June 15, 2012 (View All Issues)
T-DM1 Proves More Effective, Less Toxic Than Standard Treatment for Metastatic Breast Cancer
Positive results continue to be reported for trastuzumab emtansine (T‑DM1), the antibody-drug conjugate linking trastuzumab (Herceptin) to a cytotoxic agent. Early results of the international phase III EMILIA study, presented at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting, showed a 35% reduction in risk of...
Decoding the Genetic Blueprint of Cancer Cells: Findings in Multiple Myeloma and Breast Cancer
Advances in next-generation DNA sequencing technologies are allowing scientists to decipher the whole genome or whole exome (ie, the coding region of the genome) of cancer specimens more quickly and inexpensively than ever before. And the results are revealing genes that had not previously been...
Radiotherapy in Early-stage Hodgkin Lymphoma
The treatment of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma is one of the major success stories in medical oncology. Depending on clinical stage, clinical risk factors, and the treatment given, 60% to 90% of all patients can be cured of their malignancy long-term. Hodgkin lymphoma survivors represent one of...
Encouraging Results with Neoadjuvant Therapy for High-risk Prostate Cancer
Use of the CYP17 inhibitor abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) in combination with leuprolide and prednisone prior to radical prostatectomy achieved pathologic complete response or near complete response in one-third of men with high-risk, localized prostate cancer. Abiraterone is FDA-approved for...
Crizotinib Yields Benefits in Aggressive Pediatric Tumors
The value of the targeted agent crizotinib (Xalkori) may not be restricted to the 5% of patients with non–small cell lung cancer who have abnormalities in the ALK gene. In a phase I study conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group consortium, crizotinib halted tumor growth and, in some cases,...
Antipsychotic Effectively Controls Chemotherapy-induced Breakthrough Nausea and Vomiting
Olanzapine (Zyprexa), an FDA-approved antipsychotic, effectively controlled chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) in patients who failed to respond to guideline-recommended antiemetic therapy in a phase III trial presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.1
“This is the first randomized trial...
Dual BRAF and MEK Inhibition Is Active in Advanced Melanoma
In advanced melanoma, combination therapy with two investigational drugs—one targeting BRAF and the other the MEK pathway—achieved a median progression-free survival of 7.4 months, which rose to 10.8 months in patients who were optimally dosed, reported Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, Director of the...
Better Information Needed for Primary Care Providers Who Treat Cancer Survivors
Many primary care providers are unaware of the late effects of chemotherapy, according to survey results presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.1 For three out of four commonly used chemotherapy agents, medical oncologists performed well on the survey, but 29% to 38% of medical oncologists were...
At More than a Century Old, American Association for Cancer Research Continues to Evolve
Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), has been Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) since 1982, and has been instrumental in launching some of the most seminal efforts of the cancer research organization. Over the past 4 years, she has helped spearhead the AACR’s...
Can Whole-genome Sequencing Predict Cancer Risk and Improve Public Health?
If, as expected, the cost of whole-genome sequencing continues to drop, perhaps down to the $1,000 vicinity, it may become an alluring option for consumers who want to know about their risks for cancer and other diseases. But can genome sequencing really provide practical information about...
Maintenance Lenalidomide Improves Progression-free Survival and Time to Progression in Patients with Multiple Myeloma
Three phase III, double-blind, multicenter, randomized studies showed that lenalidomide (Revlimid) maintenance therapy for patients with multiple myeloma significantly improved progression-free survival or time to progression, the primary endpoints of the studies published in The New England...
Postsurgical Local Breast Cancer Therapies Compared in Two Large Studies
A study presented at the 13th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons suggested that accelerated partial-breast irradiation (APBI) using brachytherapy might control the tumor bed better than whole-breast irradiation (WBI), while another study suggested that radiofrequency ablation ...
Epidemiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Breast Cancer Explored at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Meeting
Over 1,300 breast surgeons attended the 13th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons, held May 2–6 in Phoenix. Presentations included investigations on recurrence after lumpectomy, gender differences in breast cancer, and the potential role of infrared thermography in diagnosing...
Risk Stratification and Targeted Therapy, Abetted by Collaboration, Improve Outcomes for Children with Cancer
Outcomes for children with cancer have “improved over the course of the years incrementally, mostly not from the development of new drugs, because virtually all the drugs that we use now in leukemia were available in the 1970s. It is really through better understanding of the heterogeneity of the...
Cancer Survivors Stand Up, Give Thanks, and Give Back
“I have me back,” is how breast cancer survivor Jeanette Daniel of Memphis described her life after being treated on a clinical trial at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville. Being conducted by the Stand Up To Cancer P13K Dream Team, whose leader discovered the PI3K pathway, the trial...
Study Validates Prognostic Role of Tumor Lymphocytic Infiltration in Resectable Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer
The benefit from platinum-based adjuvant chemotherapy in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was demonstrated in four randomized trials (International Adjuvant Lung Cancer Trial [IALT], Canadian JBR.10 trial, Cancer and Leukemia Group B [CALGB] 9633 trial, and Adjuvant Navelbine International...
Best of ASCO® Meetings Deliver Top Annual Meeting Abstracts and Select Educational Sessions in an Intimate Setting
If you have to miss the Annual Meeting this year, don’t worry. ASCO also offers Best of ASCO Meetings, which feature 2 days of presentations on the top scientific abstracts from the Annual Meeting, complemented by select education sessions.
“The Best of ASCO Meeting provides an opportunity for...
Full Membership: What It Means, What It Offers, and Why It’s Essential
As part of our series explaining the benefits of ASCO’s various membership categories, in this issue we focus on the Full Membership Category
Involvement in ASCO—the largest and most inclusive professional organization in oncology—allows those involved in cancer care to chart the very course of...
Patient-friendly News from the ASCO Annual Meeting
Go to Cancer.Net to find the latest news for patients from the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting. At www.cancer.net/ascoannualmeeting, patients can listen to expert-led podcasts, watch disease-specific videos, read research summaries, and get recaps of each day’s highlights. The information here was updated ...
Markers in Cancer 2012, to be Held October 11–13, Will Seek to Move the Field of Biomarkers to the Next Phase
There are hundreds and hundreds of papers published on biomarkers in cancer each year, but very few make it over the hurdles necessary to be used in actual patient care, said James L. Abbruzzese, MD, Chair of the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson ...
ASCO Participates in Two FDA Meetings on Improving Clinical Trials
ASCO recently took part in two public meetings at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that had the broad goal of improving clinical trials and, ultimately, treatment for cancer patients.
Then ASCO President Michael P. Link, MD, served as a panelist on a workshop sponsored by FDA and ASCO,...
Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Initiatives Are Leading to More Effective Targeted Treatment
In 1996, at just 37, the last thing Kathy Giusti expected to hear was that she had the fatal blood cancer multiple myeloma. An executive at Searle Pharmaceuticals and the mother of an 18-month-old daughter, Giusti was told she probably had 3 years to live. At the time, treatments for the disease...
Strong Biomarker Candidates for Predicting Clinical Response to Bevacizumab
Plasma vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) and tumor neuropilin-1 “are strong biomarker candidates for predicting clinical outcome in patients with advanced gastric cancer” after treatment with bevacizumab (Avastin). This was the conclusion of a mandatory biomarker program following up on ...
Egidio Del Fabbro Named Program Director of Palliative Care at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center
Egidio Del Fabbro, MD, has been named program director of palliative care at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center, effective May 1, 2012.
A nationally recognized expert in palliative care, Dr. Del Fabbro comes to VCU Massey from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...
International Photodynamic Medicine Symposium: Shedding New Light on an Old Therapy
This past May, a collaborative think tank of researchers was convened at The Ohio State University, Columbus, to share their expertise in a somewhat older treatment that is reemerging on many fronts: photodynamic therapy.
Participants from the United States, Great Britain, and Japan took part in...
Drug Safety Communication Issued Regarding Lenalidomide and Risk of New Malignancies
The FDA recently released a safety announcement about an increased risk of second primary malignancies in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who received treatment with lenalidomide (Revlimid). Clinical trials conducted after lenalidomide was approved showed that newly diagnosed...
FDA Approves Drugs Faster than Canadian and European Counterparts
According to a study published online in The New England Journal of Medicine (May 16, 2012), the FDA approved more new drugs in less time—about 15% faster—than the European Medicines Agency and Health Canada. The analysis compared drug review performance for the three agencies from 2001 to 2010....
Aflibercept Granted Priority Review for Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc, recently announced that the FDA has granted Priority Review of the Biologics License Application (BLA) for the investigational agent aflibercept (Zaltrap) concentrate for solution for infusion in combination with irinotecan/fluoropyrimidine–based...
FDA-led Research Team Discovers Autoimmune Mechanism for Drug-induced Adverse Reactions
A team of researchers led by the FDA has discovered a new mechanism for identifying and understanding drug-related autoimmune reactions. In an article available online in the journal AIDS, the team reported that in certain at-risk patients, the anti-HIV drug abacavir (Ziagen) causes the immune...
Denosumab Delays Time to First Bone Metastasis in Men with Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer
Denosumab (Xgeva) significantly delayed time to first bone metastases among men with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer enrolled in a phase III randomized, placebo-controlled trial. The time to first bone metastasis was 33.2 months among the 716 patients randomly assigned to receive ...
New Drug Application Submitted for Regorafenib for the Treatment of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
Bayer HealthCare announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA seeking approval for the oral multikinase inhibitor regorafenib for the treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. The submission is based on the results of the pivotal, global phase III CORRECT...
ASCO Reexamines the Oncology Workforce Shortage
A study commissioned by ASCO in 2006 predicted a significant shortage of medical and gynecologic oncologists in the United States by 2020. As a result, the organization created the Workforce Implementation Group to develop recommendations to stem the projected workforce shortfall and ensure ongoing ...
Newest Indication for Rituximab as Maintenance Treatment in Non‑Hodgkin Lymphoma
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs.
Indication
The CD20-directed monoclonal antibody rituximab...
What You Need to Know About Glucarpidase Injection for Toxic Methotrexate Levels in Renal Impairment
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs.
Indication
In January 2012, glucarpidase injection (Voraxaze) was ...
Will Study Showing Increased Complications Compared to Whole-breast Irradiation Put the Brakes on Brachytherapy?
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field.
Older women treated for invasive...
Studies Report Findings in Patient-centered Care
New studies highlighting findings that will lead to improvements in the patient experience and identifying potential risks for development of cancers in the future were reported at a press briefing held during the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago.
“In this era of sophisticated research...
Acai Berry
The use of dietary supplements by patients with cancer has risen significantly over the past 2 decades despite insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness. Finding reliable sources of information about dietary supplements can be daunting. Patients typically rely on family, friends, and the...
Pain Remains Prevalent and Often Inadequately Treated among Cancer Outpatients
“Pain is as prevalent in ambulatory oncology patients with common solid tumors as it was more than 20 years ago, despite the fact that opioid prescribing in the United States has increased more than 10-fold since 1990,” according to results of a study among 3,023 ambulatory patients with cancer...
Screening for Distress and Unmet Needs in Patients with Cancer
In the past decade, “screening for distress has been positioned as the sixth vital sign in cancer care, in addition to the first five, which are measurements of pulse, respiration, blood pressure, temperature, and pain,” according to a review article in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Although...
Surviving the Aftermath of Cancer
With medical information now just a click away, it’s difficult to imagine a time before the Internet existed, when finding answers to questions about serious diseases was nearly impossible. When I was diagnosed with liposarcoma 33 years ago, there was only one oncologist in my hometown of Tyler,...
Pretreatment Tumor Hypoxia Predicts Biochemical Failure after Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer
Hypoxia often occurs early in solid tumor development as a result of imbalances between oxygen supply and consumption and may lead to genetic and molecular signaling that influences the biology and clinical behavior of tumors and response to treatment. Milosevic and colleagues from Princess...
Complex Relationship between Metformin and BRAF-mutant Tumors
The antidiabetic drug metformin appears to lower cancer risk in diabetic patients and has shown antitumor activity in preclinical studies. Suppression of mTOR signaling via AMP kinase (AMPK)-dependent TOR complex 1 (TORC1) inhibition is one of the proposed mechanisms by which metformin appears to...
Gab2 Promotes Characteristics of Epithelial-to-Mesenchymal Transition in Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian cancer is often diagnosed at a late stage, when cancer cells have already migrated and invaded other tissues and organs. Wang and colleagues from the University of Colorado Denver and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, showed that Gab2—a scaffolding adaptor protein that is...
Anti-EpCAM Antibody-Drug Conjugate Shows High Activity against Pancreatic Cancer
Human epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EpCAM) is overexpressed in many cancers. Although anti-EpCAM antibodies have shown promise in preclinical studies, early-phase clinical evaluation of these antibodies has been disappointing.
To determine whether the antitumor activity of anti-EpCAM antibody ...
The Semantics of Palliative Care
The interview with Thomas J. Smith, MD (The ASCO Post, April 15, 2012), the lead author of the ASCO Palliative Care Provisional Clinical Opinion, was timely. However, it left many clinical terms and issues unclear.
A significant percentage of modern medicine, including cancer care, is palliative....
Physicians Need to Be Involved in Reducing Costs
I am so proud of ASCO for participating in the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s Choosing Wisely campaign (see The ASCO Post, May 1, page 19; and page 75 of this issue).
I am the Associate Medical Director for a 280-physician multispecialty group in the Hudson Valley of New York,...
Regional Disparities in Cancer Mortality
I was interested to see an article about the continuing declines in cancer death rates featured in the April 15 issue of The ASCO Post (page 94), as I have just published a paper on breast cancer mortality rates.1 Although overall breast cancer mortality rates have decreased significantly, a much...
Low-dose Radioiodine as Effective as High-dose in Thyroid Ablation
Two studies in The New England Journal of Medicine found that low-dose radioiodine is as effective as a high-dose strategy in treating patients with thyroid cancer and that recombinant human thyrotropin (thyrotropin alfa [Thyrogen]) and thyroid hormone withdrawal had similar efficacy in preparing...
Panobinostat Produces Objective Responses in Patients Refractory to Autologous Transplant
Panobinostat produced objective responses in 27% and tumor reductions in 74% of 129 patients enrolled in “the largest, prospective, multicenter, international trial conducted in heavily pretreated patients” with Hodgkin lymphoma who relapsed or were refractory to autologous stem cell...
Pediatric ALL with Induction Failure Is Highly Heterogeneous with Varying Outcomes
While failure of remission-induction therapy is rare in children and adolescents with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), when it does occur it is highly adverse and heterogeneous, according to a study in The New England Journal of Medicine. “Patients who have T-cell leukemia appear to have a...
Scoring System Based on DNA Repair Pathways Predicts Outcomes and Response to Platinum Therapy
A potentially important tool to identify patients with advanced-stage ovarian cancer likely to benefit from platinum-based chemotherapy and redirect those with poor predicted outcomes to alternative treatments was developed using gene-expression data and validated in two independent datasets. While ...
2012 Oncology Meetings
JUNE
World Conference on Interventional Oncology
June 14-17 • Chicago, Illinois
For more information:
www.wcio2012.org
Emerging Strategies in Treatment of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Head & Neck Cancer
June 16 • Atlanta, Georgia
For more information:
http://cancernetus.com
8th Central...
New Breast Biopsy System with Vacuum Technology Approved
Devicor Medical Products, Inc, announced that it has received 510(k) clearance from the FDA for the Mammotome elite Biopsy System, a tetherless single-insertion, multiple-sample, vacuum-assisted biopsy device featuring proprietary vacuum technology. Devicor also announced the commercial launch of...
