Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
In the NOAH clinical trial, trastuzumab treatment for locally advanced breast cancer was associated with increased complete and overall response rate and improved event-free survival. The ability to identify this advantage in a relatively smaller number of patients (compared with adjuvant therapy trials) suggests that the neoadjuvant setting might serve to inform the design of adjuvant trials and indicate appropriate off-study adjuvant therapy.
Platinum-based chemotherapy has been the standard first-line treatment for patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer for decades. However, a recent study has shown the superiority of gefitinib treatment in comparison with chemotherapy in a molecularly selected cohort of patients harboring sensitizing EGFR mutations. These results demonstrate the importance of incorporating molecular selection into the design of lung cancer trials that use EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
Encouraging data have been reported from a randomized, double-blind, phase III trial comparing pazopanib therapy to placebo in treatment-naive and cytokine-refractory patients with advanced renal-cell carcinoma. The challenge that lies ahead is determining where pazopanib fits into the crowded therapeutic algorithms for this disease.
A randomized, controlled trial has shown human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing with and without liquid-based cytology to be more sensitive but less specific than conventional Papanicolaou smears for detection of precancerous lesions of the cervix. The lead-time advantage of early detection of precancerous lesions by HPV DNA testing resulted in cervical cancer reduction; however, an increased detection of possibly regressive precancerous lesions could result in unnecessary treatment, especially in women aged 25–34 years.
The rapid pace of research in cancer biology, and the advent of molecular targeted therapies has made personalized medicine a reality. This knowledge has generated a vast panel of molecular biomarkers. This Review presents the molecular, prognostic and predictive factors for the six solid tumors associated with the highest mortality. The authors discuss the key biomarkers for each disease site according to its associated clinicopathological presentation and specific associated molecular interactions.
Imaging ovarian cancer and its metastases is important for diagnosis, staging and follow-up. The authors of this Review describe functional imaging techniques that are currently used in the experimental and clinical setting, including their advantages and limitations compared with conventional imaging. In the future, these imaging modalities will provide noninvasive biomarkers of therapeutic response and patient prognosis, which will allow improved patient management and outcome.
Many men diagnosed with prostate cancer as a consequence of PSA testing have clinically insignificant disease. In this Review, Peter Albertsen discusses risk assessment in prostate cancer and strategies to identify these patients at low-risk of disease progression. The benefits of active surveillance are considered as an option for these men, as opposed to either surgery or radiation that are recommended for men who have a significant risk of disease progression.
Survival outcomes for advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer remain poor; however, molecular targeted agents offer new opportunities provided that patients are selected for treatment according to their tumor profile. This Review highlights the promising activity shown with novel targeted therapies that interfere with the IGF-1R pathway and agents that inhibit the EML4-ALK fusion protein. Aberrations in other key signaling pathways that have been identified as crucial targets, especially in resistant patients, are also discussed.
This Case Study describes a patient with multiple relapses of atypical HLH that became refractory to treatment with numerous immunosuppressive agents. As HLH is driven by CD52+T cells and histiocytes, alemtuzumab was used as targeted therapy to induce stable remission and enable allogeneic stem-cell transplantation to be successfully performed.
