June Skinner

In a large study of resected pancreatic cancer, overall survival did not differ whether patients received gemcitabine or 5-FU/folinic acid.

In these patients with substantial symptoms and short life expectancy, there's no reason to delay delivery of palliative care.

Male sex, but not race, predicted colon polyp prevalence, suggesting that African Americans may not benefi t from earlier screening.

SAN FRANCISCO-Studies show improved outcomes when androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is part of the care for men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer, said Mack Roach III, MD, taking the “pro” side of a debate on the issue. But “con” speaker Arul Mahadevan, MD, argued that the studies in question included mostly high-risk patients, and that monotherapy is effective in intermediate-risk patients.

SAN FRANCISCO-In a debate session at the 2008 Oncology Congress, neither speaker advocated maintenance therapy as the standard of care in patients with advanced ovarian cancer who achieve a complete clinical remission. But the “pro” speaker, Thomas J. Herzog, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York, argued that the evidence in favor of maintenance therapy is strong enough that it should be discussed with these patients as an option, while the “con” speaker, Robert L. Coleman, MD, of Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, called the evidence “premature.”

SAN FRANCISCO-The “preponderance of the evidence” supports intraperitoneal chemotherapy as the preferred treatment for small-volume residual ovarian cancer after surgical debulking, Robert S. Mannel, MD, said at a debate session of the 2008 Oncology Congress. J. Tate Thigpen, MD, who took the con side of the debate, argued that IP chemotherapy remains experimental because of flaws in the design of the three major trials of IP therapy and its “formidable toxicity.”

SAN FRANCISCO-In a recent debate, both speakers agreed that IMRT with concurrent chemotherapy is toxic in patients with head and neck cancer, but disagreed on whether the risk/benefit ratio justifies its use. The event was held at the 2008 International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer, sponsored by the American Head & Neck Society.

After 17 years, I am stepping down as editor of Oncology News International to enjoy a long-awaited retirement. When ONI was first introduced back in 1991, it represented a new concept in cancer news publications-rather than simply summarizing journal articles, we actually attended meetings all over the country and reported the results of major presentations.

CHICAGO-Baseline and second-round screening results from the Dutch-Belgian NELSON randomized CT lung screening trial show a low rate of positive tests: 2.6% on baseline screening and 1.8% on second-round screening. This could make low-dose CT screening “more acceptable to the public and suitable for mass screening programs,” said Rob J. van Klaveren, MD, PhD, of Erasmus Medical College, Rotterdam. Dr. van Klaveren reported the results at ASCO 2008 (abstract 1508).

On January 14, Dr. Judah Folkman, founder of the field of angiogenesis, died unexpectedly at age 74 in Denver, while en route to Vancouver for a lecture. Dr. Folkman was founder and director of the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital, Boston, and professor of pediatric surgery and cell biology at Harvard.

The decision to treat metastatic breast cancer with combination or single-agent chemotherapy may depend on the patient's and the clinician's perception and definition of the goals of such therapy, according to speakers at the 3rd Annual Oncology Congress.

Clinical trials have shown significant improvements in disease-free survival when trastuzumab (Herceptin) is added to standard adjuvant chemotherapy in HER2-positive breast cancer patients, but is it appropriate for all such patients, specifically low-risk patients with tumors 1 cm or smaller in size?

If PSA rises in a prostate cancer patient after prostatectomy, should the man receive immediate androgen deprivation therapy? Two experts at the Third Annual Oncology Congress approached the question from different angles but reached essentially the same conclusion.

After 2 years of steady failure with a potential cancer drug, Cliff, an oncology postdoc, suddenly achieves dramatic cures in mice, to the point that his findings are questioned as "too good to be true." Is it fraud or sloppy recordkeeping, or maybe a true breakthrough? The pleasure in reading Allegra Goodman's novel Intuition (The Dial Press, 2006) comes not so much from the plotline (the initial giddy celebration of the findings, and then the near destruction of the lab when fraud is alleged) as from the richness of the depiction of an oncology research lab and its motley inhabitants.