Cancer

Triple-negative phenotype is a specific subgroup of breast cancer associated with aggressive tumor behavior and poor outcome. Assessment of androgen and basal cytokeratins, in addition to established pathologic variables, mainly lymph node status and tumor size, can be used to select high-risk and low-risk patients at the time of primary surgery and can provide valuable information for treatment option decisions.

The authors report the safety and efficacy data from a population of patients with untreated, advanced gastric cancer who received S-1, a promising oral fluoropyrimidine, plus cisplatin in a Phase II, multicenter trial. The extended data confirmed that S-1 combined with cisplatin had a highly desirable safety profile. The efficacy against advanced gastric cancer, according to an external review, was encouraging.

The nadir prostate-specific antigen (PSA) at 1 year (nPSA12) was investigated as an early estimate of biochemical and clinical outcome after radiotherapy (RT) alone for localized prostate cancer.

Patients who received weekly cisplatin (CDDP) have a shorter 3-year progression-free survival as compared with those who received 5-day CDDP. Patients with advanced stage cervical cancer who received weekly CDDP also had significantly more acute toxicities.

The findings showed that oxidative and nitrative stress altered the salivary composition in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients. The oxidized proteins and DNA found in the saliva of the cancer patients seems to be the first demonstration of a direct link between salivary free radicals, antioxidants, and OSCC.

High-dose therapy and autologous stem-cell transplantation remain controversial for indolent lymphoma patients. The study analyzed the impact of this strategy on the disease course using an interesting methodology that has been found useful for evaluating new treatments.

This study identifies fatigue as the major contributor to poor quality of life (QOL) in myeloproliferative disorders, provides baseline information on constitutional symptoms, and underscores the need for the incorporation of QOL assessment in clinical trials.

The authors investigated the safety and efficacy of heat shock protein-peptide complex-96 (HSPPC-96) vaccines prepared from tumor specimens of patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Vaccine was sufficiently prepared for most patients, but it had limited activity in inducing responses in patients with active diseases; therefore, further studies of HSPPCs should be considered in adjuvant settings or in combination with other immunomodulatory agents to assess survival benefit.

For this large, retrospective study, the authors examined the incidence and risk factors for the development of second solid cancers after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The results suggested that patients who undergo allografting are at increased risk of developing a second solid cancer compared with the general population, particularly patients of advanced age at the time of allograft and patients who receive a female graft.

Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a rapidly progressive lethal tumor. Treatment options remain limited and the outcome in recurrent disease is poor.

To provide a better model for the selection of which patients with melanoma should undergo sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy, the authors reviewed 1130 patients with melanoma and explored patient and tumor characteristics that were correlated with positive SLN status using standard logistic regression techniques. The best multivariate model included patient age, angiolymphatic invasion, the number of mitoses, the interaction between patient age and the number of mitoses, Breslow depth, the interaction between patient age and Breslow depth, and body site location.

In patients with clear cell sarcoma (CCS) of tendons and aponeuroses, tumor size was the most important predictive factor for both distant metastasis and survival. Early recognition of CCS and prompt wide excision of small tumors were essential for a favorable outcome.

The study evaluated outcomes of incidental extrathyroidal fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) abnormalities grouped as being malignant or benign and found that oncologists appropriately select patients for further investigation based on clinical reports.

Computed tomography/positron emission tomography (CT-PET) imaging is useful in detecting distant metastases in patients with locally advanced, potentially resectable esophageal carcinoma after neoadjuvant therapy. Conversely, CT-PET imaging has limited clinical utility in assessing therapeutic response of the primary esophageal tumor and within locoregional lymph nodes.

Survival was significantly better among patients who had from 1 to 3 cerebral metastases compared with patients who had ≥4 cerebral metastases. A subgroup analysis based on the number of metastases suggested that different factors affect survival in patients with from 1 to 3 metastases versus ≥4 metastases.

Smaller regional brain volumes were observed 1 year after breast cancer surgery in breast cancer survivors who were exposed to adjuvant chemotherapy by brain MRI. However, 3 years after their surgery, no differences were observed in the regional brain volumes between cancer survivors exposed and those unexposed to adjuvant chemotherapy.

Outcome after recurrence of childhood acute myeloid leukemia was poor, with a 5-year survival estimate of only 23.3% ± 5.7%. Male sex, autologous transplant before recurrence, longer time from diagnosis to recurrence, and allogeneic transplant after recurrence were each associated with a better survival.