Invited discussant Brian M. Wolpin, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said the results of the LAPACT trial will be useful as an aid to patient counseling as well as in designing and interpreting future studies. However, he added, they are not “practice-changing,” as nanoparticle...
Patients newly diagnosed with locally advanced pancreatic cancer who received induction therapy with nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) and gemcitabine achieved a time to treatment failure and median progression-free survival that exceeded the protocol-specified target by more...
Discussant Jordi Bruix, MD, PhD, Head of the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer Group at the University of Barcelona in Spain, said the results of the CELESTIAL trial show that cabozantinib (Cabometyx) provides a clinically meaningful survival benefit to patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma ...
Patients with previously treated advanced hepatocellular carcinoma derived a survival benefit from cabozantinib (Cabometyx), in the phase III CELESTIAL trial.1 “Cabozantinib represents a new treatment option for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma after prior systemic anticancer...
In the December 10, 2017, issue of The ASCO Post, I authored an article in which I raised the possibility of curing follicular lymphoma without the dreaded chemotherapy. Clearly, no good deed goes unpunished: My good friend and The ASCO Post’s editor Jim Armitage, MD, challenged me to defend that...
Following the publication of two landmark studies in the United States,1,2 laryngeal preservation with combined chemoradiotherapy has become standard practice as opposed to laryngectomy for patients with locally advanced laryngeal cancer. The Department of Veterans Affairs Laryngeal Cancer Study...
“This is a large, well-done study,” said Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD, Chief of the Division of Otolaryngology in the Department of Surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Director of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who underscored the small number of...
Results from the first and largest prospective trial to determine the safety of multisite ablative stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in combination with anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) suggest the combination regimen may improve outcomes...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Overman et al, findings in the nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) cohort of the CheckMate-142 study indicate a high response rate and durable responses with the combination in previously treated patients with DNA mismatch...
Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors is the first of a new generation of immunotherapy treatments, revolutionizing treatment for many different types of cancer. By unleashing the body's immune system to attack cancer, these treatments can send even the most hard-to-treat cancers into...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lin et al found that specific ALK variants may be associated with the development of resistance mutations to ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Study Details The study involved...
Despite survivorship guidelines from ASCO and other organizations regarding follow-up care after cancer treatment ends, follow-up care is generally lacking for adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer survivors. Since AYA cancer survivors are at an increased risk for late effects from their cancer...
Cancer care guidelines recommend that cancer survivors who experience sexual dysfunction after cancer treatment use therapeutic aids to help improve their sexual health. However, a new study of 25 leading cancer centers found that 87% of the centers reported having no sexual aids available on site...
New findings from a clinical trial of women with breast cancer suggest that guided exercise with a physical therapist after lymph node dissection helps women regain their range of arm motion more quickly. These findings will be presented by Paskett et al at the upcoming 2018 Cancer Survivorship...
A follow-up study to a randomized clinical trial reveals that exercising during adjuvant chemotherapy helps people engage in more physical activity years later. Four years later, people with breast or colon cancer who had participated in an 18-week exercise program while receiving chemotherapy...
Survivors of childhood cancer are at increased risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome, which can lead to other serious health conditions, including heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. However, engaging in regular physical activity may help remediate these health issues in young survivors. A...
In a study of National Cancer Database data reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Neuman et al found that synchronous distant recurrence was identified in 27% of women with stage II or III breast cancer experiencing locoregional recurrence. Study Details The study—an American...
Results from the phase III PROSPER trial in patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer were presented by Hussain et al at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (Abstract 3). The results show that the use of enzalutamide (Xtandi) plus androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT)...
Data on CB-839, a first-in-class glutaminase inhibitor, will be presented by Tannir et al at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco (Abstract 603). The data are from the CX-839-001 study, which includes cohorts evaluating the safety, efficacy and recommended phase II dose of ...
Combining the antiangiogenic agent axitinib (Inlyta) with the immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to have promising antitumor activity and no unexpected side effects in an early-phase clinical trial in patients with advanced kidney cancer who had not been previously treated. The full...
On February 7, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) tablets in combination with prednisone for metastatic high-risk castration-sensitive prostate cancer. The FDA initially approved abiraterone acetate with prednisone in 2011 for patients with...
Gateway for Cancer Research has renewed and expanded its support for the Conquer Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Award Program. The organization will underwrite the Gateway for Cancer Research Young Investigator Award (YIA) for each of the next 3 years to enable promising physician-scientists...
CancerLinQ LLC and the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC), the professional society for genetic counselors, announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance. With the collaboration, NSGC leaders and members will provide expertise to CancerLinQ®, ASCO’s health information...
AS REPORTED BY Catherine Van Poznak, MD, FASCO, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) have collaborated in providing a focused update for the ASCO clinical practice guideline on the role of bone-modifying...
AS REVIEWED in this issue of The ASCO Post, Patel and colleagues have presented data from the phase I JAVELIN study evaluating avelumab (Bavencio) in platinum-refractory patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma.1 The drug is active with durable responses when compared with historical...
In a Danish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lænkholm and colleagues found that the PAM50-based Prosigna risk of recurrence score could identify lower risk of 10-year distant recurrence in subgroups of postmenopausal women who received 5 years of endocrine therapy alone for ...
Using nuclear medicine, German researchers may have found a way to accurately differentiate cancerous tissue from healthy tissue in prostate cancer patients. The research is highlighted in findings published by Rahbar et al in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. These new findings demonstrate that...
IN INTERVIEWS with The ASCO Post and in discussions held during the meeting, several breast cancer experts weighed in on the findings of GeparSepto and CALGB 40502. Eric P. Winer, MD, FASCO, Chief of the Division of Women’s Cancers and the Thompson Senior Investigator in Breast Cancer Research at ...
TWO IMPORTANT STUDIES, both updates of earlier findings and presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, provided different findings as to the relative benefit of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane), vs solvent-based paclitaxel in breast cancer. “The two studies...
JULIE GRALOW, MD, FASCO, Director of Breast Medical Oncology for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, commented on the findings of the SUCCESS A trial in an interview with The ASCO Post. The Oxford meta-analysis...
“ONCOLOGISTS WANT to find drugs that will delay the use of chemotherapy, and cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitors provide that. These agents work better than chemotherapy and with less toxicity,” said press conference moderator C. Kent Osborne, MD, Director of the Duncan Cancer Center at...
OLDER WOMEN with breast cancer derive benefit from treatment with cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitors as part of initial endocrine-based therapy for hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative, metastatic breast cancer, according to a retrospective pooled subgroup analysis of women aged 70 or ...
THE INVESTIGATIONAL agent BLU-285 (avapritinib) has shown significant activity in patients with advanced or aggressive forms of systemic mastocytosis, a rare blood disorder that originates in mast cells, according to the findings of a phase I trial reported at the 2017 American Society of...
DARATUMUMAB (DARZALEX) may be an effective treatment for systemic amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis, according to phase II studies reported at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1,2 While the cohorts were small and the arms uncontrolled, the findings...
The ongoing phase III CheckMate-227 study met its coprimary endpoint of progression-free survival with a combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) vs chemotherapy in patients with first-line advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have a high (≥ 10...
IN PATIENTS undergoing treatment of multiple myeloma, the prophylactic use of levofloxacin significantly reduced febrile episodes and deaths, without increasing healthcare-associated infections or carriage of key nosocomial pathogens, in a large multicenter study from the United Kingdom.1 The...
Esophageal cancer is the eighth most common cancer worldwide, with an estimated 456,000 new cases in 2012, and the sixth most common cause of death from cancer with an estimated 400,000 deaths, according to data from GLOBOCAN, which provides statistics on the incidence and mortality of cancer...
As reported by Hedy L. Kindler, MD, of the University of Chicago, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. The guideline was informed by a systematic literature search and expert panel review ...
As reported by Gallamini et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the Italian GITIL/FIL HD 0607 trial has shown good long-term outcomes with the switch from ABVD (doxorubicin, vinblastine, vincristine, and dacarbazine) to escalated BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide,...
Patients with esophageal cancer who refuse surgery when it is recommended are less likely to survive long term than similar groups of patients who undergo an operation, according to research presented by Ghaly et al at the 54th Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (P78). ...
Patients with breast cancer may be at an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure, and may benefit from a treatment approach that weighs the benefits of specific therapies against potential damage to the heart, according to a new scientific statement from the American...
THE NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Oncology Research Program in collaboration with Pfizer Global Medical Grants announced they have awarded funding to nine projects that use clinical care pathways to implement quality improvement initiatives along the continuum of care for...
A new analysis of the ongoing STAMPEDE clinical trial found that adding docetaxel to hormone therapy for advanced prostate cancer improves quality of life and lowers the need for subsequent therapy. Docetaxel was also found to be cost-effective. These findings will be presented by James et al at...
In a phase III clinical trial of patients with previously untreated metastatic renal cell cancer combining the immunotherapy atezolizumab (Tecentriq) with the targeted therapy bevacizumab (Avastin) delayed cancer growth by about 3 months longer than sunitinib, another targeted therapy. The benefit...
Researchers have developed a model to predict overall survival for people with advanced urothelial cancers treated with the immune checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq). The model, which is based on six clinical factors, may help inform treatment decisions for use of atezolizumab in these...
Findings from the phase III placebo-controlled SPARTAN trial suggest that apalutamide is an effective treatment for men with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who are at high risk for developing metastatic disease and for whom no approved treatments exist. Men who received...
STEPHEN LEONG, MD, of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center, Aurora, discussed the RAINFALL findings at the symposium, commenting, “The study did meet its primary endpoint of progression-free survival; however, it was disappointing not to see a benefit in overall survival or...
BASED ON EFFICACY seen in the second-line setting for the treatment of metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, ramucirumab (Cyramza) was evaluated as first-line therapy in the international phase III RAINFALL trial. Although the study met its primary endpoint, with a 25%...
AS REVIEWED in this issue of The ASCO Post, ASCO and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) have issued an updated guideline on the role of bone-modifying agents in metastatic breast cancer.1 The updated guideline supports a change in clinical practice for our patients with breast cancer and bone metastasis....
DISCUSSANT ZSOFIA KINGA STADLER, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, found the nivolumab (Opdivo)/ipilimumab (Yervoy) combination results very encouraging but was also impressed with the monotherapy arm. Both approaches are significant advances in treatment, she said. “The treatment of ...