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<recommendedContent xmlns="http://api.mspoke.com">
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_465"
                     title="Genetic Pathways Play Role in NSCLC Survival (CME/CE)"
                     score="0.011"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/LungCancer/tb/18396?impressionId=1265784543890"
                     
      Researchers say they&apos;ve found genetic characteristics associated with age and sex differences observed in recurrence-free survival among non-small cell lung cancer patients.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Older patients at higher risk for recurrence had increased activation of wound-healing and invasiveness pathways, while high-risk women had increased activation of invasiveness and &lt;em&gt;STAT3&lt;/em&gt; pathways, Anil Potti, MD, of Duke University, and colleagues reported in the Feb. 10 issue of the &lt;em&gt;Journal of the American Medical Association&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;High-risk men had increased activation of the &lt;em&gt;STAT3&lt;/em&gt;, tumor necrosis factor, &lt;em&gt;EGFR&lt;/em&gt;, and wound-healing pathways, Potti the researchers found.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;&quot;This analysis represents one of the first large-scale attempts to comprehensively characterize the biology of early-stage [non-small cell lung cancer] at a molecular pathway level and demonstrates a clear distinction in gene expression profiles within relevant age and sex categories,&quot; they wrote.&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There&apos;s lots of evidence that clinical and pathologic factors are clinically relevant, the researchers noted, but little is known about the underlying biological differences in lung tumor gene expression among patients with different characteristics, including age and gender.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;So Potti and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of 787 patients with predominantly early stage non-small cell lung cancer at Duke University from July 2008 to June 2009.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;They stratified their results by risk of recurrence, age, and gender.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;They found that high-risk patients under 70 had greater activation of the &lt;em&gt;Src&lt;/em&gt; and tumor necrosis factor pathways than low-risk patients (25% versus 6%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001; and 76% versus 42%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001, respectively).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In patients 70 and older, those at high risk for recurrence had greater activation of the wound-healing and invasiveness pathways than low-risk patients (40% versus 24%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.02; and 64% versus 20%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001, respectively).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Although this is a novel finding, biologically this is not entirely unexpected,&quot; the researchers wrote in reference to the data in older patients. &quot;The invasiveness and wound-healing gene signatures likely identify tumors at high risk of metastasis, along with the wound-healing signature identifying activation of angiogenesis pathways.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Their findings also corroborated previous evidence that biology and clinical course of the disease are sex-specific, as the analysis found that women had significantly better progression-free survival than men (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.008).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In general, men had a higher probability of activation of these pathways than women:&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Chromosomal instability (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.001)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Epigenetic stem cell (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.03)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Invasiveness (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.005)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;Myc&lt;/em&gt; (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.02)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Wound-healing (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.004)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Women, meanwhile, had a higher probability of activation of the &lt;em&gt;E2F1&lt;/em&gt; pathway (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.04).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When stratified by risk, high-risk women had increased activation of the invasiveness and &lt;em&gt;STAT3&lt;/em&gt; pathways compared with low-risk women (99% versus 2%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001; and 72% versus 35%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001, respectively).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Compared with low-risk men, those with high risk had increased activation of the following pathways:&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;STAT3&lt;/em&gt; (87% versus 18%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Tumor necrosis factor (90% versus 46%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001) &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;em&gt;EGFR&lt;/em&gt; (13% versus 2%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Wound-healing pathways (50% versus 22%, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Multivariate analyses confirmed pathway-based subphenotypes in women (HR 2.02, 95% CI 1.34 to 3.03, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001) and in patients under 70 (HR 1.83, 95% CI 1.24 to 2.71, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.003).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;While differences in clinical outcomes and the biology of [non-small cell lung cancer] based on age and sex have been previously noted, we were able to describe the molecular networks contributing to these differences,&quot; the researchers wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;They said the findings are &quot;apt for therapeutic interventions when planning clinical trials with drugs that target specific pathway-related abnormalities or tumor biology.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;With genomic assays now being increasingly practical and clinically applicable, with turnaround times of five to seven days,&quot; they concluded, &quot;we believe our findings, while hypothesis generating and needing further validation, represent a step forward in defining pathway-driven cohorts of [non-small cell lung cancer] that likely explain the age-and sex-specific differences.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;float:left;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-color:#8dabbc;font-family:arial;font-size:12px;background-color:#DBE9F2;padding:5px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;The study was supported by grants from the Emilene Brown Cancer Research Fund, the Harold and Linda Chapman Lung Cancer Fund, the Jimmy V Foundation, the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The researchers reported no conflicts of interest.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;clear:both;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_304"
                     title="&apos;Virtual&apos; Colon Scans Effective in Seniors (CME/CE)"
                     score="0.003"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/ColonCancer/tb/18164?impressionId=1265784543890"
                     
      Patients 65 and older are as suitable as younger individuals for CT colonography, said researchers conducting a large retrospective study.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;Advanced neoplasias were detected with CT colonography  --  often called &quot;virtual colonoscopy&quot;  --  in older patients at more than double the rate in the general screening population, reported David H. Kim, MD, of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wis., and colleagues in the February issue of &lt;em&gt;Radiology&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;br&gt;They found that 7.6% of older patients had advanced neoplasias, compared with 3.2% of all patients screened in the university&apos;s clinic (&lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.001).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On the basis of this and other findings in 577 individuals 65 and older versus the entire group of 3,120 patients undergoing the procedure, Kim and colleagues concluded that &quot;CT colonography performance is maintained in an older cohort.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Overall, the observations from this clinical experience confirm that CT colonography may be a valuable screening modality in the older population,&quot; they wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, the study did not address several objections raised by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in its decision last year to deny Medicare coverage for the procedure. (See &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Medicare/14186&quot; mce_href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/Medicare/14186&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Medicare Finalizes Denial of Virtual Colonoscopy Coverage&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;CMS had pointed to relatively low sensitivity of CT colonography compared with optical colonoscopy in prospective trials, especially for small lesions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The agency also determined that CT colonography increased the costs of positive findings, since abnormalities in the CT scans must be confirmed with optical colonoscopy. In addition, CMS said there was no evidence to support claims that the less invasive imaging procedure would be more acceptable to patients and therefore would raise screening rates.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The data analyzed by Kim and colleagues did not allow for calculations of false-negative rates or predictive values of positive or negative findings. Nor did the researchers report cost information.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mean age of their older cohort was 69.2 (SD 3.8). The oldest was 79.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The researchers reported that 15.3% of the older patients were referred for optical colonoscopy on the basis of the CT results, compared with 7.9% of the overall screening group.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Less than 4% of positive findings were determined to be false with the optical procedure (3.6% for polyps 6 to 10 mm in diameter, 2.1% for larger lesions).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Of the 59 advanced neoplasias identified in the older patients, all but three were at least 10 mm in size.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The scans also suggested abnormalities outside the colon in 89 (15.4%) patients. Of these, 45 received a full workup, which revealed substantial and previously unsuspected diagnoses in 21 cases  -- 18 were vascular aneurysms. The other three included one lung tumor, a femoral hernia, and a malrotation.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Kim and colleagues reported that no &quot;substantial complications&quot; such as perforations or major hemorrhage occurred in the older patients, either with the CT scan or follow-up colonoscopy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;They also indicated that the ratio of large to small neoplasias was similar in the older patients compared with their CT screening group as a whole. Histologic and morphologic findings were similar as well.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The researchers cited the observational nature of the study, in which negative findings were not corroborated with optical colonoscopy, and its restriction to a single center as its main limitations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;float:left;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-color:#8dabbc;font-family:arial;font-size:12px;background-color:#DBE9F2;padding:5px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;No external funding for the study was reported.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Kim and one co-author reported relationships with Viatronix and Medicsight and are co-founders of a company called VirtuoCTC, which produces educational materials on CT colonography.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;clear:both;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_250"
                     title="Cancer Research &quot;Giant&quot; Lawrence Garfinkel Dies at 88"
                     score="-0.002"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/Pulmonology/Smoking/tb/18108?impressionId=1265784543890"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;Epidemiologist Lawrence Garfinkel, MA, a legendary researcher for the American Cancer Society whose work helped establish a link between cancer and smoking and other activities, died of cardiovascular disease Thursday in Seattle, Washington at 88.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;The American Cancer Society today mourns the loss of one of its most important historical figures,&quot; said John R. Seffrin, PhD, the society&apos;s chief executive officer.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Larry Garfinkel joined the American Cancer Society as a young scientist in 1947, and for more than four decades played an instrumental role in expanding knowledge of and reducing death from smoking.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Garfinkel&apos;s 1982 Cancer Prevention Study-II (CPS-II) is the largest contemporary study of tobacco and mortality, with 1.2 million participants and 77,000 data-compiling volunteers across 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;CPS-II uncovered the effects of lifestyle factors, such as obesity, alcohol consumption, medications, genetic elements, that affect cancer and other chronic diseases, the analysis of which still reveals important clues about cancer today.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The study also found lung cancer mortality rates in women increased five-fold from data collected in the original Cancer Prevention Study, while cancer rates among non-smoking women remained the same. This information provided strong evidence that lung cancer was almost exclusively a disease found in smokers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Garfinkel was born on January 11, 1922 in Manhattan&apos;s Lower East Side and was raised in the South Bronx.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;He served in the army during World War II, where he was seriously injured in northern France in August, 1944.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Ultimately, Garfinkel graduated from the City College of New York and received a Masters Degree from Columbia University. He also received several honorary doctorates.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Garfinkel began work for the ACS in 1947.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;He assisted E. Cuyler Hammond, MD, and Daniel Horn, MD, in the first ACS prospective mortality study of 187,783 males in the late 1940&apos;s by coordinating much of the field work, including training thousands of ACS volunteers in data collection techniques.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Garfinkel acted as the co-principal investigator of the larger Cancer Prevention Study I (CPS-I) in 1959. The study enrolled 1 million participants across 25 states and required over 68,000 volunteers to collect data.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In the 1960s, he contributed to more than two dozen major papers on the relation between smoking and health. He was co-author of one of the first reports combining epidemiology with pathology and provided some of the first direct evidence of lung damage related to smoking.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Garfinkel also contributed to issuance of the landmark 1964 Surgeon General&apos;s report on smoking and health.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;He was appointed director of ACS research in 1979 after Hammond&apos;s retirement.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Garfinkel retired from the ACS in 1989. Over the course of his career, he had contributed to more than 100 journal articles.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Richard D. Klausner, MD, then-director of the National Cancer Institute, said at the time: &quot;Few individuals have contributed as much to our present-day knowledge about the disease consequences of smoking.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;His remarkable achievement is an important reminder what a tremendous impact an individual can make, and inspires all of us to continue the fight against cancer.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Garfinkel continued to volunteer with the ACS after his retirement and taught biostatistics at the New York University Dental School.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;He is survived by his brothers, Harold and Melvin; his sons, Martin and Herb; a daughter-in-law, Margaret Cary, and two grandchildren.&lt;/p&gt;

    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_248"
                     title="Continued Smoking Worsens Lung Cancer Prognosis (CME/CE)"
                     score="-0.002"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/LungCancer/tb/18105?impressionId=1265784543890"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;It&apos;s never too late to stop smoking, even for smokers already diagnosed with lung cancer, a new analysis shows.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;A systematic review of published trials of smokers diagnosed with early stage lung cancer disclosed that patients who stopped smoking when diagnosed were about twice as likely to survive for five years as those who continued to smoke after diagnosis, wrote Amanda Parsons, PhD, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham in England, and colleagues in a paper published online Jan. 22 by &lt;em&gt;BMJ.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Continuing smoking was associated with a significantly increased risk of all cause mortality (hazard ratio 2.94, 95% CI, 1.15 to 7.54) as well as increased risk of cancer recurrence (HR 1.86, 95% CI 1.01 to 3.41), they wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The authors extrapolated the benefit of smoking cessation from both the recurrence and mortality data, since none of the studies contained specific information on the &quot;effect of quitting smoking on cancer specific mortality or on development of a second primary tumor in non-small cell lung cancer.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;They used life table-modeling to come up with the estimate that 33% of smokers diagnosed with early stage NSCLC at age 65 would survive for five years if they continued to smoke, versus an estimated 70% among those who quit smoking after diagnosis.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;This review has found evidence that after lung cancer has been diagnosed, reductions in risk of developing a second primary or recurrence were associated with quitting within seven years, suggesting that, even at this stage the prognostic outlook can be improved by smoking cessation,&quot; they wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Whether this observation can be explained by nicotine or by other components of tobacco smoke is unknown, but regardless of the exact mechanism of harm, the authors wrote, the findings &quot;support the hypothesis that continued smoking affects the behavior of a lung tumor.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In an accompanying editorial, Tom Treasure, MD, a cardiothoracic surgeon at University College London, and psychiatrist Janet Treasure, PhD, also from University College, wrote that Parsons et al demonstrated that the impact of continued smoking is so large that both patients and &quot;those caring for them should be given this information because the potential benefit is great.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There is one significant problem both for patients and doctors, the editorialists noted: &quot;Fewer than one in three patients with lung cancer survive even one year, so the patients likely to benefit are probably healthier to begin with. So, although the information is valuable, it&apos;s application may be limited.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Discussing its limitations, the review&apos;s authors noted that it was based on data from 10 observational studies, which raises the &quot;possibility of uncontrolled confounding.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Moreover, definitions of smoking &quot;abstinence were generally poor and only five of the 10 studies assigned patients to smoking categories on the basis of smoking status recorded at six months or more after diagnosis.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Additionally, they noted, it appears that &quot;smokers with unfavorable prognostic factors were most likely to give up smoking, so that unadjusted estimates underestimated the benefits of quitting.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;float:left;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-color:#8dabbc;font-family:arial;font-size:12px;background-color:#DBE9F2;padding:5px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;The study was funded by the UK Center for Tobacco Control Studies, the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, and the National Institute for Health Research.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Parsons said she has been reimbursed by Pfizer, maker of varenicline (Chantix) and nicotine nasal spray and inhaler products (Nicotrol).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The editorial writers disclosed no competing interests.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;clear:both;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_242"
                     title="Ultrasound Aids Early Ovarian Cancer Detection (CME/CE)"
                     score="-0.002"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/Radiology/DiagnosticRadiology/tb/18096?impressionId=1265784543890"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;Serum biomarkers identified through proteomic analysis, coupled with contrast-enhanced ultrasound, ultimately may provide a means for early diagnosis of ovarian cancer, researchers say.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;Exciting preliminary data have shown that specific combinations of peptides from molecules, such as &lt;em&gt;BRCA2&lt;/em&gt;, exist in the serum of epithelial ovarian cancer patients,&quot; Sonia Dutta, MD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and colleagues reported in the February&lt;em&gt; American Journal of Roentgenology&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;This discovery suggests that &quot;highly discriminatory proteins&quot; may serve as biomarkers for early epithelial cell ovarian cancer, although the findings must be further validated, the authors wrote.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Despite advances in surgery and chemotherapy, survival from advanced stage ovarian cancer is only 30%, and the authors cite a &quot;dire need&quot; for a validated screening method to detect the disease early.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Unsuccessful efforts find a biomarker for this deadly malignancy have focused primarily on a single cancer-specific marker, which the authors concede is a &quot;mission impossible.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Impediments to the identification of cancer-specific markers include the molecular heterogeneity that characterizes different tumors, the sharing of pathophysiologic events among cancer and other diseases, and low marker production and concentration.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;To overcome these difficulties, a new approach known as proteomics is being used to analyze the entire protein complement of a cell.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The rationale for this analytical technique lies in a significantly greater understanding of the tumor microenvironment. It is now known that tumor cells participate in complex interactions with surrounding structures and other cell populations.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;This biochemical cross-talk is hypothesized to generate a cascade of specific and sensitive biomarkers elaborated directly from the tumor cell population, indirectly from the interacting non-tumor cells or extracellular molecules, or a specific product of the microecology,&quot; they explained.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In fact, the most specific cancer markers may turn out to be molecules that normally are not malignant but that have been modified by that tumor microenvironment  --  clipped, cleaved, phosphorylated, or glycosylated  --  and carry a detailed picture of the local pathophysiology.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Previous techniques used in the hunt for markers, such as two-dimensional gel electrophoresis, were unable to detect these altered or clipped molecules, which occupy the low molecular weight range of the proteome.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Mass spectrometry, which is most sensitive in the low molecular weight range, is now a tool used to explore these modified protein molecules and has already revealed a vast number of previously unknown biomarkers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The next steps, the researchers explained, will be to develop capture reagents that can measure the markers and, using reverse-phase protein array, to further characterize proteins of interest.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But any diagnostic information gained through proteomic analysis must be verified by some imaging technique. Conventional ultrasound has proven inadequate, but pulse-inversion harmonic ultrasound currently appears to differentiate malignant from benign lesions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For example, although the time to peak enhancement with contrast-enhanced ultrasound is similar in benign and malignant masses, a small study found that malignant lesions have: &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;Greater peak enhancement (23.3 versus 12.3 dB, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.01)&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Longer half wash-out time (139.9 versus 46.3 seconds, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;&amp;lt;0.01)&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;Greater area under the enhancement curve (2,012.9 versus 523.9 seconds, &lt;em&gt;P&lt;/em&gt;=0.07)&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The authors noted that these enhancement kinetics data were from just 17 patients and are therefore limited, but stated that the technique &quot;shows great promise.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In addition, the diagnostic capacity of ultrasound can be further increased by the use of intravenous contrast agents, which may help visualize the early microvascular changes typical of malignancy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The researchers predicted that, by using a combination of clinically relevant biomarkers identified through proteomic analyses plus contrast-enhanced ultrasound, &quot;we will likely be able to shift from an era of diagnosing advanced-stage ovarian cancer to that of early-stage disease and, most important, save the lives of many women.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div style=&quot;float:left;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-color:#8dabbc;font-family:arial;font-size:12px;background-color:#DBE9F2;padding:5px;&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;No disclosures were provided.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div style=&quot;clear:both;&quot;&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
</recommendedContent>