Oncology

One of the hot new cancer immunotherapy drugs, Merck & Co's Keytruda, strongly benefited patients with melanoma, lung cancer and mesothelioma, according to 3 studies presented at the American Association for Cancer Research conference.

In the usual cancer biopsy, a surgeon cuts out a piece of the patient's tumor, but researchers in labs across the country are now testing a potentially transformative innovation. They call it the liquid biopsy.

An experimental lung cancer pill from AstraZeneca delays disease progression by more than a year, according to new data presented at European Lung Cancer Conference.

The study, in more than 250,000 women, found that combining Pap test with HPV screening works best in identifying women with cervical cancer and reduces the possibility of false negatives.

While the effect of pregnancy on melanoma has been debated for several years, a study at the Cleveland Clinic has provided evidence that women who were pregnant or recently pregnant at the time of melanoma diagnosis were 5.1 times more likely to die of the disease than those who were not.

An accompanying editorial by a Fred Hutch researcher says, "The demanding cancer patient looks less like a budget buster and more like an urban myth."

The George Washington University Cancer Institute has finalized 45 core competency statements for oncology patient navigators, who have become critical members of the health care team.

Investigators tried to validate a previously reported molecular finding on triple negative breast cancer that many hoped would lead to targeted treatments for the aggressive disease. Instead, they discovered that the findings were limited to a single patient and could not be applied to further clinical work.

Inhibiting a previously undruggable protein holds promise for treatment of numerous types of cancer.

Following last night's vote by the Senate to repeal the SGR bill, the largest society of oncologists praised the action by Congress to end this Medicare reimbursement controversy.

When people learn they have a lesion in their pancreas that could become pancreatic cancer, they often request frequent CT scans and biopsies, or surgery. Often the lesion is nothing to worry about. A team of international physicians has developed a profile of the patient most at risk of developing lesions that are most likely to develop into cancer.

Evidence-Based Oncology is an important forum to have conversations that are needed in medicine today, said Joseph Alvarnas, MD, the new editor-in-chief of the journal.