Stanton R. Mehr

The US Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act but allow states to decide whether to expand Medicaid has raised a question in many states: Where political leaders have been opposed or split on President Obama's healthcare reforms, is it smart or foolish to cover more people?

The federal sequester trims Medicare payments for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in doctors' offices in an effort to save the government money. Instead, it will end up costing more in the long run, according to the president of ASCO.

The last year of life is associated with high health expenditures in the United States, and the costs are increasingly focused on patients' last few months.

Melanoma is one of the most frequent cancers; more than 2 million Americans are treated for skin cancer annually.

Women with ovarian cancer have few nonplatinum-based chemotherapy options. At the 33rd ESMO Congress in September 2008, researchers reported findings from OVA-301, a phase III trial that compared efficacy and safety of trabectedin (Yondelis) in combination with pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) versus PLD monotherapy in women with relapsed ovarian cancer.

Previous studies have demonstrated that patients who have recurrent or metastatic squamous-cell head and neck cancer (SCHNC) that is resistant to platinum-based chemotherapy can be treated effectively with cetuximab. Belgian researchers hoped to discover whether cetuximab plus platinum-based chemotherapy would be an effective first-line treatment in patients with SCHNC.