Volume 6 Issue 10, October 2009

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

The VEGFR small-molecule inhibitors of angiogenesis show promise for oncology patients. These rationally designed inhibitors are being tailored for use in specific malignancies and will have a pivotal role in personalized medicine. The authors discuss the potential of these agents for treating tumors such as metastatic renal-cell carcinoma, GIST and hepatocellular carcinoma.

With greater understanding of the biology of pancreatic cancer a role for cancer stem cells is becoming clear. The authors of this Review discuss the current knowledge on pancreatic cancer stem cells and their potential use as targets in therapeutic regimens.

Src family kinases have been extensively studied and found to be central mediators in multiple signaling pathways that are important in oncogenesis. Preclinical studies have shown that SFK inhibitors can suppress tumor growth and metastases. The authors of this Review discuss the potential use of these agents to target cancer in humans.

With the development of new chemotherapy and targeted agents, neurotoxicity has become increasingly important as a cause of dose-limiting toxicity. The authors review the important and unusual neurotoxicities related to chemotherapy and targeted agents approved since January 1999.

This case study discusses a patient initially diagnosed with high-risk prostate cancer who underwent androgen deprivation therapy. The patient subsequently presented with ductal carcinomain situ and was found to be a BRCA2mutation carrier with a strong family history of breast cancer.

Novel targeted therapies often result in disease stabilization rather than tumor shrinkage, which are reflected by changes in the molecular features of the tumor. Noninvasive procedures to measure such features are urgently needed. The authors of this opinion article discuss the role of PET and its impact on decisions about monitoring of systemic cytotoxic and targeted therapy.