February 2013

Robot-assisted radical prostatectomy adoption into medical practice has been swift and encompassing, even as questions remain about its efficacy, added costs, and perioperative and longer-term outcomes versus alternatives.

Companion diagnostics can enable significant improvements in safety, efficacy, outcomes, and cost-effectiveness associated with many existing and new therapies.

Stuart Lichtman, MD, and William Tew, MD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discuss personalizing treatment for elderly patients with ovarian cancer.

A treatment regimen rooted in traditional Chinese philosophy has emerged as a targeted approach for patients with newly diagnosed, lower-risk acute promyelocytic leukemia.

On Sunday, December 9, 2012, the Plenary Session at the 54th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting featured several noteworthy abstracts.

Vorinostat added to standard chemotherapy before, during, and after hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation reduced the cumulative incidence of graft-versus-host disease.

Patients with the rare form of blood cancer polycythemia vera whose hematocrit levels hover between 45% and 50% have a four-fold higher incidence of thrombotic complications.

Although the presence of an EGFR mutation is a predictive marker for response to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer, the mutation is not a prognostic factor.

Studies have explored integration of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery, with the suggestion that modern technologies may be changing the treatment landscape with better outcomes in esophageal cancer.

Administration of docetaxel every 2 weeks in patients with CRPC was associated with significantly longer time to treatment failure, improved OS, and produced fewer adverse events.

Quizartinib, an investigational tyrosine kinase inhibitor, demonstrated a clinical benefit in patients with a particularly deadly form of acute myeloid leukemia.

Genetic or drug-induced alterations of the enzyme CYP2D6 that result in reduced metabolism of tamoxifen are associated with a higher risk of recurrence and death in women with ER–positive breast cancer who receive the drug.