August 2011, Vol 2, No 5

The most recent mammography screening recommendations call on women to begin annual screening for breast cancer at age 40 years, regardless of their risk for the disease.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted priority review for the investigational drug ruxolitinib as a potential treatment for patients with myelofibrosis, a blood cancer with few treatment options.

New results from the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial have shown that in individuals at high risk for lung cancer, screening with lowdose computed tomography (CT) significantly reduces mortality in this subpopulation (N Engl J Med. 2011;365:395-409).

In July, the United Kingdom’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) approved the use of thalidomide (Thalomid) for the first-line treatment of multiple myeloma in patients in whom high-dose chemotherapy with stem-cell transplantation is deemed inappropriate.

The immunochemical fecal occult blood test (iFOBT), a new version of the traditional FOBT, has demonstrated 90% specificity in detecting colon growths.

Approximately 77,000 healthcare providers have already registered by July of this year with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the electronic health records (EHRs) program.

Evidence-based medicine and a focused clinical orientation are key elements to delivering the right care at the right time to the right person. The recent findings reported at the 2011 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting regarding the use of novel therapies and strategies in the treatment of non–small-cell lung cancer make achieving these goals harder than ever.

The development of ipilimumab (Yervoy) and its approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in March 2011 have opened a new era in the treatment and management of patients with metastatic melanoma.

Medicare may be paying for more screening colonos - copies than are warranted for the prevention of colorectal cancer (CRC), according to a new study (Goodwin JS, et al. Arch Intern Med. 2011 May 9 [Epub ahead of print]).

Most professional guidelines now recommend screening for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in essentially all patients receiving chemotherapy, but it is seldom performed and is not cost-effective in patients with solid (nonhematologic) tumors, according to studies presented at ASCO 2011.