The oncologist
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Traditional treatment modalities for advanced cancer (radiotherapy, chemotherapy, or targeted agents) act directly on tumors to inhibit or destroy them. Along with surgery, these modalities are predominantly palliative, with toxicity and only modest improvements in survival in patients with advanced solid tumors. Accordingly, long-term survival rates for most patients with advanced cancer remain low, thus there is a need for cancer treatments with favorable benefit and toxicity profiles that can potentially result in long-term survival. The immune system plays a critical role in the recognition and eradication of tumor cells ("immune surveillance"), and immunotherapies based on this concept have been used for decades with some success against a few tumor types; however, most immunotherapies were limited by a lack of either substantial efficacy or specificity, resulting in toxicity. We now have a greater understanding of the complex interactions between the immune system and tumors and have identified key molecules that govern these interactions. This information has revitalized the interest in immunotherapy as an evolving treatment modality using immunotherapeutics designed to overcome the mechanisms exploited by tumors to evade immune destruction. Immunotherapies have potentially complementary mechanisms of action that may allow them to be combined with other immunotherapeutics, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, or other traditional therapies. This review discusses the concepts and data behind immunotherapies, with a focus on the checkpoint inhibitors and their responses, toxicities, and potential for long-term survival, and explores promising single-agent and combination therapies in development. ⋯ Immunotherapy is an evolving treatment approach based on the role of the immune system in eradicating cancer. An example of an immunotherapeutic is ipilimumab, an antibody that blocks cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) to augment antitumor immune responses. Ipilimumab is approved for advanced melanoma and induced long-term survival in a proportion of patients. The programmed death-1 (PD-1) checkpoint inhibitors are promising immunotherapies with demonstrated sustained antitumor responses in several tumors. Because they harness the patient's own immune system, immunotherapies have the potential to be a powerful weapon against cancer.
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Clinical Trial
Chemotherapy Alone for Patients With Stage II/III Rectal Cancer Undergoing Radical Surgery.
The purpose of this prospective pilot study was to determine the efficacy of preoperative chemotherapy with six cycles of FOLFOX 6 (without radiation therapy) followed by radical surgery followed by six additional cycles of FOLFOX 6 for patients with stage II/III rectal cancer. ⋯ Neoadjuvant radiotherapy of rectal cancer represents the current standard of care. However, its use is also associated with short-term toxicity and long-term morbidity. With the increasing use of total mesorectal resection resulting in better local control and advances in systemic therapy for colorectal cancer, this study highlights the question of whether radiation is a necessary component of neoadjuvant therapy for all patients with rectal cancer or whether select patients could be spared the additional toxicities and inconvenience of radiotherapy. This study suggests that neoadjuvant FOLFOX without radiotherapy is active and safe, but it could not be considered a standard of care till now.
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Lung cancer is frequently a disease of elderly patients. However, these patients are often treated less actively owing to a higher comorbidity rate and poor performance status. The efficacy of different treatments in elderly patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated lung cancer is still unknown. ⋯ The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of first-line epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) treatment in elderly patients and the outcomes of subsequent salvage chemotherapy after disease progression. The most important finding was that elderly patients with disease progression after first-line EGFR-TKI treatment can receive salvage chemotherapy and have a response rate similar to that of younger patients who received salvage chemotherapy.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
The Hand-Foot Skin Reaction and Quality of Life Questionnaire: An Assessment Tool for Oncology.
Skin toxicity (hand-foot syndrome/hand-foot skin reaction, HFS/R) related to antineoplastic therapy is a significant issue in oncology practice, with potentially large impacts on health-related quality of life (HRQL). ⋯ Skin toxicity related to anticancer therapies is a significant issue in oncology practice. Several newer agents, as well as older therapies, are associated with the skin toxicity known as hand-foot skin reaction (HFSR) or hand-foot syndrome (HFS). This study describes the development and validation of a brief, patient-reported questionnaire (the hand-foot skin reaction and quality of life questionnaire) supporting its suitability for use in clinical research to aid in early recognition of symptoms, to evaluate the effectiveness of agents for HFS/R treatment within clinical trials, and to evaluate the impact of these treatments on HFS/R-associated patients' health-related quality of life.