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Showing 12551 - 12600Promising Results Demonstrated for Brentuximab Vedotin in Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma
Phase II results suggest that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) has encouraging activity in CD30-positive cutaneous T-cell lymphomas and lymphoproliferative disorders, including mycosis fungoides, the most common type of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. High levels of responses were achieved in a 48-patient ...
Zoledronic Acid Fails to Benefit Women With Chemoresistant Breast Cancer
Zoledronic acid does not improve outcomes in patients with early breast cancer who do not have a full response to neoadjuvant anthracycline/taxane–based chemotherapy, according to results of the Neo-Adjuvant Trial Add-On (NATAN) study presented at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 A...
Adding Bevacizumab to Adjuvant Chemotherapy/Trastuzumab Fails to Improve Survival in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to adjuvant chemotherapy did not improve invasive disease-free survival or overall survival in patients with high-risk HER2-positive breast cancer in the large randomized phase III BETH trial. Although not specifically designed to answer this question, BETH...
Minimal Residual Disease Before and After Transplant: What Does It Mean?
In patients with acute leukemia, outcomes after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation are negatively impacted by the presence of minimal residual disease. However, transplant can prolong survival in patients with minimal residual disease after consolidation, according to two studies presented at...
SIDEBAR: Colorectal Cancer Survivors’ Comments on Strategies to Regulate Bowel Function
Avoiding Foods I don’t eat beans, I don’t eat onions. I’m kind of careful on greens because they just don’t digest well. I don’t eat as many salads. I couldn’t because they went right through. Behavioral Adjustments You learn, over the years, what you can and can’t do. And you can’t overeat....
Colorectal Cancer Survivors Face Challenges With Bowel Regulation
The fight against colorectal cancer leaves many survivors with battle wounds, according to studies that show a high incidence of assorted morbidities that can affect quality of life. Clinicians, in fact, may be unaware of the struggles with bowel function that occur during survivorship, researchers ...
Outcomes in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Studies Examine Relative Merits, Cost-Effectiveness
Targeted biologic agents have improved long-term outcomes in metastatic colorectal cancer, but debate continues as to their relative efficacy and proper sequencing. At the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, a number of studies attempted to answer these questions by interrogating the clinical...
More Support for ‘All-RAS’ Testing in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
Multiple studies reported at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium add further support for widening the genetic analysis of colorectal cancer tumors. In fact, experts predict that more extensive genetic testing for RAS gene mutations (in KRAS and NRAS) beyond the routine analysis of KRAS exon ...
Colorectal Cancer Screening: Quality Measures Should Focus on Patient Benefit Over Age Alone, Study Reports
Screening for colorectal cancer based on age alone may contribute to both underuse and overuse of colonoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, and fecal occult blood testing among older people, according to a study by investigators at the University of Michigan and the Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical...
Expert Point of View: Thomas W. Flaig, MD
This study has the potential to expand the number of patients who can benefit from organ-sparing therapy,” said Thomas W. Flaig, MD, Associate Professor in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Colorado Denver, commenting on the pooled analysis of RTOG 9906 and 0233 presented at the ...
Fine-Tuning Bladder-Preservation Trimodality Therapy for Patients With Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer
Organ preservation is a hallmark of progress in the world of cancer management. For patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer, the bladder-sparing approach is a well-established alternative to radical cystectomy. Patients undergo cystoscopic evaluation between the induction and consolidation...
Role of Immunotherapy Explored in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
Ipilimumab (Yervoy) failed to meet the primary endpoint of improving overall survival in the randomized, phase III CA184-043 trial. However, the immunotherapy did improve progression-free survival and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) response compared with placebo in postdocetaxel metastatic...
The Evolution of U.S. Cooperative Group Trials: Publicly Funded Cancer Research at a Crossroads
Over the past 5 decades, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Clinical Trials Cooperative Groups have played an enormous role in the fight against cancer, tackling a broad social agenda, including cancer prevention, quality-of-life issues for patients with cancer, and comparison of benefits among...
I Refuse to Capitulate to Cancer
Early last year, just as I returned to my residency in neurologic surgery at Stanford University after completing 2 years of my postdoctoral fellowship in a laboratory developing optogenetic techniques, I started losing weight—dropping from 180 lb to 160 lb in just 6 months—and I was having fairly...
State-of-the-Art Update on Prostate Cancer
The 2014 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, held in San Francisco from January 29 to February 1, brought together more than 3,100 participants from around the world involved in the care of patients with genitourinary malignancies. The abstract presentations and plenary discussions offered the latest...
Greatly Frustrated by Congressional Failure to Act on Sustainable Growth Rate
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is deeply frustrated by the failure of Congress to permanently repeal the flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula used to set Medicare physician payments and passage of the 17th patch to the system. ASCO and the entire physician community worked ...
Transition From Busy Oncologist to Retiree: Challenges and Opportunities
Oncology is a demanding field that requires special qualities to care for very sick patients, many of whom will die prematurely of their disease. Research indicates that years of facing life-and-death decisions in the clinic can be associated with oncology burnout syndrome, which effects physician...
Prostate Cancer Study Showing Increased Survival for Younger Men Undergoing Prostatectomy Not Expected to Increase Surgeries
Extended follow-up in the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group Study Number 4 (SPCG4), reported recently in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 found that men with early-stage prostate cancer, particularly those under 65 years old, who were treated with radical prostatectomy had increased survival...
Have You Heard?
“It’s not a matter of if a child will be seriously poisoned or killed. It’s a matter of when.” Lee Cantrell, PharmD, Director of the San Diego Division of the California Poison Control System and Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, commenting on the...
Reishi Mushroom
Scientific name: Ganoderma lucidum Common names: Ling zhi, lin zi, mushroom of immortality Overview A fungus, reishi mushroom is an important component of the traditional medical systems of China, Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries. It is used to increase energy, stimulate the immune system,...
MD Anderson Honors Two Champions for Women in Medicine and Research
Two champions of gender equality in medicine and research were recently honored by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Laurie Glimcher, MD, the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College and Provost for Medical Affairs of Cornell University since 2012, received...
Lenalidomide Acts in Myeloma by Degrading Lymphoid Transcription Factors IKZF1 and IKZF3
The mechanism of action of lenalidomide (Revlimid) in multiple myeloma and other B-cell neoplasms remains largely uncharacterized. In a study reported in Science, Krönke and colleagues identified one of the effects of lenalidomide in this setting. Use of quantitative proteomics showed that...
shRNAs Can Identify T-Cell Inhibitory Mechanisms in Tumor Microenvironment
Although recent findings indicate that targeting of inhibitory receptors on T cells can produce durable responses in some cancer patients despite the presence of advanced disease, the mechanisms controlling T-cell function in immunosuppressive tumors have not been well characterized. In a study...
Join the 21st Annual Cancer Survivors’ Celebration Walk & 5K
Nearly 4,000 attendees, including more than 700 cancer survivors along with friends and family members, will gather in Chicago’s Grant Park for the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University’s Annual Cancer Survivors’ Celebration Walk & 5K Run. This year’s event will ...
Two Behavioral Interventions Help Cancer Patients Struggling With Sleep Issues, Penn Medicine Study Finds
Patients with cancer who are struggling with sleep troubles, due in part to pain or side effects of treatment, can count on two behavioral interventions for relief—cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia and mindfulness-based stress reduction—Penn Medicine researchers reported in a recent study...
The FDA’s Bad Ad Program
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the FDA and its policies and procedures. In this installment, Robert Dean, MBA, Director, and Michael Sauers, Deputy Director, of Division II in the FDA’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion discuss the FDA’s Bad Ad program. The...
The CoMMpass Trial in Multiple Myeloma
When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2008, at just 47, I was lucky. I was asymptomatic, my cancer was detected through a routine blood test, and I had the smoldering type, so I didn’t need immediate treatment. Plus, I knew that recent advances in more effective therapies were making it...
Unraveling the Molecular Complexity of Multiple Myeloma
In 2011, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) announced the launch of CoMMpass (Relating Clinical Outcomes in Multiple Myeloma to Personal Assessment of Genetic Profile), a clinical study at the heart of its Personalized Medicine Initiative. CoMMpass will follow 1,000 newly diagnosed...
Does ‘Specialist Bias’ Contribute to Overtreatment of Prostate Cancer?
Specialist bias, in which specialists recommend the therapy that they are capable of delivering, is thought to influence the treatment of patients with localized prostate cancer and to contribute to overtreatment of men with limited life expectancy,” Ayal A. Aizer, MD, MPH, and colleagues, from the ...
Decision Time for Lung Cancer Screening in High‑Risk Populations
For decades, dedicated members of the oncology community have fought to increase the nation’s focus on lung cancer prevention and treatment. Although smoking cessation initiatives have reduced cigarette consumption, lung cancer 5-year survival has remained stagnant at 15%, lagging far below most...
‘How Am I Doing, Doc?’
The goal of effective adjuvant therapy is to increase overall survival. It has been suggested cynically that all we need to accomplish, actually, is to delay recurrence until after the time the patients die from another cause. However, patients want to hear from us that “it’s never coming back,”...
Awards Presented at Annual Meeting of Society of Interventional Radiology
The Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, the Society of Interventional Radiology’s (SIR) peer-reviewed scientific journal, together with SIR Foundation, recently presented a number of awards at SIR’s 39th Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego. Clinical Research Eliseo Vano, PhD, an...
Determining Why Younger Women With Breast Cancer Are Less Likely to Survive Than Their Older Counterparts
Although cancer survival rates among pediatric and older adult patients continue to rise, survival rates for adolescents and young adults (AYAs), defined by the National Cancer Institute as those between the ages of 15 and 39, have remained stagnant for decades. In breast cancer especially, AYAs...
Informed Consent: Not Just About Blood Tests and Procedures Anymore
On February 24, the Institute of Medicine National Cancer Policy Forum convened a workshop, “Contemporary Issues in Human Subjects Protection in Cancer Research,” in Washington, DC. In his introduction to the workshop, Steven Piantadosi, MD, PhD, Director, Samuel Oschin Cancer Institute,...
ASCO Signs Joint Open Letter to End Tobacco Sales
ASCO has joined 26 of the nation’s leading public health and medical organizations in signing a joint letter calling on drug stores and other retailers to end the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products. The open letter came just weeks after CVS Caremark announced it would stop selling...
Amended 2013 Conflicts of Interest Policy Expands Requirements for Financial Disclosures
The Society’s 2013 Policy for Relationships with Companies is scheduled to go into effect on April 22, with one large change to its original requirements. The policy will still require the full disclosure of all financial relationships by all authors; however, since announcing the new policy in...
Raj Mantena, RPh, Makes $1 Million Donation to Conquer Cancer Foundation to Help Build the Future of Cancer Care
It is a challenge faced time and time again by oncologists: how to achieve the best possible outcomes for patients while simultaneously controlling costs, providing care that is both high quality and high value. Raj Mantena, RPh, the first individual to donate $1 million dollars to the Conquer...
Cancer Research Funding Still Tight—and Getting Tighter
Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), CEO of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), welcomed about 150 congressional staffers to a March briefing in Washington, DC, with a plea for increased federal funding. “Extraordinary progress is being made in cancer research today, as evidenced by the...
Individualized Care Key to Cancer Pain Management at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center
Learning about the particulars of each cancer patient’s pain and treating each case uniquely is the key to keeping pain manageable. That is the goal of the Duffey Pain and Palliative Care Program at The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center in Baltimore. The team consists of physicians, nurse...
American College of Radiology Issues Statement on Budgetary Efforts to Curtail Imaging and Radiation Oncology Self-Referral
The American College of Radiology (ACR) recently issued a statement applauding steps to reign in medical imaging and radiation oncology self-referral included in the President’s fiscal year 2015 budget. However, prior authorization for imaging services, also included in the FY2015 budget, is...
Thyroid Cancer On the Rise: Is It Clinically Meaningful?
According to data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program, rates for new cases of thyroid cancer in the United States have been rising on average 6.4% each year over the past 10 years, and death rates have been rising on average 0.9% each year over the same period. The...
Overcoming Physician Bias in Recommending Palliative Care
In 2010, Jennifer S. Temel, MD, published her landmark study in The New England Journal of Medicine showing that the introduction of palliative care early after a diagnosis of metastatic non–small cell lung cancer, along with cancer therapy, not only provided patients with a better quality of life...
Targeting Cancer Stem Cells in Breast Cancer: A Potential Clinical Strategy
Preclinical models have suggested that cancer stem cells play a role in tumor recurrence and metastasis following adjuvant therapy, and Max S. Wicha, MD, and his research team are deciphering the mechanisms by which this might happen. A true understanding of cancer stem cells will have important...
Detecting Accelerated Aging in Adult Survivors of Childhood Cancer
Last fall, Kirsten K. Ness, PhD, published her study1 on the prevalence of frailty as a sign of accelerated aging in adult survivors of childhood cancer, and the results are startling. Among the 1,922 participants in the study, the prevalence of prefrailty was 31.5% among women and 12.9% among men; ...
Prostatectomy vs Radiotherapy: A Study for Cautious Interpretation
Men with newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer face a decision between prostatectomy and radiotherapy, treatments deemed similarly effective but with well-established trade-offs in terms of treatment-related morbidity. Numerous clinical trials and other prospective studies, from both academic...
Will Colorectal Cancer Surveillance Change Based on the Results of the FACS Trial?
Colorectal cancer is a common malignancy that will impact 1.4 million individuals globally each year.1 Approximately 70% to 75% of patients will present with locally advanced disease. For patients with stage III colon cancer, adjuvant chemotherapy is commonly offered, whereas chemotherapy for those ...
FACS Trial: Intensive Follow-up Increases Surgical Treatment of Recurrence With Curative Intent in Colorectal Cancer
In the FACS trial, reported in JAMA, John N. Primrose, MD, FRCS, of University of Southampton, England, and colleagues compared outcomes with intensive follow-up with carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) measurement, computed tomography (CT), both, or minimum follow-up after curative surgery for primary...
Overdiagnosis of Breast Cancer: New Research Directions
Currently, one of the most challenging problems in oncology is to accurately predict whether neoplastic lesions detected by screening tests will progress. The focus on developing ever-more sensitive cancer screening tests has produced the clinical dilemma of overdiagnosis. Overdiagnosis occurs when ...
The Canadian National Breast Screening Trial Had So Many Flaws That Its Results Should Not Be Used to Guide Screening Recommendations
If a randomized, controlled trial of therapy for breast cancer was submitted for publication in which 1. The drug being tested was old and ineffective, and 2. prior to randomization, the women underwent a clinical breast examination and the study coordinators knew who had the largest cancers, and...
Flaws in CNBSS Are Vast, Impact on Screening Recommendations Is Nil
The recent report from the Canadian National Breast Screening Study (CNBSS)—published in BMJ and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—concluded that annual mammography in women aged 40 to 59 does not result in a reduction in mortality from breast cancer beyond that of physical examination alone...
