November 2018

In “Global Cancer Statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN Estimates of Incidence and Mortality Worldwide for 36 Cancers in 185 Countries,” Freddie Bray, BSC, MSC, PhD, and colleagues describe the global magnitude and distribution of the disease overall and discuss the associated risk factors and prospects for prevention of the major cancers observed worldwide in their study.

Precision medicine has produced some dramatic successes in patients with advanced cancer. With developments in molecular profiling, targeted therapies are being applied to multiple tumors, most notably in advanced melanoma, NSCLC, and several types of leukemia. Alison Schram, MD, and David M. Hyman, MD, point out the challenges in determining the proportion of patients who will benefit from receiving targeted therapies.

A proposed 2019 rule change for services furnished under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule is not going down well with oncologists. In July, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services issued the proposed change that would lower some payments for patient evaluation and maintenance services.

Complex drug trials that use a single protocol to test either 1 agent against multiple cancers or multiple agents against 1 cancer can make drug testing faster, cheaper, and more informative, particularly when those trials use the data to constantly improve protocols.

For clinicians who treat men with early-stage prostate cancer in their clinical practice, a new clinical guideline on the use of external beam radiation therapy has been developed by a panel of experts representing the American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society for Radiation Oncology, and American Urological Association.

Patients with metastatic renal and urothelial bladder cancer who receive antibiotics concomitantly with immune checkpoint inhibitors have shorter progression-free survival and overall survival rates than patients who do not, according to a poster presented at the European Congress on Immunotherapies in Cancer™ conference, hosted by Physicians’ Education Resource®, LLC, September 21 and 22, 2018, in Barcelona, Spain.

Vedolizumab induced clinical, endoscopic, and histologic remission of steroid-refractory, immune-mediated enterocolitis in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitorsfor cancer treatment, according to the results of a small retrospective study presented at the 2018 American College of Gastroenterology Annual Meeting.

The National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable may have come up short in its goal to get 80% of American adults ≥50 years screened for colorectal cancer by 2018, but David A. Greenwald, MD, told his audience at the 2018 American College of Gastroenterology Annual Meeting that the group can point to smaller victories that deserve recognition.

There may be pros and cons for screening people who do not have symptoms of pancreatic cancer, but the evidence clearly supports screening those at a high risk for developing the disease, Vivek Kaul, MD, told his audience at the 2018 American College of Gastroenterology Annual Meeting.

Recent advancements in systemic therapies are changing the treatment landscape for patients with pancreatic cancer. New therapeutics and treatment strategies are emerging, meaning more patients than ever are candidates for curative procedures.

During a presentation at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network 13th Annual Conference: Hematologic Malignancies Phillippe Armand, MD, PhD, discusses how novel agents could be used in the future either to postpone, permit, or even replace allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

A greater understanding of molecular pathogenesis in non-Hodgkin lymphoma has led to the identification of rational targets for novel small molecule inhibitors, according to Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD. Combinations of these therapies may also provide greater responses and the potential for therapy discontinuation.