ONCOLOGICAL DISEASE (US) – VOLUME 2 ISSUE 1 – SPRING 2006

It is hard to imagine a world without the technology we take for granted in our personal and professional lives. The explosion of information that informs and supports almost everything we do has radically changed and will continue to affect oncology care and the roles of oncology nursing.This and many other issues are addressed in […]

Cancer is one of the most feared diseases in the world and, while the ‘magic bullet’ cure has so far failed to materialize, there are new breeds of therapeutics, such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors, that are making a real impact on patient survival. However, improvements […]

Just over a decade ago, regional nodal basins were assessed by complete lymph node dissections, either in the axilla, the groin, or in the neck, depending on the location of the primary tumor.4 The problem with this approach was that many patients did not ultimately have lymph node metastases, and did not, therefore, benefit from […]

The Holy Grail in the use of radiation for cancer therapy became the elusive agent(s) that could selectively target tumor tissue and spare normal tissue. Progress in external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) equipment and techniques, first with high-energy beams from linear accelerators, then three-dimensional (3-D) conformal radiation, intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT), and, more recently, proton […]

Radiation therapy has made significant advances over the past two decades. The beginning of the 1980s saw radiation therapy as a prescriptive medicine.Treatments using megavoltage X-rays were planned using the crude imaging tools available in the day. Radiation portals were typically defined using radiographic planar imaging, where only bony anatomy and large air cavities were […]

In the past decade, several drugs have been identified with single-agent activity against NSCLC, showing partial response (PR) rates consistently in the range of 20 30%. These include docetaxel (Taxotere, Sanofi-Aventis), paclitaxel, gemcitabine (Gemzar, Eli Lilly), vinorelbine (Navelbine, GlaxoSmithKline), and irinotecan (Camptosar, Pfizer). As they have been identified, followup studies have been conducted with these […]

Despite significant advances, the overall five-year survival of lung cancer remains a dismal 15% and this pales in comparison to most other solid organ tumors. It is estimated that about 172,000 Americans will die from bronchogenic malignancy in 2006 and it is not discriminatory on gender. Lung cancer takes the lives of more female Americans […]

The first large series reporting on biological differences in breast cancer among patients of various age groups originally reported on 9,228 patients, of whom 2,919 were aged 65 and over. The investigators showed that older women have a higher frequency of hormone receptor-positive tumours (84% oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive versus 67% in younger patients), and 58% […]

In metastatic breast cancer, cytotoxic chemotherapy is the treatment of choice for patients with hormone receptor negative tumors, refractory to hormone therapy, or with rapidly progressive disease, regardless of hormone status. The choice of optimum chemotherapy is dependent on several factors, such as the type of previous adjuvant chemotherapy, the aggressiveness of the disease, the […]

Two of these trials have been carried out in the USA and are the North American Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B31 and the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) N9831 trials. The first one is a two-arm trial comparing four courses of doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (AC) followed by four courses of three […]

annual fecal occult blood tests (FOBT); flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS) every five years; the combination of FOBT and FS; double-contrast barium enema every five years; or colonoscopy every 10 years. The two primary objectives of screening are to detect early, curable cancers and to detect and resect advanced adenomatous polyps before they turn cancerous. Relative to […]

Octreotide and Lanreotide Octreotide and lanreotide are currently the most widely used somatostatin analogs to date. They control symptoms by inhibiting the synthesis and secretion of peptides and amines associated with functional sst 2- positive tumors. Following sst 2 binding, inhibition of G-protein-associated signal transduction pathways block secretory vesicle exocytosis and, thus, the release of […]

Neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy has positively altered the natural history of several cancers, especially esophageal and rectal cancer, and many investigators are looking at neoadjuvant therapy in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. I hope to give a brief overview of where we stand in 2006 in terms of neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy for pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Chemoradiation therapy […]

Smoking appears to be consistently identified as a modifiable risk factor, with about 30% of all pancreas cancer diagnosis linked it. Chronic pancreatitis is associated with 10–15 fold increase in the risk of developing pancreas cancer. Hereditary pancreatitis and other familial syndromes involving the pancreas lend themselves to a 50–70 fold increase in pancreatic cancer. […]

Laparoscopic radical prostatectomy (LRP) was first described by Schuessler et al. in 1997; however, it was initially not widely accepted due to prolonged operative times, technical difficulty, and the apparent lack of benefit over the standard open procedure.With an improvement in operative technique and instrumentation described by Guillonneau and Vallancien in 1999, a new interest […]

The exact cause of most leukemias is still not known, although there are a number of predisposing factors and exposures. In all likelihood, the cause or causes of most leukemias is multifactorial, including genetic, immune, infectious, and environmental factors. Clinical Manifestation The presenting clinical features of the acute childhood leukemias reflect the uncontrolled proliferation of […]

To date, antibodies directed towards the CD20 antigen have dominated the field of mAb therapy and RIT of lymphoma. CD20 is highly expressed on mature B-cells and present on 95% of B-cell lymphomas.8,99 131I labelled Tositumomab (Bexxar™) and 90Y labelled ibritumomab tiuxetan (Zevalin®) are highly promising therapies with significantly increased overall and complete response rates […]

In 1991, five separate authors described a laparoscopic approach to colon resection; however, almost 15 years later, there is still some debate over whether a minimally invasive approach to colorectal cancer is appropriate. This article will review the principles of oncologic resection for colorectal cancer, the benefits and risks of laparoscopic surgery for colorectal cancer, […]

However, although gallium nitrate and pamidronate are both highly effective for acute control of cancer-related hypercalcemia, the proportion of patients who actually achieve normocalcemia has varied in published reports.2,3-8 Due to heterogeneity of reported responses to pamidronate, the authors of this article conducted an exploratory, randomized, doubleblind study to compare the efficacy and safety of […]