ONCOLOGY & HEMATOLOGY – REVIEW VOLUME 13 ISSUE 1 – SPRING 2017

Welcome to the spring edition of Oncology & Hematology Review, which features a wide range of articles covering a variety of therapeutic areas. This edition begins with two topical expert interviews. In the first I discuss recent advances in the management of multiple myeloma, including the role of minimal residual disease testing, while Editorial Board […]

Oncology and Hematology Review (US) would like to welcome our new Editor-in-Chief, Shaji K Kumar, MD. Dr Kumar is a consultant in the Division of Hematology at Mayo Clinic, and Professor of Medicine in the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, US. He is currently the chair of the NCCN panel on multiple myeloma […]

The last decade has seen significant advances in the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), both in immunotherapy and targeted agents. Recently, the results of two landmark clinical trials, Checkmate 025 and METEOR, have demonstrated the efficacy and safety of nivolumab and cabozantinib, respectively, in the second-line treatment of RCC. In this expert interview, Ulka […]

Over the past several years, there has been a profound paradigm shift for those at high risk for lung cancer due to the development and release of scientific validation and national guidelines and recommendations for lung cancer screening. The lung cancer community is poised to realize an unprecedented scale and magnitude of benefit from early […]

The challenge of treating pancreatic cancer is exemplified by its high case fatality—for the estimated 53,000 people who will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the US in 2017, over 43,000 will die of the disease.1 Due to the typically late presentation of pancreatic cancer, only 15–20% are considered resectable with the remaining majority deemed […]

Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy, and has increased in incidence in recent decades.1–3 Fine-needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) is the mainstay of assessment of thyroid nodules and diagnosis of malignancy.4,5 Several reports have suggested that ultrasound (US) -guided FNAC has many advantages over palpation-guided biopsy. It is now generally recommended that thyroid nodules […]

Sarcomas consist of a highly diverse group of malignancies of mesenchymal origin, encompassing more than 80 distinct subtypes and diagnosed in approximately 15,000 patients every year in the US.1 Surgery still represents the mainstay of therapy for patients with localized disease. Although the use of multimodal treatment with curative intent remains debatable in soft tissue […]

Several studies have shown a survival advantage with the addition of anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (anti-EGFR) therapy to chemotherapy in molecularly selected patients with advanced colorectal cancer. The Panitumumab Randomized trial in combination with chemotherapy for Metastatic colorectal cancer to determine Efficacy (PRIME) clinical trial investigated the addition of panitumumab to folinic acid, fluorouracil, and […]

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most prevalent adult leukemia with an estimated 18,960 new cases diagnosed in the US in 2016.1 The past few years have witnessed major advances in the treatment of CLL with several new drugs receiving US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in both the frontline and relapsed/refractory setting leading […]

The term paraneoplastic syndrome (PNS) was first described in the 1940s as the phenomenon that certain cancers manifest as symptoms not directly related to the tumor itself.1 Since then, there have been a multitude of reports on PNS, which is observed in approximately 8–10% of all malignant tumors.1–3 PNS can affect any organ or tissue. […]

Despite substantial advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment, the long-term survival rate for many cancer patients remains dismal.1 More than 90% of cancer-related mortality is ascribed to disease resurgence months or years after adjuvant therapy, either in the form of local recurrence or in the form of metastatic spread, which are typically refractory to existing […]

Synovial sarcoma (SS) is a malignant soft tissue tumor, which represents about 10% of all soft tissue sarcomas.1 It occurs most often in the lower extremities of young men, and is very rare in the head and neck region, with an incidence of about 2–4%.2,3 The origin of the SS remains uncertain, although it is […]

Cavernous sinus syndrome (CSS) is a rare clinical entity characterized by headache, ophthalmoplegia, and neuropathy due to compression of vascular and nerve bundles that course through a narrow anatomical region in the skull.1,2 Myriad conditions lead to this syndrome including bacterial or fungal infection, thrombus, aneurysm, pituitary enlargement due to tumor or apoplexy, and primary […]