Browse Hematology/Oncology Articles by Topic

Antibiotic stewardship as a weapon against C. diff

The critical importance of antibiotic stewardship has been emphasized to save the dwindling efficacy of antibiotics, stave off a post-antibiotic era, and cut costs due to unnecessary drug use in the first few years of such programs.

Hospital Infection Control & Prevention - Full April 2014 Issue in PDF

Outbreak of rare etiology leads to oncology clinic

If not for several patients being hospitalized with highly unusual bacterial infections, a recently reported outbreak in a West Virginia outpatient oncology clinic may have gone undetected, an investigator with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Eli Lilly joins CDC safe injection campaign

A government-private partnership is breathing new life into the One & Only Campaign, as Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to expand its injection safety program.

New SSI guidelines: Making perfect the enemy of good?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated guidelines for preventing surgical site infections, focusing on some difficult issues in an exhaustive and largely futile attempt to find conclusive data on various practices. As a result, "no recommendation" is a recurrent theme in the document, which was the work of the CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC).

Strategy to Overcome Rituximab Resistance in Patients with Indolent Lymphoma

In a Phase 2 study, Ahmadi and colleagues demonstrate reasonably high response rates in rituximab-resistant indolent lymphoma patients sequentially treated with lenalidomide/dexamethasone (Part 1; 2 monthly cycles) followed by lenalidomide/dexamethasone + weekly rituximab (Part 2; 3 monthly cycles).

Second-line Docetaxel Improves Survival and Symptom Control in Advanced Esophagogastric Cancer

Patients with progressive advanced esophagogastric adenocarcinoma treated with docetaxel in addition to active symptom control (ASC) survived 44% longer than those who received ASC alone.

Bendamustine-Bortezomib-Dexamethasone for Relapsed Myeloma

In a Phase 2 trial, Ludwig and colleagues present data on 79 patients with relapsed or refractory myeloma who were treated with bendamustine in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone.

Toward More Effective Neoadjuvant Breast Cancer Therapy

In a Phase 3, randomized clinical trial of primary systemic therapy for patients with early, locally advanced breast cancer, the addition of capecitabine to each of six 3-weekly cycles of epirubicin-docetaxel resulted in a 1.64 fold increase in the possibility of primary tumor pathologic complete response.

Cancer-reducing Effect of OCPs in BRCA1/BRCA2 Carriers: Do They Work?

The association between oral contraceptive use and ovarian or breast cancer in BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation carriers are qualitatively similar to associations reported in the general population.