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There has been some controversy on the role of taxanes in combination with platinum for the treatment of ovarian cancer. In the current report, patients who relapsed after a disease-free interval of 6 months or more were randomized in 2 large, multicenter trials conducted in Europe to receive either platinum (or typical platinum-based regimens) or paclitaxel plus platinum.
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Women who survive breast cancer may be at a lower risk of developing coronary artery disease compared with women without a history of breast cancer.
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The development of an isolated supraclavicular node recurrence of breast cancer after primary surgical resection (including axillary node dissection) was found, upon review of the tumor registries of 8 community hospitals in The Netherlands, to occur very uncommonly (less than 1%). Examination of clinical outcomes for these patients indicates that isolated supraclavicular recurrence is an antecedent of disseminated disease, in that, even with local control (as achieved by radiation therapy), the great majority of patients soon develop systemic disease.
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Since the introduction of the 3-weekly CHOP (cyclophosphamide, adriamycin, vincristine, prednisone) chemotherapy 25 years ago, many efforts have been undertaken to improve the efficacy of multicycle polychemotherapy for patients with aggressive lymphoma.
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Following radiation therapy, adjuvant extrafascial hysterectomy decreased the risk of relapse for patients with bulky stage IB cervical cancer without improving survival.
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The FDA has approved the first nasally administered flu vaccine to be marketed in this country. Medimmunes FluMist is also the first influenza vaccine to use live virus.
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Chromosome banding analysis (CBA) of marrow metaphase cells is the standard method to assess response in CML. The authors compared CBA to interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (I-FISH) in 664 samples where both methods were performed.
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A long-term longitudinal assessment of quality of life among patients treated for early-stage Hodgkin's lymphoma reveals that, with the exception of fatigue, there is general improvement over time. Factors that influence the rate of improvement include age and sex, but do not include the type of treatment received (radiation vs. chemotherapy).
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In a large population-based, prospective cohort study, it was found that spending less than 50% of the day in a sedentary position, and increasing amounts of physical activity (e.g., walking or bicycling) appear to be associated with reduced rates of prostate-cancer development.
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This meta-analysis revealed overall increased mortality of up to 25% in patients experiencing depressive symptoms after cancer diagnosis, and a 39% higher risk in patients diagnosed with major or minor depression after cancer diagnosis, based upon 25 independent studies. Given the low number of studies available to date, the effect of depressive symptoms on cancer recurrence did not reach a level of statistical significance.
