In the Literature

Widespread adoption of prostate- specific antigen (PSA) screening has been associated with a 44% reduction in prostate cancer mortality. Although early detection of prostate cancer with PSA testing may lead to reduced mortality, it also leads to significant overdetection of cancer.

A new study investigated whether combined immune blockade with ipilimumab and nivolumab would increase survival in patients with advanced melanoma (Wolchok JD, et al. N Engl J Med. 2013;369:122-133).

A new phase 2 clinical trial is one of the first to investigate the use of hormonal therapy without chemotherapy as a neoadjuvant strategy for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer (Rimawi MF, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2013;31:1726-1731).

Lynch syndrome (LS) is an inherited syndrome of predisposition to cancer with an increased risk for colorectal cancer ranging from 30% to 80%. Prostate cancer has been described as a component tumor of LS, but the lifetime risk of prostate cancer in patients with LS has not been quantified because of inherent difficulties. In a new analysis, researchers have used genetic data to define the risk of prostate cancer in men with LS (Raymond VM, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2013;31:1713-1718).

Involving patients in the cost discussion has been suggested as a way to begin to curb the rising costs of care. A new study investigated the inclination of Americans with health insurance to discuss their willingness to have cost as part of the decision-making in their care (Sommers R, et al. Health Aff [Millwood]. 2013;32:338-346).

Concerns for the cost implications of clinical decision-making by providers and health plans have increased significantly in the recent past, as well as the advice to consider cost in addition to efficacy as a part of the treatment paradigm.

The role of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) mutations in the pathogenesis of the disease has not been fully understood, and many genomic mutations in AML remain unknown. A team of researchers has recently analyzed large databases of genetic mutations and has selected 200 adult cases of de novo AML for their new study, using a variety of methods of genomic sequencing (The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network. N Engl J Med. 2013 May 1. [Epub ahead of print]).

A recent study compared the benefit of abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) with prednisone versus placebo plus prednisone for patients with mCRPC before chemotherapy (Ryan CJ, et al. N Engl J Med. 2013;368:138-148).