EUROPEAN ONCOLOGY & HAEMATOLOGY – VOLUME 8 ISSUE 3 – AUTUMN 2012

Patients with cancer are at increased risk of painful vertebral compression fractures (VCFs), loss of mobility, neurological deficits and reduced quality of life (QoL).1,2 VCFs can occur as a direct consequence of cancer or as an indirect consequence of the cancer therapy and are prevalent in patients with multiple myeloma or secondary metastases (in particular […]

Approximately 70–80 % of patients with advanced prostate or breast cancer and 30–40 % of patients with advanced lung cancer and other solid tumours develop metastatic bone disease (MBD).1 The added burden to patients once cancer afflicts bone is significant. In addition to the reduced survival associated with bone metastases, systemic morbidity such as bone […]

Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) are rare neoplasms that arise from neuroendocrine cells which are present throughout the body. NETs may be classified as functioning or non-functioning and are further differentiated based on the site of primary origin, histologic grade (low, intermediate or high) and proliferation rate.1 Functioning NETs are characterised by excessive hormone production and release, […]

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver malignancy (70–85 %)1 with an associated mortality of >600,000 per year.2,3 Underlying cirrhosis is the major risk factor,2 with an estimated annual risk of developing HCC of 4–8 %.2,4 Hepatitis B is responsible for 53–80 % of all cases.2 Hepatitis C is the major cause of […]

Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GISTs) are rare mesenchymal tumours that may develop anywhere along the gastrointestinal tract. Approximately 95 % of cases share the expression of the CD117 surface antigen, also known as KIT or stem cell factor receptor. The management of localised GISTs relies on the complete surgical excision of the tumour. Until the introduction […]

Over the past two decades, liver transplantation for cholangiocarcinomas has been controversial. In the early era of transplantation, intrahepatic and hilar cholangiocarcinomas were considered to be ideal indications for liver transplantation. The tumours tend to remain localised within the liver and the liver hilum, respectively, until late in the course of the disease and can […]

Breast cancer continues to be a very prevalent disease worldwide. It is estimated that more than 39,000 women died of breast cancer in the US in 2011.1 Advances in the treatment of early-stage disease, including screening programmes for breast cancer detection and adjuvant systemic therapies, have improved outcomes for patients. Despite these improvements, however, many […]

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the female population worldwide, with an estimated incidence of more than 1.3 million new cases and 458,000 deaths in 2008.1 Up to 30 % of breast cancers are reported to occur in women aged 70 years or over;2,3 however, due to the under-representation of elderly […]

Lung cancer has been the world’s most frequent cancer, as well as the world’s leading cause of cancer-related deaths, for several decades.1 It remains today the leading cancer in males2 and, even if incidence rates are generally lower, it represents among females the fourth most frequent cancer and the second most common cause of death […]

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer death in the US, accounting for an estimated 29 % of cancer deaths in 2009. Pneumonectomy or lobectomy with hilar and mediastinal lymph node sampling is the gold standard treatment and offers the best option for curing stage 1/2 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC),1–5 Unfortunately, only 15 […]

In the early 1990s, pioneering work from John Dick’s laboratory demonstrated that only a rare subset of malignant acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) cells could reconstitute the disease following successive xenotransplantations in mice.1 This work was possible due to critical advances in haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) isolation based on surface marker expression profiles,2 and provided the […]