Cancer

After 10 years of follow-up, high-dose epirubicin-based induction chemotherapy followed by conventional epirubicin-based adjuvant chemotherapy in 120 patients with inflammatory breast cancer resulted in a disease-free survival rate of 35.7% and an overall survival rate of 41.2%.

In patients with breast cancer and rising tumor markers, FDG-PET/CT has high performance indices and is superior to CT for diagnosis of tumor recurrence, thus leading to changes in the subsequent clinical management of 51% of these patients.

Recently, there has been considerable interest in the use of aromatase inhibitors in adjuvant therapy for breast cancer. The purpose of the current study was to examine patient selection for an aromatase inhibitor in patients who were event free 5 years after treatment with tamoxifen.

After the Chornobyl nuclear accident, in the first cycle of screening examinations, among 13,243 individuals, there were 45 thyroid carcinomas detected, including 43 papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTCs) (95.6%)and 2 thyroid carcinomas of the follicular type (4.4%). Multifocal growth, lymphatic and blood vessel invasion, extrathyroid spread, and regional and distant metastases were more frequent in patients who had less differentiated PTCs (defined as tumors with >30% solid structure).

The intraductal papillary mucinous carcinoma (IPMC) of the pancreas is characterized by either a continuous or a skip type of cancer existence. The results of the current study revealed that 42% of patients who underwent intraoperative examinations of histology of the surgical margin and cytology of the pancreatic juice required additional resection of the pancreas.

In a retrospective analysis of 227 consecutive patients who underwent curative gastrectomy for gastric cancer, those who developed local and lymph node recurrences had significantly longer median survival than those who developed distant metastasis. However, the location of the primary tumor and the age of the patient at the time of recurrence had no significant impact on overall survival.

The authors investigated the effect of the interval between surgery and the initiation of chemotherapy on survival in patients with lymph node-positive colon cancer. The results indicated that only 9% of patients delayed the initiation of adjuvant chemotherapy for >3 months after they underwent curative surgery; however, the delay in initiating therapy was associated with both cancer-specific and all-cause mortality.

Karnofsky performance scale score is an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival and overall survival among patients treated with chemoradiation for locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Pretreatment hemoglobin status is an additional independent prognostic factor for overall survival.

Radiation therapy with short-course androgen suppression therapy and radical prostatectomy are standard treatments for localized prostate cancer. The authors estimated prostate cancer-specific mortality rates after treatment and found that the presence of all 3 risk factors defining intermediate-risk to high-risk disease is significantly associated with a shorter time to prostate cancer death.

The Kattan postoperative nomogram for nonmetastatic renal cell carcinoma is the most widely used prognostic tool to predict recurrence. Although the Kattan model is known as the best among all other available models, it may be of low accuracy in external representative patient cohorts, outside its training population.

This Phase II, open-label study was conducted to investigate the safety and clinical activity of a structural and functional analogue of thalidomide, lenalidomide (LEN), which has demonstrated enhanced immunomodulatory properties and a more favorable toxicity profile, in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). LEN demonstrated an antitumor effect in metastatic RCC, as evidenced by durable partial responses, and LEN toxicities were manageable.

Metastatic papillary renal cell carcinoma is characterized by resistance to systemic therapy. Advances in understanding the genetics and molecular biology of the disease and its subtypes could provide the basis for more effective agents.

In this investigation of 75 inverted papillomas in the urinary tract, both the extremely low incidence of tumor recurrence and strikingly favorable prognosis during follow-up suggest that inverted urothelial papilloma is a benign urothelial neoplasm, lacking any close connection with urothelial carcinoma, provided that the diagnosis of inverted papilloma is based on strictly defined criteria. Consequently, transurethral resection of inverted papilloma is adequate treatment, and surveillance protocols as rigorous as those employed in the management of urothelial carcinoma seem unnecessary for this benign entity.

Loss of neutral endopeptidase expression was correlated with protein kinase B (Akt) activation and contributed to prostate cancer progression.

A first report is presented of high levels of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) p65 nuclear expression in lung cancer tissue and adjacent normal preneoplastic respiratory epithelium. The findings indicate that NF-κB activation plays an important role in lung cancer pathogenesis and is a suitable target for the development of new lung cancer therapies and chemoprevention strategies.

In carefully selected patients who have had previous wide local excisions for clinically node-negative primary cutaneous melanomas, sentinel lymph nodes can be successfully identified via lymphatic mapping and accurately reflect the status of the regional lymph node basins, even for axial tumors.

In a series of 87 cases, spinal radiosurgery was found to be feasible, safe, and clinically effective for the treatment of spinal metastases from lung cancer. The results indicate the potential of radiosurgery in the treatment of these patients, especially those with solitary sites of spine involvement, to improve long-term palliation.

Records from 2 independent cohorts of breast cancer patients treated on institutional protocols with mastectomy and adjuvant (n = 1456) or neoadjuvant (n = 684) doxorubicin-based chemotherapy were reviewed. African-American race is associated with poorer overall survival and less favorable biological tumor features, such as an increased likelihood of estrogen receptor-negative disease, than those found in Caucasian and Hispanic patients.

Disparities in cancer detection, treatment, and outcomes among racial/ethnic minorities and low-income patients are well documented. One way to reduce these disparities is to use patient navigators to address barriers to care. However, little information about optimal characteristics of navigator programs or considerations for those interested in setting up such programs is available. The ULAAC program represents a viable model for developing lay navigator programs in community hospitals.

FDG-PET has a high prognostic value after 1 cycle of chemotherapy, thus it can be a valid alternative for posttreatment evaluation of diffuse large cell lymphoma and Hodgkin disease and may offer the potential for change in treatment paradigms.

In this Phase I dose-finding trial, the authors studied the use of bortezomib and irinotecan in the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors. The results indicated that the maximum tolerated dose for the combined regimen was bortezomib 1.3 mg/m² and irinotecan 125 mg/m². The combination of bortezomib and irinotecan was safe and well tolerated, and the administration of irinotecan with bortezomib did not interfere with the pharmacodynamic activity of bortezomib.

The authors present what to their knowledge is the first report on lymphopenia and low serum albumin levels related to the prognosis of patients with carcinomas of unknown primary. A refined prognosis model using the presence of liver metastases and serum albumin level was developed and validated.

Older patients with cancer who were randomized to receive systematic, monthly monitoring of their distress using standardized measures with referral to their oncology nurse for appropriate help had significantly reduced anxiety and depression compared with patients who received only educational materials.

Quality of life (QOL) currently is considered both clinically meaningful and biologically important in terms of patient outcome and is considered as important as disease-free and overall survival. Thus, the objectives of the current study were to evaluate the QOL of patients with primary or metastatic cancer to the liver who underwent hepatic resection and ablation and to determine the differences in their QOL. There was little difference in the QOL of patients who underwent major hepatic resection, minor hepatic resection, and hepatic ablation. The patients who underwent major hepatectomy had a worse QOL at 6 weeks compared with the patients who underwent minor hepatectomy and hepatic ablation; however, that difference in QOL resolved, and significant improvements were observed in all 3 patient groups after 3 months.

Inflammation and perturbation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis function appear to play a putative role in the etiology of depression. Patients with metastatic cancer demonstrate elevated prevalence rates for depression. The objective of the current study was to illustrate the efficacy of interleukin-6 and HPA axis function as adjuncts to support the diagnosis of depression in cancer patients.

The activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (Stat3) signaling leads to the transformation of human ovarian epithelial cells. In this study, the authors observed that the activation and translocation of Stat3 to the nucleus were frequent events in ovarian carcinoma and were associated with a poor prognosis.