Articles

Most cases of severe treatment-related adverse reactions to the targeted therapies for kidney cancer appear to be reversible and resolve after dose reduction or treatment in terruption, according to Thomas Hutson, DO, PharmD, director of genitourinary oncology at Baylor Sammons Cancer Center, Dallas, Texas.

A new interventional radiology treatment that utilizes intra-arterial yttrium-90 (Y-90) microspheres may prolong the lives of many patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. New data presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 35th annual scientific meeting showed this approach may extend life for the more than three fourths of hepatocellular carcinoma patients who are not eligible for surgery.

For women with human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2)-positive early breast cancer, delaying trastuzumab until chemotherapy is completed may impair outcomes, according to findings from the landmark N9831 trial. The findings were presented by Edith Perez, MD, director of the Breast Cancer Program at the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida.

For the prevention of skeletal-related events (SREs) in breast cancer patients with bone metastasis, denosumab proved superior to zoledronic acid (ZA) in a head-to-head randomized comparison conducted in 2048 women.

For patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (MM), bortezomib-based therapy is effective after lenalidomide plus dexamethasone (LD), according to a Canadian study that evaluated sequencing of novel agents presented at the 51st Annual Meeting and Exposition of the American Society of Hematology.

One third of patients with newly diagnosed, advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who received the combination of bendamustine and rituximab achieved a complete response, according to researchers from the German CLL Study Group.

The pharmacist can play a key role in ensuring that healthcare practitioners avoid using medical abbreviations that have been deemed "off-limits" by The Joint Commission (TJC), according to a new study. In the study, the researchers sent monthly e-mail reminders to individual practitioners who they had identified as being repeat violators. The e-mails detailed their unapproved abbreviations and the reason(s) why the abbreviations were prohibited.

Scalp hypothermia seems to be effective in minimizing alopecia in some women with breast cancer who develop the condition as a result of their chemotherapy regimen, according to the results of a pilot study.

Debate continues as to whether all patients with early human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer need an anthracycline with trastuzumab. Updated data from the Breast Cancer International Research Group (BCIRG)-006 trial suggest that eliminating the anthracycline will have comparable efficacy and be less toxic.

Patients with breast cancer may derive greater treatment benefit by doubling the dose of the estrogen-receptor antagonist fulvestrant according to results from the international randomized, double-blind, phase 3 Comparison of Faslodex in Recurrent or Metastatic Breast Cancer (CONFIRM) trial.