Articles
SAN ANTONIO—Researchers are reporting “woefully inadequate” mammography rates in American women, even in those with healthcare coverage.
Milayna Subar, MD, National Practice Leader, Medco Oncology Therapeutic Resource Center in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and colleagues analyzed medical claims data obtained for more than 1.5 million women between 2006 and 2009. All of the women had health insurance through their em ployer or Medicare.
Case Presentation
Chief complaint: Abdominal pain and weight loss for 3 months.
SAN ANTONIO—For women with human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2)-overexpressing breast cancer, preoperative treatment with agents that block HER2 leads to high rates of pathological complete response (pCR), according to the results of three studies.
The studies used various combinations of trastuzumab, lapatinib, and pertuzumab (a novel monoclonal antibody) in the neoadjuvant setting.
SAN ANTONIO—Obese breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy have a significantly shorter overall survival (OS) than nonobese women, researchers reported.
Thomas Samuel, MD, a medical oncologist at Georgia’s Health Sciences University in Augusta, and colleagues examined the correlation between body mass index (BMI) and OS in 259 breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy between 1997 and 2006. The investigators used data obtained from their institution’s tumor cancer registry.
SAN ANTONIO—In the phase 2 TAMRAD trial, tamoxifen (TAM) with everolimus (RAD) conferred the greatest clinical benefits over tamoxifen alone among patients with secondary hormone resistance after treatment with an aromatase inhibitor (AI).
SAN ANTONIO—Breast cancer patients who take multivitamins with minerals are less likely to have disease recurrence than patients who do not take multivitamins with minerals, according to new data.
The routine use of multivitamins with minerals also appears to be associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer–specific and overall death.
What started as tumor board conferences a decade ago has grown into a true multidisciplinary team approach to comprehensive breast care. ProHealth Care’s Center for Breast Care at Waukesha Memorial Hospital’s Regional Cancer Center in Waukesha, Wisconsin, is an interdisciplinary breast cancer clinic where patients can see multiple specialists in one visit. With the opening of the clinic, the various specialists involved in patient care can talk to each other about a patient in real time, not replacing tumor board conferences, but taking patient care to the next level.
ANAHEIM—Pharmacist assessment of palonosetron use for the prevention of emesis associated with chemotherapy has the potential to capture inappropriate use and result in cost savings, said John P. Jezak, PharmD.
ANAHEIM—Overweight as well as obese chemo therapy recipients who are dosed according to total body weight do not experience more adverse drug events or cycle delays than normal weight recipients.
The finding, which comes from a 10-year retrospective analysis of patients with gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, should allay concerns about overdosing and the potential for increased toxicities when calculating the chemotherapy dose using total body weight, said lead investigator Tiffany Dea, PharmD.
ANAHEIM—A new process for handling oral chemotherapy medications that delineates prescriber privileges may help to avert errors or drug–drug interactions, said Brian L’Heureux, PharmD.
On August 1, 2010, at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, a new procedure for processing oncology orders was implemented, said L’Heureux, an oncology pharmacy resident.
Under the new system, oncologyspecific medications have to be ordered by prescribers with delineated privileges using a specific chemotherapy order form.