John Zoidis, MD

The first annual 2007 Cancer Symposium, held September 7-8 in San Francisco, provided an opportunity for members of the oncology community to discuss major developments in breast cancer treatment and research.

In 2007, more than 240,000 persons will receive a diagnosis of breast cancer and nearly 41,000 will die from the disease. Although survival rates have shown significant improvement over the past several decades, breast cancer continues to be the second most common cause of cancer death in women.

Lung cancer is the second most common cancer and the most common cause of cancer-related death in both men and women in the US. At the 12th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC), the world's top lung cancer specialists convened to present and discuss the latest research in this disease. Key themes included accurate targets, new combinations of drugs to reduce toxicity, and strategies to improve outcomes.

The European Commission has granted marketing authorization to sorafenib (Nexavar) for the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer. Nexavar, an oral anticancer drug, is the first approved systemic therapy for HCC and the only one shown to significantly improve overall survival in patients with the disease.

Blood clots and their complications are a major cause of death in cancer patients, and affect up to 20% of persons with cancer at some point in their treatment.

The 14th annual European Cancer Conference, sponsored by the European Cancer Organisation (ECCO), was held September 23-27 in Barcelona, Spain. The results of numerous major clinical trials were presented, along with an increasing wealth of new preclinical and translational data. This exciting new information offers opportunities to consider new treatment approaches both in the research and practice settings.

New research presented at ASCO highlights advantages of pegfilgrastim in patients receiving chemotherapy for a wide variety of solid tumors and hematologic malignancies.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) held its 44th Annual Clinical Meeting in Chicago. Leading oncologists and cancer researchers at centers from around the world presented new basic and clinical research findings to advance the care of cancer.