Volume 15, Issue 7, July 2010

The article comments on Heneghan et al.'s analysis of the use of microRNAs as diagnostic tools in breast cancer.

This qualitative study investigated attitudes, perceptions, and practices of breast cancer specialists with reference to the effect of patient age on management decisions in breast cancer, and attempted to identify national consensus on this issue.

This article examines how discouraging the use of anthracyclines in combination with trastuzumab in patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 positive metastatic breast cancer because of fears of cardiotoxicity has influenced the use of these agents in this patient setting.

The study investigates the use of seven different micro-RNAs as novel tumor markers in breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, renal cancer, and melanoma patients and finds miR-195 to be useful in differentiating breast cancer from the other cancer types.

The most frequent cardiovascular toxicities seen during treatment with the angiogenesis inhibitors bevacizumab, sunitinib, and sorafenib and their underlying mechanisms are investigated, with a view to providing indications for effective patient management.

The manuscript reports on an HIV⁺ patient who received interferon-α as adjuvant treatment for high-risk melanoma.

An update on the most recent data on promising biological prognostic and/or predictive markers in patients with colorectal cancer is provided.

Peritumoral colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF-1R) is associated with intrahepatic metastasis, tumor recurrence, and patient survival after hepatectomy, highlighting the critical role of the peritumoral liver milieu in hepatocellular carcinoma progression. CSF-1R may become a potential therapeutic target for postoperative adjuvant treatment.

This article examines the role of real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction testing of BCR-ABL transcript levels to assess minimal residual disease and outcomes in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia.

A systematic review and meta-analysis were conducted to better define the prognostic ability of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography following salvage chemotherapy before high-dose therapy with autologous stem cell transplantation for relapsed or refractory Hodgkin's lymphoma and aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. This appears to be an appropriate test to predict treatment failure.

The article examines the success of the multidisciplinary reflection model of the Schwartz Center Rounds.

The study examined long-term survivors from among metastatic melanoma patients treated with either dacarbazine or temozolomide to relate long-term survival to sensitivity to chemotherapy. Patients achieving a complete response to chemotherapy were more likely to attain long-term survival.

Presented is a comprehensive literature review of mucosal melanoma along with case vignettes of a number of pertinent cases. Melanomas of the head and neck, the female genital tract, and the anorectum are discussed.

The study compared actual with predicted survival estimates in advanced stage non-small cell lung cancer patients. Regardless of years of experience, physicians overestimated the survival duration of these patients.

The article comments on the drug approval summary for temsirolimus published recently in The Oncologist in regard to the difference observed between the investigators' and independent reviewers' assessments.

Author response to the letter of Basso et al.