There were an estimated 410,000 new cases of lung cancer and 353,000 deaths from lung cancer in Europe in 2012. This makes lung cancer the fourth most common cancer site (after female breast, 464,000 cases, colorectal, 447,000 cases, and prostate, 417,000 cases) but the leading cause of cancer death in Europe. It is a frequent and deadly disease.
In a recent analysis by the RECIST Working Group published in the European Journal of Cancer, EORTC researchers had explored whether a more refined categorization of tumor response or various aspects of progression could improve prediction of overall survival in the RECIST database. They found that modeling target lesion tumor growth did not improve the prediction of overall survival above and beyond that of the other components of progression.
Results of EORTC trial 10994 appearing in the Annals of Oncology show that pathological complete response after neoadjuvant chemotherapy is an independent predictive factor of favorable clinical outcomes in all molecular subtypes of breast cancer.
An EORTC study published in The Lancet Oncology does not support administration of intensified doxorubicin and ifosfamide for palliation of advanced soft tissue sarcoma, unless the objective is to shrink the tumor.
Interim analysis of the intergroup EORTC-LYSA-FIL 20051 H10 trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates an increased risk of early relapse when omitting radiotherapy in early PET scan negative patients with stage I/II Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Early outcome, however, was excellent in both arms, and the final analysis should reveal whether these initial findings are maintained over time.
With the support of The Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation-Global, the EORTC is studying secondary acute myeloid leukemia (s-AML), a serious complication which may develop in people who survived an earlier cancer. The goal is to discover the molecular character of this fatal disease and thus open the way to the development of the first ever treatments, so that patients in the future will suffer less and live longer.
SPECTAcolor, the EORTC’s premier Screening Platform for Efficient Clinical Trial Access for patients with colorectal cancer, enrolled its 100th patient in February 2014.
Male breast cancer is a rare disease. Of all cancers diagnosed in males, breast cancer accounts for less than one percent, and male breast cancer also accounts for less than one percent of the total of all breast cancer diagnoses. Although rare, male breast cancer is an extremely deadly disease. There were an estimated 2,240 new cases of and 410 deaths from male breast cancer in the United States in 2013.
The 1st EORTC Cancer Survivorship Summit was organized to address cancer survivorship issues. The audience included health care providers, pharmaceutical industry representatives, bankers and insurers, governmental agencies, politicians and payers, physicians, nurses, psychologists and social workers, patients and patient advocacy groups to discuss the specific needs of cancer survivors.
An EORTC analysis appearing in Annals of Oncology confirmed the importance of known prognostic factors such as performance status and tumor grading for having a long-term outcome in patients treated with pazopanib for metastatic soft tissue sarcoma. Additionally, hemoglobin at baseline was found to be a new prognostic factor.
