ONCOLOGY Vol 26 No 3

This article reviews the main issues that must be considered in metastatic colorectal cancer from the surgical oncology and medical oncology perspectives, respectively.

Given the abundance of breast cancer data, this review will focus on breast cancer–related lymphedema. However, the principles and controversies discussed are relevant regardless of the type of malignancy to which the lymphedema is attributed.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) had historically been regarded as a disease that was refractory to therapy once surgical options had been exhausted.

Combined-modality therapy has rendered disease-free an increasing number of patients who were previously considered to be incurable. Still, despite myriad advances in imaging, and in surgical and therapeutic modalities, many patients who undergo resection of limited metastatic disease with curative intent ultimately relapse.

In their article in this issue of ONCOLOGY, authors Bartlett and Chu discuss a very provocative suggestion that the possibility exists to cure patients with advanced colorectal cancer.

The development of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) pathway inhibitors and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitors for the treatment of renal cancer is a real success story.

The article by Posadas and Figlin on systemic therapy in advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) provides a very interesting and comprehensive review of our current knowledge concerning the treatment of RCC.

The etiology and risk factors of breast cancer–related lymphedema (BCRL) are multifactorial and not fully understood.

It is ironic that we were asked to comment on the article by Dr. McLaughlin in this issue of ONCOLOGY. A few months ago, one of us (LKJ) was attending a patient in the breast clinic who had recovered well from a lumpectomy with sentinel node biopsy followed by completion axillary lymph node dissection (ALND).

The surge in availability of apps for every possible purpose is not limited to Apple but has also occurred with apps for the BlackBerry, for Google's Android platform, and for a number of other devices. The authors discuss their experience with apps that are relevant, directly or indirectly, to the oncology practice for both the iPhone and Android smartphones.

The treatment of cancer is shifting to increasingly more oral pills. Most oncology drug labels recommend taking the pills while fasting though often there is evidence that food increases bioavailability of the medication as much as four-fold.

Semuloparin, an ultra-low molecular weight heparin reduces the probability that a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy has a thromboembolic event by 64%. The results from the phase III trial also show that the benefit is not accompanied by an increase in major bleeding, a potential side effect of semuloparin.

The FDA has granted imatinib full approval as an adjuvant treatment following surgical removal of CD117-positive gastrointestinal stromal tumors in adult patients. This comes after results from a phase III trial showed that patients taking imatinib for 36 months had a 5-year overall survival of 92%, compared to 82% for those patients who took the drug for the standard 12 months of treatment.

It is still difficult to gauge the probability that a low-risk prostate cancer patient may be upgraded to a higher prostate cancer stage. Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have now determined that smaller prostates were more likely to evolve into more serious, aggressive disease.