Cancer

In patients with lymph node-negative breast cancer, lymphovascular invasion (LVI) can be used as a high-risk criterion to indicate a survival disadvantage equivalent to that indicated by a positive pathologic lymph node status of pN0 or pN1 and a pathologic tumor classification of pT1 or pT2. The use of immunohistochemistry to identify an endothelial-specific marker can contribute to the significance of LVI when applied to routine cases that are LVI negative/possible.

The authors report excellent tumor control with acceptable toxicity in a multi-institutional phase 1 trial of extreme hypofractionated stereotactic radiotherapy for low-risk prostate adenocarcinoma.

Krüppel-like factor 4 functions as a tumor suppressor in cervical carcinoma by inhibiting cell growth and tumor formation.

Breast cancer gene 2 (BRCA2) mutations confer an overall survival advantage compared with both being BRCA-negative or having a BRCA1 mutation in high-grade serous ovarian cancer. This finding may have important implications for clinical trial design.

The quality of life of patients after salvage nasopharyngectomy is good. Attention must be paid to the factors that adversely affect quality of life after surgery, such as palliative resection, and complications like trismus, palatal fistula, and osteoradionecrosis.

The authors report 2 patients who have long-term disease-free survival after receiving single-agent alemtuzumab therapy for refractory, metastatic histiocytic sarcoma. Patients with unresectable and metastatic histiocytic sarcoma should have tumor tissue tested for CD52 expression and should be considered for alemtuzumab therapy if they are CD52-positive.

Physician skin examination (PSE) in the year before melanoma diagnosis is strongly associated with thinner tumors in men aged >60 years. Improving rates of PSE in this high-risk group is likely to result in earlier detection of melanoma.

The role of postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) in the management of low-grade glioma is controversial. In this study, the authors use the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database to examine practice patterns, and find that use of PORT declines over the study period for both low- and high-risk patients.

Pemetrexed has single-agent activity in relapsed/refractory primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL). This is the first report of a newer generation antifolate in PCSNL.

A survival nomogram based on a Cox regression model outperforms current strategies for survival prediction in breast cancer patients with brain metastases. We believe this represents a potentially valuable alternative to current models of survival prediction in this patient population.

For patients with high-risk, extremity soft tissue sarcoma, the significant survival benefits conferred by an intense regimen of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and surgery are sustained even with long-term follow-up, despite the fact that sarcoma-related deaths continue to occur well beyond 5 years.

An Iyengar-based yoga intervention leads to significant improvements in fatigue and vigor among breast cancer survivors with persistent post-treatment fatigue in this randomized controlled trial.

A multi-institutional phase 2 trial for pediatric patients with newly diagnosed, nonmetastatic osteosarcoma demonstrates that some dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) parameters assessed during neoadjuvant therapy are indicative of histologic response, and some DCE-MRI parameters assessed before treatment are prognostic of event-free and overall survival.

The incidence of enteropathy-associated T-cell lymphoma (EATL) is rising in the United States and may continue to rise given the large ratio of undiagnosed-to-diagnosed individuals with celiac disease. The survival of patients with EATL remains poor, and efforts should be made to diagnose and treat this disease early.

Twenty-year data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program is used for this study. Although the overall incidence of Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia remains steady over time, significant increases in incidence are seen over the past 20 years in whites, in those aged 70 to 79 years, and in 3 geographic registry areas.

The authors demonstrate that histologic tumor involvement of the resected superior mesenteric vein (SMV)/portal vein (PV) is associated with larger tumor size, higher rates of positive margin, and local/distant recurrence, and is an independent predictor of both disease-free survival and overall survival by multivariate analysis. Complete histologic evaluation of the resected SMV/PV is important for the prognosis in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma treated with neoadjuvant therapy and pancreaticoduodenectomy.

The objective of this research is to describe the clinical and pathologic features and to identify prognostic factors in patients with atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumors of the central nervous system. In children, these tumors carry a dismal prognosis. Age <2 years, metastasis at diagnosis, and strong claudin-6 positivity appear to be independent prognostic factors for outcome.

In this randomized controlled trial, a therapeutic group by teleconference for African American women with breast cancer significantly improves social connection and decreases fatalism in the intervention group compared with the control group. The study documents the benefits of a therapeutic group by teleconference, a novel way to provide support to African American women with breast cancer, especially those in rural communities.

The results from this study indicate that, over a 36-month period after the completion of adjuvant therapy, fatigue severity worsened in patients with breast cancer who received chemotherapy relative to patients who received radiotherapy and women who had no history of cancer. These findings have important implications for patient education and for fatigue monitoring during follow-up.

In this population-based study of men with newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer, the mental well-being of the research subjects varies by their health literacy levels, whereas their physical well-being is no different. These findings suggest that health literacy may be important for patients coping with prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment effects.

Data from 109 patients with a favorable survival prognosis receiving whole-brain radiotherapy at a dose of 30 grays (Gy) in 10 fractions are compared with 75 patients receiving 40 Gy in 20 fractions for local (intracerebral) control and overall survival. Escalation of the whole-brain radiotherapy dose beyond 30 Gy results in better local control and overall survival, particularly in patients with less radiosensitive tumors.

In this large clinical series from a single institution, the authors demonstrate that hyperbaric oxygen therapy is beneficial treatment for a variety of sites of chronic radiation tissue injury.

Cancer pain initiatives recommend tailoring pain treatments to patient's personalized pain goals for pain relief. Obtaining patient's personalized pain goal is feasible and represents a novel target for pain response.