Oncology

Data presented at the ASTRO annual meeting demonstrate a benefit of radiation plus immunotherapy for patients with advanced disease, including stage IV NSCLC.

Tumor samples from a single patient with melanoma provided researchers with new information about gene expression profiles that could inform immunotherapy treatments in the future.

By better understanding the similarities and differences between T-cell receptors, researchers will be better able to develop personalized cancer immunotherapies.

Dr. Karen Reckamp talks about ways to incorporate biomarkers for the treatment of lung cancer with immunotherapy into clinical practice at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, held June 2–6 in Chicago.

Researchers at Seattle Children's Research Institute announced the first-in-human clinical trial aimed to extend remission for children and young adults with leukemia treated with CAR T-cell immunotherapy.

In this interview, Dr. Sumithra J. Mandrekar talks about umbrella versus basket trials in lung cancer.

To assess a patient's risk for breast cancer returning or whether adjuvant therapy would be beneficial, a breast cancer assay can provide important biological information to determine the best course of treatment.

In this interview, we are discussing the use of DNA repair deficiency as a biomarker in breast cancer.

An annual screening for breast cancer using a combination of MRI and mammography could be an effective program for high-risk women, particularly those who are known BRCA mutation carriers.

Computer software used to help decipher screening mammograms reduces interpretation accuracy, increases the rate of unnecessary biopsies, and offers no clear improvement in the detection of invasive breast cancer, the largest and most comprehensive community-based study of the technology has found.

A computerized mail and phone reminder program managed by appointment secretaries significantly increased the percentage of patients undergoing annual mammography at the Mayo Clinic

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the contralateral breast in 969 women newly diagnosed with cancer in one breast detected 30 (3.1%) contralateral breast cancers that were missed by mammography and clinical breast exam at the time of diagnosis.

A mobile mammography unit that links a digital mammography system with a commercial satellite service provides near real-time interpretation of breast imaging scans to Native American women on remote rural reservations

A random sampling of 2.3% of the imaging centers that meet Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) certification showed that the national median cash price for a screening mammogram is more than double the price that is reimbursed by Medicare.

New subgroup analyses from the Digital Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (DMIST) Investigators Group confirm previous results that digital screening mammography is significantly more accurate than film screening mammography in young women with dense breasts but not in women overall.

White women havea higher incidence of breast cancer thanAfrican-American women, but African-American women develop the disease ata younger age, are diagnosed later, andare more likely to die of the disease, accordingto the National Cancer Institute.

Researchers have found that mammography coupled with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is extremely sensitive in the detection of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

Nine weeks of trastuzumab (Herceptin) given concurrently with single-agent docetaxel (Taxotere) or vinorelbine (Navelbine) prior to combination chemotherapy improves survival in HER2-positive breast cancer patients, compared with no trastuzumab, with the docetaxel regimen having a slight advantage over vinorelbine.

ARLINGTON, Virginia-Data from more than 40,000 women who underwent both digital and film mammography at 33 sites in the US and Canada show that, while the techniques have similar overall diagnostic accuracy in breast cancer screening, digital mammography is more accurate in women under the age of 50 years, women with radiographically dense breasts, and pre- or perimenopausal women.

MILAN, Italy-In women with fibroglandular or dense breasts, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is more sensitive than mammography for detection of multiple malignant foci, suggesting that a dynamic MRI examination is warranted before treatment planning in this group of patients, a team of Italian radiologists and surgeons has concluded. Yet in breasts with an almost completely fatty pattern, both techniques had comparable sensitivity, their multicenter, prospective, nonrandomized study showed. Further, while MRI achieved a 17% gain in sensitivity over mammography in detection of invasive foci, the two techniques had similar sensitivity in detection of in situ foci, and neither had a strong positive predictive value (PPV), the researchers found.

In just 10 years, the cost of screening mammography litigation in the United States could top $250 million a year, a recent analysis has found. The analysis, presented at this year’s American Roentgen Ray Society meeting in Atlanta, is based on a

ATLANTA-Compared with independent double reading of mammograms, consensus double reading detects slightly more cancers while significantly decreasing recall rates, thereby minimizing the anxiety that women might experience from undergoing a second mammogram, Susan Harvey, MD, said at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society (abstract 63).

The journal Lancet recently published an important analysis from six physicians at Weill Cornell Medical College (359:404-406, 2002), rebutting an article published in an earlier issue of Lancet (358:1340-1342, 2001) that cast doubt on the value of mammography in preventing death from breast cancer.

WASHINGTON-Amid continuing controversy over the effectiveness of screening mammography for breast cancer, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has extended its recommendations to include women between the ages of 40 and 49, after concluding that the procedure reduces breast cancer deaths.