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Ensuring adherence to cancer treatment is as important to successful treatment as the development of new therapies. In this Viewpoint the author discusses the issues surrounding compliance to medical therapy and factors affecting patient behavior.
Major advances in the first-line therapy of inoperable malignant pleural mesothelioma have occurred in the past 5 years. This Review summarizes evidence supporting the clinical activity of chemotherapy, discusses the use of end points for its assessment, and the influence of clinical and biochemical prognostic factors on the natural history of malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Basal-like breast cancers are associated with a poor disease-free and overall survival. The pathologic features of breast carcinomas classified by immunohistochemical and gene-expression profiling criteria are critically discussed. The authors emphasize that basal-like tumors display a spectrum of morphologic and clinical characteristics, and that the heterogenous nature of these tumors means the most prognostically relevant subsets have yet to be defined.
PET/CT imaging has rapidly emerged as an important imaging tool in oncology and provides multiple exciting new opportunities to integrate functional and morphological information for tumor staging, radiation treatment planning and monitoring of tumor response to therapy. In this Review, the authors discuss the technical features of PET/CT and its role in diagnosis, staging, restaging and treatment monitoring as well as radiation planning in cancer patients.
Placental-site trophoblastic tumors (PSTTs) are often resistant to chemotherapy and have a high incidence of lung metastasis. Cole et al. report the case of a 52-year-old woman who was diagnosed with metastatic chemoresistant PSTT. The patient was managed with abdominal hysterectomy, salpingo-oophrectomy, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and thoracotomy with wedge resection. The authors discuss the treatment options for patients with PSTTs, especially for those with persistent metastatic disease.
