February 2010 Vol 3, No 1

The pharmacist can play a key role in ensuring that healthcare practitioners avoid using medical abbreviations that have been deemed "off-limits" by The Joint Commission (TJC), according to a new study. In the study, the researchers sent monthly e-mail reminders to individual practitioners who they had identified as being repeat violators. The e-mails detailed their unapproved abbreviations and the reason(s) why the abbreviations were prohibited.

Scalp hypothermia seems to be effective in minimizing alopecia in some women with breast cancer who develop the condition as a result of their chemotherapy regimen, according to the results of a pilot study.

Debate continues as to whether all patients with early human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer need an anthracycline with trastuzumab. Updated data from the Breast Cancer International Research Group (BCIRG)-006 trial suggest that eliminating the anthracycline will have comparable efficacy and be less toxic.

Patients with breast cancer may derive greater treatment benefit by doubling the dose of the estrogen-receptor antagonist fulvestrant according to results from the international randomized, double-blind, phase 3 Comparison of Faslodex in Recurrent or Metastatic Breast Cancer (CONFIRM) trial.

Postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive (HR+) early breast cancer who stop treatment with adjuvant anastrozole because of grade 2 to 3 arthralgia and/or myalgia (A/M) may benefit from switching to letrozole therapy, new data suggest.

Patients receiving the neurokinin 1 (NK1) antagonist aprepitant as part of a preparative regimen prior to stem-cell transplant had improved control of acute and delayed nausea and vomiting, and the drug did not interfere with antitumor efficacy, according to investigators from a prospective, randomized, double-blind, phase 3 trial.

Less intensive treatment with bortezomib—giving the drug weekly rather than twice weekly —appears to have comparable efficacy but less toxicity, according to a study by Spanish researchers. Good results were reported with the less-intensive regimen in newly diagnosed older patients.

Adding rituximab to fludarabine and cyclophosphamide chemotherapy improves overall survival (OS) in patients with advanced, symptomatic chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) compared with chemotherapy alone, according to a study by German researchers.

In the first head-to-head comparison of targeted oral tyrosine kinase inhibitors as initial treatment for early-stage chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), molecular and cytogenetic remissions were more common with nilotinib compared with imatinib, the previous standard for treating early-stage CML, said Giuseppe Saglio, MD.

Alvimopan, a peripherally acting opioid antagonist, reduces the length of hospital stay after a bowel resection, a new study indicates.