March 2017

Patients with lymphoma who are treated with brentuximab vedotin often experience peripheral neuropathy as an adverse event and potentially dose-limiting toxicity. A novel study has shown that, despite the prevalence of this toxicity, these patients report that the better outcomes yielded from treatment with brentuximab vedotin outweigh the risk of neuropathy. 

The impact of the recent findings regarding tumor sidedness in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer are potentially practice-changing, with data demonstrating that patients with right-sided tumors have a poorer prognosis than those with left-sided tumors. In addition, sidedness could be clinically relevant as a predictive biomarker of response to standard frontline treatments.

Discussing the challenges that clinical practices will face as they implement the Medicare Oncology Care Model (OCM), the strategies that have worked for practices using similar payment models, and how the CMMI hope to work with oncologists for the success of the OCM.

A study presented at the 2017 Cancer Survivorship Symposium revealed a long-term cardiovascular risk associated with administration of levothyroxine.

Michael A. Postow, MD, discusses argeting the activating receptors OX40, GITR, and CD137 to further stimulate the T cells to fight the tumor cells.