Cancer Research Lab

The treatment and survival of adults with soft-tissue sarcoma of the extremities varies widely by race and ethnicity. Compared with whites, the disease-specific mortality rates are significantly higher in blacks and significantly lower in Asians, according to authors of a paper in the March 1st issue of Cancer.

To examine the effects of race and ethnicity on tumor characteristics and outcomes, Dr. Steve R. Martinez, of University of California at Davis Cancer Center in Sacramento, and colleagues used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to identify 6406 patients with extremity soft-tissue sarcoma treated between 1988 and 2003. Included were 4636 whites, 773 blacks, 696 Hispanics, and 411 Asians.

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Adolescents and young adults with cancer appear to have less access to clinical trials and, therefore, the latest treatments, than their younger counterparts, according to a report in the December issue of the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

“Research has shown that patients who are enrolled in clinical trials offering the most advanced cancer treatments do better than patients who receive conventional treatment,” lead author Dr. Peter H. Shaw, from the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, said in a statement.

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Treatment with high-dose methotrexate leads to complete response in a substantial proportion of patients with primary CNS lymphoma, according to long-term follow-up of a phase II trial.

Dr. Tracy T. Batchelor, at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues treated 25 HIV-negative adult patients with newly diagnosed primary CNS lymphoma with IV methotrexate 8 g/m² every 2 weeks for up to 8 weeks or until a complete response was achieved. Complete responders were given two additional consolidation cycles of methotrexate and 11 maintenance cycles.

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A bladder sparing protocol is feasible in a selected population of patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer who decline radical surgery, Italian researchers report in the January issue of Cancer.

“Our findings support the safety and effectiveness of multimodality treatment,” senior investigator Dr. Ricardo Autorino said. “We found complete response, bladder-intact survival and overall survival rates to be similar to those determined in previously published series.”

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A multi-center French study has shown that mucoadhesive buccal miconazole gel tablets is effective for the treatment of radiation-related oropharyngeal candidiasis.

The study, led by Rene-Jean Bensadoun of Antoine Lacassagne Center in Nice, is published in the January 1 issue of Cancer. It involved 282 patients with head and neck cancer.

Patients received 14 days of mucoadhesive buccal miconazole (Loramyc, BioAlliance Pharma, Paris, France), given as a single 50 mg tablet once a day, or miconazole oral gel, 500 mg, administered in four divided doses of 125 mg each.

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Thirty years after treatment for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), survivors remain at increased risk for developing a second malignancy, according to a new report.

“Today, prognosis from childhood ALL is excellent, so now, more and more patients become long-term survivors,” Dr. Nobuko Hijiya from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee.

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Dendreon Corp. showed that its novel cancer therapy Provenge is reasonably safe and provided “substantial evidence” it benefits men with advanced prostate cancer, U.S. advisers ruled on Thursday.

Provenge is a therapeutic cancer vaccine designed to stimulate the immune response to cancer. It targets the prostate cancer antigen, prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP), which is found in approximately 95% of prostate cancers.

Two Dendreon studies failed to meet their main goal of slowing the progress of advanced prostate cancer, but one analysis found patients treated with the product lived about 4.5 months longer.

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Neuraminidase inhibitors, which include oseltamivir and zanamivir, improve outcomes in leukemia patients with influenza, according to a report in the April 1st issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.

“I think all immunocompromised patients or patients with co-morbidities (including elderly) should be treated with neuraminidase inhibitors if they are diagnosed with influenza,” Dr. Roy F. Chemaly from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said.

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Combined radiation and chemotherapy following the complete removal of invasive pancreatic adenocarcinoma can prolong patient survival for years, according to the results of a retrospective study presented Saturday at the 2007 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in Orlando, Florida.

“There is no standard of care for patients with pancreatic cancer,” presenter Dr. Michele M. Corsini, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, said. “It is a very aggressive cancer that metastasizes early.”

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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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