Researchers have found that treating patients who have early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is associated with a small but increased risk of death from causes other than cancer, according to findings presented at the European Society...
Radiation therapy not only targets and destroys cancer cells, but also helps to activate the immune system against their future proliferation. However, this immune response is often not strong enough to be able to completely eradicate tumors, and even when it is, its effect is limited to the area...
Although the publication of results of clinical trials carried out in the United States within 12 months of their completion has been mandatory since 2007, a remarkably high number of phase III radiotherapy trials did not do so, according to new research presented at the European Society for...
A new report published by Teras et al in Environmental Researchfound a statistically significant, positive association between high levels of residential radon and the risk of hematologic cancer (lymphoma, myeloma, and leukemia) in women. The study is the first prospective, population-based study...
As reported in JAMA Oncology, Sacher et al have prospectively validated a plasma droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) assay for detecting common EGFR and KRAS mutations in patients with advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer. Study Details The study involved 180...
In a study published by Kressin et al in JAMA, Nancy R. Kressin, PhD, of the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System, Boston University School of Medicine, and colleagues examined the content, readability, and understandability of dense breast notifications sent to women following screening...
Long-term use of the cholesterol-lowering drugs statins does not appear to decrease a patient’s risk of colorectal cancer, suggests a new, large case-control study from Penn Medicine published by Mamtani et al in PLOS Medicine. The observational analysis of over 100,000 patients’...
Although laparoscopic radical cystectomy and robotic-assisted radical cystectomy continue to grow in popularity and are successful in the treatment of bladder cancer, they are still considered experimental approaches. Using data collected by the Section of Uro-Technology of the European Association ...
In an analysis of the phase III BOLERO trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, André et al found that the addition of everolimus (Afinitor) to trastuzumab (Herceptin) and chemotherapy was associated with a progression-free survival benefit in advanced HER2-positive breast cancer ...
Patients who had cancer before receiving an organ transplant were more likely to die of any cause, die of cancer, or develop a new cancer than organ recipients who did not previously have cancer, a new study published by Acuna et al in the journal Transplantation has found. However, the increased...
A 5-year study published by Hannan et al in the European Journal of Cancer showed that stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) to treat prostate cancer offers a higher cure rate than more traditional approaches, according to researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center Harold C. Simmons...
Results from the I-SPY 2 TRIAL show that a neoadjuvant therapy combination of the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla) and pertuzumab (Perjeta) was more beneficial than paclitaxel plus trastuzumab for women with HER2-positive invasive breast cancer, according to research...
The cost and side effects associated with traditional cancer therapy are major concerns, and in part many patients are seeking natural remedies such as graviola, curcumin, and moringa, due to these concerns. Traditional cancer therapy is increasingly effective, and oncologists are achieving better...
Using the National Cancer Institute’s Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE), researchers from Columbia University, New York, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, identified six severe adverse event clusters in patients with advanced prostate cancer. The clusters...
Three measures of aggressive end-of-life care “were associated with relatively large differences in family member–reported quality ratings for end-of-life care and a lower likelihood that patients with advanced-stage cancer received care congruent with their preferences,” according to a study in...
As reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Asim and colleagues found that choline kinase alpha (CHKA) acts as a chaperone for the androgen receptor (AR) and may serve as a therapeutic target in prostate cancer. CHKA expression was found to be androgen regulated in cell lines,...
Women diagnosed with breast cancer who chose contralateral prophylactic mastectomy reported improvement in psychosocial well-being and breast satisfaction, but “the magnitude of the effect may be too small to be clinically meaningful,” according to a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1...
APRIL 16th Pan Arab Cancer ConferenceApril 28-30 • Cairo, EgyptFor more information:www.pacc16.org ONS 41st Annual CongressApril 28-May 1 • San Antonio, Texas For more information: http://congress.ons.org 11th European International Kidney Cancer SymposiumApril 29-30 • Barcelona, Spain For more...
For many, the word “radiation” conjures up images of mushroom clouds and the nightmarish nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. It also brings to mind those pesky dental x-rays and lifesaving cancer treatments. However, to most people, radiation is a mysterious invisible power to be feared and embraced...
Immunotherapy is on its way. A few agents have already been approved: ipilimumab (Yervoy) in 2011 for melanoma; nivolumab (Opdivo) in 2015 for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and then later that year for renal cell carcinoma; and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for NSCLC. In addition, many clinical...
The median age of patients at the first diagnosis of cancer in the United States is 65 years, and the majority of patients with cancer are older adults.1 As we have learned from previous articles in this series, older patients with cancer require more complex care. Older adults are more likely to...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) and ASCO have issued a Breast Cancer Survivorship Care guideline, published jointly in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.1,2 The guideline recommendations were formulated by a multidisciplinary expert work group and are based...
The advent of targeted therapies along with complex personalized treatment regimens has added many effective tools to the oncology armamentarium. But progress has a price tag. Although the oncology community needs new drugs, there is growing concern that the price of many newer compounds is...
It’s easy for patients to find information about cancer on the Internet, but finding information that is both accurate and understandable may not be so easy. Cancer.Net’s Editor-in-Chief Lidia Schapira, MD, FASCO, recently joined Fergal McGovern on Empowered Patient Radio to discuss the challenges...
A Partner at Tennessee Oncology, PLLC, W. Charles Penley, MD, FASCO, has been an ASCO member since 1988. He has served on the Conquer Cancer Foundation Board of Directors since 2005 and currently holds the role of Immediate Past Chair. What led you to oncology? WCP: While it may sound silly to say ...
Among females who received radiotherapy to the chest as part of treatment for a childhood cancer, those who had either of two specific genetic variants were at significantly higher risk of developing breast cancer later in life, according to research presented by Morton et al at the 2016 AACR...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Forlenza et al found that noninteracting KIR3DL1 and HLA-B subtypes were associated with better response to anti-GD2 antibody treatment in neuroblastoma. Study Details Treatment of neuroblastoma with anti-GD2 monoclonal antibody (eg, the...
Reeder-Hayes et al found that adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) may be underused in older women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer and reported their study results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Adjuvant trastuzumab also was used less often in black women than in white women. Rates...
In a French phase III trial reported in The Lancet, Ribrag et al showed that adding rituximab (Rituxan) to dose-dense chemotherapy improved event-free survival among adults with Burkitt lymphoma. Study Details In the open-label trial, 260 patients were randomized between October 2004 and...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. We chose Boswellia for this issue because of its increasing use by patients with cancer....
Studies presented at the 2015 ASH Annual Meeting bolstered support for elotuzumab (Empliciti) given in combination with lenalidomide (Revlimid) for the treatment of multiple myeloma. Elotuzumab is an immunostimulatory monoclonal antibody. It has a dual mechanism of action, directly activating...
Monoclonal antibodies targeting the programmed cell death protein (PD-1) receptor look promising in multiple myeloma, according to early reports presented at the 2015 ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition. Early signs of activity in heavily pretreated patients may indicate that, as in solid tumors,...
Active surveillance has been increasingly adopted as a standard approach for men with Gleason score ≤ 6 localized prostate cancer, with major guidelines and consensus statements encouraging this approach,1 including a recently published guideline from Cancer Care Ontario (CCO),2 and endorsement of...
As reported by Ronald C. Chen, MD, MPH, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has endorsed, with qualifications, the 2015 Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) guideline on active surveillance for management of localized prostate cancer....
A City of Hope research team led by Steven T. Rosen, MD, City of Hope’s Provost and Chief Scientific Officer, has been awarded a $2.3 million Research Project Grant (R01) from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to fund studies associated with a phase I/II clinical trial in relapsed/refractory...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Piero Dalerba, MD, of Columbia University, and colleagues found that absence of the transcription factor CDX2 was prognostic for poor outcome in patients with stage II and III colon cancer vs cancers with CDX2 expression.1 However,...
Neoadjuvant endocrine therapy in the management of breast cancer is woefully underutilized by U.S. clinicians, according to advocates of this approach who made their case at the 2016 Miami Breast Cancer Conference.1 In postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–rich tumors, neoadjuvant endocrine...
The relationship between margin width and risk of recurrence after breast-conserving surgery for ductal carcinoma in situ depends on the use of radiation, according to a surgical oncologist who sought to determine the optimal margin width in these patients.1 “Positive margins are associated with an ...
In the discussion session, Douglas A. Levine, MD, Head of Gynecology Research Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, said that while advanced genomics can help to predict outcomes, stratify treatment, and understand biology, one of the problems of precision medicine is that...
Kian Behbakht, MD, Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, said that the study underscored the surgical importance of getting to no visible residual disease in ovarian cancer. “Based on today’s data,” said Dr. Behbakht, “it seems as though it’s...
Three commercially available diagnostic tests were similarly effective in measuring programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein expression on non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumor samples, indicating that health-care providers may someday be able to use these tests interchangeably when...
The presence of two species of bacteria linked to periodontal disease in the mouths of healthy individuals was associated with an increased risk of subsequently developing pancreatic cancer, according to research presented by Fan et al at the 2016 AACR Annual Meeting (Abstract 4350). ...
In a phase II US Intergroup trial (Southwest Oncology Group S0816) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Press et al found that early interim fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (FDG-PET) to guide response-adapted therapy resulted in progression-free survival substantially...
A new study suggests that homologous recombination deficiency may have significant prognostic implications for patients with ovarian cancer, highlighting the importance of genetic testing in this population.1 According to the data, patients with ovarian cancer who have mutations in genes affecting...
Interest in quality measurement and improvement was once primarily a concern of regulators, insurers, and consumer advocates. Today, quality improvement is front and center in health care—a continuous mission requiring the efforts of everyone on the health-care team. At the recent ASCO Quality Care ...
Although high-dose chemotherapy plus autologous transplantation has been a standard of care in the treatment of younger patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, the advent of effective novel agents for the cancer over the past 15 years has raised the question of whether transplantation, with ...
Compelling hypotheses are emerging about the mechanisms driving triple-negative breast cancer, and they are driving drug development in this area, according to Joyce O’Shaughnessy, MD, Celebrating Women Chair of Breast Cancer Research at Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center. She is also Medical...
A roundtable convened by the Turning the Tide Against Cancer initiative, composed of a multidisciplinary group of stakeholders, put forth five policy considerations that are critical to ensuring the delivery of high-quality oncology care while supporting innovation. The report was published by...
Among patients with early-stage breast cancer who were considered at high risk for disease recurrence based on clinical and biologic criteria, the MammaPrint genetic test identified a large group of patients for whom 5-year distant metastasis–free survival was equally good whether or not they ...
The investigational drug LOXO-101, which selectively targets a family of proteins called neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptors (NTRKs), produced significant tumor regression in patients whose tumors had NTRK gene fusions, according to data from a phase I clinical trial presented by Hong et al at...