Researchers reported results of an international phase III trial showing that intermittent hormonal therapy is less effective than continuous therapy in prostate cancer with minimal disease.

Patients with EGFR mutation-positive lung cancer had improved progression-free survival and better quality of life with new drug afatinib than with standard chemotherapy, according to results from a large phase III trial.

The class of agents that target the programmed death 1 (PD-1) pathway was described at ASCO as “likely the most exciting new agents recently developed in melanoma.”

Updated data from an ongoing phase II trial of oral sapacitabine showed that the drug had activity in older patients with myelodysplastic syndromes refractory to front-line hypomethylating agents indicates.

The use of fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET), for diagnosing lung cancer may have to be rethought. According to an analysis of data from a national prospective trial, FDG-PET has substantially lower sensitivity and specificity than in previously published studies.

A 13-gene signature can predict the development of brain metastasis among patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer who have estrogen-receptor (ER)-negative tumors. The results were presented at a breast cancer session at the 2012 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Results from a randomized phase II study show that 6 months of treatment with abiraterone (Zytiga), in addition to the hormone therapy leuprolide before prostatectomy, resulted in complete response and near-complete response in one-third of men with high-risk prostate cancer.

In a phase I study the targeted drug crizotinib, a small molecule inhibitor of anaplastic lymphoma kinase and met proto oncogene, delayed or eliminated signs of tumor growth in pediatric patients with aggressive cancers.

Results of a large phase III trial shows that a new oncology therapy, trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1), significantly delays progression of disease in women with HER2-positive advanced breast cancer previously treated with a taxane chemotherapy and trastuzumab (Herceptin).

The new therapies that became available for advanced melanoma over the past year—the anti-CTLA4 antibody ipilimumab (Yervoy) and the selective BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf)—represent promising new options for these patients, whose prognosis was heretofore almost universally dismal. However, the advent of new treatment strategies has made treatment decisions more complex.

The underlying cost debate surrounding the issue of whether or not to recommend prostate cancer screening is based on the idea that if you use healthcare resources in one area, they’re being diverted from another area by nature of their being a limited pool of funding.