In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Planchard et al found that combined MAPK pathway inhibition with the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and the MEK inhibitor trametinib (Mekinist) resulted in a high response rate in patients with BRAF V600E–mutant non–small cell...
The Pew Charitable Trusts and the Alexander and Margaret Stewart Trust have announced the 2016 class of Pew-Stewart scholars for cancer research. Five scientists from top research institutions in the United States were selected for their dedication to pursuing innovative leads aimed at finding a...
Fatigue and sleep disruption are common occurrences for most patients diagnosed with cancer. Simply having a serious physical illness like cancer along with its associated pain, hospitalization, and treatment, as well as the attendant psychological impact, all contribute to the onset of fatigue...
Mark A. Dickson, MD, has been fascinated by science and medicine since he was in high school. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1999, Dr. Dickson pursued a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York. Once he decided on a...
In the phase III TOURMALINE-MM-1 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Philippe Moreau, MD, of the University Hospital Hôtel Dieu, Nantes, France, and colleagues found that adding the oral proteasome inhibitor ixazomib (Ninlaro) to lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone...
Although oncology has moved toward a personalized approach to care, medical decision-making within the context of multidisciplinary care has broad public health implications. To shed light on this and other relevant issues, The ASCO Post recently spoke with William Dale, MD, PhD, of the University ...
Question 1: Which statement about the classification of tumors of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues is true? Correct Answer: A. The revised WHO classification defines distant disease entities that can be reliably diagnosed using proposed criteria. Expert Perspective WHO last updated its...
WHO last updated its classification of tumors of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues with a fourth edition of its WHO Classification of Tumours of Haematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues, in 2008, as part of a series of WHO Classification of Tumours monographs. This year, with the support of the...
Although new gastrointestinal cancers are on the rise, advancements in their treatment, as well as the upcoming results of perioperative trials, could prove to be “clinical practice game-changers,” declared Thomas J. George, Jr, MD, FACP, at the 2016 Community Oncology Conference in Orlando,...
Colorectal cancer is being increasingly diagnosed in persons younger than age 50, the age at which colorectal cancer screening is usually initiated. According to Elie Sutton, MD, of Mount Sinai West Hospital in New York, a review of cases in the National Cancer Data Base revealed that between...
Formal discussant Taofeek Kunle Owonikoko, MD, of Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, commented that this preliminary study looks promising for a new antibody-drug conjugate. “To me, what is intriguing about these data is the efficacy signal in the third-line setting, especially for the ...
Initial encouraging news from a first-in-human trial suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T) may turn out to be a new option for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) whose tumors overexpress delta-like protein 3 (DLL3). Study results were presented at the...
Not so FAST? The study discussant Peter C. Enzinger, MD, Director of the Center for Esophageal and Gastric Cancer at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, Boston, viewed the findings of the FAST trial as promising but voiced several considerations, as did Gulam A. Manji, MD, PhD,...
A novel immunotherapy agent, the first in its class, reduced disease progression by more than 50% when added to standard chemotherapy for patients with advanced gastric cancer, according to results from an international phase II trial presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 The drug, IMAB362,...
A schedule of once-daily radiation therapy (66 Gy) was no better than a twice-daily schedule (45 Gy) for optimization of chemoradiotherapy in patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), according to the eagerly anticipated results of the phase III CONVERT trial, presented at the...
A strategy of matching molecular abnormalities in patients’ tumors to therapies targeted to those abnormalities is gaining ground, according to preliminary results of the phase IIb MyPathway study presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 These are still early days for this “matching” strategy,...
A pilot study revealed large differences in median retail prices for 23 cancer drugs in 7 different countries, with the highest retail prices identified in the United States and the lowest, in India and South Africa. Notably, after the monthly drug price is expressed as a percentage of domestic...
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common and costly disease, largely of the elderly, with nearly 25% of cases diagnosed among patients aged 75–84 years. However, but the guidelines for CRC screening of Americans aged 75 or older vary according to the source. In a study published by Klabunde et al...
As reported in JAMA, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued new recommendations for colorectal cancer screening. In brief, the USPSTF recommends colorectal cancer screening starting at age 50 years and continuing until age 75 years (grade A recommendation = “The USPSTF...
Goldberg et al found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was active in untreated or progressive brain metastases in melanoma and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a single-center phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details The study included 36 patients at Yale...
For the treatment of high-risk, HER2-negative early-stage breast cancer, anthracyclines were confirmed as beneficial in a joint analysis of the Anthracyclines in Early Breast Cancer (ABC) trials. Presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting, the joint analysis of the ABC trials validated taxane plus...
One billion lives. That is the estimated human death toll of tobacco use in the 21st century.1 Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide—20% of all deaths and 30% of cancer deaths in the United States are linked to tobacco use.2,3 Impacting this preventable public health...
In children with high-risk neuroblastoma, tandem autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) improved event-free survival rates in the ANBL0532 trial from the Children’s Oncology Group. The study was presented at the plenary session of the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting by Julie R. Park, MD, of Seattle...
In a phase I/II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Massard et al found that the anti–PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) antibody durvalumab was active in patients with previously treated advanced urothelial bladder cancer. Objective response appeared to be confined to...
As reported by Walter et al in The Lancet Oncology, incidence screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) in high-risk individuals detected new solid nodules in approximately 5% to 7% at second and third screenings in the ongoing Dutch-Belgian NELSON trial. Larger nodule size was associated...
As reported by Choueiri et al in The Lancet Oncology, the final results of the phase III METEOR trial indicate significantly improved overall survival with cabozantinib (Cabometyx) vs everolimus (Afinitor) in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) that had progressed after previous...
Updated results of a Japanese phase III trial (JASPAC 01) reported in The Lancet by Uesaka et al showed that adjuvant S-1 was associated with significantly better overall survival compared with gemcitabine in patients with resected pancreatic cancer. Study Details In the open-label noninferiority ...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Kantarjian et al found that treatment with the antibody-drug conjugate inotuzumab ozogamicin resulted in a greater complete remission rate and improved overall survival vs standard therapy in patients with relapsed/refractory...
Researchers at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) presented a means of evaluating an immunotherapy that fights off non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) by strengthening a patient’s own immune system (Scientific Paper 134). Due to...
Patients with cancer often experience significant fluctuations in weight and lean body mass. Neglecting to account for these changes can prevent clinicians from obtaining precise data from molecular imaging, but a new method of measuring lean body mass takes changes in individual body...
As reported by Seiwert et al in The Lancet Oncology, the monoclonal antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed activity in patients with programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–positive recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck in the phase Ib KEYNOTE-012 study. Study ...
The use of adjuvant chemotherapy in early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients improves overall survival and 5-year overall survival rates in patients with tumor sizes ranging from 3 to 7 cm. These findings were published by Morgensztern et al in the Journal of Thoracic...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Davendra P. Sohal, MD, MPH, of Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Recommendations are based on expert panel systematic review of the...
As reported by Edward P. Balaban, DO, of Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer. The recommendations are based on expert panel...
ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of potentially curable pancreatic cancer, as reported by Alok A. Khorana, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The recommendations are based on expert panel systematic review of the literature...
Few patients with advanced cancer and a short life expectancy have an accurate understanding of their illness, according to a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Epstein et al. Study Details The study involved 178 patients from 9 U.S. cancer centers who had advanced cancers...
1. “The Bean” or Cloud Gate with a little ASCO color. Photo © 2016 ASCO/Todd Buchanan. 2. ASCO CEO Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, introducing ASCO President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, during the Opening Session of the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Photo © 2016 ASCO/Phil McCarten....
The International Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia–International Prognostic Index (CLL-IPI) working group has developed an International Prognostic Index for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia based on a meta-analysis of individual patient data, as reported in The Lancet Oncology. The...
A new approach to understanding why T cells are often too weak to fight and destroy tumor cells has earned Yale Cancer Center researchers team science award from the Sokoloff Family-Melanoma Research Alliance. The $900,000 award will fund research over 3 years examining metabolic regulation of ...
Dense breasts are not an automatic indication for additional imaging. Instead, breast density generally provides an opportunity for improved risk assessment, according to Kevin Hughes, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “More than 20 states have mandated that women be informed of...
The American Urological Association (AUA) honored its 2016 AUA award recipients during its 111th Annual Meeting in San Diego, Calfornia. These physician researchers, educators, and organizations were honored for their contributions to the field of medicine, the specialty of urology, and the AUA....
My experience with cancer, or more accurately, cancers, is complicated. In 2002, after returning from a medical mission to Honduras, I noticed a bean-sized lymph node above my left clavicle. As an oncology-certified nurse, I knew not to ignore any unusual nodules that pop up on the body and asked...
The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center has been awarded the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) highest designation as a Comprehensive Cancer Center. The prestigious distinction recognizes the cancer center’s high caliber of scientific leadership and robust programs ...
An otherwise healthy, actively working, independent 60-year-old patient came to us with a several months’ history of abdominal pain. He had been seen by other physicians prior to coming to us for a second opinion. Our workup revealed a large cystic lesion emanating from the pancreas but involving ...
According to estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), environmental toxic exposures are responsible for between 7% and 19% of human cancers. However, the 2008–2009 President’s Cancer Panel Annual Report estimated that the “true...
As reported in The Lancet by Nicholas D. James, BSc, MBBS, PhD, of the University of Warwick, and colleagues, survival results of the STAMPEDE trial, which used a multiarm, multistage seamless phase II/III design, provide little evidence of benefit of zoledronic acid and showed increased survival ...
Pilot Study Title: Pilot Study of Hepatic Arterial Infusion Therapy in Patients With Unresectable or Borderline Resectable Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Study Type: Interventional/nonrandomized/parallel assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Washington University School of Medicine Purpose: ...
An international, multi-institutional research team consisting of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO); The Wistar Institute; Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre; the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has...
Multiple myeloma cells uniformly overexpress CD38.1 Daratumumab (Darzalex), a CD38-targeting human IgG1 kappa monoclonal antibody, has been evaluated in a series of phase I/II trials involving patients with relapsed or relapsed and refractory myeloma who have received at least two or more prior...
In the phase II SIRIUS trial reported in The Lancet, Sagar Lonial, MD, of Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, and colleagues found that the CD38-targeted monoclonal antibody daratumumab (Darzalex) produced durable responses in patients with multiple myeloma who had received at least three ...