Articles

Sarah is a 59-year-old female referred by her OB/GYN provider for genetic counseling and cancer risk assessment. She has never had a diagnosis of cancer, colonic polyps, or benign tumors. Additionally, she has never undergone any risk-reducing surgeries, and no family members have undergone genetic testing. When making her appointment, she expresses concern about her risk of pancreatic cancer because 2 of her brothers died of it (per medical records adenocarcinoma of the pancreas). What else would you want to know? 

Spring is upon us, and with it comes the prospect of new beginnings with flowers blooming and trees, plants, and bushes budding with the fruits and vegetables of the season. The warm breeze of spring brings motivation to start the “spring cleaning” of our diets. There is no better way to shape up a diet than to start incorporating more cruciferous vegetables into the diet.

Imagine being newly diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), a neoplasm of hematopoietic stem cells caused by the Philadelphi chromosome t(9;22). In decades past, individuals diagnosed with CML were offered allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (allo-HSCT). Survival rates with allo- HSCT are lower compared with newer therapies mainly due to the risk of graft-versus-host disease and infectious complications. Read More ›

Throughout this series, we have evaluated various challenges and barriers to optimizing care for patients with cancer. While it is evident that we have a long way to go with regard to making cancer therapy logistically easy, better tolerated, and less emotionally exhausting, the past decade has arguably brought us closer to achieving these goals. New oral chemotherapy drugs have freed some patients from the restraints of treatment within a cancer center’s infusion suite. New targeted therapies have increased survival and treatment-related efficacy while reducing adverse events.

An increasing number of cancers are treated with self-administered oral medications either as the sole treatment or as a component of the patient’s cancer therapy. Most supportive and palliative medications (including antiemetics, pain relievers, and antidiarrheals) are oral, and proper adherence to these agents may be important in maximizing the patient’s quality of life. As healthcare providers, we may believe that given the gravity of the disease, patients will be especially compliant with their oral anticancer medications. Read More ›

Researchers have documented diverse genetic changes in different parts of the same primary tumor, suggesting that individual tumors harbor a complexity of genetic changes that has not been well appreciated (Gerlinger M, Rowan AJ, Horswell S, et al. N Engl J Med. 2012;366:883-892). This discovery has implications for personalized medicine directed at genetic changes identified in 1 biopsy of a primary tumor.

According to 2 large breast cancer trials, CYP2D6 genotyping was not predictive of the effectiveness of tamoxifen in postmenopausal women. Thus, the results of these studies are not generalizable to premenopausal women.

The term “chemo brain” was coined to describe mild cognitive problems in cancer patients attributed to chemotherapy. Although minor chemotherapy-induced memory and cognitive impairments have been described previously, a case-cohort study suggests that these effects can persist more than 20 years posttherapy.

The authors state that chemo brain effects are subtle compared with women who never had chemotherapy, but it’s possible that these effects place people at greater risk for cognitive decline associated with aging.

Primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) sited outside the gastrointestinal (GI) tract carries a poorer prognosis than primary GIST within the GI tract, according to a study presented at the recent ASCO GI Symposium in January 2012.

The Ohio State University (OSU) Wexner Medical Center, located in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest medical centers in the country. As the only academic medical center in central Ohio, it includes the College of Medicine, more than a dozen research centers, and 20 core laboratories, as well as 6 hospitals.