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A 51-year-old man, a foreman for a local construction business, presented to the emergency department with progressive lower back pain of 2 weeks duration and shortness of breath. Initially mild, the pain had become incapacitating within the prior 48 hours.
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Patients with localized but non-resectable lung cancer generally are considered candidates for other types of therapy including external beam or stereotactic radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or percutaneous ablation.
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Anticholinergic drugs for COPD; pioglitazone for diabetes prevention; insulin degludec in Phase 3 trials; and FDA Actions.
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A 71-year-old retired police officer was admitted through the emergency room with right upper quadrant pain and low-grade fever.
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Limited data are available to guide the decision between up-front allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) or imatinib on long-term outcomes for accelerated phase chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML).
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In a multinational observational study, independent from pharmaceutical support and involving both academic and community treatment centers, long-term follow-up for chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) patients who, after two years of imatinib therapy, were in complete cytogenetic remission was undertaken for a median of 5.8 years. Although side effects were common, only a very small percentage of patients discontinued the drug and the majority maintained their cytogenetic response. In fact, the incidence of second malignancies and overall survival were no different for the CML patients in this cohort than for the general population in Italy.
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Among three distinct cohorts of lung cancer patients and matched controls (without tumor), the authors present data on the capacity for an assay that detects antibody to tumor-associated antigens to discriminate those with lung cancer and those without. Using a panel of six antigens, they found their assay to have sensitivity/specificity of approximately 40%/90%. If confirmed in an independent prospective study, such screening may be a very effective adjunct to imaging studies in the early recognition of lung cancer.
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Using the SEER database, data for patients with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas diagnosed in 1995-2005 were analyzed for the occurrence of suicide. As expected, the rates were higher than those reported for the general population, but among men, particularly those who were recovering from surgery, the mortality rate from suicide was 10 times greater than that of the general population. Care providers should be aware of this heightened risk and intervene as possible.
