EUROPEAN ONCOLOGY – VOLUME 6 ISSUE 1 – SUMMER 2010

Welcome to this issue of European Oncology. Like the successful previous editions, this publication endeavours to provide the reader with salient and informative topics, featuring a series of articles that discuss and review many important issues relevant to oncologists and physicians throughout Europe, and indeed globally. In the ‘Current Issues’ section, Denis Talbot et al. […]

New cancer treatments continue to move away from traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy to more specific and targeted therapies. One of the many striking examples of successful targeted therapy came from the identification of the bcr-abl fusion protein, the driving oncogenic force in chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML).¹ Imatinib mesylate (Gleevec) was designed as a competitive inhibitor of […]

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in both men and women,¹ and smoking is the largest avoidable cause of death worldwide.² Smoking has consistently been recognised as the main aetiological factor for lung cancer, accounting for ~85–90% of cases, and the increased risk of developing lung cancer persists many years after […]

While the need to assess the impact of a disease and its treatment on the functional, psychological and social health of patients was raised eons ago, clinicians have only recently embraced the importance of health-related quality of life (HRQoL).¹ Over the past decade greaterinterest has been centred on HRQoL at an individual patient level² by […]

Up to 10% of all cancer patients will develop metastatic spinal cord compression (MSCC) during the course of their disease.¹ Radiotherapy (RT) is the most frequently applied treatment modality, either alone or following decompressive surgery. The indication for surgery of MSCC is usually limited to patients with solid tumours, involvement of only one spinal segment, […]

Docetaxel is effective against numerous tumours, mainly in metastatic breast cancers; however, it can lead to other conditions, in particular cutaneous reactions, such as onycholysis and hand–foot syndrome. The ungual toxicity of docetaxel is well-known and occurs in 40–50% of cases. The mechanism of this toxicity is of neurogenic origin. Local symptoms are due to […]

A discussion of a patient’s desires for future fertility is a challenging topic to raise in the early stages of a cancer diagnosis. It is difficult for many clinicians and patients to reconcile fears surrounding a life-threatening diagnosis with hope for long-term survival and even a future family. Yet improved survival rates for many cancers […]

In general, mortality due to breast cancer is declining almost everywhere in the world. However, one of the few published reports on the current epidemiology of cancer in Europe estimated that there were 370,100 new cases of breast cancer and 129,900 deaths from breast cancer in the EU in 2004.¹ The majority of newly diagnosed […]

As 90% of all cases of squamous cell cancer of the head and neck (SCCHN) show (over-) expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), there is a strong rationale supporting the targeting of EGFR in this malignancy. This rationale is further strengthened by the fact thatEGFR overexpression is associated with a worse prognosis.^1,2 The EGFR […]

Advanced stage of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at presentation among many patients is the main reason for the poor survival observed in this disease. Systemic chemotherapy with platinumbased regimens is the current standard of therapy for patients with advanced NSCLC. However, such therapy provides only modest improvements in survival and quality of life. The median […]

Colorectal Cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC) is among the most common cancers in the developed world. With the average lifetime risk of developing CRC as high as 6%, CRC represents a major health burden in these societies. In the US, approximately 150,000 people were diagnosed with the disease in 2008 and about 50,000 people died of […]

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cause of cancerrelated deaths worldwide.^1,2 Upon diagnosis, 19% of CRCs are metastatic, and while the overall five-year survival rate for patients with early CRC is around 60%, the rate drops to less than 10% in advanced disease.¹ The multidisciplinary approach to CRC treatment is currently based on […]

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the developed world,^1,2 with an estimated 149,000 new cases and 50,000 deaths each year in the US.³ Considerable progress has been achieved in the systemic treatment of colorectal cancer over the last decade with the incorporation of […]

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the sixth most common cause of cancer, and its incidence is increasing worldwide because of the dissemination of hepatitis B and C viral infections.¹ In most solid malignancies, tumour stage at presentation determines prognosis and treatment management. However, most patients with HCC have two diseases – liver cirrhosis and HCC – […]

There is a large body of accumulated evidence that renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is an immunogenic tumour. Spontaneous and complete regressions of RCC metastases have been reported to occur, albeit in very rare cases.^1,2 A few studies have reported profuse infiltration of RCC tumours by mononuclear cells,^3,4 which may be immune-mediated or caused by non-specific […]

Recombinant human granulocyte colony-stimulating factors (G-CSFs) are the only currently available agents that are used for mobilisation of peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) and their subsequent infusion. Lenograstim is the glycosylated recombinant form of human G-CSF. Compared with filgrastim, lenograstim has a greater capacity to stimulate the colony growth in vitro of both purified CD34 […]

The outcome for myeloma patients has significantly improved over the last decade, mainly due to the introduction of new drugs with a singular mechanism of action, such as thalidomide and lenalidomide (revlimid), both immunomodulatory drugs (IMIDs), and the proteasome inhibitor bortezomib (velcade).¹ In this article, we will briefly review the treatment of newly diagnosed patients […]

Since the discovery last century of the role of the immune system in cancer surveillance, many attempts to manipulate immune effectors have been made. The allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) model remains the most successful example of such a strategy and has confirmed its clinical relevance. However, in spite of recent progress, access to […]

There is currently growing interest in a new generation of anticancer agents – biological response modifiers – that is redefining the manner in which cancer clinical trials are conducted. These novel anticancer agents modulate signal transduction pathways and can affect tumour blood supply, cell growth, cell differentiation or other metastatic processes. These mechanismbased anticancer agents […]