Vol. 20/No. 21

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, a risk factor linked to the development of hepatocellular carcinoma and increased mortality, is growing in clinical significance.

Investigators are exploring the novel genetic biomarker DGM1 as a potential predictor of benefit from the experimental agent enzastaurin in treatment-naïve patients with high-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

With a variety of available agents in follicular lymphoma, determining which treatments to choose and how best to sequence them can be challenging.

Michael J. Keating, MBBS, has devoted much of his career to finding means of controlling chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Updated guidelines from the United States Preventive Services Task Force on BRCA1/2 genetic testing recommend risk assessment, counseling, and genetic test-ing for women who meet certain criteria but fall short of encompassing important groups of individuals who are at risk for developing BRCA1/2 mutation–driven disease

Overall, compelling response rates and rates of conversion to resection for patients with initially unresectable colorectal liver metastases treated with hepatic arterial infusion suggest consideration of earlier initiation of the technique in chemotherapy-naïve patients as well as its adoption in patients who have failed first-line systemic chemotherapy before proceeding to second- or third-line regimens.

In the ongoing search for novel immunotherapies that might rival or surpass the efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors, drugs targeting IDO1—a key enzyme in tryptophan metabolism—have been a major focus in recent years.

In July 2019, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid proposed the Radiation Oncology Model, an important step forward in allowing the nation’s 4500 radiation oncologists to join in the transition to value-based healthcare.

Based on strong findings for efficacy and safety, as well as FDA approvals, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer has issued the first guidelines for the use of immunotherapy agents in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Early dose reductions in a common adjuvant chemotherapy regimen were associated with inferior survival outcomes in a retrospective study of women with intermediate- to high-risk breast cancer.

Studies have raised doubts about the value Medicare and other payers are getting for the care they pay for, including in oncology. This has intensified the demand for new value-based care models such as the Merit-based Incentive Payment System and the Oncology Care Model.

Certain themes and questions about individualized, scientifically unanswerable dilemmas often recur when talking with patients and families about treatment.