Ot Broadcast News

Also from the Palm Beach Cancer Symposium, Kathy Albain, MD, talks about the St. Gallen consensus meeting’s updated recommendations about adjuvant therapy for breast cancer—i.e., endorsing the 21-gene recurrence score and 70-gene profiling assay as key tools in decision-making for chemotherapy for ER-positive disease.

Stanley H. Winokur, MD, on his clever, fun, and ever-evolving one-minute daily Internet quiz that lets oncologists test their knowledge & compete against others. TheSmartestOncologist.com

Paddy Stone of St. George's Hospital, University of London, & David Cella from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine about the effective use of questionnaires for assessing, screening, and perhaps diagnosing cancer-related fatigue syndrome.

Todd Tuttle from University of Minnesota & Abram Recht from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center on the surprisingly big recent increase in the use of prophylactic bilateral mastectomy for DCIS.

Silvia Novello and Giorgio Scagliotti on harnessing insulin-like growth factor receptor inhibition in a Phase II study that showed clinical activity of figitumumab to be at least as good as that of inhibitors of other growth factors already being used in cancer.

Greater Role for Umbilical Cord Blood in Adult Transplants (Mary Eapen, commentary from Armand Keating). Ex Vivo Expansion of Cord Blood Derived Progenitor Cells: Patient Transplant Data (Colleen Delaney, commentary from Armand Keating). Erythropoiesis-Stimulating Agents in Cancer Patients: Meta-Analysis Mortality Findings (Julia Bohlius, commentary from Linda Burns and George Canellos). Imatinib: Durable Responses and Survival in CML: 7-Year IRIS Results; Can Imatinib Be Stopped? (Stephen O'Brien).

Peter Goodwin talks to key investigators Francesco Zaja (on rituximab for ITP); Hannes Wandt (on how platelet transfusions may be able to be withheld in certain patients receiving stem cell transplants for hematologic cancers); and Michael Hallek and Tadeusz Robak (on improved benefits for CLL patients with rituximab added to standard chemotherapy). Offering perspective are Kenneth Kaushansky, Linda Burns, and George Canellos.

New research for advanced NSCLC showing that combining monoclonal antibodies and chemotherapy can extend life: OTBN Editor Peter Goodwin and Producer Sarah Maxwell talk to Robert Pirker, Christian Manegold, Giorgio Scagliotti, Nick Thatcher, and Howard Sandler, MD. PLUS: Michel Coleman on the latest findings from the CONCORD study of international differences in survival rates for breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers.