Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy in women and is second to lung cancer in terms of cancer mortality. Treatment of BC remains a challenge as current therapies are limited by toxicity and drug resistance. Graviola (Annona muricata) is a tree that grows in the tropics of North and South America. Traditionally, the leaves and stems from the graviola tree have been used for a wide ra...

BACKGROUND Patients with colorectal cancer treated with oxaliplatin are at risk of hypersensitivity reactions, with the incidence estimated to be 12%-20%. Coinfusion of dexamethasone and oxaliplatin could potentially reduce the incidence of these reactions, but oxaliplatin is reported to be incompatible with alkaline compounds in solution. However, in a previous retrospective study we found tha...

BACKGROUND Currently, precise predictors in gastric cancer patients undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy are lacking. The study aims to investigate the prognostic value of the monocyte to lymphocyte ratio (MLR) in patients with advanced gastric cancer receiving S-1 plus oxaliplatin (SOX) or oxaliplatin and capecitabine (XELOX) neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimen. METHODS The data from Harbin Medi...

Metastatic colorectal cancer has traditionally been treated with i.v. 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), with or without leucovorin (LV). 5-FU is administered as either an i.v. bolus or a protracted infusion. Although schedules using the latter method offer efficacy benefits (objective response rate, time to disease progression), protracted infusion schedules are often associated with medical complications...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the combination of XELOX regimen (oxaliplatin plus capecitabine) with thalidomide for the first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC). METHODS All of the 89 patients with MCRC who fulfilled eligibility criteria were randomly assigned to treatment group (n=44) and control group (n=45). The treatment group received a combination o...

BACKGROUND Oxaliplatin, an effective antineoplastic agent againstgastrointestinal tumors, can cause severe peripheral neurotoxicity, which seriously limits its clinical application. To date, there are no effective treatments for this complication. Ganglioside-monosialic acid (GM1) has been shown to protect neurons against injuries and degeneration. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effe...

BACKGROUND Facilitation of margin-negative resection is the goal of neoadjuvant therapy regimens used in the treatment of borderline-resectable pancreatic cancer patients. Multiple treatment approaches have shown efficacy in this setting, including neoadjuvant GTX (gemcitabine [Gemzar], docetaxel [Taxotere], and capecitabine [Xeloda]) and radiotherapy (RT). Three-dimensional tumor response may ...

Hopes raised, hopes dashed — the last half of 2012 has seen plenty of both. Enthusiasm over a bumper crop of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals has been tempered by a long list of phase 3 trial disappointments. Oncology agents led the way, starting with two drugs being studied for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. The addition of Eli Lilly’s pemetrexed (Alimta) to a regimen ...

Preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is the standard of care for patients with stage II and III rectal cancer. This strategy leads to pathologic complete response (pCR) in a significant number of patients. Factors predictive of pCR are currently being extensively investigated. The aim of this study was to analyze clinical factors that might be predictive of pCR.This study was a retrospective an...