Articles

Grapevine, TX—A New Jersey research team is making the case for relying less on the Oncotype DX test for breast-cancer prognosis and instead focusing on conventional pathological analyses.

San Antonio, TX—Women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer are unlikely to benefit from dosedense chemotherapy, but many are receiving this type of treatment, which involves the use of colonystimulating factors (CSFs), that is, growth factors. Limiting the use of these therapies in a population that is unlikely to benefit from it, would save nearly $40 million annually, suggests a study presented at the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—For resectable pancreatic cancer, administering chemo - therapy and radiation before surgery results in better outcomes and lower costs than performing surgery first, reported researchers from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.

San Francisco, CA—Results obtained on the Oncotype DX Colon Cancer Assay led to changes in treatment decisions 29% of the time for patients with stage II colon cancer, according to a survey of community oncologists reported at the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

San Diego, CA—Among patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), costs related to febrile neutropenia (FN) treated with hospitalization exceed $11,000 per episode, researchers reported at ASH 2011.

San Diego, CA—Survivors of hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) have substantial medical illnesses and psychological symptoms ≥10 years after the procedure, representing a substantial burden to our healthcare system.

San Diego, CA—A novel inhibitor of B-cell receptor signaling, PCI-32765, produced high rates of remission and was well tolerated in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) whose disease was refractory to at least 2 previous treatments, reported Susan O'Brien, MD, of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.

San Diego, CA—The treatment of lymphoma during pregnancy does not compromise fetal outcomes or maternal health and cancer-specific survival, according to a study presented at ASH 2011 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.

In patients with early-stage, nonbulky Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), overall survival (OS) was superior at 12 years in patients who received standard chemotherapy compared with radiotherapy in a study conducted by the National Cancer Institute of Canada's Clinical Trials Group and the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group.

San Diego, CA—Venous thromboembolism (VTE) occurs in 1% of hematologic malignancies and can lead to fatal pulmonary emboli, postthrombotic syndromes, bleeding as a result of anticoagulant treatment, and recurrent VTE.