Patient preference for oral chemotherapy in the treatment of metastatic breast and lung cancer.

Objectives: Although new therapies against metastatic cancer have been developed in recent decades, chemotherapy is still an important treatment option. Prolonged treatment and side-effects are often discouraging for patients, and in many cases, therapy is only palliative, not curative. This study explores patient preference for oral or intravenous (IV) chemotherapy in the treatment of metastatic breast or lung cancer.

NEOPLASM study: Real-life use of lacosamide in patients with brain tumor-related epilepsy.

Background: The choice of antiepileptic drug (AED) therapy in patients with brain tumor-related epilepsy (BTRE) is complicated, and there are a lack of robust clinical trial data to date.

Methods: The NEOPLASM (Neuroncologic Patients treated with LAcoSaMide) study was a 6-month, multicenter, retrospective, observational study in patients with BTRE treated with lacosamide. Patients were started on lacosamide because of a lack of efficacy or adverse events (AEs) with prior AEDs or suitability versus other AEDs, according to clinical practice.

Use of bevacizumab as a first-line treatment for metastatic breast cancer.

Objective: During clinical practice, it can be challenging, given the lack of response biomarkers, to identify the patients with metastatic breast cancer (mbca) who would benefit most from the addition of bevacizumab to first-line standard chemotherapy. The aim of the present review was to summarize the relevant scientific evidence and to discuss the experience of a group of experts in using bevacizumab to treat mbca.

Methods: A panel of 17 Spanish oncology experts met to discuss the literature and their experience in the use of bevacizumab as first-line treatment for mbca.

HER2/neu testing for anti-HER2-based therapies in patients with unresectable and/or metastatic gastric cancer.

Aim: To study the HER2 gene amplification or overexpression in patients with advanced gastric cancer (GC) and their association with patient characteristics and patient survival.

Patients And Methods: Tumour tissue samples from 148 patients with advanced GC were studied for HER2 by immunohistochemistry (IHC), fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) and dual colour silver enhanced in situ hybridisation (dc-SISH) methods. Clinicopathological data from all patients were collected.