April 2010

The John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey has been a leader in the diagnosis, treatment, management, and prevention of cancer for more than 30 years.

Payers recognize the need to expand benefits management for oncology but struggle to find effective solutions amid the complexity of available therapies and skepticism from oncologists, who are facing their own set of economic pressures. The National Oncology Working Group (NOW) Initiative is trying to change the sometimes adversarial relationship between payers and oncologists through a collaborative model.

There is great disparity in outcomes between whites and blacks in the United States. Find out how these numbers add up in By The Numbers.

Elena Lukina, MD, and colleagues have published 1-year results of a phase II trial of eliglustat tartrate in patients with type 1 Gaucher disease (GD1) in the peer-review journal Blood. Eliglustat tartrate is from a novel class of drugs known as glucosylceramide synthase inhibitors.

Palonosetron (Aloxi) is the only 5-HT3 receptor antagonist approved for treatment of delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) following administration of moderately emetogenic chemotherapeutic agents.

In the April issue of Hepatology, researchers from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, reported that administering sirolimus (Rapamune)after liver transplantation in patients with nonresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) significantly increased survival rates.

Early-stage diagnosis gives patients their best chance against lung cancer. The rush to adopt lung cancer screening seems premature, however, because no randomized trials have definitively demonstrated that it improves survival outcomes. The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, aims to supply this data, with final results expected in ~1 year.

We interview hematologist Neal Weinreb, MD, director of the University Research Foundation for Lysosomal Storage Diseases and a researcher involved in studying Gaucher disease for more than 3 decades. Dr Weinreb talks about the risks of cancer in patients with type 1 Gaucher disease and why hematologists and oncologists need to know about this rare inherited disorder.

At the Third Annual Interdisciplinary Prostate Cancer Congress in March, the audience viewed presentations of real prostate cancer cases treated by the speakers. How would you treat the patient in this case study? Compare your responses with those of the attendees and the expert panel.

Three presentations at the recent Third Annual Interdisciplinary Prostate Cancer Congress in New York are reviewed. Urologist Leonard Gomella, MD, addresses truths and myths about prostate cancer prevention;Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, discusses the timely topic of immunotherapy; and E. David Crawford, MD, talks about screening controversies.

Healthcare professionals and patients are facing a longer wait for the FDA to approve generic drugs than they were just 5 years ago--1 year longer, in fact. The delayed approval process is due to a growing backlog of applications at the FDA.

In data presented at the 2nd European Lung Cancer Conference, a team of investigators said adding ifosfamide to a combination regimen of cisplatin plus etoposide demonstrated strong activity and tolerability in patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC).

Being able to predict which women diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are likely to develop subsequent invasive breast cancer could prevent a lot of unnecessary treatment, said researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

Kantar Health Research recently conducted an Internet survey of approximately 250 oncologists from the United States, France, Germany, Italy,Spain, and the United Kingdom. Using a proprietary scoring system Kantar Health calls the TRI*M Index, the research firm assessed relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical company representatives.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) jointly released guidelines designed to improve the accuracy and usefulness of immunohistochemical (IHC) testing for estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR) status in breast cancer tumors after convening a panel of international experts to study the issue.

Oncology & Biotech News is now united with the experienced publishing, editorial, and creative staff of Oncology Net Guide and OncLive Nursing under the Oncology Specialty Group umbrella, which also includes our newest publication, Contemporary Oncology.