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Top Medical News
Blood concentrations of organochlorines, particularly β-hexachlorocyclohexane, increase the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a recent study in Singapore and China.
Among older home-dwelling men, high serum levels of periostin confer an increased cancer mortality risk but not cancer risk itself, according to long-term data from the STRAMBO study.
Recurrence rates of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) remain consistently high over the long-term, a recent study has found, suggesting that guideline-based surveillance should continue beyond 5 years.
Older age and male sex are associated with a higher risk of developing early-onset colorectal cancer (CRC), whereas aspirin use exerts a protective effect, according to a study. Additionally, weight loss may be an early clinical presentation of CRC.
Peripheral T cell (PTCL) and natural killer/T cell (NKTCL) non-Hodgkin lymphoma have poor prognoses in elderly adults, though intensive chemotherapy may yield benefit for some, a recent study has found.
Consumption of milk and other dairy products does not increase the risk of bladder cancer, according to a recent study. However, yogurt intake appears to be associated with a reduced risk.
High body mass index (BMI) and breast density are major risk factors for breast cancer, according to a recent Singapore study.
Special Reports
The current standard
of care for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), an aggressive primary brain tumour
with a rapid disease course, consists of maximum safe surgical resection
followed by radiotherapy with concomitant temozolomide (TMZ) chemotherapy and
subsequent TMZ maintenance. At the 16th Annual Meeting of the Asian
Society of Neuro-Oncology (ASNO) in Taipei, Taiwan, experts reviewed the
evidence and shared their clinical experience on the use of tumour treating
fields (TTFields), a novel treatment modality for GBM.
Overall survival (OS) is currently the primary criteria in assessing the efficacy of a cancer treatment. Dr Raghav Sundar, a consultant medical oncologist at the National University Hospital, Singapore, details the crucial role played by tumour response in evaluating treatment efficacy, with a focus on the multiple kinase inhibitor lenvatinib in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common primary tumour arising from the kidney, constituting approximately 80–85% of primary renal neoplasms. According to the Malaysian National Cancer Registry Report 2007–2011, RCC accounts for 62.8% of all kidney cancers nationwide. RCC typically occurs approximately 50% more commonly in men compared with women, and predominantly occurs in the sixth to eighth decade of life.
In March 2018, sublingual fentanyl citrate (SLF; Abstral®, Menarini) was made available in Malaysia. SLF is a rapid-onset opioid (ROO) indicated for the management of breakthrough cancer pain (BTcP) episodes in patients that are opioid-tolerant. In July 2018, Menarini organized an expert meeting, aptly named Malaysian Collaborative Meeting of Pain Specialists to Improve Oncology Management (MY-COMPASSION), comprising of key figures in anaesthesiology, palliative care and oncology to discuss current insights into local BTcP management. Below are highlights from the meeting.
Comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) has emerged as a key driving force behind personalized cancer care. With the wealth of data available with CGP, medical oncologists now have in their armamentarium a tool that could enable them to provide patients with the optimum treatment. At a Roche Foundation Medicine-sponsored symposium held at the 2018 European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Munich, Germany, a panel of experts reviewed key data on CGP, with a focus on the treatment of advanced cancers.
Recently, a Roche-sponsored dinner symposium was held in conjunction with the launch of atezolizumab (Tecentriq®, Roche) at Royale Chulan, Kuala Lumpur. Important insights into the evolving treatment landscape of anticancer treatment, and the increasingly prominent role of immunotherapy were gathered from a distinguished panel, including Dato’ Dr Mohamed Ibrahim, Professor Dr Rolf A. Stahel, Dr Voon Pei Jye, and Associate Professor Dr Tho Lye Mun. Here are the highlights of the meeting.
In advanced-stage, newly diagnosed classical, CD30-positive Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), front-line therapy has resulted in durable remission rates in up to 70–90% of patients, although approximately 25–30% of advanced stage HL patients are refractory or relapse following first-line treatment with ABVD (adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine) chemotherapy.1–3 The standard of care for patients with relapsed or refractory (r/r) classical HL is salvage therapy using second-line high-dose chemotherapy (HDCT), followed by autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplant (ASCT) in eligible patients, which can induce a complete remission (CR) in about 50% of patients.4 Nevertheless, the prognosis of patients who relapse after the salvage HDCT/ASCT is exceedingly poor, with a median survival duration of approximately 1.2 years.5
Conference Reports
The reduced incidence of breast cancer with 5-year prophylaxis with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole among women at high risk of the disease persists even after anastrozole cessation, suggests long-term results of the IBIS-II* trial presented at SABCS 2019.
The addition of tucatinib to a trastuzumab-capecitabine regimen improved progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer (MBC) previously treated with multiple HER2-targeted agents, according to the HER2CLIMB* study presented at SABCS** 2019. Additionally, this improved PFS was also noted in patients with brain metastases.
First-line treatment with the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR TKI) dacomitinib demonstrated persistent survival benefit in patients with EGFR-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to updated results from the phase III ARCHER 1050* trial.
Treatment with the (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib led to a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in radiological progression-free survival (rPFS) vs physician’s choice of new hormonal agent (NHA) enzalutamide or abiraterone + prednisone in men with advanced prostate cancer harbouring certain gene mutations that were identified through genetic testing, the PROfound* trial has shown.
Treatment with durvalumab with or without tremelimumab appeared to improve overall survival (OS) in Asian patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (mNSCLC) compared with chemotherapy (CT) in the first-line setting, according to a post hoc analysis of the MYSTIC* trial presented at ESMO Asia 2019.
Circulating miR-155 may be potentially used as a diagnostic and therapeutic monitoring marker in breast cancer, suggests an Indonesian study presented at the 2019 Asia Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO Asia 2019).
First-line treatment with durvalumab + platinum-etoposide (EP)* improves overall survival (OS) in Asian patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC), according to the CASPIAN** study.
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