, which was associated with fewer side effects and an increased quality of life (QOL), suggested Robert J. Motzer, MD, Professor of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and an attending physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York.

A review of 34,000 patients with cancer in an insurance claims database showed that during the first 12 months after the diagnosis of cancer, the overall cost of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) was approximately $100,000 per patient, reported Duke University researchers at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology.

Vienna, Austria—Promising preliminary results for 2 novel prostate can-cer drugs—ODM-201 and OGX-427—were reported at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress. Both drugs were studied for the treatment of castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

It has been suggested in previous studies that soy isoflavones have anticancer properties; however, it is also known that soy-based foods possess estrogen-like properties and can therefore present complications rather than benefits for patients with breast cancer, potentially even playing a role in the genesis of breast cancer or its progression. Now 2 new studies indicate that daily consumption of soy-based foods may confer benefits for patients with breast cancer.

A recent analysis of previously published data indicates that adding cetuximab to first-line therapy benefits patients with the KRAS G13D mutation (Tejpar S, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2012;30:3570-3577).

In this phase 3, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, enzalutamide significantly prolonged survival in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) after standard chemotherapy (Scher HI, et al. N Engl J Med. 2012;367:1187-1197).

The FDA accelerated the approval of vincristine sulfate liposome injection (Marqibo; Talon Therapeutics) for the treatment of patients with Philadelphia chromosome–negative acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a rare type of leukemia, with a second or greater relapse after treatment with ≥2 antileukemia therapies. The drug is designated as an orphan product.