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Although the combination of atra with anthracyclines has remarkable activity against low-risk APL (WBC < 5,000 and platelets > 20,000) (OS of 80%-90%), it is less active in patients with high-risk disease. Furthermore, there are long-term toxicities associated with the use of anthracyclines, including second malignancies (e.g., MDS and acute leukemia) and dilated cardiomyopathy.
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In a phase-II study for patients with relapsed or refractory carcinoma of unknown primary, the combination of oxaliplatin and capecitabine was found to be both active and reasonably well tolerated.
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New reports about proton pump inhibitors and the effects of gastric suppression, pioglitazone vs vitamin E for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, metformin and vitamin B12 deficiency, and FDA Actions
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Imatinib at 400 mg daily leads to high response rates for chronic-phase CML, but a subset has suboptimal response and/or toxicity. In this study, 846 subjects were randomized to receive nilotinib, a more selective bcr/abl tyrosine kinase inhibitor, at 300 mg BID or 400 mg BID vs. imatinib at 400 mg daily.
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In a series of patients with MDS, the presence of peripheral blood eosinophilia, basophilia, eosinopenia, and basopenia were each shown to offer prognostic information with regard to overall survival. This information was shown to be of particular additional value for patients with IPSS-Int-2 risk subgroup.
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Ischemic cardiomyopathy remains a frequent cause of heart failure. Management of patients with coronary artery disease with LV dysfunction has traditionally been achieved with coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG). More recently, percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) has shown similar results to CABG in patients with multi-vessel coronary artery disease.
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In this study, Sacher and colleagues, from three well-know ablation centers, report their experience with epicardial ventricular tachycardia (VT) ablation.
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Ambulatory cardiac telemetry uses a cellular phone monitor to continuously receive transmissions from a sensor on the patient, interpret them, and send ECG strips, considered to be possibly dangerous arrhythmias, to a central station for review and possible intervention.