Abraxane is licensed as monotherapy for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer in patients who have failed first-line treatment for metastatic disease and for who standard, anthracycline containing therapy is not indicated. The licensed dose for this indication is 260mg/m every 3 weeks. The substitution of paclitaxel/docetaxel for Abraxane will, in the majority of cases, result in Abraxane b...

New oncology drugs in the European Union (EU) are assessed under a centralized procedure by the European Medicines Agency (EMA); however, even if a European marketing authorization (MA) has been granted, this does not imply that the product will be available to patients everywhere in the EU [1]. In Italy, new provisions on health care have been introduced through the legislative decree nr. 158/...

Our patient was initially diagnosed to have liver abscesses. Although amoebic liver abscess is the predominant cause of liver abscess in India, hepatocellular carcinoma with necrosis and metastatic colonic cancer with central necrosis need consideration in the differential diagnosis. Only one case of PHL mimicking liver abscess[3] has been reported earlier. Lymphomas may cause portal venous obs...

Cancer is still the number two cause of death in highly developed countries. Due to increased life expectancy, the number of cancer cases has also increased, and it is not likely that the incidence of this often fatal illness will decrease in the near future. Breast cancer, for instance, strikes 1 of 8 women in the industrialized world. Incidence of lung cancer increases due to smoking, while t...

Prostate cancer (PrC) is the fourth most common cancer (for both sexes combined) and the second most common cancer in men (accounting for 15% of all new male cancer cases), with a worldwide incidence of approximately 1,111,200, a 5-year prevalence of 3,924,000, and a mortality incidence of 307,000 for the year 2012.1 Since the 1990s, the increasing use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing...

Background: In the last decade, a number of new treatment modalities have been developed for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC). The clinical effects are encouraging, but little is known about the costs and cost-effectiveness of new drugs. Methods: A Markov chain model has been developed to project patient outcomes and costs for patients with advanced SCLC. All patients in the control ...

NEW DRUGS Cometriq for Thyroid Cancer Cabozantinib (Cometriq, Exelixis) has been approved with an orphan drug designation to treat metastatic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC). Cabozantinib blocks abnormal kinase proteins involved in the development and growth of medullary cancer cells. In a clinical study, treatment with cabozantinib increased progression-free survival and, in some patients, redu...

NEW DRUGS Stivarga for Advanced Colon Cancer Regorafenib (Stivarga, Bayer) has been approved for patients with treatmentrefractory metastatic colorectal cancer. The drug is a multikinase inhibitor. The FDA’s approval was based primarily on the 760-patient CORRECT trial. Progression-free survival was only slightly improved (a median of 2 months with the study drug versus 1.7 months with placebo)...