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Showing 10851 - 10900Many Women Treated for High-risk Breast Cancer Do Not Receive Recommended Postmastectomy Radiation Therapy
Despite major studies showing that postmastectomy radiation therapy improves survival for women with high-risk breast cancer and evidence-based guidelines supporting the use of postmastectomy radiotherapy, 45% of these patients do not receive such treatment, according to an analysis of data from...
Tissue of Origin Test Evaluated in Patients with Cancer of Unknown Primary
According to results of a study published in the Journal of Molecular Biomarkers and Diagnosis,1 the recently developed Tissue of Origin Test (Pathwork Diagnostics, Inc) aids in the diagnosis of challenging cancer cases such as those that are metastatic or that have a complex clinical history,...
Treating Cancer in Japan: A Conversation with Kensei Tobinai, MD
In this installment of Oncology Worldwide, internationally regarded lymphoma expert and cancer survivor, Kensei Tobinai, MD, Chief, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, sheds light on the Japanese oncology experience. Medical Education What was the medical school experience in Japan like? When...
Integrative Oncology Modalities Supported by Varying Levels of Evidence, but More Research Needed Overall
Over the past couple of decades, unregulated nonstandard oncology approaches have gained growing popularity among cancer patients. The relatively new field of integrative oncology was established to promote a more holistic and multidisciplinary approach to cancer care and to encourage scientific...
Lifestyle Changes Can Benefit Patients with Cancer
Oncologists may successfully manage their patients with cancer by following treatment guidelines, but they come up short when it comes to prescribing simple measures to enhance their patients’ health, according to Ann Partridge, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, who spoke on the...
FDA Clears Genetic FISH Panel for Leukemia Patient Prognosis
Abbott announced it has received 510k clearance from the FDA for a new in vitro diagnostic test to aid in determining the prognosis of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Abbott’s Vysis CLL FISH Probe Kit is the first FDA-cleared CLL test to aid in prognosis. The test detects genetic...
What the Latest Breast Cancer News Means for Patients
Direct your patients to www.cancer.net/breastsymposium to learn about the research highlighted at the 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium in the special online newsletter, Cancer Advances: News for Patients from the 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium. Also, your patients can listen to a podcast of the...
ASCO’s International Clinical Trials Workshop Educates Nascent Researchers on the Inner Workings of Clinical Trials
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly conducting drug development research outside of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Attracted to the perceived lower costs, easier patient recruitment, and market potential, drug developers are now conducting more phase III clinical trials in...
ASCO’s Immediate Past President Helps Build Future of Cancer Research and Care by Supporting Conquer Cancer Foundation
George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, has been treating patients with breast cancer, and pursuing research in the field, for more than 30 years—the last few electrified by a rapid proliferation of knowledge. “We have so much to offer our patients today,” says Dr. Sledge, who serves as Ballve-Lantero Professor...
Developing Targeted-agent Combinations: Business and Regulatory Issues, and Legal Obstacles
The Institute of Medicine’s National Cancer Policy Forum recently convened a public workshop, “Facilitating Collaborations to Develop Combination Investigational Cancer Therapies,” to address the promises and challenges involved in the development of combination oncologic drug therapies. In the...
Oncology Drug Shortage: An Unintended Consequence of the Medicare Modernization Act and Free-market Forces?
Oncology has a drug shortage problem, and the FDA says that it is getting worse. Drug shortages are not a new phenomenon, but over the past few years we have seen a rapidly growing number of shortfalls that are limiting providers’ ability to care for their patients. In 2004, the FDA reported 58...
A Conversation with Monica Morrow, MD, FACS
Over the past 15 years, practice guidelines have become an accepted tool to help physicians optimize patient care by offering informed assessment of the benefits and potential harms associated with various care options. However, a plethora of new guidelines have entered the market, many of which...
We Can Conduct Clinical Trials of Protons
A great deal has been written about proton therapy, with a good deal of heat and only a modest amount of light. I would like to comment on an aspect of the proton vs photon controversy that I believe has not been adequately addressed: Should we run clinical trials that would allow us to prove that...
Palliative Care, Quality of Life, and Cost
More than half of our nation’s patients with cancer are Medicare beneficiaries, making the entitlement program ground zero in the heated debate on health-care spending. Total Medicare expenditures attributable to beneficiaries in their last year of life runs upward of 30%; this statistic serves as...
Important Benefit for Small Population Is a Major Milestone in Lymphoma
The approval of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) is a major milestone for the treatment of patients with relapsed Hodgkin lymphoma and anaplastic large cell lymphoma. It represents an excellent example of personalized cancer therapy. Patients are preselected based on a predictive biomarker that is...
FDA Approves Brentuximab Vedotin in Two Lymphoma Indications
The antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) was granted accelerated approval on August 19 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Brentuximab vedotin is the first new drug to be approved in Hodgkin lymphoma in more...
Giving Women a Fighting Chance When They Have Breast Cancer
I knew there was a chance I could get breast cancer, I just never thought it would really happen to me. I am one of 2.5 million breast cancer survivors living in our country today. Just weeks after getting a clean mammogram and my 41st birthday, I felt a lump in my breast. As a young and otherwise...
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: ‘Unrealistic Optimism’ or Losing Sight of the Forest for the Trees?
The article: “Unrealistic Optimism Poses Ethical Challenges, May Affect Informed Consent Process” (The ASCO Post, September 1, 2011, page 35) seems to be delving into a subject with an intent that is unclear. I agree fully with Dr. Jimmie Holland that discrimination between “optimism” and...
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Treating Cancer or Fear?
I read the article by Deb Stewart, “Acting on Fear” (The ASCO Post, August 15, 2011, page 1) with interest, disappointment, and empathy. “Acting on fear” in cancer treatment generally, and particularly in breast cancer, is not uncommon. Hence, I was most interested in the article’s major thrust, as ...
Replacing Epirubicin with Docetaxel for Three Cycles Improved Outcomes for Node-positive Breast Cancer
Substituting docetaxel for epirubicin in the final three cycles of chemotherapy resulted in improvement in disease-free and overall survival in a trial among postmenopausal women with node-positive early breast cancer. Following complete excision, women enrolled in the Docetaxel Epirubicin Adjuvant ...
Comparing Therapies for Managing Hot Flashes in Women with Breast Cancer
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, two often-prescribed treatments recommended in clinical guidelines for the management of hot flashes were found to be effective in managing hot flashes in patients with breast cancer. Patient-reported hot flash scores showed that venlafaxine, a selective ...
Doxorubicin/Cyclophosphamide with Docetaxel Equally Effective in Combination or Sequentially
Five-year disease-free survival and overall survival rates were “indistinguishable” in patients with operable, node-positive, HER2-nonamplified breast cancer treated with the sequential or combination regimens of doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide (AC) and docetaxel (T). The Breast Cancer International...
SIDEBAR: ASCO’s Role Recognized
One point that Paul H. Sugarbaker, MD, and David P. Ryan, MD, agreed on was that ASCO has done a service to the oncology community by presenting their debate about cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. That debate, conducted at the 2011 ASCO Annual Meeting, sparked...
SIDEBAR: Expect Questions from Patients and Colleagues
Among the merits of good clinical studies, according to David P. Ryan, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, is being able to cite them when a physician sits down with a patient to explain the possible benefits and drawbacks of treatment. Dr. Ryan stressed, ...
‘Hot Chemotherapy’ Generates Heated Debate about Its Use with Cytoreductive Surgery to Manage Peritoneal Metastases
"Hot chemotherapy” has become the common term for hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), which together with cytoreductive surgery is being used by some surgeons to treat patients with carcinomatosis from colorectal cancer. While HIPEC is not considered the most important component of...
SIDEBAR: Customary Prompt Pay
In the 2006 Physician Fee Schedule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) interpreted the Medicare Modernization Act definition of average sales price to include “prompt pay” in its calculation. CMS maintains that since the statute includes the words “prompt pay discount,” it must...
Oncology Community Faces Complex Challenges in Evolving Policy Arena
As the political environment heats up in advance of the upcoming presidential campaign season, many issues crucial to the oncology community are being placed on the political chopping block as policymakers seek ways to reduce the mounting debt and soaring health-care spending. To help clarify some...
ASCO Issues Policy Statement to Reduce Cancer Care Disparities
Last August, ASCO issued the policy statement, “Opportunities in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to Reduce Cancer Care Disparities” in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 The statement builds on ASCO’s policy on disparities in cancer care released in 2009. It calls on both the...
SIDEBAR: Who Should Manage Survivorship Care?
It has been suggested that after completing their treatment, cancer patients can be transitioned to primary care providers for continued “survivorship” care. But at the Best of ASCO meeting, speakers and audience members alike felt survivorship care is the domain of the treating oncologist. Few...
Yoga, Geriatric Assessment, and Nausea/Vomiting Addressed in Session on Supportive Care and Survivorship Issues
Marie E. Wood, MD, of the Familial Cancer Program at the University of Vermont, Burlington, addressed clinically relevant issues in supportive care and survivorship at the Best of ASCO® Annual Meeting ‘11 in Miami. Delayed Nausea and Vomiting Two studies addressed the problem of...
Improvements Highlighted in Treatment of Leukemias and Preleukemias
Certain preleukemic conditions and leukemia in high-risk patients have remained challenging to treat despite advances in hematology, according to Wendy Stock, MD, of the University of Chicago. But studies reported at the Best of ASCO® Annual Meeting ‘11 in Seattle show progress even in these ...
Novel Drugs Ipilimumab and Vemurafenib for Advanced Melanoma
In this introductory installment of In the Clinic, The ASCO Post provides an overview of two new melanoma agents recently approved by FDA, with discussion on pivotal data leading to approval, dosage and administration, and managing drug-related toxicities. Watch for more on clinical use of novel...
ASCO Study Shows Integrating Nonphysician Providers into Oncology Practices Is a Win for Patients and Providers
Is the expanded use of nonphysician providers (NPPs) a viable way to help ease the challenges oncology practices could feel if the number of oncologists entering the field does not keep pace with potential growth in the demand for their services? The ASCO Workforce Advisory Group thought the...
Short-term Androgen Deprivation plus Radiotherapy Improves Outcomes in Intermediate-risk Prostate Cancer
The addition of short-term androgen-deprivation therapy to external-beam radiation therapy improved overall and disease-specific survival in men with nonbulky localized prostate cancer and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels up to 20 ng/mL, as reported recently in The New England Journal of...
New Biomarker Test Cleared to Evaluate Ovarian Cancer Likelihood
Fujirebio Diagnostics announced that it has received 510(k) clearance from the FDA to market the company’s HE4 Test in an algorithm called ROMA to aid in assessing whether a premenopausal or postmenopausal woman who presents with an ovarian adnexal mass is at high or low likelihood of finding...
New ASCO Focused Update Recommendation on Maintenance Treatment of Stage IV Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer
A focused update to the 2009 ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline Update on Chemotherapy for Stage IV Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer reflects new evidence on maintenance therapy in patients with response or stable disease after four cycles of first-line cytotoxic chemotherapy.1 The 2009 update...
Expert Point of View: No Value for Axillary Dissection in Patients with Breast Cancer and Occult Nodal Metastases
Two breast cancer studies presented at the 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium—NSABP B‑32 and ACOSOG Z11—suggest that aggressive approaches to surgically remove occult metastases are not necessary. Armando E. Giuliano, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, and principal investigator of ACOSOG...
SIDEBAR: A Snapshot of I-SPY 2
With principal investigator Laura Esserman, MD, MBA, of the University of California, San Francisco, and co–principal investigator Donald Berry, PhD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, I-SPY 2 will screen up to 12 different drugs in neoadjuvant therapy for breast cancer over the course of the trial. In...
Can Bayesian Design Streamline Our Sluggish Clinical Trial System?
The randomized controlled clinical trial has long been the gold standard for new cancer drugs to demonstrate worthiness of FDA approval; however, many experts contend that that our method of bringing drugs to the market is plagued by undue costs, long delays, and overregulation. According to Donald ...
Expert Point of View: International Prostate Cancer Studies Report Inroads in Managing Bone Metastases
"Radium-223 chloride is an effective, well tolerated, and convenient treatment, and it has a survival benefit. These favorable characteristics may well promote its use in clinical practice,” said formal discussant of this abstract, Wim J.G. Oyen, MD, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center,...
Health-care Policy: A Three-act Play
The health of Americans, the economy, the debt crisis, and the action or inaction in Washington are all seriously interrelated. Decades ago, the bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robs banks. His famous answer, “Because that’s where the money is,” succinctly describes the approach that...
Expert Point of View: Studies Validate Safety of Breast-conserving Surgery in Young Patients with Breast Cancer
Rakesh Patel, MD, Medical Director of the Targeted Radiation Institute at Western Radiation Oncology, Pleasanton, California, was the invited discussant of the second study. He noted that in spite of well documented equivalent survival rates between the surgical approaches, mastectomy rates are...
SIDEBAR: Expert Q and A
D. Neil Hayes, MD, MPH, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, discusses the role of HPV status in head and neck cancer. Are you convinced human papillomavirus (HPV) positivity is associated with better prognosis? Dr. D. Neil Hayes: The HPV story influences almost everything we do in...
New Therapies and Prognostic Techniques Highlighted in Head and Neck Cancer
D. Neil Hayes, MD, MPH, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, described efforts to position the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor cetuximab (Erbitux) in head and neck cancer treatment. Surprisingly negative results came from the phase III Radiation Therapy Oncology...
SIDEBAR: Questions and Answers about Adjuvant Imatinib in GIST
"As clinicians, we really need to ask who should receive adjuvant [imatinib], and we have several ways to risk-stratify patients, including tumor characteristics (size, location, mitotic index), mutational analyses, and a recently published nomogram for patient-specific survival,” said William D....
Novel Approaches and Agents Making Headway against Sarcoma
Novel approaches and agents reported at the ASCO 2011 Annual Meeting are improving outcomes in sarcoma, a heterogeneous disease with historically poor outcomes, according to William D. Tap, MD, Section Chief of Sarcoma Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Dr. Tap...
SIDEBAR: Can Society Afford Bevacizumab in Ovarian Cancer?
For bevacizumab (Avastin), as for all targeted agents, there is a critical need to identify likely responders as well as patients at risk for serious toxicities, agreed Daniela Matei, MD, of the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, and session moderator Daniel F. Hayes, MD, of...
Screening for Ovarian Cancer May Do More Harm Than Good, but New Therapies for the Disease Are Improving Outcomes
At the Best of ASCO Miami meeting, Daniela Matei, MD, Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, Indianapolis, described how new approaches are significantly prolonging remission in ovarian cancer. Ovarian Screening Provides No Benefit The Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) ...
SIDEBAR: Using Axitinib in Advanced Renal Cell Carcinoma
With a new tyrosine kinase inhibitor joining the armamentarium, the question is how to optimize targeted agents for advanced renal cell carcinoma. The AXIS trial demonstrated strong clinical activity for axitinib, which was superior to second-line sorafenib (Nexavar) and generally appears most...
Novel Management Strategies Assessed in Renal Cell and Prostate Cancers
At the Best of ASCO Miami meeting, William Oh, MD, of the Tisch Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, described new trends and remaining questions in the management of renal cell and prostate cancers. Axitinib vs Sorafenib in Second-line RCC Axitinib, a potent and selective...
