Cancer Research Lab

Pooled data from numerous studies indicate that contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging has a high specificity in detection of breast cancer in patients with breast lesions, Dutch researchers report in the January issue of Radiology.

However, lead investigator Dr. Nicky H. G. M. Peters told Reuters Health that “MR mammography can improve diagnosis and treatment of patients with breast cancer, but biopsy remains necessary to definitively characterize lesions.”

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Treatment with docetaxel after doxorubicin therapy appears to increase disease-free survival in women with lymph node-positive breast cancer, according to study findings in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute for January 16.

The study involved 2887 patients who were randomized to receive standard CMF chemotherapy preceded by doxorubicin (sequential control), doxorubicin plus cyclophosphamide (concurrent control), doxorubicin and then docetaxel (sequential docetaxel), or doxorubicin plus docetaxel (concurrent docetaxel).

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Aspiration is very common in patients with advanced head and neck cancer, is more severe following chemoradiation therapy, and is often without symptoms, according to Illinois-based researchers.

“We found that aspiration of food and/or liquids was highly prevalent at baseline, and became worse shortly after treatment,” senior investigator Dr. Kerstin M. Stenson said.

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Women who participate in a screening mammography program, compared with non-participants, tend to have better survival rates for cancers other than breast cancer, according to study results published in the January issue of the International Journal of Cancer.

However, “comparisons of cancer mortality between users and nonusers of screening are potentially biased because of the effects of self-selection,” Drs. Norm Phillips and Andrew Coldman, from the British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, Canada, point out. “Previous studies of breast screening have found that individuals likely to participate have lower breast cancer mortality than those unlikely to participate.”

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The prevalence of morphological abnormalities is elevated in patients with pediatric cancers, a finding that suggests “an important role of constitutional genetic defects and/or prenatal environmental factors in pediatric oncogenesis,” Dutch investigators report.

Dr. Johannes H. M. Merks and associates at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam compared the prevalence of morphological abnormalities among 175 children newly diagnosed with cancer, 898 long-term survivors of childhood cancer, and 1007 schoolchildren who served as controls.

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Capecitabine and oxaliplatin are effective alternatives to fluorouracil and cisplatin, respectively, for treating advanced esophagogastric cancer, according to a report in The New England Journal of Medicine for January 3.

The results indicate that “oral capecitabine is at least as effective as infused fluorouracil and that oxaliplatin (which does not require hydration) is at least as effective as cisplatin (which does require hydration) with respect to overall survival,” Dr. David Cunningham, from the Royal Marsden Hospital National Health Service Foundation Trust in Surrey and London, UK, and colleagues conclude.

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Autologous blood transfusion (ABT) does not increase the risk of biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy (RP), according to a report in the December issue of BJU International.

Previous reports have suggested that blood transfusion contributes to unfavorable outcomes in such cancers as esophageal, colon, and breast cancer, the authors explain, but results of studies on the effects of blood transfusion in the context of RP have been mixed.

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Anthracycline-based adjuvant chemotherapy for early breast cancer improves overall and disease-free survival only in women whose breast tumors overexpress or amplify HER2, results of a meta-analysis indicate.

“Patients with HER2-negative disease … could be spared unnecessary toxic effects related to the use of this class of agents,” the Italian research team suggests in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute for January 2.

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Compared with combined chemo/radiotherapy, total laryngectomy improves survival in patients with stage IV laryngeal cancer, according to a report in the Archives of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery for December.

The results also show that black patients and those with Medicare or Medicaid insurance have inferior outcomes, which may be the result of limited access to care.

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Cancer patients often refuse opioid medications out of the belief that the drugs are offered as a “last resort” rather than as legitimate pain killers that can improve their quality of life, British investigators report.

“As a palliative care physician, I encounter patients almost daily who refuse morphine for their pain in spite of being compromised in terms of function and mood,” Dr. Colette M. Reid told Reuters Health. “We conducted a qualitative study rather than using standard quantitative questionnaires to ask patients about their views on opioids, because we wanted to know what they actually thought.”

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