Dear Radiation Oncology Insider,
We recently attended the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO) meeting in Los Angeles. We're happy to report that we didn't get caught in the city's infamous traffic snarls, but we're disappointed that we didn't have a single celebrity sighting. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the conference and have returned with the latest clinical and research news from your rad onc colleagues.
In fact, our Insider Exclusive article summarizes two ASTRO studies on the role of neck dissection for head and neck cancer patients. Is surgery always necessary for these patients after radiotherapy? Click here for the answer.
In other head and neck cancer news, adding docetaxel to standard induction therapy with cisplatin and fluorouracil can significantly improve survival, according to a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine. Speaking of keeping one's head together, physicians should step up to help patients deal with the psychological toll of cancer and its subsequent treatment, according to an Institute of Medicine panel.
Moving on to lung cancer, the Radiation Oncology Digital Community features an article on lung function and planning for intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). This story comes to us from U.K.-based medicalphysicsweb. By the way, we met the site's editor, Joe McEntee, at the ASTRO confab and found him so amiable we shared our British chocolate with him.
Finally, check out several articles related to prostate cancer: the link between postprostatectomy radiotherapy and surgical margins; why a Swiss group believes prostatectomy is better than radiation-based treatment (hint: none of the study authors is a radiation oncologist); and why androgen deprivation therapy may increase the risk of heart disease.
