February 2014, Vol 5, No 1

In September 2013, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the cytotoxic agent nab-paclitaxel (paclitaxel protein-bound particles for injectable suspension, albumin-bound; Abraxane; Celgene Corporation) for first-line treatment of patients with metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas in combination with gemcitabine.

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is recommending that individuals aged >55 years who have a history of heavy smoking be screened annually for lung cancer.

San Francisco, CA—The majority of patients with stage II colorectal cancer (CRC) have a good prognosis with surgery and gain little with adjuvant chemotherapy, said Richard M. Goldberg, MD, Physician-in-Chief, Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, OH, at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—A dual-vaccine strategy improved survival more than single vaccination of patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Data from a randomized phase 2 trial were reported by Dung T. Le, MD, Assistant Professor of Oncology, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, MD, at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

New Orleans, LA—Those frustrated with low long-term remission rates in adult patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) can find hope in the superior outcomes associated with treatment for pediatric ALL.

The quest for personalized medicine has come full circle with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval of the first high-throughput genomic sequencer, MiSeqDx, but challenges remain on several fronts before the technology’s full potential can be realized, according to the nation’s top health research administrator.

San Antonio, TX—Veliparib plus carboplatin was identified as a worthy combination to move forward in trials of patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC; ie, estrogen receptor–negative, progesterone receptor–negative, HER2-negative), a subtype of breast cancer with a very poor prognosis.

>San Antonio, TX—Patients with HER2-­positive breast cancer harboring a PIK3CA mutation had a significantly lower likelihood of achieving a pathologic complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant anti-HER2 therapy, the results of 2 large clinical trials presented at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) showed.

New Orleans, LA—Peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) is associated with high resource utilization rates and high overall costs, according to a multicenter study presented at ASH 2013.

>New Orleans, LA—New research has confirmed that 30-day readmission for reduced-toxicity conditioning allogeneic hematopoietic-cell transplantation (allo-HCT) is linked to greater 100-day posttransplant hospital charges.