GLG News by Oncologists (Germany, France, Italy)

Hepcidine is a key regulator of iron balence. Despite the availability of some iron makers (ferritin, sideremia and transferrin), hepcidine dosage can aid in the interpretation of complex clinical cases. However, its use could be limited to very particular clinical cases.

  The FLEX trial, a randomized phase 3 study comparing cisplatin-vinorelbine versus the same regimen plus cetuximab, recently showed that the addition of the monoclonal antibody to chemotherapy significantly prolong survival in chemonaive NSCLC. Several aspects could limit the wide use...

RSV infection is very difficult to confirm. In my hospital we use molecular determination of RSV genome from nasal secretions. This approach is expensive, time consuming and it does not offer a quick diagnosis. We treat mainly onco-hematological patients, who are at high risk of RSV infection. In the...

undefined The cardiomyocyte is highly sensitive to perturbations in energy generation, largely because of its huge energy demani (Force, Nat Rev Cancer 2007). Mitochondrial dysfunction and energy depletion seem to be a common theme in cardiotoxicity. However, unlike in anthracycline cardiotoxicity,...

The combination of a topical steroid with an antidepressant seems to be intriguing. Antidepressant have shown some anti-pruritic activity in atopic dermatitis. The major disadvantage of the current investigational drug is the sue with occlussive dressings. That makes it impossible to use the drug for...

This trial demonstrated for the first time that adding docetaxel to cisplatin and 5Fluorouracil improves response rate, time to progression and overall survival in head and neck cancer patients with stage III and IV without distant metasteses. This improvement has a price: Grade 3 or 4 leukopenia and...