IMMUNOTHERAPY APPEARS to be the new upfront standard of care for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, based on a late-breaking presentation at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress1 and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.2 In ...
Contrary to the advice most patients with cancer receive when they go through radiation treatment, topical skin treatments, unless applied very heavily, may not increase the radiation dose to the skin and can be used in moderation before daily radiation treatments, according to findings from a new...
Final results of SWOG Cancer Research Network’s international Prevention of Early Menopause Study (POEMS) showed continued evidence that women who get injections of the hormone drug goserelin along with standard breast cancer chemotherapy are more likely to become pregnant, without developing ...
Findings in a study reported by Mullen and colleagues for the Children’s Oncology Group in the Journal of Clinical Oncology suggest that routine computed tomography (CT) surveillance may not be necessary for recurrence detection in favorable-histology Wilms tumor. The study was a...
Patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving treatment at academic centers have an increased 2-year survival compared to patients treated at community-based centers, according to findings published by Ramalingam et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. An...
A review and analysis of randomized clinical trials published by Kovic et al in JAMA Internal Medicine questioned whether interventions that prolong progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with cancer improve their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The systematic review and quantitative...
In a multicohort study (VE-BASKET study) in patients with BRAF V600–mutant nonmelanoma cancers in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kaley et al found evidence of activity of vemurafenib (Zelboraf) in gliomas that appeared to vary by glioma subtype. Study Details In the study, 24...
By combining data on individuals’ lifetime sun exposure and their genetics, researchers may be able to generate improved predictions of their risk of skin cancer, according to findings presented by Fontanillas et al at the 2018 American Society of Human Genetics Annual Meeting (Abstract PgmNr ...
In an Australian phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Suzanne K. Chambers, PhD, of the Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Gold Coast, and colleagues found similar functional outcomes at 2 years with robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy and open radical...
In a study published by Mark A. Preston, MD, MPH, and colleagues in European Urology, researchers demonstrated that a baseline prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level obtained from black men between 40 and 60 years old may predict the future development of prostate cancer for years after testing....
The extreme fatigue I experienced during the winter of my fourth year in medical school, in 2003, was easily attributable to the rigors of my medical training and the lack of sleep that comes from trying to keep up with an intensely busy schedule. I was looking forward to resting and recuperating...
BOOKMARK Title: Here We Grow: Mindfulness Through Cancer and BeyondAuthor: Paige DavisPublisher: She Writes PressDate: May 2018Price: $22.95, paperback, 154 pages Since the publication of Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s best-selling book, When Breath Becomes Air, about his diagnosis of cancer and untimely...
BOOKMARK Title: The Trail to Tincup: Love Stories at Life’s EndEditors: Joyce Lynnette HockerPublisher: She Writes PressPublication date: May 2018Price: $23.95, hardcover, 288 pages Human mortality is embedded in the day-to-day challenges of clinical oncology; a cancer diagnosis is a reality...
Arthralgia is a common and debilitating adverse effect experienced by patients with breast cancer who are being treated with aromatase inhibitors, often resulting in poor adherence. And premature treatment discontinuation can negatively impact disease-free and overall breast cancer survival....
Earlier in 2018, nilotinib (Tasigna) was approved for the treatment of pediatric patients aged ≥ 1 year with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome–positive chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase (CML-CP) or Philadelphia chromosome–positive CML-CP resistant or intolerant to prior tyrosine...
A health-care system is evaluated by various metrics: one is how it cares for its most vulnerable patients. The United States spends far more on health care than any nation in the world, yet access to high-quality oncology services remains elusive to certain minority populations—none more so than...
Nearly 4 in 10 Americans believe cancer can be cured solely through alternative therapies, according to ASCO's second annual National Cancer Opinion Survey. This is despite research showing that patients who use alternative therapies instead of standard cancer treatments have much higher...
Female survivors of childhood cancer, especially those treated with chest irradiation, have a substantially higher risk of developing breast cancer later in life. As a result, current clinical screening of this high-risk population relies primarily on the radiation dose and volume to the...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies focused on immunotherapies in lung cancer. These trials are studying combination therapies, radiotherapy plus immunotherapy, cancer vaccines, identifying biomarkers to immunotherapy...
The text and photographs on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The Antiseptic Era: 1876–1900.” The photograph...
Persephone is a 4,088-patient trial that Helena Margaret Earl, MBBS, PhD, reported at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting as establishing that 6 months of trastuzumab (Herceptin) is not inferior to 12 months in 4-year survival without invasive or local regional recurrence or distant metastases. Dr. Earl...
The Persephone presentation by Helena Margaret Earl, MBBS, PhD, got a lot of publicity after a pre–ASCO Annual Meeting press release, suggesting that 6 months of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) is enough. The advice of experts has been that the evidence is inconclusive, but I have not heard a...
What was an MBA doing at the podium of a clinical oncology meeting? Ten years ago or so, that might have been surprising. But in an era of rapid change—in therapies, costs, payment models, and practice—it only makes sense. Amy Porter-Tacoronte, MBA, Health System Chief Administrative Officer at the ...
Radiation therapy to the limited disease in patients with early-stage follicular lymphoma “achieves local control in over 90% of lesions, and almost 50% of patients remain free of any lymphoma event (cured) for decades,” Joanna C. Yang, MD, MPH, and Joachim Yahalom, MD, wrote in a recent editorial...
A prognostic model developed using a machine learning approach may be able to identify African American patients with breast cancer who have an increased risk of death, according to results of a study presented by Bhattarai et al at the 11th AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health...
On November 2, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to lorlatinib (Lorbrena) for patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)–positive metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease has progressed on crizotinib (Xalkori) and at least...
The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) could become a new first-line treatment in patients with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H), mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer, following results from the CheckMate-142 trial reported ...
In a 2-year follow-up of the phase III SUPREMO trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Velikova et al found worse chest wall symptoms in women with intermediate-risk breast cancer who did vs did not receive postmastectomy radiotherapy. No other differences in quality-of-life outcomes were found ...
Three prominent medical societies have issued a new clinical guideline for physicians treating men with early-stage prostate cancer using external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT). Adoption of the guideline could make treatment shorter and more convenient for many patients with prostate cancer....
On October 30, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with carboplatin and either paclitaxel or nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) as first-line treatment of metastatic squamous non–small cell lung...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Buffart et al found that patients with cancer benefited more or less from exercise interventions depending on their baseline condition and timing of the intervention. The study was an individual patient data meta-analysis...
Neoadjuvant treatment with a combination of the immune checkpoint inhibitors nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) achieved major pathological responses in mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) early-stage colon cancers, according to results reported by Chalabi et al at the European...
Adjuvant treatment with zoledronic acid, plus hormonal therapy with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole, significantly increases disease-free survival compared to tamoxifen in premenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer, according to results reported by Perrone et al...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology and at the European Society for Medical Oncology 2018 Congress by Hodi et al, the 4-year follow-up of the phase III CheckMate 067 trial has shown a continued overall survival benefit with first-line nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) or nivolumab alone vs ...
The first report of a large international clinical trial shows that, for men who show signs of prostate cancer after surgical removal of their prostates, extending radiation therapy to the pelvic lymph nodes combined with adding short-term androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) to standard treatment...
Although population-based cancer registries data are useful in tracking and reporting the evolving burden of cancer in the population, the information they capture reflects the outcomes of diagnosis and death, regardless of whether the death is due to the disease or to other causes, and not data on ...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Alderuccio et al found that not achieving complete remission (CR) after initial treatment, elevated lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and more than four nodal sites at marginal zone lymphoma diagnosis are predictive of...
Treatment of renal cell carcinoma with stereotactic radiation therapy is as safe and effective for patients with one kidney as it is for those with two, according to an analysis of an international data set presented by Correa et al at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for...
In the first randomized, phase II clinical trial of its kind, researchers have shown that an aggressive form of high-precision radiation therapy can increase survival in patients with oligometastatic tumors. These findings were presented by Palma et al in the plenary session at the 60th Annual ...
Adding radiation therapy or surgery to systemic therapy for patients with stage IV lung cancer whose cancer has spread to a limited number of sites can significantly extend overall survival, according to new results from a multicenter, randomized, controlled phase II study. The findings were...
A highly sensitive blood test that detects minute traces of cancer-specific DNA has been shown to accurately determine whether patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) are free from cancer following radiation therapy. Findings were presented by...
A subset of patients with low-risk breast cancer is highly unlikely to see cancer return following breast conservation surgery, but can lower that risk even further with radiation therapy, finds a new long-term clinical trial report. These 12-year follow-up data from the only prospective,...
In a 10-year study of women who received radiation therapy to treat early-stage breast cancer, those receiving fewer, larger individual radiation doses experienced similarly low rates of late-onset side effects as those undergoing conventional radiation therapy. Findings from the...
A phase III trial has determined that cisplatin chemotherapy combined with radiation therapy showed high amounts of activity in human papillomavirus (HPV)-related head and neck cancer. Findings from NRG-RTOG 1016 were presented by Trotti et al the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for...
A new analysis of genetic data from a large prospective registry and clinical data from several randomized trials indicates that African American patients may have comparatively higher cure rates when treated with radiation therapy than Caucasian patients. The study, which is the first report...
In an analysis of data from two Nurses’ Health Study cohorts reported in JAMA Oncology by Barnard et al, use of low-dose but not standard-dose aspirin was associated with reduced risk of epithelial ovarian cancer, whereas use of nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)...
In an analysis of the phase III GALLIUM trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Trotman et al found that end-of-induction fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (PET) after first-line immunochemotherapy appeared to better predict treatment outcomes than contrast-enhanced computed tomography ...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) improved survival in patients with head and neck cancer that has recurred or metastasized in the KEYNOTE-048 trial, according to late-breaking results from the study reported by Burtness et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (Abstract...
Patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive throat cancer responded better to chemoradiotherapy than to cetuximab (Erbitux) with radiotherapy, according to late-breaking research reported by Mehanna et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (Abstract LBA9_PR)....
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Maria I. Carlo, MD, of the Department of Medicine, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer, and colleagues found a high prevalence of germline mutations in cancer susceptibility genes in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). In this cohort study,...