In the treatment of metastatic estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer, a highly significant 45% reduction in progression was achieved with abemaciclib, combined with fulvestrant (Faslodex), in the global phase III MONARCH 2 trial, reported at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting by George W. Sledge, MD,...
The PARP INHIBITOR olaparib (Lynparza) improved progression-free survival in women with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer that was either hormone receptor–positive or triple-negative in patients who had a germline BRCA mutation.1,2 These results of the international, randomized, open-label,...
The addition of abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) plus prednisolone/prednisone to standard androgen-deprivation therapy improves survival in men starting treatment for locally advanced or metastatic, hormone--naive prostate cancer, according to the results of two potentially practice-changing studies...
“No man is an island entire of itself; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” —John Donne (1624) This statement is almost certainly true—and sadly in a negative way not just for the UK but for...
Nearly 1 in 2 Canadians is expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, according to a new report—Canadian Cancer Statistics 2017—released by the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada. For males, the...
There is considerable scope to develop digital resources by means of which teenagers and young adults living with cancer can receive information and connect with both professionals and fellow patients. Such tools could help them gain different perspectives on treatment and survivorship, said Esha...
As reported by Hua et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, long-term survivors of colorectal cancer with KRAS wild-type tumors had improved survival with regular use of any nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) post diagnosis. The study involved data from 2,149 patients aged 18 to 74...
The phase III UK TACT2 trial has shown no efficacy benefit of accelerated vs standard epirubicin and a potential quality-of-life benefit of capecitabine vs CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, fluorouracil) as adjuvant therapy for breast cancer. The findings were reported in The Lancet Oncology by...
When patients with metastatic cancer used a Web-based tool to self-report symptoms proactively during treatment, they lived 5 months longer than did patients assigned to usual care. In addition, they had improved quality of life and fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations compared with...
Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, the Sophie Caroline Steves Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said the trial demonstrates “the challenge of analyzing six individually conducted studies in a pooled analysis.” The study’s “potential...
Fifteen years ago, my internist advised me to lose weight. But after seeing the yo-yo effects of dieting on friends and colleagues, I knew I would find the process of losing weight and gaining it back frustrating, so I ignored my physician’s advice. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed late this past...
For a man aged 55 to 69 years, the decision to be screened for prostate cancer should be an individual one, based on the man’s own values and priorities and discussions with a clinician about the potential benefits and harms of screening, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advised in ...
In a UK phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Middleton et al found that adding the multi–tyrosine kinase inhibitor vandetanib (Caprelsa) to gemcitabine did not improve overall survival in patients with previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic carcinoma. John P....
The emerging field of molecular pathology focuses on the study and diagnosis of disease through the examination of genes and gene activity within organs and tissues. This information has transformed our thinking about the biologic diversity of breast cancers and has enhanced our treatment...
After undergoing nearly 5 years of intensive medical training, IBM’s Watson for Oncology cognitive computing system is starting to make good on its promise to accelerate personalized care for patients with cancer. The system has been trained by oncologists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ...
MANY FACTORS can influence treatment decisions patients make concerning their cancer care. These include safety, efficacy, and cost, among other concerns. Recently, CancerCare, a national organization dedicated to providing assistance at no cost to anyone affected by cancer, established the...
Breast cancer surgeon Monica Morrow, MD, came from a town in the far northeast reaches of suburban Philadelphia. “I guess because there were only two girls in our family, I was the son my father never had, and he reared me that way. When we were playing catch, if I missed the ball and got hit in...
Three years ago, early results from the U.S. Intergroup C10403 trial,1 which evaluated the effectiveness of treating adolescent and young adults (AYAs) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using an intensive pediatric regimen, showed significant improvement in event-free and overall survival...
I recently saw a patient in our survivorship clinic. She was treated at age 15 years for Hodgkin lymphoma and is now in her early 50s. During the prior 2 decades, she had developed both bilateral breast cancer and thyroid cancer, as well as multiple basal cell carcinomas, all occurring within her...
Three separate brief psychological interventions aimed at helping cancer patients cope with distress have shown improvements in quality of life and well-being across the continuum of cancer care. The interventions were studied—respectively—in newly diagnosed cancer patients, survivors after cancer...
Three-year follow-up data from the phase III RAY study in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma were presented at the 14th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. These results demonstrated that the subset of patients treated with ibrutinib...
Data from the TRANSCEND trial of JCAR017 in relapsed and refractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) was presented at the 2017 International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. JCAR017 is Juno Therapeutics’ investigative chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) ...
An interim analysis of MAGNIFY, a phase IIIb, randomized, open-label, multicenter study of the R2 combination regimen (lenalidomide [Revlimid] plus rituximab [Rituxan]) in patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma, was presented at the International Conference on Malignant...
An updated interim analysis from an ongoing phase I/II clinical trial evaluating brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) and nivolumab (Opdivo) in relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland (Abstract...
Clinical data from an ongoing phase I clinical trial evaluating ADCT-402 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the 14th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. ADCT-402 is a novel antibody-drug conjugate composed of a ...
On June 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved aminolevulinic acid hydrochloride, known as ALA HCl (Gleolan), as an optical imaging agent indicated in patients with gliomas (suspected World Health Organization [WHO] Grades III or IV) for preoperative imaging, as an adjunct for the...
Data was recently presented from the phase III GENUINE trial of ublituximab, a novel glycoengineered anti–CD20 monoclonal antibody, in combination with ibrutinib (Imbruvica), a Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, for the treatment of high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), at the...
Data from the chemotherapy-free triple combination of umbralisib, an oral, next generation PI3K delta inhibitor; ublituximab, a novel glycoengineered anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody; and ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) and...
Positive interim efficacy data from an ongoing phase II clinical trial of tazemetostat, a first-in-class, oral enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) inhibitor, as a single-agent treatment for relapsed or refractory patients with follicular lymphoma or diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) grouped by...
A retrospective analysis reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice by Einstein et al showed the benefits of embedding palliative care in a clinic specializing in targeted and immune-based treatments in patients with melanoma or renal cancer. Study Details The study included data from 114...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Morrow et al found that the rates of surgery after initial lumpectomy for stage I or II breast cancer have decreased with dissemination of guidelines advocating a minimal negative surgical margin. A 2014 consensus statement of the Society of Surgical Oncology...
Simultaneous injections of the radiopharmaceuticals fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18 FDG) and fluorine-18 sodium fluoride (F-18 NaF) followed by quantitative scanning significantly improved image quality and detection of bone metastases at a lower dose, according to research presented at...
The phase III ASCEND-5 trial has shown a significant improvement in progression-free survival with ceritinib (Zykadia) vs chemotherapy in advanced ALK-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously treated with crizotinib (Xalkori) and chemotherapy. Trial results were reported in...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of daratumumab (Darzalex) in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies including lenalidomide (Revlimid) and a...
An estimated one in seven American men will be affected by prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate-specific molecular imaging can help to clinically manage the disease much more efficiently, especially if the cancer returns, according to research revealed at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the...
CancerCare has announced the establishment of the CancerCare Patient Values Initiative, a multipronged effort with an aim to reframe the national health-care policy dialogue so that it includes what is important to patients and their families. As the first step of this important project,...
In the phase III BELLE-2 trial, the addition of the PI3K inhibitor buparlisib to fulvestrant (Faslodex) improved progression-free survival in postmenopausal hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer—but at the cost of excessive toxicity. Results were reported in...
As reported by Le et al in Science, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to be active across a range of solid tumors with mismatch-repair (MMR) deficiency. Pembrolizumab was recently approved for treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or...
As reported by Petty et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, analysis of outcomes in the UK phase III Cancer Esophagus Gefitinib trial showed an overall survival benefit with second-line gefitinib (Iressa) in patients with advanced esophageal cancer who had epidermal growth factor receptor...
In the phase III MONARCH 2 trial reported at the recent ASCO Annual Meeting and in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Sledge et al, the addition of the selective cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor abemaciclib to fulvestrant (Faslodex) improved progression-free survival in hormone...
The first analysis of nearly 19,000 de-identified genomic records from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) international data-sharing initiative known as AACR Project Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange (GENIE) was recently published in Cancer Discovery. In addition to ...
For an investment of $125 for each year of life gained since the 1950s, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded SWOG clinical trials program has added 3.34 million years of life for patients with cancer in the United States because of successful therapies that were proved through its trials....
As reported by Heist et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan showed activity in patients with previously treated metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Sacituzumab targets Trop-2, present on many solid tumors; govitecan is the...
The phase III MSLT-II trial showed that completion dissection was not associated with improved melanoma-specific overall survival vs observation in patients with sentinel node metastasis, although a benefit was observed in regional disease control. The findings were reported in The New England...
Eight years ago, I was on top of the world. I had moved to Los Angeles, California, in 2007, from my home in Poços de Caldas, Brazil, to pursue my dream of launching a singing career in the United States, and was finally making progress. I had just completed composing songs for my debut album and...
BOOKMARK Title: What Patients Say, What Doctors HearAuthor: Danielle Ofri, MDPublisher: Beacon PressPublication date: February 2017Price: $24.95, hardcover, 288 pages Despite our scientific and medical advances, the single most important diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which is ...
BOOKMARK Title: The Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New MedicinesAuthors: Donald R. Kirsch, PhD, and Ogi Ogas, PhDPublisher: Arcade PublishingPublication date: January 2017Price: $24.99, hardcover, 328 pages Only about 1 in 100 drug discovery projects initiated by the pharmaceutical ...
As reported by Joanne L. Blum, MD, PhD, of Baylor University Medical Center, Texas Oncology, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the efficacy analysis of the combined adjuvant Anthracyclines in Early Breast Cancer (ABC) Trials showed better invasive disease-free survival with taxane ...
In the phase III CA184-095trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tomasz M. Beer, MD, FACP, of the Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, and colleagues found that ipilimumab (Yervoy) did not increase overall survival vs placebo in men with asymptomatic or...
The recent report of results of RTOG 9601 by Shipley et al in The New England Journal of Medicine1—reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—strongly supports the variably used practice of adding “androgen blockade” to salvage radiation therapy in men with a rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA)...