The investigational immunotherapeutic IMC-20D7S was found to be well tolerated and somewhat active in patients with advanced melanoma, including one complete response, according to the results of a phase I/Ib trial reported by Danny N. Khalil, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Clinical Cancer Research....
Although adjuvant chemotherapy decreases the risk of breast cancer recurrence, it is associated with distressing side effects, including hair loss. A prospective randomized trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the Orbis Paxman Hair Loss Prevention System (OPHLPS), a scalp-cooling device that ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chakravarthy et al found that human papillomavirus (HPV)-driven tumors accounted for 4.1% of nonoropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. HPV-positive tumors were associated with poorer survival and reduced...
In a secondary analysis from the NRG Oncology RTOG 0617 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stephen G. Chun, MD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that use of intensity-modulated vs three-dimensional...
CancerLinQ LLC has announced that George A. Komatsoulis, PhD, will be its first Chief of Bio-Informatics. This marks another step toward the organization’s goal of making the CancerLinQ® platform the premier system for unlocking patient data from millions of electronic health records, breaking...
Cardiovascular toxicities associated with cancer treatments are not new. What is new, and what has prompted recent articles in The New England Journal of Medicine,1,2 is the explosion of cancer therapies, which has dramatically changed the natural course of many cancers but can lead to cardiac,...
Among women enrolled in the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study I (IBIS-I), those who had certain symptoms of menopause—nausea/vomiting and headaches—were significantly less likely to be adherent to the assigned medication 4.5 years after starting the treatment, according to...
“I am greatly saddened by the death of former Congressman Melvin R. Laird, who, over the course of his distinguished career in public service, played a key role in advancing biomedical research and the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Our thoughts are with his family and the...
Although my diagnosis of stage IIIB melanoma 5 years ago came as a shock, in hindsight, it shouldn’t have been so surprising. I had noticed a small freckle-like lesion on my upper left thigh that had become itchy and occasionally bled, but it didn’t fit the ABCDE (Asymmetry, Border irregularity,...
Presurgical treatment with the investigational therapeutic abemaciclib, either alone or in combination with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole, reduced levels of Ki67, a marker of cell proliferation, in hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer cells, compared with anastrozole...
The investigational PI3K inhibitor buparlisib, in combination with endocrine therapy, improved outcomes for patients with hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer that had progressed after treatment with everolimus (Afinitor) plus exemestane, according to data from the phase III...
Adding the investigational poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor veliparib to carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy improved the overall response rate without increasing adverse events among patients who had locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations,...
A few years ago, I had the good fortune to join a research team that intended to create a device to help dying children express their wants and needs despite communication challenges. The brain tumor team at SickKids [also known as The Hospital for Sick Children] had cared for several children...
Radiotherapy increased complications and impaired patient-reported satisfaction with reconstructed breasts in breast cancer patients who received implant reconstruction, but not in those who received autologous reconstruction, according to data from a large, prospective, multicenter cohort study...
Postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early-stage breast cancer who received the bisphosphonate ibandronate (Boniva) in addition to adjuvant hormone therapy did not have improved disease-free survival outcomes, according to data from the phase III clinical trial TEAM IIB...
Adding an aromatase inhibitor to presurgical treatment with docetaxel, carboplatin, trastuzumab (Herceptin), and pertuzumab (Perjeta) did not significantly increase or decrease the percentage of patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-positive breast cancer who had a pathologic...
A sentinel lymph node biopsy during surgery that showed no signs of cancer was associated with a low risk for breast cancer recurrence in the axillary lymph nodes for patients with large, operable breast tumors and no clinical signs of the cancer in the axillary lymph nodes prior to neoadjuvant...
People living with serious illness who receive palliative care have better quality of life and fewer symptoms than those who don’t receive palliative care, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Published by Dio Kavalieratos, PhD, Assistant...
Among the most widely attended sessions at the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium in September was the keynote lecture, “Wit, Hex, Vin, Life, Death: Using Wit as a Teaching Tool,” given by Margaret Edson, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning play Wit. Wit tells the story of an accomplished ...
On March 10, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to dinutuximab (formerly known as chimeric 14.18 antibody; Unituxin) for use in combination with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin-2 (IL-2), and 13-cis-retinoic acid...
GUEST EDITOR Physiatry in Oncology explores the benefits of cancer rehabilitation in oncology practice to screen survivors for physical and cognitive impairments along the care continuum to minimize survivors’ disability and maximize their quality of life. The column is guest edited by Sean Smith, ...
Ellen V. Sigal, PhD, Chair and Founder of Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) began the annual meeting with a conversation with Douglas R. Lowy, MD, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Acting Director, and Robert M. Califf, MD, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner. “Cancer research is ...
More than 100 participants are now enrolled on study drug in ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) Study. The trial launched in March 2016 at 37 sites, and in November, it welcomed its newest participating clinical sites: Cancer Treatment Centers of America®,...
The antioxidant sodium thiosulfate provided protection against cisplatin-related hearing loss in children with cancer, according to a phase III trial reported by Freyer et al in The Lancet Oncology. The open-label trial included 104 assessable patients (aged 1 to 18 years) from 38 Children’s ...
The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) are calling on policymakers and leaders throughout the world to provide robust and sustained funding for cancer research. The two organizations say there has been a...
Despite the routine use of HER2 blockade in early HER2-positive breast cancer, clinicians can always benefit from a refresher on key treatment considerations. Clinical pearls and controversial issues were the topic of a presentation at the 14th Annual School of Breast Oncology at Emory University, ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) honored two renowned researchers for their work in breast cancer at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), held December 6–10 in San Antonio, Texas. Fergus J. Couch, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic, will receive the 9th Annual AACR...
In an article in The Lancet Oncology, Y. Tony Yang, ScD, of George Mason University, Charles L. Bennett, MD, PhD, MPP, of the University of South Carolina and colleagues from the United States, Europe, and Japan examined clinical, policy, safety, and regulatory considerations for generic oncology...
Five additional years of hormone therapy with letrozole following an initial 5 years of aromatase inhibitor-based adjuvant hormone therapy did not demonstrate a statistical improvement in disease-free survival or overall survival in postmenopausal women with early-stage hormone...
Progression-free survival was more than doubled for patients with metastatic hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer resistant to aromatase inhibitor therapy by adding everolimus (Afinitor) to treatment with the endocrine therapeutic fulvestrant (Faslodex), according to data...
Genomic sequencing of estrogen receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer that had become resistant to therapies revealed multiple genomic and molecular alterations that were not present in the primary tumor samples, with implications for choice of next therapy, clinical trial eligibility,...
Elizabeth M. Swisher, MD, Medical Director of the Breast and Ovarian Cancer Prevention Program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, enjoys developing long-term patient relationships and helping patients who are confronted with cancer and terminal issues. She is particularly interested in the...
The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, a national leader in providing compassionate care to patients and caregivers, has named Randi Kaplan, LMSW, Director of the Arthur D. Emil Caregiver Support Center at Montefiore, the National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year. The prestigious...
In a phase III intergroup trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brigitta G. Baumert, MD, of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), Brussels, and colleagues found no progression-free survival difference between temozolomide chemotherapy and radiotherapy alone in...
With drug approvals for immunotherapy in the first- and second-line settings, breakthroughs in targeting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations, and the rapid evolution of therapies that target anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangements, 2016 has been an extraordinary year for lung...
People who consistently smoked an average of less than 1 cigarette per day over their lifetime had a 64% higher risk of earlier death than never-smokers, and those who smoked between 1 and 10 cigarettes a day had an 87% higher risk of earlier death than never-smokers, according to a new study from...
On November 10, 2016, nivolumab (Opdivo) was approved for treatment of recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck with disease progression on or after platinum-based therapy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the finding of an overall survival advantage...
Oncologists may be accustomed to looking for commonalities in patients, but highly personalized therapies are now being developed based on mutational analysis of tumors. According to data presented at the Cedars-Sinai annual symposium on New Therapeutics in Oncology: The Road to Personalized...
Liquid biopsy technologies are increasingly being used to detect genetic mutations in tumors, giving clinicians the opportunity to see in real time how a patient’s cancer may or may not be responding to treatment. In a study presented recently at the 28th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular...
Two studies presented at the 28th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Munich focused on the inhibition of mutations in the KIT and PDGFRα oncogenes. These genes encode receptor tyrosine kinases, and when they are mutated, cell signaling malfunctions, leading to...
African Americans are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to be diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and twice as likely to die from this form of cancer. Research presented at the 9th American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Conference on the Science of Cancer Health...
The future treatment of melanoma may rely on combinations of immunotherapy agents beyond the current checkpoint inhibitors, and they are entering clinical trials, according to Jeffrey Weber, MD, PhD, Deputy Director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University Langone...
On November 21, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved daratumumab (Darzalex) in combination with lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone or bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior...
Positive studies about brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma1 and rituximab (Rituxan) maintenance therapy in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL)2 were reported at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Hematology (ASH). “These abstracts each focus on approved agents and...
In part 1 of a phase III equivalence trial reported in JAMA, Rugo et al found that treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin) or a proposed trastuzumab biosimilar in combination with a taxane produced similar overall response rates in patients with previously untreated metastatic HER2-positive breast...
Despite an elevated risk of toxicity from chemotherapy, children with Down syndrome and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) did not experience higher rates of relapse or treatment-related mortality compared with other children treated on Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium Protocols,...
A combination of two targeted agents has demonstrated safety as well as encouraging signs of effectiveness in a phase I clinical trial in patients with relapsed or hard-to-treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). Davids et al reported the findings at the 58th American ...
Compared with standard therapy, pacritinib significantly reduces spleen size among people with myelofibrosis who have very low levels of platelets, according to a late-breaking study presented by Mascarenhas et al during the 58th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition...
A late-breaking abstract presented by Miklos et al during the 58th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition in San Diego (Abstract LBA-3) showed patients who experience graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) after stem cell transplantation that is not resolved by corticosteroid...
In the UK phase III ERCC1 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lee et al found that presence of the excision repair cross complementing group 1 (ERCC1) biomarker did not predict better outcome with nonplatinum therapy in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Study...