In patients who had undergone surgery for brain metastases, the rate of recurrence at the resected site was similar between patients who received adjuvant whole-brain radiotherapy vs those who underwent adjuvant localized radiotherapy, according to a retrospective study by Hsieh et al in the...
A prospective, multicenter, observational study involving 992 consecutive patients with one to four asymptomatic, sonographically or cytologically benign thyroid nodules found that “the majority of nodules exhibited no significant size change during 5 years of follow-up or they actually...
A study by Brohl et al investigating the case incidence of unexpected uterine sarcoma following surgery for presumed benign leiomyoma (fibroids or myomas) has found that the risk of unexpected uterine sarcoma varies significantly across age groups, with a more than fivefold difference between the...
The European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) trial showed a significant 29% prostate cancer mortality reduction with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening but a marked negative impact on quality-adjusted life-years gained due to the effect of overdiagnosis on quality...
Cancer cells can cloak themselves within tumors by hiding behind a dense layer of cellular stroma. According to a new study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), drugs that target and strip away the stroma would pave the way for other drugs to reach the cancerous cells within the ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) today announced the election of Nancy E. Davidson, MD, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and UPMC CancerCenter in Pittsburgh, as its President-Elect for 2015–2016. Dr. Davidson will officially become President-Elect...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved dinutuximab (Unituxin) as part of first-line therapy for pediatric patients with high-risk neuroblastoma. Dinutuximab, a chimeric monoclonal antibody that binds to the surface of neuroblastoma cells, is being approved for use as part of a...
Patients with larger malignant tumors of the breast who undergo chemotherapy before a breast cancer operation are more likely to undergo a lumpectomy than a mastectomy, according to a study published by Killelea et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Study investigators from...
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have identified the first genetic variation that is associated with an increased risk and severity of peripheral neuropathy following treatment with a widely used anticancer drug. Investigators also found evidence of how it may be possible to...
The Italian SCORE trial is among several recent large European randomized trials showing the benefit of flexible sigmoidoscopy screening on colorectal cancer incidence and mortality. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Senore et al found that characteristics of...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved filgrastim-sndz (Zarxio), the first biosimilar product approved in the United States. A biosimilar product is a biologic product that is approved based on a showing that it is highly similar to an already-approved biologic. The biosimilar...
Researchers investigating whether tumor genotype correlates with benefit from immune therapy in melanoma has found that patients whose tumors had NRAS mutations had better response to immunotherapy and better outcomes than patients whose tumors had other genetic subtypes. The results suggest that...
Researchers have developed a lab test called Dynamic BH3 Profiling (DBP) to measure early changes in net proapoptotic signaling at the mitochondrion induced by chemotherapeutic agents in cancer cells. In cell-line and clinical experiments, the test accurately predicted chemotherapy response across...
An analysis of data on 945 patients with prostate cancer that is managed with active surveillance shows differences in outcomes depending on whether the patient was low or intermediate risk at diagnosis. Compared to patients with low-risk disease, those with intermediate-risk cancer (PSA > 10...
Findings from a small prospective study suggest that androgen receptor V7 (or AR-V7) status does not significantly affect response to taxane chemotherapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Treatment outcomes were largely similar for the 17 patients with...
Sensor technology has the potential to significantly improve the teaching of proper technique for clinical breast exams, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The results of the study were published in a correspondence in The...
Cancer researchers at University College London (UCL) have found that a cancer false alarm could discourage patients from checking out cancer symptoms they develop in the future. More than 80% of patients with potential cancer symptoms are given the all-clear after investigations. But according to ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted and granted Priority Review for Genentech’s New Drug Application (NDA) for cobimetinib in combination with vemurafenib (Zelboraf) for the treatment of people with BRAF V600 mutation–positive advanced melanoma. The FDA will make a...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Wang et al, the incidence of late toxicity among patients with extremity soft-tissue sarcoma receiving preoperative image-guided radiotherapy to a reduced target volume in the phase II Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 0630 trial was lower...
A frailty score predicts mortality and the risk of toxicity in elderly patients with multiple myeloma and can be used to determine more suitable therapies for these patients, the International Myeloma Working Group reported in Blood. “Chronologic age, performance status, and physician's...
Results of clinical trials evaluating chemotherapy regimens for advanced pancreatic cancer and lung cancers “tended to correctly estimate survival for Medicare patients aged 65 to 74 years, but to overestimate survival for older Medicare patients by 6 to 8 weeks,” Lamont et al reported...
Women who drank about four cups of coffee per day appeared to have decreased endometrial cancer risk compared with those who drank less than a cup each day, according to a study published by Merritt et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. A New Approach “We used a...
“Risk assessment in Hodgkin lymphoma is continuously evolving and promises even greater precision and specific clinical relevance in the future,” Joseph M. Connors, MD, stated in Blood. Dr. Connors is Clinical Professor, British Columbia Cancer Agency Centre for Lymphoid Cancer and the...
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have identified eight highly specific physical and cognitive signs associated with imminent death in cancer patients. The findings, published by Hui et al in Cancer, could offer clinicians the ability to better communicate with...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Surgery, Shapiro et al found that use of radiotherapy in unresectable pancreas cancer has decreased over time and that disparities in use can be identified. Decreasing Use The study involved Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data...
Individuals previously infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV) that receive chemotherapy or immunosuppressive treatment may be at risk of reactivating the virus, according to a report published by Di Bisceglie et al in Hepatology. Reactivation of HBV can be fatal, and researchers suggest routine...
Multiplexed genetic screening for epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene rearrangements, and subsequent biomarker-guided treatment, is cost-effective compared with standard chemotherapy treatment without any molecular testing in the metastatic...
Inhibiting the action of a particular enzyme dramatically slows the growth of tumor cells tied to BRCA1 and BRCA2 genetic mutations that are closely tied to breast and ovarian cancers, according to researchers at New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center. Senior investigator Agnel Sfeir,...
A new study involving researchers at The University of Nottingham has revealed how children with an aggressive cancer predisposition syndrome experience a never-before- seen flood of mutations in their disease in very short periods of time. The findings were published by Shlien et al in Nature...
In patients with iodine-refractory papillary thyroid cancer, the addition of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) therapy was shown to stimulate radioiodine uptake in thyroid cancer cells, according to a report by Rothenberg et al in Clinical Cancer Research. This approach has the potential advantage of requiring ...
Pancreatic cancer affects approximately 46,000 people each year in the United States, and ranks fourth among the leading causes of cancer-related deaths. Only about 6% of individuals with pancreatic cancer will live 5 years after their diagnosis. One reason for this high mortality rate is the lack...
Ten months after California legislators enacted a controversial law mandating that radiologists notify women if they have dense breast tissue, University of California (UC), Davis researchers have found that half of primary care physicians are still unfamiliar with the law, and many don't feel...
Targeted biopsy using new fusion technology that combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with ultrasound is more effective than standard biopsy in detecting high-risk prostate cancer, according to a study by Siddiqui et al published in JAMA. More than 1,000 men participated in the research at the ...
Researchers at University of North Carolina School of Medicine have created the first mouse model of the most aggressive form of ovarian cancer and found a potential route to better treatments and much-needed diagnostic screens. Led by Terry Magnuson, PhD, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor and Chair ...
Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered about 10% of young leukemia patients of East Asian ancestry inherit a gene variation that is associated with reduced tolerance of a drug that is indispensable for curing acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood ...
Chemotherapy resistance is one of the most formidable obstacles to treating acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of childhood cancer. Now researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) have designed and developed a new protein-based therapy that may prove highly...
People who worry a lot about cancer are more likely to want to get screened for colon cancer—perhaps due to a desire for reassurance—but having a more visceral negative response to thinking about cancer acted as a deterrent to actually getting screened, according to a British study by...
Investigators with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have discovered genomic differences—with potentially important clinical implications—in human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated head and neck cancers. These findings were reported in Nature. The researchers also uncovered ...
According to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, testosterone, which is generally thought to be a feeder of prostate cancer, has been found to suppress some advanced prostate cancers. The hormone may also reverse resistance to testosterone-blocking drugs used to treat prostate...
A new breast imaging technique developed at Mayo Clinic nearly quadruples detection rates of invasive breast cancers in women with dense breast tissue, according to the results of a study published by Rhodes et al in the American Journal of Roentgenology. What Is MBI? Molecular breast imaging...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chubb et al found that genetic diagnosis of high-penetrance susceptibility to colorectal cancer can be achieved in a sizeable proportion of familial colorectal cancer cases via exome sequencing for germline mutations. Study Details The...
Among patients who had an unidentifiable lung nodule detected by a chest computed tomography (CT) scan, testing sputum for a panel of three microRNA (miRNA) biomarkers successfully distinguished early-stage lung cancers from nonmalignant nodules most of the time, according to a study reported by...
A new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center characterizes the genetic underpinnings of phyllodes tumors, a rare type of breast tumor. The study offers the first comprehensive analysis of the molecular alterations at work in these tumors, according to Cani...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) announced today that it will use SAP HANA®, a data management and application platform, in the development of CancerLinQ, the Society’s health information technology platform that will harness Big Data to deliver high-quality care to...
ASCO released its report, Clinical Cancer Advances 2015: An Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer, today, and for the first time announced its cancer Advance of the Year: gains made in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). ASCO credits the improvements in CLL care with the...
In the phase II SN FNAC (Sentinel Node Biopsy Following Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy) trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Boileau et al found a sentinel node biopsy false-negative rate of 8.4% with mandatory use of immunohistochemistry and a sentinel node biopsy identification rate of...
A simple change to a two-drug therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer provides similar cancer control while significantly improving quality of life and reducing the cost of care, according to data reported by researchers at the The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur...
Patients with early-stage breast cancer still undergo imaging for distant metastases despite evidence-based local, national, and international guidelines, and a recommendation from ASCO to avoid such imaging, according to a retrospective review of staging imaging for distant metastases in patients...
After 4.5 years of taking tamoxifen for primary prevention of breast cancer, 46% of women discontinued use, according to research conducted within the Sister Study, a prospective cohort of women who had a sister who had been diagnosed with breast cancer but did not have breast cancer themselves....
Among nearly 375,000 U.S. women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, the likelihood of diagnosis at an early stage, and survival after stage I diagnosis, varied by race and ethnicity, with much of the difference accounted for by biologic differences, according to a study reported by Iqbal et al...