Correctly staging lung cancer is important because the treatment options and prognosis differ significantly by stage. Several noninvasive imaging studies and invasive tests are available. Understanding the accuracy, advantages, and disadvantages of the available methods for staging non-small cell lung cancer is critical to decision-making.

A group of 47 experts representing 23 professional societies, national and international health organizations, and federal agencies met in Bethesda, MD, September 14-15, 2012, to revise the 2006 American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology Consensus Guidelines. The group's goal was to provide revised evidence-based consensus guidelines for managing women with abnormal cervical cancer screening tests, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and adenocarcinoma in situ (AIS) following adoption of cervical cancer screening guidelines incorporating longer screening intervals and co-testing. In addition to literature review, data from almost 1.4 million women in the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Medical Care Plan provided evidence on risk after abnormal tests. Where data were available, guidelines prescribed similar management for women with similar risks for CIN 3, AIS, and cancer. Most prior guidelines were reaffirmed. Examples of updates include: Human papillomavirus-negative atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance results are followed with co-testing at 3 years before return to routine screening and are not sufficient for exiting women from screening at age 65 years; women aged 21-24 years need less invasive management, especially for minor abnormalities; postcolposcopy management strategies incorporate co-testing; endocervical sampling reported as CIN 1 should be managed as CIN 1; unsatisfactory cytology should be repeated in most circumstances, even when HPV results from co-testing are known, while most cases of negative cytology with absent or insufficient endocervical cells or transformation zone component can be managed without intensive follow-up.

Invasive as well as non-invasive methods are available for assessment of the endometrium.

Bendamustine is a unique bifunctional alkylating agent with promising activity in myeloma. Despite the increasing number of studies demonstrating its efficacy in both the upfront and relapse settings, including patients with renal insufficiency, the optimal use of bendamustine, in terms of dosage, schedule and combination with other agents, has yet to be defined. It is currently licensed for use as frontline treatment with prednisolone for patients with myeloma who are unsuitable for transplantation and who are contraindicated for thalidomide and bortezomib. Studies in relapsed/refractory patients are currently ongoing with other combinations. Given the increasing data to date, the UK Myeloma Forum believes that bendamustine with steroids alone or in combination with a novel agent could be considered for patients with multiply relapsed myeloma. This document provides guidance for the use of bendamustine for patients with myeloma until the results of definitive studies are available.

Molecular testing of tumor samples to guide treatment decisions is of increasing importance. Several drugs have been approved for treatment of molecularly defined subgroups of patients, and the number of agents requiring companion diagnostics for their prescription is expected to rapidly increase. The results of such testing directly influence the management of individual patients, with both false-negative and false-positive results being harmful for patients. In this respect, external quality assurance (EQA) programs are essential to guarantee optimal quality of testing. There are several EQA schemes available in Europe, but they vary in scope, size and execution. During a conference held in early 2012, medical oncologists, pathologists, geneticists, molecular biologists, EQA providers and representatives from pharmaceutical industries developed a guideline to harmonize the standards applied by EQA schemes in molecular pathology. The guideline comprises recommendations on the organization of an EQA scheme, defining the criteria for reference laboratories, requirements for EQA test samples and the number of samples that are needed for an EQA scheme. Furthermore, a scoring system is proposed and consequences of poor performance are formulated. Lastly, the contents of an EQA report, communication of the EQA results, EQA databases and participant manual are given.

This report reviews aspects of the German evidence-based guidelines for Hodgkin's lymphoma relevant to radiation oncologists. Stage-adapted treatment is discussed with the focus on radiotherapy. Up-to-date literature citations provide an overview of current recommendations.

In clinical practice, the surveillance and follow-up of patients with breast cancer (BC) is quite variable. At the 7th European Breast Cancer Conference, the ESO-MBC Task Force convened a series of lectures, followed by open debate, on the use of physical examination, imaging, and laboratory tests in patients with early-stage BC, and for restaging evaluations and follow-up among patients with MBC. Based on the available data, the Task Force recommends against intensive, routine radiologic or blood-based surveillance (with the exception of mammography) in patients with early-stage BC. As systemic therapies for MBC continue to improve, this question might be re-visited in the context of a carefully controlled clinical trial in specific BC subtypes. For patients with MBC, response to therapy should generally be assessed 2-3 months after initiation of treatment, and thereafter every 2-4 months for endocrine therapy or every 2-4 cycles for chemotherapy, depending on the dynamics of the disease, the location and extent of metastatic involvement, and type of treatment. Additional testing should be performed irrespective of the planned intervals if progression of disease is suspected (e.g. in the case of specific symptoms). Use of tumor markers is not recommended for surveillance of early-stage patients, but may be helpful in monitoring response to therapy in patients with metastatic disease. However, change in tumor markers alone should not be used for decision-making. Moving forward, enhanced efforts to document quality of life over time should be made in order to more fully evaluate the risk/benefit ratio of available options.

Neuroendocrine tumors are a heterogeneous group of tumors originating in various anatomic locations. The management of this disease poses a significant challenge because of the heterogeneous clinical presentations and varying degrees of aggressiveness. The recent completion of several phase 3 trials, including those evaluating octreotide, sunitinib, and everolimus, demonstrate that rigorous evaluation of novel agents in this disease is possible and can lead to practice-changing outcomes. Nevertheless, there are many aspects to the treatment of neuroendocrine tumors that remain unclear and controversial. The North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society published a set of consensus guidelines in 2010, which provided an overview for the treatment of patients with these malignancies. Here, we present a set of consensus tables intended to complement these guidelines and serve as a quick, accessible reference for the practicing physician.

Bladder cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the United States. Urothelial carcinoma that originates from the urinary bladder is the most common subtype. These NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) provide recommendations on the diagnosis and management of non-muscle-invasive and muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. This version of the guidelines provides extensive reorganization and updates on the principles of chemotherapy management.

The NCCN Guidelines for Melanoma provide multidisciplinary recommendations on the clinical management of patients with melanoma. This NCCN Guidelines Insights report highlights notable recent updates. Foremost of these is the exciting addition of the novel agents ipilimumab and vemurafenib for treatment of advanced melanoma. The NCCN panel also included imatinib as a treatment for KIT-mutated tumors and pegylated interferon alfa-2b as an option for adjuvant therapy. Also important are revisions to the initial stratification of early-stage lesions based on the risk of sentinel lymph node metastases, and revised recommendations on the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy for low-risk groups. Finally, the NCCN panel reached clinical consensus on clarifying the role of imaging in the workup of patients with melanoma.

To establish evidence-based recommendations for the molecular analysis of lung cancers that are required to guide EGFR- and ALK-directed therapies, addressing which patients and samples should be tested, and when and how testing should be performed.

To establish evidence-based recommendations for the molecular analysis of lung cancers that are required to guide EGFR- and ALK-directed therapies, addressing which patients and samples should be tested, and when and how testing should be performed.

A systematic literature review of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-targeted prostate biopsy demonstrates poor adherence to the Standards for the Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) recommendations for the full and transparent reporting of diagnostic studies.

Melanoma is in the top ten of the most common types of cancer in the Netherlands. Incidence is increasing steadily by about 4% every year. The relative 5-year survival rate for patients with a melanoma with Breslow thickness < 1mm is about 98%. The national guideline 'Melanoma version 2.0' is the result of an evidence based revision focussed on the most important bottlenecks encountered in clinical practice. The most important changes concern indications for sentinel node procedures (in patients with tumours stage 1b and higher) and multidisciplinary consultation (patients with stage 3 and 4 tumours). The guideline is intended for all professionals involved in diagnosis, treatment and support of patients with melanoma of the skin.- Guideline summary cards and the 'Melanoma Pathway' ('Zorgpad Melanoom') are available at www.iknl.nl.- An English translation of the quideline will be available in April 2013 at www.oncoline.nl.

Optimal treatment for patients suffering from gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) is based on an interdisciplinary treatment approach. Austrian representatives of Medical and Surgical Oncology, Pathology, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, Gastroenterology, and Laboratory Medicine issued this manuscript on a consensual base within the context of currently available and published literature. This paper contains guidelines and recommendations for diagnosis, therapy, and follow-up of GIST patients in Austria.

These NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for Cervical Cancer focus on early-stage disease, because it occurs more frequently in the United States. After careful clinical evaluation and staging, the primary treatment of early-stage cervical cancer is either surgery or radiotherapy. These guidelines include fertility-sparing and non-fertility-sparing treatment for those with early-stage disease, which is disease confined to the uterus. A new fertility-sparing algorithm was added for select patients with stage IA and IB1 disease..

During the past decade planning of adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) of early breast cancer has changed from two-dimensional (2D) to 3D conformal techniques. In the planning computerised tomography (CT) scan both the targets for RT and the organs at risk (OARs) are visualised, enabling an increased focus on target dose coverage and homogeneity with only minimal dose to the OARs. To ensure uniform RT in the national prospective trials of the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group (DBCG), a national consensus for the delineation of clinical target volumes (CTVs) and OARs was required.

To set out good practice guidelines for locoregional extension assessment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (excluding nasopharynx, nasal cavities and sinuses).