TOP - November 2016, Vol 9, No 4

San Francisco, CA—Many patients with advanced melanoma or advanced lung cancer have benefited from treatment with checkpoint inhibitors, which have helped extend survival to previously unthinkable lengths. Although the impression is that checkpoint inhibitors are free of adverse events, in reality, clinicians strive daily to balance the efficacy and toxicity of these treatments.

Women with clinicopathologic high-risk breast cancer had nearly a 50% reduction in prescription chemotherapy, with no increased risk for metastatic recurrence when a cancer gene–based assay was used to guide treatment decision­-making, according to new data presented at the 2016 American Association for Cancer Research meeting.

Boston, MA—Hypofractionated radiotherapy achieves comparable quality of life compared with conventional radiotherapy, and has the advantages of shorter treatment time, greater convenience to the patient, and less cost to the healthcare system compared with conventional radiotherapy. The hypofractionated radiotherapy schedule is value-based, noted experts at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

Boston, MA—It is well-recognized that radiation-induced symptoms can be extremely severe for patients with head and neck cancer. Although “magic mouthwash” (ie, diphenhydramine plus lidocaine plus antacid [DLA]) is frequently used for the treatment of oral mucositis associated with radiotherapy to the head and neck, until now there has been no solid evidence for this approach.

Boston, MA—Patients with cervical and endometrial cancers experience fewer gastrointestinal and genitourinary adverse events and have improved quality of life when they receive intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) compared with conventional radiation therapy, according to the results of a recent study presented at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

Adelaide, Australia—The 2016 Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO) Annual Meeting on Supportive Care in Cancer marked the 25th anniversary of MASCC, and the 30th anniversary of ISOO. This year, 1075 delegates from >50 countries attended this international symposium.

Adelaide, Australia—Prophylactic probiotics can potentially prevent radiation enteropathy, according to research presented by Matthew A. Ciorba, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Washing­ton Uni­versity School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, at the 2016 Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology Annual Meeting on Supportive Care in Cancer.

Adelaide, Australia—SGX942, a novel agent that is first in its class, decreased the incidence of severe oral mucositis in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing chemoradiation, according to new research led by Oreola Donini, PhD, Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Soligenix, Princeton, NJ, and Mahesh R. Kudrimoti, MD, Professor of Radiation Medicine, University of Kentucky, Lexington.

Delirium is an exceedingly prevalent syndrome among patients with cancer, but is underrecognized and undertreated, according to Alan Valentine, MD, Chair, Department of Psychiatry, The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and Darryl Etter, PsyD, Clinical Psychologist, VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System, Denver, at a webinar hosted by the American Psychosocial Oncology Society in July 2016.

Adelaide, Australia—Nausea is part of a symptom cluster associated with chemotherapy, but the experience of nausea may be a symptom cluster in and of itself, according to a study presented by Ian Olver, MD, President of the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC), Director of the Sansom Institute for Health Research, and Professor of Translational Cancer Research, University of South Australia, Adelaide, at the 2016 MASCC/International Society of Oral Oncology Annual Meeting on Supportive Care in Cancer.