Suspected cancer symptoms and blood test results in primary care before a diagnosis of lung cancer: a case-control study.

Aim: To compare symptoms and blood test results prior to cancer diagnosis in individuals who developed lung cancer and those who did not. Patients & methods: Nested case-control study, lung cancer patients were matched to up four controls with no record of cancer. Differences in symptoms and blood test results were investigated in the 2-year period prior to diagnosis. Results: 26,379 lung cancer patients were matched to 92,125 controls. Elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) was independently predictive of lung cancer at every 2-month interval 12 months prior to diagnosis. Elevated CRP in conjunction with at least one symptom was associated with greater than fourfold higher odds of lung cancer. Conclusion: CRP may be a prediagnostic marker for lung cancer, and when present with other symptoms could facilitate the investigation of high-risk individuals.

Postprogression survival in patients with glioblastoma treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy: a routine care cohort study.

Glioblastoma is the commonest malignant brain tumor in adults. Most patients develop progressive disease before they die. However, survival after developing progressive disease is infrequently reported. We identified patients with histologically proven disease who were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy during 2006-2013. We analyzed overall survival (OS), progression-free survival and postprogression survival (PPS) in relation to age, O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase promoter methylation and extent of surgical resection. We identified 166 patients. Median survival was 13.5 months; 2-year OS was 21.7%. Median progression-free survival and PPS were 7.03 and 4.53 months, respectively. Age and extent of surgical resection were correlated with OS. Only the extent of surgical resection was associated with PPS. Our work suggests that the established prognostic factors for glioblastoma do not appear to help predict PPS.

Prior exposure to chemotherapy: a marker of sensitivity and selection for antiangiogenic therapy in breast cancer?

The identification of patients who are more likely to derive benefit from antiangiogenic therapy is a key to refine patient selection and so maximize clinical benefit, and reduce unnecessary treatment costs. Improved patient selection will equally be effective in minimizing the exposure of non-eligible patients to ineffectual treatment which could be associated with adverse effects as well as delaying effective treatment. Herein, we review the literature from clinical trials suggesting that the addition of antiangiogenic agents to chemotherapy for the treatment of HER-2 negative metastatic breast cancer in patients previously exposed to chemotherapy may deliver differential therapeutic benefit and may serve as a selection criteria in the current absence of a robust biomarker.