Vol. 17/No. 20

The gold standard for patients with cancer has long been overall survival, preferably delivered up with statistical significance through a randomized, phase III clinical trial.

Radiation therapy can be effectively delivered in more focused, intensive, and shorter-course treatment regimens that offer patients at least equivalent—and in some cases superior—outcomes in several tumor types, thus helping to mitigate challenging adverse effects of standard approaches.

Approximately 75% of invasive breast cancers are estrogen receptor (ER)–positive. Although ER-positive breast cancer typically responds well to initial endocrine therapy, most patients eventually become resistant to treatment and experience disease progression.

Although there are no drugs that target TP53 mutations in any tumor type, a recent analysis of a non–small cell lung cancer sample set raises the prospect that a more detailed understanding of this aberration eventually could help direct therapy.

Although breast cancer research has helped chart the course for molecularly targeted therapies in oncology, next-generation sequencing technologies have revealed a disease so highly complex and heterogeneous that translating these findings into clinically useful therapies has proved daunting.

Twenty-five years ago, WHO declared that coffee was a potential carcinogen. Now, the public health agency has reversed course, raising a host of questions about the accuracy and value not only about the original research but also about the recent report.

In 2014, under the leadership of UVA Executive Vice President Richard P. Shannon, MD, the Be Safe initiative was developed to deliver the highest-quality of advanced healthcare to patients, and emphasizes 3 main areas.

With the growing body of evidence supporting positive outcomes with the use of precision medicine–based approaches, academic cancer centers are increasingly incorporating genomic technology into standard clinical care.

A dual approach to overcoming resistance to endocrine therapy in patients with advanced hormone receptor-positive breast cancer is under investigation in a phase III trial that adds the novel drug entinostat to standard exemestane therapy after disease progression.