Articles
A new drug, brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris), dramatically improved survival rates in Hodgkin lymphoma patients who have failed other treatments and are running out of options.
Read More ›Recent analysis shows that increasing the number of cups of caffeinated coffee consumed could lower the risk of developing basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer.
Jiali Han, PhD, associate professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, and Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues conducted a prospective analysis of data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Read More ›Although patients with lung cancer who are treated with the drug erlotinib (Tarceva) often experience an initial decrease in tumor size, those receiving erlotinib also regularly face cancer recurrence.
A team of researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center recently discovered that a human protein, AXL, drives resistance to erlotinib. These study results suggest that blocking AXL may prevent resistance to the cancer drug.
Read More ›In 1986, the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMCCC) was established as a center of excellence at the University of Michigan Medical Center. UMCCC is designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute and is 1 of 21 cancer centers participating in the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.
Read More ›Pharmacists are vitally important in enhancing patients’ adherence to oral chemotherapy medications, and there are approaches that pharmacies can take to improve compliance, Sylvia Bartel, RPh, told attendees of the NCCN Pharmacy Program held during the 17th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) in Hollywood, Florida.
Read More ›I remember picking out my lunch box. I had already decided it needed to have some sort of mechanism to keep its contents chilled for up to a few hours. It had to shield its contents from the sun to avoid spoilage. It had to be soft enough so that glass would not crack when hitting the sides and large enough to carry several small boxes tossed in with the occasional small bottle. Read More ›
Lower radioiodine doses given with recombinant human thyrotropin (thyrotropin alfa) was as effective as high-dose radioiodine, and the low-dose treatment was associated with fewer side effects. Use of thyrotropin alfa along with low-dose radiation allows patients to avoid fatigue, lethargy, and weight gain associated with thyroid hormone withdrawal. These results suggest that thyroid cancer treatment can be transformed into a safer, shorter session, according to researchers.
Read More ›Olaparib maintenance therapy extended progression-free survival (PFS) in women with an aggressive form of platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer with a previous response to platinum-based chemotherapy. Women receiving olaparib lived a mean of 4 months longer and also had a longer time to disease progression than those who had no maintenance therapy. These were the conclusions of a phase 2 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 12, 2012.
Read More ›According to a presentation at the recent European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology (ESTRO) meeting in Barcelona, Spain, oropharyngeal cancers in patients who are positive for the human papilloma virus (HPV) and who never smoked or were light smokers may be treated effectively with radiotherapy alone, potentially sparing these selected patients from additional chemotherapy and its toxicity.
Read More ›Brachytherapy after lumpectomy is associated with greater morbidity and need for mastectomy compared with whole-breast radiation, according to a large retrospective study of Medicare claims for older women with early invasive breast cancer (JAMA. 2012;307:1827-1837). Five years after treatment, the rate of mastectomy was twice as high in women treated with brachytherapy versus whole-breast radiation. Both short- and long-term complications were significantly greater in women treated with brachytherapy in this review. Read More ›