The HCPLive conference coverage page features articles, videos, and expert-led live coverage from major medical meetings throughout the year.
Featured Online Resource: iFBAD
July 14th 2009Today’s featured resource is the Internet-based Forecasting of the Burden of Alzheimer’s Disease (iFBAD) website developed by Ron Brookmeyer, PhD, Elizabeth Colantuoni, PhD, and colleagues in the Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Toward a Multidimensional Formulation of Alzheimer's Disease Pathogenesis and Pathophysiology
July 14th 2009Rodrigo O. Kuljis discusses the challenges to our understanding of neurodegenerative disorders and to the development of effective treatments and prevention presented because we lack a “satisfactory, unanimously agreed and unifying conceptual scheme” for them.
Video News from the 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (ICAD)
July 13th 2009Each morning at the 2009 ICAD conference, there is a media session featuring researchers who will be speaking or presenting that day. The session is recorded and posted online as brief videos. The theme for the Monday session was “Risk Factors for Alzheimer's; Update on Alzheimer's Prevalence/Incidence.”
Vistonuridine: A Life-saving Antidote for 5FU Overdose
June 3rd 2009Wellstat Therapeutics has developed vistonuridine, the first viable prodrug of uridine, which is an orally administered agent that delivers approximately 8-fold more uridine as it is converted to uridine in the body than administration of uridine itself.
Should Head and Neck Cancer Patients Receive Induction Chemotherapy Prior to Chemoradiotherapy?
June 1st 2009In what researchers from the University Hospital in Madrid, Spain, are calling a practice-changing study, sequential treatment with chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy more than doubled time-to-treatment failure in patients with unresectable locally advanced head and neck cancer.
Small Study Identifies Eight Genes that Predict Response in Metastatic Melanoma
June 1st 2009Dr. Hussein Tawbi and colleagues decided to look for biomarkers that might predict response to alkylator-based chemotherapy used to treat metastatic melanoma. They identified eight genes that they believe may form a profile useful in distinguishing responders from nonresponders.
Antidepressants Often Prescribed with Tamoxifen can Double Risk of Breast Cancer Recurrence
June 1st 2009A new retrospective study shows that use of three widely prescribed selective serotinin reuptake inhibitors—Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft—more than double the risk of breast cancer recurrence in women treated with tamoxifen.
Trastuzumab (Herceptin) Increases Overall Survival in HER2-Positive Gastric Cancer
May 31st 2009More than 1 million new cases of gastric cancer are diagnosed annually worldwide. The prognosis for patients with this disease is poor, and new treatments with the potential to offer even small improvements in survival can be practice-changing.
Novel Therapeutic Agent Shows Promise for Treating Triple Negative Breast Cancer
May 31st 2009Approximately 15% of breast cancers are triple negative, with a higher incidence of this cancer subtype found in black and Hispanic women and those younger than 40 years. Triple-negative breast cancers are aggressive and difficult to treat, leading to higher rates of metastases and poorer survival than for other breast cancers.
Fertility Issues Must be Addressed by Oncologists
May 31st 2009A national survey found that oncologists do not address fertility issues as adequately as they should with discussions, provision of educational materials, and referrals to reproductive specialists despite 30% to 80% of all patients with cancer being at risk for infertility.
Failure in Bevacizumab (Avastin) Early Stage Colon Cancer NSABP Trial May Not Be Absolute
May 30th 2009Last month the news that Roche�s drug bevacizumab (Avastin) failed to improve disease-free survival in a trial of patients with early stage colon cancer made a big media splash. Norman Wolmark, MD, Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, addressed the study�s full results in a press conference the day before a scheduled plenary presentation at ASCO.
Stimulus Funds Provide a Temporary Boon to Cancer Research
May 30th 2009Although the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was very contentious in Congress, Richard L. Schilsky, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago in Illinois and president of ASCO; and John Niederhuber, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute, were in complete agreement that it was a boon to cancer research.