November 2013, Vol 4, No 9

Vancouver, Canada—The odds of having a major complication after a radical cystectomy, which is performed as part of the treatment for bladder cancer, are higher for Hispanics than for Caucasians, researchers have found. They calculated that the rate of such complications was 23.53%  for Hispanic Americans compared with 16.09% for Caucasian Americans.

The recent Institute of Medicine report “Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis” addressed the important issues of delivering high-quality cancer care, including end-of-life care.

Atlanta, GA—Patients with cancer treated with pelvic radiation did not have fewer bouts of diarrhea when treated prophylactically with the anti-inflammatory drug sulfasalazine (Azulfidine), a randomized trial showed. Patients receiving sulfasalazine had radiation-associated severe diarrhea almost 3 times as often as patients receiving placebo.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands—Expanded radiotherapy led to significantly better disease-free survival (DFS) and metastasis-free survival (MFS) rates in women with early breast cancer, according to the results of a large study reported at the European Cancer Congress 2013.

Phoenix, AZ—The staff at the Mayo Clinic are working to “bend the cost curve” and optimize resource utilization efficiency while continuing to provide high-quality care to their large population of patients, said Kari Bunkers, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, Mayo Clinic Health System, and Medical Director, Mayo Clinic Office of Population Health Management (OPHM) at the American Medical Group Association 2013 Institute for Quality Leadership conference.

>Phoenix, AZ—The degree of patient satisfaction with healthcare is becoming paramount in the new era of value-based care, according to James Merlino, MD, Chief Experience Officer, and Associate Chief of Staff, Patient Experience Office, Cleveland Clinic Health System (CCHS), OH, who discussed high-value healthcare at the American Medical Group Association 2013 Institute for Quality Leadership conference.

Treatment with the oral angiogenesis inhibitor cediranib led to significant improvements in overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, according to new data reported at the European Cancer Congress 2013.

Boston, MA—Next-generation sequencing is a valuable tool to identify actionable genomic alterations that may be present in a tumor sample, said Gary A. Palmer, MD, JD, MBA, MPH, Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Commercial Development, Foundation Medicine, Cambridge, MA, at the Second Glob­al Biomarkers Consortium annual conference.

Boston, MA—Incorporating personalized medicine into everyday oncology clinical practice will require new paradigms in an effort to match patients with cancer with the appropriate therapies, as well as attempts to treat solid tumors at an earlier stage with targeted agents, said Razelle Kurzrock, MD, Director, Center for Personalized Cancer Therapy, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Moores Cancer Center, at the Second Global Biomarkers Consortium annual conference.