The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) honored Mary “Dicey” Jackson Scroggins with the 2016 AACR Distinguished Public Service Award as part of the Opening Ceremony for the AACR Annual Meeting 2016, held in New Orleans on April 16–20, 2016. She was recognized for her long-standing...
With new immunotherapies available for the treatment of advanced melanoma, an important question is how best to combine and sequence them. Long-term follow-up from the KEYNOTE-001 trial suggests that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) can improve survival in newly diagnosed patients and in those treated...
This is an exciting time to be an oncologist. I often say I wish I were 30 again and just starting out in my oncology career. Never before have we had such sophisticated technology for evaluation of the tumor or such a potent arsenal of targeted and effective therapies to treat cancer. Further, the ...
The Middle East is a vast region comprised largely of developing nations with complicated sociopolitical challenges, violent internecine disputes, and deeply fragmented health-care systems. Not surprisingly, the region’s suboptimal health care contributes to the late diagnosis and poor survival...
BookmarkTitle: Dying: A TransitionAuthor: Monika Renz, PhD; translated by Mark Kyburz and John PeckPublisher: Columbia University PressPublication date: October 2015Price: $38.00; hardcover, 176 pages The night before Julius Caesar was assassinated, he had dinner with his friend Marcus...
In March, ASCO announced that Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, was stepping down as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at the end of June, ending his 10-year tenure as head of the Society and the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO. Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, Chief of Breast Medicine Service and Vice...
Deborah Schrag, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, and an oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, commented on the findings for The ASCO Post. She said the inferior survival of patients with right-sided tumors “is almost certainly because of the molecular...
In metastatic colorectal cancer, the anatomic location of the tumor within the colon appears to make a difference in overall survival as well as response to pivotal treatments, according to a retrospective analysis of the pivotal CALGB/SWOG 80405 (Alliance) trial.1 “While previous studies had...
A study found that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients with cancer in the United States appear to be less likely to receive cancer treatment, regardless of insurance and other existing health conditions. The study, by researchers at the University of Utah, the National Cancer...
Immunohistochemistry (IHC) is an effective tool that can be used for identifying proto-oncogene 1 receptor tyrosine kinase (ROS1) gene rearrangements and screening patients for the administration of the targeted therapy crizotinib (Xalkori), a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Chromosomal...
It is well known that men and women differ in terms of cancer susceptibility, survival, and mortality, but exactly why this occurs at a molecular level has been poorly understood. A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reviewed 13 cancer types and provided a molecular...
A disparity in BRCA1/2 testing between white and black women was influenced by patient-reported physician recommendation, in a population-based study reported by McCarthy et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details The study involved data from 3,016 women (69% white, 31% black) in...
In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Stilgenbauer et al found that the BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax (Venclexta) produced a high response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) with the 17p deletion (del [17p]). The study supported the recent...
Women with early-stage breast cancer for whom chemotherapy was indicated and who used dietary supplements and multiple types of complementary and alternative medicine were less likely to start chemotherapy than nonusers of alternative therapies, according to research led by Heather Greenlee, ND,...
A protein called Bim may hold the clue to which patients may be successful on immunotherapy for metastatic melanoma, according to the results of a study by Mayo Clinic researchers led by senior author Haidong Dong, MD, PhD, and published by Dronca et al in JCI Insight. “Immune checkpoint...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted accelerated approval to atezolizumab (Tecentriq) for the treatment of urothelial carcinoma, the most common type of bladder cancer. This is the first programmed cell death protein 1/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) inhibitor to be...
A meta-analysis of 346 phase I clinical trials involving more than 13,000 patients found that patients whose treatment was selected based on the molecular characteristics of their tumor had significantly better outcomes. The study was featured in a press briefing today and will be presented by...
A randomized clinical trial found that introducing palliative care shortly after a cancer diagnosis results in better quality of life and fewer symptoms of depression among family caregivers. According to the authors, the study is the first to show that early palliative care alone for a...
Long-term follow-up from a phase Ib trial (KEYNOTE-001) in newly diagnosed and previously treated patients with advanced melanoma showed that 40% of patients were alive 3 years after starting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda), with similar 36-month...
For a longer-form examination of these data, click here. A retrospective analysis from a large, federally funded clinical trial finds that the location of the primary tumor within the colon predicts survival and may help inform optimal treatment selection for patients with metastatic colorectal...
On May 17, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo; Bristol-Myers Squibb) for the treatment of patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma that has relapsed or progressed after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and...
Up to 50% of patients with soft-tissue sarcoma develop lung metastases. Effective systemic therapies for metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma are currently limited; when possible, pulmonary metastasectomy is the preferred treatment. However, guidelines for the performance of pulmonary metastasectomy for...
Untreated severe obstructive sleep apnea is associated with increased aggressiveness of malignant cutaneous melanoma, according a multicenter, prospective study. The new study, which involved researchers from 24 teaching hospitals that are part of the Spanish Sleep and Breathing Network, was...
In a single-center phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Dickson et al found that changing the dose and schedule of palbociclib (Ibrance) from those in a previous phase II trial appeared to maintain activity while potentially reducing hematologic adverse effects in patients with advanced...
The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to first-line endocrine therapy with letrozole improved progression-free survival but increased toxicity among postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer, according to the results of the phase III CALGB 40503/Alliance...
Moreau et al found that adding the oral proteasome inhibitor ixazomib (Ninlaro) to lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone significantly prolonged progression-free survival among patients with relapsed, refractory, or relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. They reported the findings from the...
On May 13, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved lenvatinib capsules (Lenvima), in combination with everolimus (Afinitor) for the treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma following one prior antiangiogenic therapy. Lenvatinib was first approved in 2015 for the treatment...
AstraZeneca announced on May 12 that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation for the investigational MEK 1/2 inhibitor selumetinib (AZD6244, ARRY-142886) for adjuvant treatment of patients with stage III or IV differentiated thyroid cancer. Differentiated...
A promising new test is detecting prostate cancer more precisely than current tests by identifying molecular changes in the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) protein, according to Cleveland Clinic research presented at the 111th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA)...
ASCO President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, issued this statement on May 10. “In comments submitted yesterday to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), ASCO underscored the urgent need to advance a more fair and responsible payment system for oncology than what is proposed ...
Poor response to combined BRAF and MEK inhibition with dabrafenib (Tafinlar)/trametinib (Mekinist) in patients with BRAF inhibitor–refractory metastatic melanoma may be associated with failure to significantly inhibit the MAPK pathway, according to a single-center phase II study reported in...
In the phase III NEfERT-T trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Awada et al found no progression-free survival benefit of neratinib/paclitaxel vs trastuzumab (Herceptin)/paclitaxel in previously untreated inoperable recurrent or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. A potential benefit of...
Men with low levels of the male sex hormone testosterone need not fear that testosterone replacement therapy will increase their risk of prostate cancer. This is the finding of an analysis of more than a quarter-million medical records of mostly white men in Sweden, research led by investigators at ...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Eke and colleagues found that simultaneous β1 and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibition resulted in increased cytotoxicity, radiosensitization, and tumor control in human head and neck squamous cell carcinomas....
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Lee and colleagues designed a caspase-3–specific activated prodrug containing doxorubicin linked to a peptide moiety (DEVD-S-DOX), which is cleaved by caspase-3 at apoptosis. Apoptosis was induced in C3H/HeN mammary tumor-bearing...
The use of combination therapy with estrogen plus progestin, previously shown to be associated with an increased incidence of estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer in postmenopausal women in studies based largely on white women, has been shown to increase estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer ...
Pathologists disagree about 8% of the time when interpreting a single breast biopsy slide, with more overinterpretation than underinterpretation in discordant cases, according to an analysis combining results from the B-Path (Breast Pathology) study with data on the prevalence of breast cancer...
The survival benefits of reducing the time to surgery following a diagnosis of breast cancer and the time to initiation of adjuvant chemotherapy following surgery were outlined in two articles and an accompanying editorial in JAMA Oncology. Analyzing two independent population-based studies with a...
The members of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) have elected five members to serve on the AACR Board of Directors for the 2016–2019 term and four members to serve on the Nominating Committee for the 2016–2018 term. They began their terms at the 2016 AACR Annual Meeting, held...
On April 14, 2016, an 18-month-old patient with cancer named Baron Yerby flew home to Atlanta after receiving treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. However, instead of flying on a crowded commercial plane with the potential for immune deficiency issues, he and his parents flew on a...
In 1997, just 6 weeks after giving birth to my second child, I started having fevers and night sweats and my lymph nodes were swollen. I’m a physician, so I knew something was wrong and that my symptoms were unrelated to having just given birth. I had a blood test, and a biopsy was performed on one ...
On April 13, The Parker Foundation announced a $250 million grant to launch the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, a collaboration between scientists, clinicians, and industry partners to lead an unprecedented cancer immunotherapy research effort. The gift is the largest single contribution ...
Imagine accidentally falling off an abyss. One simply cannot fully understand the gravity of the situation! You might skip a beat thinking about it while sitting in a chair in your living room, if you have tons of empathy, as you try to get into the shoes that are flailing for survival. But there...
In 2006, palliative care became a board-certified subspecialty of internal medicine, with specialized fellowships for physicians interested in the field. Despite its formal integration into best practices medical care, about 70% of Americans describe themselves as “not at all knowledgeable” about ...
Surveys indicate that cancer survivors have varying desires regarding the kind of support they want. Some patients find support groups very helpful as they deal with the host of issues in survivorship. Others want to distance themselves from the “world of cancer.” Studies also show that...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it is expanding its award-winning “The Real Cost” campaign to educate rural white male teenagers about the negative health consequences associated with smokeless tobacco use. For the first time, messages on the dangers of smokeless tobacco...
Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have been working together for many years on an idea known as breakthrough therapy, and it has produced results beyond anyone’s hopes. Said Ellen Sigal, PhD, Friends Chair and Founder, “When we were first talking...
MAY Lymphoma: State-of-the-Art in Biology Therapy, and Patient CareMay 13-14 • New York, New YorkFor more information: msklymphoma2016.com NCI “Sandpit” on Individual and Contextual Factors of Population-Level Cancer ControlMay 16-18 • Montgomery County, MarylandFor more...
Phase I Study Title: A Phase I Study to Examine the Toxicity of Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation for Relapsed or Therapy-Refractory Ewing Sarcoma Study Type: Interventional/nonrandomized/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: University of Louisville Purpose: To examine the...