Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network : JNCCN
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Because lung cancer frequently presents in an advanced stage when it is incurable, there has been a sustained search for an early diagnosis approach that could detect lung cancer when curable, while having few secondary consequences. Decades of research have evaluated various approaches to lung screening, including routine chest radiograph, sputum cytology, and, most recently, computed tomography (CT) scanning. ⋯ Therefore, no recommending body or professional society recommends using any of these approaches to screen for lung cancer. This general recommendation could change if randomized trials examining CT screening suggest that its benefits outweigh its harms.
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Pancreas cancer is a highly aggressive and rapidly fatal disease. The current standard of care for advanced disease improves survival modestly at best and provides palliation for a minority of patients. ⋯ This article describes new therapeutic strategies currently under investigation and discusses possible reasons that others have failed. New potential targets in the treatment of this formidable disease are suggested based on recent findings.
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J Natl Compr Canc Netw · Sep 2007
ReviewInterventional therapies for cancer pain management: important adjuvants to systemic analgesics.
Optimized use of systemic analgesics fails to adequately control pain in some patients with cancer. Commonly used analgesics, including opioids, nonopioids (acetaminophen and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), and adjuvant analgesics (anticonvulsants and antidepressants), have limited analgesic efficacy, and their use is often associated with adverse effects. Without adequate pain control, patients with cancer not only experience the anguish of poorly controlled pain but also have greatly diminished quality of life and may even have reduced life expectancy. ⋯ Commonly used interventional therapies for cancer pain include neurolytic neural blockade, spinal administration of analgesics, and vertebroplasty. Compared with systemic analgesics, which generally have broad indications for control of pain, individual interventional therapies generally have specific, narrow indications. When appropriately selected and implemented, interventional pain therapies are important components of broad, multimodal cancer pain management that significantly increases the proportion of patients able to experience adequate pain control.