White blood cell counts may predict whether patients with lung cancer will benefit from immunotherapy, according to research presented by Tiseo et al at the 2017 European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC, Abstract 30PD). “Immune checkpoint inhibitors such as nivolumab [Opdivo] and...
Osimertinib (Tagrisso) improved cancer-related symptoms in patients with advanced lung cancer, according to an analysis of patient-reported outcomes from the AURA3 phase III clinical trial presented by Lee et al at the 2017 European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC, Abstract 85O). “With my...
Findings comparing the mutational landscape in pregnant and nonpregnant patients with breast cancer that sought to define whether the disease may have a different biology in pregnant women were reported by Loibl et al at the 2017 IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference, held in Brussels (Abstract...
Researchers have identified a subtype of triple-negative breast cancer that may be responsive to inhibition of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6), according to findings presented by Asghar et al at the 2017 IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference, held in Brussels (Abstract 44P). This study also...
Baseline levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) in pretreatment biopsies from patients with HER2-positive breast cancer are significantly associated with pathologic complete response rates following neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus anti-HER2 agents (trastuzumab [Herceptin], lapatinib...
This year, the World Health Organization (WHO) will launch a pilot project for prequalifying biosimilar medicines, a step toward making some of the most expensive treatments for cancer more widely available in low- and middle-income countries. The decision comes after a 2-day meeting in Geneva...
American Medical Association (AMA) President Andrew W. Gurman, MD, released the following statement today after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act: “The bill passed by the House today will result in millions of Americans losing access to quality,...
Winner of the Journal of Neuro-Oncology Award sponsored by Kluwer Academic Publishers, Doris Du Wang, MD, PhD, a resident in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), presented her research on seizure outcome after surgical resection of insular...
Winner of the American Brain Tumor Association Young Investigator Award Anthony C. Wang, MD, a neurosurgeon at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Mattel Children’s Hospital and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, presented his research findings on desmoplastic infantile...
Spanish-speaking patients with cancer have new tools to help them understand treatment options for their disease. The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has released a series of Spanish-language patient videos on radiation therapy for cancer, including breast, prostate, lung, brain,...
Geoffrey I. Shapiro, MD, PhD, Director of the Early Drug Development Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, explained the current research initiatives involving cyclin D–dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitors. Mechanism of Action How do CDK4/6 inhibitors work at the cellular level in...
This CE/CME/CEU-accredited supplement is jointly provided by To earn credit/contact hours, you must read all the articles in this supplement and then go to: https://education.annenberg.net/cdk46inhibition Release date: May 10, 2017 Expiration date: May 10, 2018Annenberg Center for Health...
Men may need more frequent lung cancer screening than women, according to research to be presented by Koo et al at the 2017 European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC). The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual screening for lung cancer with low-dose computed tomography (CT) in adults...
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have found that babies born to mothers who underwent fertility treatments may be at increased risk of developing types of pediatric malignancies and neoplasms. The study, published by Wainstock et al in the American Journal of Obstetrics &...
On May 1, Congress announced a bipartisan 2017 budget deal that contains a $2 billion increase in medical research funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including $475 million more for the National Cancer Institute. The budget also maintains funding for cancer control programs at the ...
Higher costs for complex cancer surgery may be an indicator of worse—rather than better—quality of care, according to new research by experts at Rice University and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Their findings are published by Ho et al in Surgery, and provide...
On April 28, the European Commission approved nivolumab (Opdivo) as monotherapy for the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) in adults with disease progression on or after platinum-based therapy. Nivolumab is the first and only immuno-oncology treatment that has...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to durvalumab (Imfinzi) for the treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma who have disease progression during or following platinum-containing chemotherapy or who have disease...
Declines in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing that came after changes in government screening guidelines have abated in recent years, according to a new study. In JAMA Internal Medicine, American Cancer Society (ACS) investigators led by Stacy A. Fedewa, PhD, wrote that about 1 in 3 men aged...
Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered that surgery could more than double life expectancy for many patients with late-stage kidney cancer, giving them anywhere from 2 to almost 10 years more than they would have without the surgery. A paper published by Zaid et al in The Journal of Urology found...
On April 28, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to brigatinib (Alunbrig) for the treatment of patients with metastatic anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have had disease progression on or are...
On April 28, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved midostaurin (Rydapt) for the treatment of adult patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who are FLT3 mutation–positive, as detected by an FDA-approved test, in combination with standard cytarabine and...
Second cancers in children as well as adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are far deadlier than they are in older adults and may partially account for the relatively poor outcomes of cancer patients aged 15 to 39 years overall, according to a new study by University of California (UC), Davis...
On April 27, the investigational next-generation ALK/ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor lorlatinib was granted Breakthrough Therapy designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive metastatic non–small cell...
A new laboratory technique developed by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and other institutions can rapidly test the effectiveness of treatments for life-threatening breast cancer metastases in bone. Findings of this research were published by Wang et al in Nature Communications....
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded the approved use of regorafinib (Stivarga) to include treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with the drug sorafenib (Nexavar). This is the first new FDA-approved treatment for liver cancer in...
Patients with lung cancer treated with programmed cell death protein 1/programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) checkpoint inhibitors may be at increased risk of adverse events after receiving the seasonal influenza vaccination, according to the first study measuring this effect. The results, to ...
A new position statement, jointly published by seven international and European organizations, identifies fracture-related risk factors in patients treated with aromatase inhibitors and outlines key management strategies to help prevent bone loss and related fractures. It was published by Hadji et...
In newly updated clinical guidelines from the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO), researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, along with an interdisciplinary team of colleagues at The University of Texas MD Anderson...
On April 25, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posted warning letters addressed to 14 U.S.-based companies illegally selling more than 65 products that fraudulently claim to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure cancer. The products are marketed and sold without FDA approval, most commonly on ...
Results of the SARAH trial presented at the 2017 International Liver Congress (ILC) demonstrated that selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) resulted in a median overall survival of 8.0 months compared to 9.9 months with sorafenib (Nexavar; P = .179) in patients with locally advanced ...
The latest in a series of studies led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine shows that addition of a widely available, noninvasive imaging test called 99mTc-sestamibi SPECT/CT (single-photon emission computed tomography plus computed tomography) to conventional CT or magnetic resonance imaging...
Oncology community professionals are concerned about the ability of their patients to access cancer screening and treatment under the proposed American Health Care Act (AHCA), according to a survey conducted March 23–24, 2017, at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 22nd ...
Women enrolled in California's Medicaid program (Medi-Cal) who have been diagnosed with severe mental illness have been screened for cervical cancer at much lower rates than other women, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), published by...
New research indicates that testing for variants in seven cancer-associated genes (instead of the usual process of testing in just two genes) followed by risk-reduction management could cost-effectively improve life expectancy for women at risk of hereditary breast cancer. The findings were...
In the largest-known study on bone metastases in thyroid cancer, researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that patients with follicular and medullary thyroid cancer had the highest rate of cancer-related bone lesions and fractures and an increased risk of death....
In contrast to other racial/ethnic groups in the United States, Asian Americans have experienced steadily increasing breast cancer rates over the past 15 years, according to findings published by Gomez et al in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. To better understand potential contributors to...
The 21-gene recurrence score assay, Oncotype DX, determines a score that estimates the likelihood of distant recurrence of disease in women with early-stage estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer; this score is used to assess the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy. Testing with this assay is...
Research from epidemiologists at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, published by Minlikeeva et al in Cancer Causes & Control, suggests that hypertension and diabetes and the use of medications to treat these comorbidities may have an effect on survival outcomes in women with ovarian cancer. Study...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) recently announced the appointment of Keith T. Flaherty, MD, as Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Cancer Research. Dr. Flaherty is Director of the Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies and Director of Clinical Research at the Massachusetts General...
In the March 25, 2017, issue of The ASCO Post, Steven H. Lin, MD, PhD, shared his thoughts on the role of positron-emission tomography (PET) in assessing response to induction chemotherapy in patients with resectable esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer. He noted that complete pathologic...
An article that appeared in the April 10 issue of The ASCO Post (“Olaparib Maintenance Prolongs Progression-Free Survival in Ovarian Cancer”) suggests unwarranted conclusions from the phase III SOLO2 trial of olaparib (Lynparza) in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer and...
In the phase II BERIL-1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Soulières et al found that adding the pan-PI3K (phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase) inhibitor buparlisib to paclitaxel improved outcomes in patients with platinum-pretreated recurrent metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck....
In an Italian phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Marcello Tiseo, MD, of Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria, Parma, Italy, and colleagues found that adding first-line bevacizumab (Avastin) to cisplatin/etoposide did not prolong overall survival in patients with...
In a population-based cohort study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Su-Hsin Chang, PhD, of the Washington University School of Medicine, and colleagues found that overweight and obesity were associated with an increased risk of transformation of monoclonal gammopathy of...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) awarded the 13th AACR–Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship to Leonard I. Zon, MD, Grousbeck Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a Howard Hughes...
Survivors of melanoma are more likely to limit their exposure to ultraviolet radiation than those who have not had the disease, but more than 10% continue to intentionally tan, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.1 The study surveyed 724 people diagnosed ...
Long-term survivors of melanoma are more likely than those who have not been diagnosed with the disease to use sunscreen, protective clothing, and other means to limit exposure to the sun, according to a survey of melanoma survivors and controls about ultraviolet radiation exposure and protective...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) honored Roger S. Lo, MD, PhD, with the first AACR–Waun Ki Hong Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research during the 2017 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. The AACR established this award in recognition of AACR President...
Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC) has translated its Metastatic Breast Cancer Series: Guide for the Newly Diagnosed into the five most-often-spoken languages in the United States after English: Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, and French. Jointly created by LBBC and the Metastatic Breast...