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Maintenance therapy aims to sustain a state of ongoing disease remission. This article discusses the results of randomized trials that suggest that specific subgroups of patients with follicular lymphoma should receive maintenance therapy with rituximab.
Imaging is performed in patients with early stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) for disease staging and to identify the patients most likely to benefit from surgery. Two recent randomized trials compared conventional staging plus PET with conventional staging alone in patients with NSCLC. Patients who underwent PET were more likely to avoid futile thoracic surgery.
This Case Study describes a patient with metastatic typical carcinoid of the lung who had not responded to initial therapy with a somatostatin analog and chemotherapy (cisplatin and etoposide). She achieved an impressive and long-lasting response to the combination of capecitabine and lyposomal doxorubicin, without reporting any severe adverse effects. The authors discuss the diagnosis, examine differential diagnosis and briefly review the available treatment options in this setting.
Some lymphoma entities are associated with chronic bacterial infections. This Review discusses the association betweenChlamydophila psittaci and ocular adnexal lymphoma. Prevalence, epidemiology and detection methods of C. psittaciinfection along with therapeutic implications in ocular adnexal lymphoma are also discussed.
This Review discusses the criteria for the diagnosis and classification of myeloproliferative neoplasms in relation to the revised 2008 WHO classification. The authors summarize the histology of these tumors in the context of the 2008 WHO classification system, discuss associated cytogenetic and molecular abnormalcies of myeloproliferative neoplasms, and provide diagnostic algorithms that are tailored for routine clinical use.
After resection, malignant gliomas are routinely treated with adjuvant radiotherapy and temozolomide. The efficacy of these therapies has led to an increasing incidence of pseudoprogression and radiation necrosis, treatment-related effects that resemble tumor progression or recurrence on gadolinium-contrast MRI. The authors of this Review discuss the prognostic importance of accurate diagnosis of these post-treatment lesions, and the use of advanced imaging modalities for this purpose.
Thalidomide is frequently used in patients with newly diagnosed and relapsed multiple myeloma, but its role as maintenance therapy following autologous stem-cell transplantation has been an area of uncertainty. In this article we consider the efficacy of thalidomide maintenance therapy in multiple myeloma.
The results of a large, randomized, North American trial (SWOG S0124) that compared etoposide and cisplatin with irinotecan and cisplatin for patients with extensive small-cell lung cancer have failed to confirm the benefit observed with irinotecan that was demonstrated in an earlier Japan Clinical Oncology Group study (JCOG 9511).
Xerostomia and reduced quality of life are common occurrences in patients treated with radiation to the salivary gland for head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma. This article discusses outcomes after intensity-modulated radiation therapy and three-dimensional conventional radiotherapy among patients with head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma.
Second-line irinotecan regimens are efficacious in patients with advanced colorectal cancer who experience disease progression on first-line oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. Bidard et al. investigated the impact of treatment with dose-dense irinotecan on improving survival in such patients and aimed to optimize the irinotecan combination chemotherapy platform.
A prospective, randomized trial has shown that standard adjuvant chemotherapy is superior to capecitabine in the treatment of women with breast cancer aged 65 years or older; on the basis of the results of this study, capecitabine cannot be recommended in this setting.
Meier and coauthors found that topotecan improved progression-free and overall survival compared with treosulfan in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer following platinum and taxane-based therapy. Although these results are promising, the optimum treatment strategy for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer still remains to be determined.
