TOP - Daily

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.

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.

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.

A new study suggests tobacco control policies may have differing results throughout the United States. For the study, researchers compared lung cancer death rates among women by year of birth. Results showed that while lung cancer death rates declined continuously by birth year for women born after the 1950s in California, rates in other states declined less quickly or even increased.

For African-American families in which a man is diagnosed with a prostate cancer, there are unmet psychosocial needs that affect survivorship, family relationships, and social interactions, according to new research.

“African-Americans continue to experience higher morbidity and mortality rates from prostate cancer and lower survival rates when compared to men of other ethnic and racial groups,” said study lead author Brian M. Rivers, PhD, MPH, assistant member of Health Outcomes & Behavior.

New guidelines for lung cancer screening are being strongly recommended. Created by a lung screening and surveillance task force established by the American Association for Thoracic Surgery (AATS) and led by medical professionals from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the guidelines were published this week in the online edition of the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

Because recent research shows low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) is valuable in reducing lung cancer deaths, the AATS task force recommends an annual LDCT lung cancer screening for:

Patients receiving a new prescription seldom read the critical warning labels such as “do not consume alcohol while taking this medication” or “for external use only.” As a result, an estimated 4 million Americans experience adverse reactions to prescription medications each year.

A new report appearing in the journal Organic Process Research & Development describes the development of a new procedure for eliminating almost 98% of an impurity that can contaminate prescription drugs and potentially increase the risk for adverse health effects in patients.

During the first few months of treatment, targeted cancer cell therapies using man-made proteins significantly shrink many tumors. However, the cancer cells often become resistant, the treatment stops working, and the disease returns. New research, reported online in the journal Nature, may point to why these outcomes frequently occur.

During its annual policy-making meeting, the American Medical Association (AMA) voted to adopt these new policies: