May 2013, Vol 4, No 4

A long-standing treatment standard for indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) has fallen victim to the chopping block, so to speak, at least in Germany.

Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) had no drop-off in efficacy with an anthracycline-free regimen that also reduced the long-term risk of cardiotoxicity, reported Andre Baruchel, MD, PhD, Chief of Pediatric Hematology, Robert Debré University Hospital, Paris, France.

Analysis of circulating DNA provides information about secondary mutations that cause drug resistance in patients with previously treated gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), reported George D. Demetri, MD, Director of the Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, at the 2013 American Association for Cancer Research meeting.

Washington, DC—Among women with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, patients with the highest expression of HER2 had the best outcomes in treatment with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla), according to a biomarker analysis of the phase 3 EMILIA trial which was presented at the 2013 American As­sociation for Cancer Research annual meeting.

Therapeutic development in head and neck cancer could eventually hone in on a handful of gene-expression patterns and signaling pathways that can identify a few discrete subtypes of the disease, data from The Cancer Genome Atlas suggest.

This is an abbreviated version of the original article that was recently published in American Health & Drug Benefits. 2013;6(1):15-24.

Prostate cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests should focus on men aged 55 to 69 years, the group that is the most likely to benefit from screening, according to a new clinical guideline issued by the American Urological Association (AUA) at its 2013 annual meeting.

Most women with ovarian cancer receive substandard care that significantly reduces their survival odds, based on a new retrospective review of 13,000 patients that was presented at the 2013 Society of Gynecologic Oncology annual meeting.

Washington, DC—A 2-step immunotherapy approach holds promise for women with advanced recurrent ovarian cancer, a disease that has limited therapeutic options.