S. Percy Ivy, MD

The advent of immunotherapy presents us with new treatment approaches in gynecologic cancers, with preliminarily promising outcomes. Multiple clinical trials are currently being conducted to better define the role of immunotherapy. Further investigation is warranted to develop and identify predictive biomarkers.

Eneman and Philips' review,"Cancer Management in PatientsWith End-Stage RenalDisease," comes at a time when thisissue is of critical importance to oncologists.As the authors indicate, theconfluence of two factors-chronicrenal replacement therapy (CRRT)lengthening lives and an aging populationin general-have made thestudy of organ dysfunction a pressingissue.[1] The authors provide comprehensivestatistics on CRRT. Agestatistics also support the necessityfor further study of this special population.For all types of cancer, themedian age at diagnosis is 68 years,and 70% of all cancer deaths occur inpeople aged 65 years or older. By2050, experts expect that more than40% of cases will occur in this agegroup.[2,3] Many of these people willhave end-stage organ dysfunction andlimited access to care because of theircomorbidities.

The Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) of the National Cancer Institute(NCI) currently sponsors more than 160 Investigational New Drug applications