Recent evolution of prostate cancer treatment reflects technological arms races driven by economic incentives rather than high-quality evidence as exemplified by proton-beam radiation, recently found markedly inferior to far less expensive alternatives. Another study [more]
Gemtuzumab ozogamicin was withdrawn from the market after being evaluated in combination with chemotherapy in the frontline treatment of patients aged 18 to 60 years with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). More-recent randomised trials demonstrate that [more]
The benefit of salvage chemotherapy in gastric cancer refractory to first-line platinum and fluoropyrimidine therapy was previously unknown. A randomised multicentre study has shown that irinotecan or docetaxel administered as single agents improved survival compared [more]
A qualitative study indicates that there is a positive selection bias towards favourable economic analysis of targeted therapies when these are funded by the manufacturer. At a time of increasing budgetary constraints and public scrutiny [more]
Late toxicities from radiation therapy are frequent in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and can hamper survival. These late toxicities should decrease with modern radiation therapy, but results are not mature and so the importance of [more]
Demonstration of the clinically significant activity of bevacizumab in advanced-stage ovarian cancer has attracted a great deal of interest. Here, we summarize the two positive phase III trials that led to EMA approval of bevacizumab [more]
THE ECOG E4201 study adds another piece of information to a growing body of evidence pointing strongly to the importance of local control and the role of radiotherapy in unresectable pancreatic cancer. Based on this [more]
Screening for prostate cancer using PSA is a careful balance of benefits and harms. But current US practice involves testing older men who have little to gain and aggressively treating low-risk cancers. Debates about whether [more]
From 1989 to 2003, 709 phase III trials evaluating systemic cancer treatment were presented at ASCO meetings. Tam and collaborators have now reported that 9% of these trials were never published, and 13% were published [more]
The optimal treatment for patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma is an ongoing controversy. A recent trial seemed to answer some of the important open questions in the field; however, closer examination of the data indicates [more]
Large randomised phase III trials conducted in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harbouring activating mutations in EGFR have demonstrated that erlotinib or gefitinib are superior to platinum-based chemotherapy. Download full article
Zoledronic acid is a potent bisphosphonate used as the standard therapy for the prevention of skeletal-related events in patients with solid tumours metastatic to bone. Three phase III studies have reported head-to-head comparisons of zoledronic [more]
A randomised phase III study has reported significant improvements in RO resection rate and overall survival associated with perioperative cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil treatment compared with surgery alone in patients with gastro-oesophageal adenocarcinoma. These data support [more]