In female patients undergoing breast cancer lumpectomies, intraoperative frozen section margin assessment has been shown to decrease overall reoperation rates, according to the results of a study reported by Boughey et al in the journal Surgery. This finding may lead to lower health-care costs, a...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ramucirumab (Cyramza) to treat patients with advanced or metastatic gastric cancer or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with disease progression on or after prior treatment with fluoropyrimidine- or platinum-containing chemotherapy....
Although doctors have long known that people with Down syndrome have a heightened risk of developing acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during childhood, they haven’t been able to explain why. In a new study published online in Nature Genetics, Lane et al tracked the genetic chain of events...
Bevacizumab has exhibited limited activity in advanced melanoma. In an interim analysis of the open-label phase III AVAST-M trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Corrie et al found that adjuvant bevacizumab (Avastin) in patients with resected melanoma at high risk of recurrence has thus far...
As reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Riester et al have identified gene-expression signatures predictive of survival and debulking status in late-stage ovarian cancer. Study Details The study involved meta-analytic techniques using integrated data from 13 publicly...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved ofatumumab (Arzerra) injection in combination with chlorambucil (Leukeran) for the treatment of previously untreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), for whom fludarabine-based therapy is considered inappropriate. Trial...
Scientists have identified two unlikely partners found in macrophages that work together in response to cancer drugs to increase inflammation in a way that may alter tumor growth. The study by Lowe et al was published in Cancer Research. These partners are the p53 protein that suppresses tumors...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Park et al examined single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with other cancers for potential associations with lung cancer. They found that the breast cancer SNP LSP1 rs3817198 was associated with significant risk of...
The National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) Clinical Trials Group MAP.3 (Mammary Prevention 3) trial showed that daily exemestane treatment reduced invasive breast cancer risk by 65% among postmenopausal women. In a quality-of-life study in the MAP.3 population reported in the Journal of...
Noncompliance appears to be a major challenge for active surveillance, according to the results of long-term follow-up of patients with prostate cancer presented at the European Association of Urology 29th Annual Congress in Stockholm. Over a quarter of men dropped out of the active surveillance...
Researchers have developed a quantitative multiplexed methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction assay called cMethDNA for a panel of 10 breast cancer–specific genes. The blood-based assay was found to be highly sensitive in detecting advanced breast cancer and monitoring tumor burden and ...
A majority of cancer patients experience some level of fatigue during their course of treatment, and approximately 30% contend with persistent fatigue for years after treatment. Fatigue is among the most common and distressing long-term effects of cancer treatment and significantly affects patient...
ASCO has adapted the Pan-Canadian Practice Guideline on Screening, Assessment, and Care of Psychosocial Distress (Depression, Anxiety) in Adults With Cancer for use in the screening, assessment, and care of anxiety and depressive symptoms in adults with cancer. The adapted guideline, reported in...
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified new mutations in pediatric high-grade gliomas. The findings by Wu et al were published in Nature Genetics and may lead to improved outcomes for children with these brain...
A quartet of proteins that play critical roles in cell replication, cell death, and DNA repair could lead to better targets for therapy against treatment-resistant head and neck squamous cell cancers. In a study presented this week at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
Older people who are starting to have memory and thinking problems, but do not yet have dementia, may have a lower risk of dying from cancer than people who have no memory and thinking problems, according to a study by Benito-León et al published online in Neurology. “Studies have...
In a phase II study (COIN-B) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Wasan et al examined the addition of continuous or intermittent cetuximab (Erbitux) to intermittent chemotherapy in previously untreated advanced KRAS wild-type colorectal cancer. Continuous cetuximab appeared to be associated with...
In a report in The New England Journal of Medicine, Maynard et al discuss identification of consumptive hypothyroidism due to overexpression of thyroid hormone–inactivating enzyme type 3 iodothyronine deiodinase (D3) in a patient with gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) and subsequent...
The investigational, oral drug BGJ398, which blocks the activity of fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs), showed promising anticancer activity in patients with various types of cancer driven by FGFR genetic alterations, according to the results of a phase I clinical trial presented at the...
Loss of the tumor suppressor PTEN was a frequent cause of resistance to the investigational drug BYL719, which blocks the activity of the PI3K-alpha protein, in a small sample of women with breast cancer that progressed after initially responding to BYL719 treatment, according to results presented...
A crossover trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Escudier et al found that patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma preferred pazopanib (Votrient) vs sunitinib (Sutent) treatment. Study Details In the double-blind study, 168 patients with no prior systemic therapy for...
Men with localized prostate cancer that is at risk of growing and spreading have a lower risk of disease progression and recurrence if they are treated with radiotherapy combined with androgen-deprivation therapy, according to new research. The findings, which were presented at the 33rd Conference...
Research in mice and human cell lines has identified an experimental compound dubbed TTT-3002 as potentially one of the most potent drugs available to block genetic mutations in cancer cells blamed for some forms of treatment-resistant leukemia. The study by Ma et al, published in Blood, found that ...
Resistance to a combination of HER2-targeted therapies, trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb), was associated with elevated activation of a group of proteins called fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs), which are the target of a number of drugs currently being developed, according to ...
The results from a phase I study of a new investigational epigenetic therapy called OTX015, a small-molecule inhibitor that blocks the activity of bromodomain and extraterminal (BET)-bromodomain proteins, is showing clinical activity in some blood cancers, including leukemia and lymphoma. The study ...
In a phase II trial (PEAK) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Schwartzberg et al compared the EGFR inhibitor panitumumab (Vectibix) vs the VEGF-A inhibitor bevacizumab (Avastin) combined with modified fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin (FOLFOX6) in patients with previously...
A small clinical study of a new investigational antibody-drug conjugate called DEDN6526A in patients with metastatic or unresectable cutaneous, mucosal, or ocular melanoma has found the drug to be safe and tolerable and demonstrated early evidence of antitumor activity. The findings were presented...
First-line treatment with the combination of palbociclib plus letrozole extended progression-free survival by approximately 50% in patients with metastatic estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, according to final results of a randomized phase II study presented at the...
According to a new study, mutations in the SMARCA4 remodeling gene may play a key role in the development of small cell carcinoma of the ovary, hypercalcemic type. The findings by Ramos et al were published in Nature Genetics and suggest that loss of SMARCA4 expression may serve as a biomarker for...
The Mantle Cell Lymphoma International Prognostic Index (MIPI) was developed in 2008 as the first prognostic stratification system specific for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hoster et al confirmed the validity of MIPI in a cohort of two...
The recently reported open-label phase III AURELIA trial showed that the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to chemotherapy resulted in significant improvements in progression-free survival, the primary study endpoint, and objective response rate in women with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian...
The recently reported open-label phase III AURELIA trial showed that the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to chemotherapy resulted in significant improvement in progression-free survival, the primary study endpoint, and objective response rate in women with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian...
Single-agent chemotherapy is standard in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. In the open-label phase III AURELIA trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pujade-Lauraine et al found that the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to chemotherapy resulted in significant improvement in...
Doctors should focus on life expectancy when deciding whether to order mammograms for their oldest female patients, since the harms of screening likely outweigh the benefits unless women are expected to live at least another decade, according to a review published online in JAMA by Walter and...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Schwarzenberg et al found 3,4-dihydroxy-6-[18F]-fluoro-L-phenylalanine (18F-FDOPA) positron-emission tomography (PET) metabolic tumor volume values at 2 weeks after the start of bevacizumab (Avastin) were highly predictive of outcome in patients with ...
Results from the BRIGHT study combined with long-term safety data from other studies suggest that bendamustine (Treanda) plus rituximab (Rituxan) “may be an important alternative treatment option” for the initial therapy of patients with low-grade non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and mantle...
Obesity, rather than diet, causes changes in the colon that may lead to colorectal cancer, according to a study in mice by the National Institutes of Health. The finding bolsters the recommendation that calorie control and frequent exercise are not only key to a healthy lifestyle, but a strategy to ...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, van de Water et al found that Dutch women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer aged ≥ 65 years at diagnosis who were treated in a clinical trial had significantly fewer comorbid diseases, higher socioeconomic...
Barrett’s esophagus with low-grade dysplasia increases risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma. In a European study reported in JAMA, Phoa et al assessed whether endoscopic radiofrequency ablation reduced the rate of neoplastic progression compared with endoscopic surveillance in patients with...
In a series of studies involving 140 American men and women with liver tumors, researchers at Johns Hopkins have used specialized three-dimensional (3D) MRI scans to precisely measure living and dying tumor tissue to quickly show whether highly toxic chemotherapy is working. The investigators said ...
In the phase III IBIS-II trial, reported in The Lancet, Cuzick et al found that aromatase inhibitor therapy with anastrozole reduced risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women at high risk of the disease. Study Details In this double-blind trial, 3,864 postmenopausal women aged 40 to 70 years...
Scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, and Houston Methodist, Houston, have found that a gene previously unassociated with breast cancer plays a pivotal role in the growth and progression of the triple-negative form of the disease. The research by Chen et al, published in Nature,...
In the phase II US Leukemia Intergroup Trial E1905 reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Prebet et al found that prolonged administration of lower-dose azacitidine produced a high response rate in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome or acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with myelodysplastic...
The quest to improve survival of children with a high-risk brain tumor has led investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital to two drugs already used to treat adults with breast, pancreatic, lung, and other cancers. The study by Morfouace at al was published today in Cancer Cell....
The ACOSOG Z9001 (Alliance) study showed that 1 year of adjuvant imatinib (Gleevec) prolonged recurrence-free survival after resection of primary gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). As reported by Corless et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a study evaluating correlation of pathologic...
A new era of lung cancer therapy is dawning, using drugs that can prevent tumor cells from evading the immune system, experts reported at the 4th European Lung Cancer Congress. For decades, scientists and doctors thought immunotherapy was of marginal benefit in lung cancer, said ESMO spokesperson...
The EORTC/LYSA/FIL Intergroup H10 trial assessed whether omitting involved-node radiotherapy would affect progression-free survival in patients with negative early positron-emission tomography (PET) scans after two cycles of ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) compared with...
A retrospective study has shown that two targeted therapy drugs—erlotinib (Tarceva) and gefitinib (Iressa)—achieved similar outcomes among people with metastatic or recurrent non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring an EGFR mutation. These EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors have...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Höckel et al demonstrated that locoregional progression of cervical cancer follows the reverse sequence of establishment of adult tissues in ontogeny. Ontogenetic staging was a better predictor of survival than pathologic staging. Previous work by...
Preliminary research suggests that a targeted oral agent may improve outcomes while minimizing side effects in women with gynecologic cancers who carry a BRCA mutation and whose disease is not responding to other therapies. According to a phase II study presented at the Society of Gynecologic...