It is an exciting time for researchers involved in developing new therapies for bladder cancer. More agents are in clinical development, drugs with novel mechanisms and novel trial designs are being implemented, and functional collaboration is occurring in the field, according to Noah Hahn, MD,...
ECCO President Michael Baumann, MD, said that the findings on changes in receptor status throughout breast cancer progression were of major importance, “because many patients do not receive optimal treatment for their disease. The price of regular biopsies may seem high, but in the long run they...
“The practice of rebiopsy at relapse and metastasis is becoming increasingly common in the United States,” said Hope Rugo, MD, Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. “More than 20% of patients have differing results from the primary tumor to rebiopsy at disease progression. It ...
Oncologists should be aware that common clinical tumor markers (denoting hormonal and HER2 status) change as breast cancer progresses, because these changes can affect treatment selection. Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and HER2 receptor status was changed from the time of the...
“The main message [from Dr. Hall’s presentation at the 2011 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium] is that we need to think about using sipuleucel-T early in men with prostate cancer who are asymptomatic but are castration-resistant and metastatic. “If there is going to be a benefit [of the vaccine],...
When sipuleucel-T (Provenge) was approved by FDA in April 2010, it was the first vaccine to be approved as a treatment for prostate cancer and was hailed as a major advance. Although sipuleucel-T is now reimbursable by Medicare, some physicians are not clear about when to use it, and patients who...
A criticism of the HD.6 trial is that current radiation techniques are probably less toxic than subtotal nodal radiation therapy, which was used in this investigation. Responding to this in an accompanying editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 David J. Straus, MD, of the lymphoma...
An important study suggests that radiotherapy may not be a necessary addition to chemotherapy in previously untreated patients with limited-stage Hodgkin lymphoma, sparing patients the risks of late radiation-induced cardiac effects and second cancers. These data were based on 12 years of follow-up ...
Previous studies of gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) had variable results in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Before trials reported at the 2011 ASH Annual Meeting, two major studies had compared chemotherapy with or without gemtuzumab in patients with AML, said Martin Tallman, MD, Chief of the...
A study presented at the Plenary Session of the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) breathes new life into an older drug for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that is no longer available in the United States.1 Gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) appears to be a promising...
The new anti-CD20 monocolonal antibody obinutuzumab is being studied in the treatment of patients with relapsed CD20-positive indolent B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. GAUSS is the first clinical trial to compare obinutuzumab head-to-head against rituximab (Rituxan) induction therapy. “In this first...
This large randomized, controlled trial took a lot of time and extensive resources, and yet survival was the same between the two types of unrelated donor transplant sources, noted Stephanie J. Lee, MD, Professor of Medicine at Washington University and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. ...
Over the past decade, the use of peripheral blood stem cells has increased, and now about 75% of unrelated living donor transplants are performed using peripheral blood stem cells without supportive data in the unrelated donor setting. This trend is called into question by results of a large phase...
Commenting on the 5-year follow-up data of VISTA presented at the 2011 ASH meeting, Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, said, “This is the longest follow-up of protocols incorporating novel therapies into initial therapy of nontransplant candidates in myeloma. Remarkably, bortezomib with melphalan and...
Five-year analysis of the VISTA trial confirms a survival advantage with VMP (bortezomib [Velcade], melphalan, and prednisone) for upfront treatment of multiple myeloma in patients who were not transplant candidates. At a median follow-up of 60.1 months, a 13-month improvement in overall survival...
“My comment on the AFFIRM trial is ‘wow, very impressive.’ The median survival and the declines in PSA levels are impressive, and this is going to change the way we care for patients in our practices,” said Nicholas Vogelzang, MD, medical oncologist with Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada and...
Two novel agents with distinct mechanisms of action join ranks of treatments that extend survival for patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer: MDV3100 and radium-223. Both drugs achieved a survival advantage compared with placebo, with relatively benign side-effect profiles, according to ...
Attendees at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), held recently in in San Diego, were able to choose from a wide range of interesting and important sessions exploring hematologic malignancies. In addition to The ASCO Post’s regular news coverage from the meeting,...
Sipuleucel-T (Provenge) can generate a circulating immune response to treat men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer, as per its FDA-approved indication.1 A neoadjuvant trial was performed to investigate whether earlier use of sipuleucel-T can generate an immune response in the...
The recent 2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium featured a wealth of presentations on prostate, bladder, kidney, and other genitourinary cancers. Brief summaries of some of the oral and poster sessions are presented. Exercise and Recurrence Vigorous exercise has been shown to reduce cancer...
Nicholas B. Vogelzang, MD, moderator of the press briefing where these findings were presented, agreed that the first study supports intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) as the current standard of care. With costs of health care increasing exponentially, it is important to establish the...
Patients with prostate cancer are treated with various forms of radiotherapy and/or radical prostatectomy with little comparative data to inform treatment selection. Two studies presented at the 2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium attempt to address that gap. In one study of men with localized...
“The Bone Scan Index (BSI) is a very important new quantitative imaging biomarker to help us better assess patients with metastatic prostate cancer in a robust and reproducible way, particularly those with bone-dominant disease,” said Lawrence Schwartz, MD, Chair of the Department of Radiology at...
Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have developed the Bone Scan Index (BSI), which is the first quantitative imaging response biomarker that can assess response to treatment and prognosticates for survival in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Based on Bone ...
According to Adam Kibel, MD, Urology Chair at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, it would appear to be logical that increasing the doses of vitamin E and selenium would decrease the risk of prostate cancer, since the preponderance of evidence demonstrates that these supplements do so. “The...
Supplements touted as preventing prostate cancer may turn out to be dangerous, as is evident from updated results of the largest long-term prevention trial, called the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT). Final analysis of SELECT showed that, compared to placebo, vitamin E alone ...
Oliver Sartor, MD, Medical Director of Tulane Cancer Center, New Orleans, said that in his opinion, RTOG 94-08 had some flaws because outdated radiotherapy doses were employed. “The utility of hormone therapy is questionable with today’s doses,” Dr. Sartor said. “Using standard radiation doses at...
Short-term androgen deprivation therapy does not appear to increase cardiovascular mortality in men with clinically localized prostate cancer, according to a post hoc analysis of a large Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG)-sponsored clinical trial.1 “Our study analyzes data from a large...
According to Seth P. Lerner, MD, Professor in the Scott Department of Urology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, and Co-chair of the session at the Genitourinary Cancers Symposium where the study by Mak and colleagues was presented, the data clearly demonstrate proof of principle that the...
Combined-modality therapy provides a bladder-sparing alternative to radical cystectomy with comparable outcomes in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer, according to a pooled analysis of six Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) trials.1 The study included 468 patients and showed that...
Much has been written about the oncology drug shortage crisis in the United States. In the spirit of being part of the solution to that problem, a group of oncologists has formed the Citizen’s Oncology Foundation (COF). The goal of the start-up not-for-profit association is two-pronged: to find...
Many primary care providers are unaware of the late effects of chemotherapy, according to survey results presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.1 For three out of four commonly used chemotherapy agents, medical oncologists performed well on the survey, but 29% to 38% of medical oncologists were...
Olanzapine (Zyprexa), an FDA-approved antipsychotic, effectively controlled chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) in patients who failed to respond to guideline-recommended antiemetic therapy in a phase III trial presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “This is the first randomized trial...
“This is one of the first, if not the first, study to show that a treatment can make prostate cancer in the prostate gland itself disappear in a reproducible number of patients, and it is an exciting step forward,” said Nicholas Vogelzang, MD, moderator of the pre–ASCO Annual Meeting press...
Use of the CYP17 inhibitor abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) in combination with leuprolide and prednisone prior to radical prostatectomy achieved pathologic complete response or near complete response in one-third of men with high-risk, localized prostate cancer. Abiraterone is FDA-approved for...
“We are approaching the 15th year of exploring molecularly targeted therapies in ovarian cancer,” said Michael Seiden, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, and formal discussant of the papers presented during an oral abstract session on gynecologic cancer at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting....
A trio of randomized, controlled trials of different molecularly targeted therapies showed variable results in ovarian cancer, as reported at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. The phase III AURELIA trial demonstrated that the addition of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)...
Commending the investigators for their undertaking, Mark Gilbert, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said, “Perseverance and analysis of long-term outcomes lead to practice-changing findings and important insights.” He pointed out that two randomized trials...
Adjuvant chemotherapy with PCV (procarbazine [Matulane], lomustine [CeeNU], and vincristine) following standard radiation therapy delayed disease progression and increased survival in patients with a relatively rare type of brain tumor called anaplastic oligodendroglioma. A subgroup analysis found...
Formal discussant of the SWOG 9346 trial, William K. Oh, MD, Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, said that at least 23 phase II trials have suggested that intermittent androgen deprivation therapy was safe and effective and that this practice has been broadly...
Based on the controversial nature of the SWOG 9346 findings, presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting Plenary Session, ASCO intiated a pilot program at the meeting for a “town hall” type of discussion, where attendees could voice their concerns and questions, and where presenter Maha Hussain, MD,...
Based on a prespecified definition of survival comparability, intermittent androgen deprivation proved to be inferior to continuous androgen deprivation for men with newly diagnosed hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer in the phase III SWOG 9346 intergroup trial. The data were presented at...
This study follows earlier phase I and II trials showing remarkable responses in patients with advanced medullary thyroid carcinoma, some of whom had progressed on prior tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy, explained formal discussant of this trial, Samuel A. Wells, MD, of the Center for Cancer...
Cabozantinib prolonged progression-free survival in patients with unresectable, locally advanced, or metastatic medullary thyroid cancer with documented disease progression in the phase III EXAM trial. Based on these results, Exelixis submitted a New Drug Application to the FDA in May 2012. The...
“The LUX-Lung 3 study has been much awaited. It is the first study to use cisplatin/pemetrexed [Alimta], which we now recognize as the best comparator arm. The study was positive for afatinib. While the use of maintenance pemetrexed may have dented the hazard ratio, I doubt this would have impacted ...
First-line therapy with the investigational oral agent afatinib improved progression-free survival compared with standard chemotherapy (pemetrexed (Alimta)/cisplatin) in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring an EGFR mutation. Afatinib improved progression-free survival ...
At an Annual Meeting press conference, ASCO spokesperson Sylvia Adams, MD, said, “BREAK-3 confirms that BRAF targeting is effective in metastatic melanoma. The tumor shrinkage seen with dabrafenib is similar to results observed for the FDA-approved drug vemurafenib, with fewer side effects. We will ...
Metastatic melanoma was long considered untreatable and incurable. The FDA approval of ipilimumab (Yervoy) and vemurafenib (Zelboraf) ushered in a new era for this disease, and now additional treatment options are in late stages of clinical development. Dabrafenib, a novel oral BRAF inhibitor, and...
Formal discussant of the TAILOR trial, Benjamin J. Solomon, MBBS, PhD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, East Melbourne, Australia, noted that the study asks an important question about the benefit of an EGFR inhibitor in patients with wild-type EGFR. The progression-free survival reported in...
Formal discussant Gregory Peter Kalemkerian, MD, of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, questioned whether all patients need maintenance therapy, since some patients on placebo lived as long as those on pemetrexed maintenance, and quality of life, as reported...