A clinical trial comparing treatments for early stage aggressive lymphoma has found that an intensive regimen of chemotherapy is better than chemotherapy plus radiation for treating the disease in its early stages, according to a study in the March 24 New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Felix Reyes of the Hopital Henri Mondor in Creteil, France, and his colleagues found that an intensive regimen of doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vindesine, bleomycin, and prednisone (ACVBP) was superior to cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) plus radiation.

"After a median follow-up of 7.7 years, we found superior event-free and overall survival rates among patients treated with chemotherapy alone," the researchers wrote.

The 5-year estimates of event-free survival were 82 percent for patients receiving chemotherapy alone and 74 percent for those receiving chemotherapy plus radiation. The respective 5-year estimates of overall survival were 90 percent and 81 percent.  Read more  

It's always rewarding to be recognized for a job well done, especially when you are so firmly committed to that job. So it's heartening to see that the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) campuses in Maryland have, for the third year in a row, been selected among the top institutions for postdoctoral life sciences researchers in the United States by readers of The Scientist magazine. The accolade is the result of voting by more than 3,500 postdoctoral fellows from the United States, Canada, and Europe based on criteria such as the value of the training they received, access to research equipment and library resources, and good mentoring relationships.

At the NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR) Fellows and Young Investigators retreat last month, it was easy to see the results of this training in action. Clinical and research fellows, visiting scientists, postbaccalaureate fellows, and other young investigators from CCR heard talks from leading NCI researchers and investigators from the extramural community and shared results from their own exciting research - work that is at the heart of advances being made by NCI's intramural programs.  Read more  

The NCI Cancer Bulletin is produced by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). NCI, which was established in 1937, leads the national effort to eliminate the suffering and death due to cancer. Through basic, clinical, and population-based biomedical research and training, NCI conducts and supports research that will lead to a future in which we can identify the environmental and genetic causes of cancer, prevent cancer before it starts, identify cancers that do develop at the earliest stage, eliminate cancers through innovative treatment interventions, and biologically control those cancers that we cannot eliminate so they become manageable, chronic diseases. For more information on cancer, call 1-800-4-CANCER or visit http://www.cancer.gov. NCI Cancer Bulletin staff can be reached at ncicancerbulletin@mail.nih.gov.