Alice Goodman
Authored Items
Boston, MA—Hypofractionated radiotherapy achieves comparable quality of life compared with conventional radiotherapy, and has the advantages of shorter treatment time, greater convenience to the patient, and less cost to the healthcare system compared with conventional radiotherapy. The hypofractionated radiotherapy schedule is value-based, noted experts at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
Read More ›Boston, MA—It is well-recognized that radiation-induced symptoms can be extremely severe for patients with head and neck cancer. Although “magic mouthwash” (ie, diphenhydramine plus lidocaine plus antacid [DLA]) is frequently used for the treatment of oral mucositis associated with radiotherapy to the head and neck, until now there has been no solid evidence for this approach.
Read More ›Boston, MA—Patients with cervical and endometrial cancers experience fewer gastrointestinal and genitourinary adverse events and have improved quality of life when they receive intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) compared with conventional radiation therapy, according to the results of a recent study presented at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).
Read More ›Two studies presented at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting suggested that abiraterone acetate (AA; Zytiga), an androgen biosynthesis inhibitor,1 has the potential to be used earlier in the course of prostate cancer than its current US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) indication (ie, after failure of chemotherapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer [CRPC]). A second interim analysis of a phase 3 trial had positive outcomes with AA in men with metastatic CRPC who had not yet received chemotherapy,1 and a preliminary phase 2 study suggested AA may have a role in the neoadjuvant setting before radical prostatectomy is performed in men with early-stage localized high-risk prostate cancer.2 In addition, secondary results from the AFFIRM trial confirmed the superiority of enzalutamide to placebo in men with CRPC following treatment with docetaxel.3
Read More ›Men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer are more likely to choose active surveillance as their primary treatment if their care is managed by a multidisciplinary team, according to a recent study (Aizer AA, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2012;30:3071-3076).
Read More ›For men with localized prostate cancer detected by prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, treatment with radical prostatectomy did not significantly reduce mortality compared with observation, according to overall results of the large, randomized, controlled PIVOT trial (Wilt TJ, et al. N Engl J Med. 2012; 367:203-213). All-cause mortality and prostate-specific mortality were similar for the surgery and observation groups over a 12-year follow-up. Results suggest that surgery may be a better option than observation for men with intermediate- and high-risk localized prostate cancer, but low-risk localized prostate cancer can be safely managed with observation.
Read More ›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.
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