Pancreatic Cancer: a rare tumor with a devastating health toll

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IC 051 Guide to American Cancer Society, Greater Houston Unit Records, 1950-2006

The American Cancer Society, Greater Houston Unit records consists of newsletters and newspapers published by the American Cancer Society Greater Houston Unit and spans over half a century. The publication titles include “Texas Cancer Triangle” (September, 1950), “Oncology Nursing Newsletter” (April, 1977 to January-March, 1988), and “Texas Cancer News” (Winter 2003-Winter 2006). See more at IC 051

Children’s Cancer Pain in a World of the Opioid Epidemic: Challenges and Opportunities

The opioid crisis in the United States has grown at an alarming rate. Children with cancer are at high risk for pain, and opioids are a first‐line treatment in this population. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to optimize pain management in children with cancer without contributing to the opioid crisis. This report details opportunities for this optimization, including clinical practice guidelines, comprehensive approaches to pain management, mobile health, and telemedicine. It is vital to balance appropriate use of analgesics with efforts to prevent misuse in order to reduce unnecessary suffering and minimize unintended harms

Safety and Efficacy of Pemetrexed in Maintenance Therapy of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Lung cancer incidence continues to rise and is the number one cause of cancer death in both men and women worldwide with projected 221,130 new cases and 156,940 deaths in the United States in 2011.1 Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) represents more than 85% of the cases with most patients having either locally advanced or metastatic disease at the time of initial diagnosis, and approximately 60%–70% of them have an adenocarcinoma histologic subtype. In the last three years, we have seen several advances in the management of NSCLC, with several factors playing an important role in the treatment decision making process. Maintenance therapy has been added to the algorithm of NSCLC management and Pemetrexed has been studied as single agent or in combination in this setting with recent studies showing safety and improved progression free survival (PFS) and/or overall survival (OS), still the disease for the most part has a dismal outcome. More research work needs to be done to identify which patients truly benefit from these approaches, and to whom we should offer maintenance or switch maintenance vs. close observation

Integrative Analysis of Response to Tamoxifen Treatment in ER-Positive Breast Cancer Using GWAS Information and Transcription Profiling

Variable response and resistance to tamoxifen treatment in breast cancer patients remains a major clinical problem. To determine whether genes and biological pathways containing SNPs associated with risk for breast cancer are dysregulated in response to tamoxifen treatment, we performed analysis combining information from 43 genome-wide association studies with gene expression data from 298 ER+ breast cancer patients treated with tamoxifen and 125 ER+ controls. We identified 95 genes which distinguished tamoxifen treated patients from controls. Additionally, we identified 54 genes which stratified tamoxifen treated patients into two distinct groups. We identified biological pathways containing SNPs associated with risk for breast cancer, which were dysregulated in response to tamoxifen treatment. Key pathways identified included the apoptosis, P53, NFkB, DNA repair and cell cycle pathways. Combining GWAS with transcription profiling provides a unified approach for associating GWAS findings with response to drug treatment and identification of potential drug targets