This issue of Oncology & Hematology Review covers a wide variety of topics on neoplastic diseases. an underlying theme to many of these timely articles is a snapshot of ongoing trials, as well as a glimpse into the future of potential new therapies within these important subspecialties. Prostate Cancer

Esophageal cancer is one of the leading killers in the US and around the world. It is estimated that in 2013, there will be more than 17,990 new cases diagnosed in the US and more than 15,210 deaths.1Worldwide, it is the sixth leading cancer and fifth leading cause of death, with high incidence in Southern […]

The association of obesity with cancer is a well-known epidemiologic evidence for many types of cancer. Adiposity contributes to the increased incidence of esophagus, colon, endometrium, kidney, and breast cancer and plays an important role also in cancer progression and drug-resistance phenomena. 1 The Cancer Prevention Study II concluded that 14–20 % of cancer deaths […]

Prostate cancer remains the most common non-cutaneous malignancy afflicting men in North America and the second leading cause of death. In men who relapse after surgery or radiation therapy with curative intent, initial androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) achieved through medical or surgical castration results in biochemical, objective, and symptomatic improvement in a majority of men. However, […]

Prostate cancer is the most common nonskin cancer in men—217,000 men were diagnosed in 2010.1 Approximately 55 % will undergo external beam radiotherapy (EBRT) and 40 % will undergo radical prostatectomy.2 Of the patients treated with prostatectomy, up to 35 % will have rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) as evidence of biochemical recurrence (BCR) within 10 […]

Over the past three decades, the treatment of rectal adenocarcinoma has evolved from a predominantly surgical disease to one involving combined triple-modality therapy with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery. Optimizing combined modality therapy for rectal cancer has been the subject of many trials involving radiotherapy techniques, chemotherapy regimens, and surgical approaches—and the optimal timing of […]

Development of targeted treatment strategies is a matter of the utmost importance to improve clinical outcome measures in cancer. In non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), subgroups have been identified that respond well to treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) (e.g. erlotinib for epidermal growth factor receptor [EGFR]-mutated patients and crizotinib for patients with an EML4-ALK […]

Melanoma is the fifth leading cancer in men and the seventh in women. The incidence is increasing and it is estimated that in 2012 76,250 people in the US were diagnosed with melanoma of the skin and 9,180 died of the disease.1The majority of patients are cured following primary resection of the tumor; however, in […]

Endometrial Carcinoma Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecologic malignancy in developed countries.1 According to Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) statistics the estimated incidence of cancers of the uterine corpus for US women in 2013 is 49,560, with an estimated 8,190 deaths. Median survival for women with recurrent or metastatic disease is only 12 […]

Taxane-based treatment regimens are standard first-line therapies for metastatic breast cancer (MBC),1 the second most common cause of cancer deaths among women in the US.2 Currently, two solvent-based taxanes, solvent-based paclitaxel and docetaxel, as well as albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel), a novel solvent-free formulation of paclitaxel, are available for use as single agents or components of […]

Since the 1960s, overall survival for all childhood cancers has substantially increased such that currently nearly 80 % of children will survive to five years following diagnosis, compared with 30 % 50 years ago. For most childhood cancers, survival at five years from therapy does not decrease significantly, and the vast majority of these children […]

Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) are a heterogeneous group of clonal hematopoietic stem cell diseases characterized by morphologic changes in the bone marrow, peripheral cytopenia(s), and susceptibility to bone marrow failure with or without progression to Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML). Although there is an inherited predisposition to develop MDS/ AML in patients with congenital bone marrow failure […]

Cancer is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Patients with advanced cancer often experience multiple symptoms related to increasing tumor burden, cancer treatments, and psychosocial stressors (see Figure 1). Direct infiltration, compression, obstruction, inflammation, and various cancer-related complications, such as thrombosis and infections, may all contribute to symptom distress. Cancer treatments such as surgery, radiation, […]

Before the inception and subsequent reporting of the Human Genome Project data, novel paradigms of more personalized therapeutics were forecast as a benchmark for the success of the project. Along with better diagnostic and prognostic applications arising from the sequencing of the human genome, the promise of novel and more specific molecularly targeted therapeutics based […]