Targeted Therapies in Breast Cancer


Book Description

This new volume updates the reader on selected areas of targeted therapy in breast cancer, with special emphasis on chemoprevention strategies, drug resistance, biomarkers, combination chemotherapy, angiogenesis inhibition and pharmacogenomics in the context of clinical efficacy. This selected review of targeted therapies will guide the reader on effective treatment as part of an integrated programme of patient management.




HER2-Positive Breast Cancer


Book Description

Get a quick, expert overview of clinically-focused topics and guidelines that are relevant to testing for HER2, which contributes to approximately 25% of breast cancers today. This concise resource by Drs. Sara Hurvitz, and Kelly McCann consolidates today's available information on this growing topic into one convenient resource, making it an ideal, easy-to-digest reference for practicing and trainee oncologists. - Covers the diagnosis, treatments and targeted therapies, and management of breast cancers that are HER2-positive. - Contains sections on background and testing, advanced disease, therapeutics, and toxicity considerations. - Includes a timely section on innovative future therapies.




Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa


Book Description

This book discusses the current state of cancer pathway as it is relevant to sub-Saharan Africa and highlights differences in epidemiology and the underlying problems with management. It outlines the current practice and opinions in all forms of cancer, also highlighting future prospects. Starting by providing background information on the epidemiology and genomic variations, the book then goes on to look at Infection-related cancers and continues to prostate GI, breast cancer and ovarian and cervical cancer. The last part of the book focuses on delivery of affordable and accessible care. Palliative services and primary and transnational research, as well as clinical trials are also discussed. Written by a team of authors based in the UK, Nigeria, South Africa and the US. this book offers an overview of the current state and challenges of cancer care in sub-Saharan Africa, and it would be valuable to policy makers, researchers, funding organisations, and can be an adjunct to standard text books for students, residents and established doctors.




Adjuvant Therapy for Breast Cancer


Book Description

Adjuvant treatment is administered prior to or as follow up to surgical procedures for breast cancer. Proven success in using medical therapies allowing for breast conserving procedures or reducing risk of occurrence. Although there has been much progress towards a cure, including the introduction of new targeted therapies, metastasizing cancer remains highly incurable.




Common Issues in Breast Cancer Survivors


Book Description

This book provides a clinically useful resource for evaluation and management of the symptoms and issues that burden survivors of breast cancer. Improvements to breast cancer screening and treatment have resulted in more patients than ever before having been cured after local definitive and systemic therapies. Primary care providers and specialists must be increasingly familiar with the issues that breast cancer survivors routinely face. This is the first book to provide a single resource for common issues faced by breast cancer survivors from a truly multidisciplinary perspective; each chapter of this text is coauthored by at least one oncologist and one specialist outside the field of oncology in order to include the perspectives of relevant disciplines. User-friendly and clinically applicable to all specialties, individual chapters also include tables and figures that describe how best to conduct initial evaluation of the given symptom as well as an algorithm, where applicable, outlining the optimal management approach. Common Issues in Breast Cancer Survivors: A Practical Guide to Evaluation and Management empowers non-cancer specialists and practitioners who care for breast cancer survivors to address common issues that impact patient quality of life.




Advances in the Treatment of Hormonal Receptor positive (HR+) Breast Cancer


Book Description

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. Breast cancer subtypes are classified according to histologic features, including morphology and receptor status. Information on the expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), as well as the proliferation index Ki67 (in early-stage disease), are relevant for clinical decisions. Molecular tests are now available to further classify the disease into subgroups, stratify risk or estimate the benefit of interventions. Some examples of such tests include the Recurrence Score (OncotypeDX), PAM50 (Prosigna), Mammaprint, Blueprint, and Breast Cancer Index (BCI), among others.




Endocrine Therapy in Breast Cancer


Book Description

This reference evaluates and describes the latest strategies for hormone suppression and blockade in the management of early and advanced stage breast cancer and explores the effects of tamoxifen, selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs), aromatase inhibitors, and their combination on both breast cancers and normal tissues. Endocrine T




Preoperative (Neoadjuvant) Chemotherapy


Book Description

Despite recent advances in adjuvant therapies of cancer, the regi mens of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy treatment which are presently available fail to cure the majority of cancer patients. Pre operative (neoadjuvant) chemotherapy represents a new approach in drug scheduling, based on sound theoretical, pharmacokinetic, and experimental principles. The preoperative timing of chemotherapy before definitive sur gery is not a minor change in the therapy of cancer. To be successful, large numbers of practitioners and their patients must participate. Substantial alterations of many aspects of the present management of cancer will have to follow. Therefore, before such therapy can be fully and routinely implemented, results of the novel treatment and its rationale have to be carefully evaluated. In preoperative treatment, other features will likely gain impor tance. For the first time, clinicians have a chance to follow the in vivo response of the tumor exposed to preoperative chemotherapy. The subsequent histological assessment of the tumor sample may likely become an important prognostic guide, permitting more re fined individual approaches to the planning of postoperative adju vant treatment. The value of such a treatment strategy can already be appreciated in the clinical setting, as seen from the therapy of osteosarcoma. Furthermore, preoperative chemotherapy might render previously inoperable tumors operable and hence resectable with a curative intention. The preoperative reduction of tumor bulk may also effectively decrease the need for more radical operations, permitting a more uniform adoption of conservative surgery.




Breast Cancer in Young Women


Book Description

This contributed book covers all aspects concerning the clinical scenario of breast cancer in young women, providing physicians with the latest information on the topic. Young women are a special subset of patients whose care requires dedicated expertise. The book, written and edited by internationally recognized experts who have been directly involved in the international consensus guidelines for breast cancer in young women, pays particular attention to how the disease and its planned treatment can be effectively communicated to young patients. Highly informative and carefully structured, it provides both theoretical and practice-oriented insight for practitioners and professionals involved in the different phases of treatment, from diagnosis to intervention, to follow-up – without neglecting the important role played by prevention.




Evidence Synthesis for Decision Making in Healthcare


Book Description

In the evaluation of healthcare, rigorous methods of quantitative assessment are necessary to establish interventions that are both effective and cost-effective. Usually a single study will not fully address these issues and it is desirable to synthesize evidence from multiple sources. This book aims to provide a practical guide to evidence synthesis for the purpose of decision making, starting with a simple single parameter model, where all studies estimate the same quantity (pairwise meta-analysis) and progressing to more complex multi-parameter structures (including meta-regression, mixed treatment comparisons, Markov models of disease progression, and epidemiology models). A comprehensive, coherent framework is adopted and estimated using Bayesian methods. Key features: A coherent approach to evidence synthesis from multiple sources. Focus is given to Bayesian methods for evidence synthesis that can be integrated within cost-effectiveness analyses in a probabilistic framework using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation. Provides methods to statistically combine evidence from a range of evidence structures. Emphasizes the importance of model critique and checking for evidence consistency. Presents numerous worked examples, exercises and solutions drawn from a variety of medical disciplines throughout the book. WinBUGS code is provided for all examples. Evidence Synthesis for Decision Making in Healthcare is intended for health economists, decision modelers, statisticians and others involved in evidence synthesis, health technology assessment, and economic evaluation of health technologies.