ONCOLOGY Vol 22 No 6

Sanofi-aventis US announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the supplemental new drug application (sNDA) to include 6-year overall survival analysis from the MOSAIC trial in the oxaliplatin (Eloxatin) prescribing information (PI). The new PI also reports 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) data in stage III colon cancer patients treated following surgery to remove the primary tumor.

Many women with a faulty breast cancer gene could be at greater risk of the disease due to extra risk-amplifying genes, according to research published recently in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

A novel biweekly dosing schedule of capecitabine (Xeloda) enabled safe delivery of higher daily doses in the treatment of advanced breast cancer, according to an investigational study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Genetic variations in the body’s receptor for vitamin D could increase the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, according to a study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

It is particularly appropriate that this issue published in tribute to the late Martin Abeloff include an article on professionalism in oncology. This is partly because there was no better example of professional behavior than Marty. Also, many might not realize that he published his thoughts on this topic 14 years ago.

Integrative oncology, the synthesis of gold-standard care and evidence-based complementary modalities, deals not only with the patient’s tumor, but also with her physical and emotional needs and with the relevant cultural, scientific, and policy issues. This synthesis was one of Marty Abeloff’s main professional goals.

In this issue of ONCOLOGY we honor and celebrate the career and contributions of Martin D. Abeloff, MD, who died last year. Marty saw his first patient with breast cancer in 1972 and cared for his last such patient shortly before his death in 2007.

It is an honor to present our readers with this special commemorative issue prepared in tribute to the life and career of Dr. Martin D. Abeloff, co-Editor-in-Chief of ONCOLOGY from 1999 to 2007.

Breast cancer treatments today are likely to cause less physical deformity from surgery than a half-century ago, but are more complex and extend over a longer period of time. Women today are often well informed about the details of their cancer diagnosis and prognosis, and are increasingly involved in shared decision-making regarding treatment.

In her article on the psychological and social aspects of breast cancer, Dr. Ganz pays fitting tribute to the pioneering and prescient efforts of a great man who tried hard to bring more humanity into the management of the disease.

The first generation of clinical trials addressing adjuvant treatment questions in breast cancer has confirmed the important role of endocrine manipulations and chemotherapy, improving disease-free and overall survival.

Worldwide, breast cancer is by far the most frequent cancer affecting women, with over 1 million new cases each year, and the leading cause of female cancer-related deaths. During the past decade, substantial progress has been made in the treatment of breast cancer, due to focused collaborative efforts in education, practice, and research.

The paper by Vogel is an interesting personal review of the use of selective estrogen-receptor modulators (SERMs) to prevent breast cancer, raising many important issues and concerns related to this controversial topic.

Novel agents are adding to the wide choices of standard chemotherapies already available. This review offers an approach to the selection of individualized and rational therapies for patients with metastatic breast cancer.

In order to frame this commentary on Higgins and Wolff’s review of current treatment options for metastatic breast cancer, I started with a PubMed search of Dr. Marty Abeloff’s work from more than 3 decades ago. This was partly motivated by my own curiosity about a leader whose early career was largely unknown to me, and partly by the desire to see whether “the more things change, the more they remain the same.”

Women in the Northeast US are more likely to receive breast-conservation therapy, while those in the South are more often recommended for mastectomies for the treatment of invasive breast cancer, according to a study presented at the 9th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBS), held April 30 to May 4 in New York.

A novel intraoperative breast cancer probe is showing significant promise in the reduction of repeat procedures in patients undergoing breast-conserving surgeries, according to a study presented at the ASBS meeting.

According to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, mammography, the gold-standard for breast cancer screening and early detection, has shown to significantly reduce the risk of being diagnosed with advanced-stage breast cancer in women over 80 years old, an age group currently without clear guidelines for regular screenings.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women living in the developed world. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer during their lifetime. The majority of newly diagnosed patients have early-stage disease.

The treatment of microscopic metastatic breast cancer with adjuvant systemic therapy has undergone significant changes in recent years. At the same time, our understanding of the biology of breast cancer has also improved, predominantly as a consequence of data obtained from cDNA microarrays.

Several large, prospective trials have evaluated tamoxifen compared with placebo for breast cancer risk reduction in women at increased risk for breast cancer. Analysis of the large, prospective breast cancer risk-reduction trials that used tamoxifen estimated that tamoxifen decreased breast cancer incidence by 38% on average and estrogen receptor–positive tumors by 48%.

Victor Vogel’s excellent review of the clinical basis for preventing breast cancer in high-risk women demonstrates the significant advances that have been made through the clinical trials mechanism. However, it is the progress in deciphering the link between hormones and the development and growth of breast cancer that is the true success story in this setting.