Articles in 2010

The considerable progress made in the field of clinical neuro-oncology and the understanding of brain tumor biology is generating cautious optimism. Treatment options for patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common form of malignant gliomas, now include anti-angiogenic therapy after failure of standard multi-modality treatments. Furthermore, scientific advancements are providing new insights into disease pathogenesis and point to novel therapeutic approaches for a disease that traditionally lacked treatment options.

A 71-year-old male patient was diagnosed with aKIT-positive gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). The patient received adjuvant imatinib but developed several subcutaneous and intra-abdominal tumor lesions after 4 months of treatment. A T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder was suspected. The authors discuss the potential of imatinib to induce reversible clonal T-cell proliferations in patients with GIST who develop new tumor manifestations that are suspicious for relapse.

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the most lethal of the solid tumors and most patients present with locally advanced or metastatic disease that precludes curative resection. Considerable efforts have been made during the past decade to identify better systemic treatments. The authors of this Review discuss the current standards of care for patients with locally advanced and metastatic pancreatic carcinoma, and outline future directions for the development of new treatment strategies.

Patients with stage III non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) comprise a heterogeneous population; the role of surgical resection in this setting has been controversial. Albain and colleagues recently demonstrated that trimodality therapy with lobectomy had clinical benefit for patients with pathologic nodal N2 stage III NSCLC. We discuss the trial and its implications for future lung cancer therapy.

Patients with hematological malignancies have a risk of developing graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) following allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation. The addition of ATG to prophylaxis regimens decreases the incidence of GVHD without compromising overall survival in these patients.

Motzer and colleagues present updated results from a multicenter, phase III trial of sunitinib versus interferon-α as first-line treatment for patients with metastatic renal-cell carcinoma. The observed improvement in overall survival for patients treated with sunitinib further establishes this agent as the reference standard for first-line treatment of good-risk and intermediate-risk patients with metastatic renal cancer.

When cancer survival statistics worsen over time a common assumption is that care must have deteriorated. A variety of reasons cause cancer survival to drop, including improved diagnosis of premalignant lesions, deleterious changes in the distribution of prognostic factors, and changes in the distribution of sociodemographic characteristics. In this article, the pitfalls of comparing published population-based survival data from different time periods or populations are discussed.

This Case Study describes a patient with breast cancer who was treated with capecitabine and experienced a severe adverse event when treated with brivudin for a herpes infection. The authors discuss drug–drug interactions and management of the associated toxic effects.