Cancer Research Lab

Men who are obese are more likely than normal weight men to be screened for prostate cancer, according to a new study.

“Obesity is associated with more advanced disease and worse outcomes in men with prostate cancer,” Dr. Judd W. Moul and colleagues from Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, write in the February issue of the Journal of Urology. “To our knowledge the relationship between obesity and prostate cancer screening behavior in men 40 or older is unknown.”

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In patients with early breast cancer, switching to an aromatase inhibitor after 2 to 3 years of tamoxifen therapy provides better survival than simply continuing tamoxifen for a further 2 or 3 years, Italian researchers report.

Previous reports have shown that as an adjuvant treatment for early breast cancer, aromatase inhibitors reduce the risk of recurrence compared tamoxifen. However, it has been unclear whether this actually translates into improved survival.

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Although Medicare coverage for colorectal cancer screening has increased in recent years, there are still significant gender and racial gaps in screening uptake, new research shows.

In 2001, Medicare coverage for colon cancer screening expanded to include colonoscopy every 10 years for people at average risk. While prior studies have documented disparities in screening rates between different groups, very few have examined these disparities since the expanded coverage began.

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Findings from a new study confirm that lung cancer in people who have never smoked is more common in women than in men.

“With lung cancer persisting as the leading cause of cancer mortality in the US, research into the epidemiology of lung cancer in never smokers should be an important public health priority,” Dr. Heather A. Wakelee, from Stanford University School of Medicine in California, and colleagues emphasize in their report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology for February 10.

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Clinicians from the UK say they have “robust data” to support routine assessment of basal cytokeratins and androgen receptors, in addition to traditional pathologic parameters (tumor size and lymph node status), in women with triple-negative breast cancer.

This additional information yields useful prognostic information that can help guide treatment decisions, report researchers from the UK in the January 1 issue of Cancer.

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As circulating levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin (OH) D increase, survival in patients with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) improves, new research shows.

In an earlier study, Dr. Wei Zhou, from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues showed that surgery in the summertime coupled with higher vitamin D intake seemed to improve survival in NSCLC patients. The focus of the present study was to investigate the role of vitamin D further by assessing the impact of circulating 25(OH)D levels on NSCLC survival.

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Five years of letrozole is more effective than five years of tamoxifen as initial adjuvant therapy for postmenopausal endocrine-responsive early breast cancer, according to an updated analysis of the Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 Study.

This study compared the outcomes of 8,010 women with early endocrine-responsive breast cancer who were randomized to receive one of four adjuvant treatment regimens for 5 years: letrozole; letrozole followed by tamoxifen; tamoxifen; or tamoxifen followed by letrozole.

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Current biopsy thresholds for prostate specific antigen (PSA) and PSA velocity underestimate prostate cancer risk in younger men, researchers report in the February issue of the Journal of Urology.

“It has been known for over a decade that PSA rises more quickly in men who have prostate cancer,” lead investigator Dr. Judd W. Moul said. “We show, for the first time, that this rate of change should be age-adjusted. In other words, in younger men, smaller rises in PSA predict cancer while in older men, larger rises indicate cancer.”

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An Arkansas jury on Thursday found that Wyeth provided adequate warnings about the risks associated with its hormone replacement therapy drugs and that the medicines were neither defective nor a primary cause of a woman’s breast cancer.

In a complete victory for the drugmaker, the jury of nine women and three men, after about a day and a half of deliberations, also found that Wyeth was not negligent in its promotion of the drugs, Prempro and Premarin, and that plaintiff Helene Rush, 72, should have known about the breast cancer risks associated with them.

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Amgen Inc.’s anemia drug Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa) is facing further safety concerns after a medical newsletter reported on Friday that a Danish study of the drug in head and neck cancer was halted due to adverse outcomes.

The report in The Cancer Letter said the study was temporarily halted in October after an interim analysis of the first 484 patients turned up a statistically significant increase in disease recurrence. It said a decision not to resume the study was made on Dec. 1.

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