Because of their location, cancers on the pancreas often invade and wrap around nearby veins and arteries in the abdomen. When these vessels become involved, surgery to remove the cancer, which is typically the standard treatment, becomes significantly more difficult—sometimes impossible....
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that inhibiting the immune receptor protein TLR4 may not be a wise treatment strategy in all cancers, as research now shows TLR4 can either promote or inhibit breast cancer cell growth depending on mutations in...
The costs associated with cancer drug prices have risen dramatically over the past 15 years, a trend concerning to many oncologists. In a new analysis, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center concluded that the majority of existing treatments for hematologic cancers are...
The impact of cancer treatments on cardiovascular health is an important consideration when treating cancer patients. However, many hospital training programs have no formal training or services in cardio-oncology, and a lack of national guidelines and a lack of funding are frequent barriers to...
The results of a nearly 10-year investigation that identified a key gene mutation that can trigger acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and several other types of cancer were recently published by Noetzli et al in Nature Genetics. The findings have, for the first time, pinpointed a mutation that...
A large international prospective study investigating the safety and effectiveness of using annual low-dose computed tomography (CT) as a screening tool to monitor nonsolid lung nodules has found that CT was accurate in identifying nodules that were likely to become cancerous. The study also found...
Blood and marrow transplantation is a potentially curative treatment for patients with leukemia or other life-threating blood diseases. With a goal of increasing survival rates, a research team led by Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) investigators verified patient outcome data submitted by more ...
In a press conference today, ASCO detailed the contents of the initial version of a conceptual framework for assessing the value of new cancer treatment options based on the treatment’s clinical benefit, side effects, and cost. Other important measures, such as quality of life and...
New research published by Søgaard et al in Blood found that blood clots in the abdominal veins might be an indicator of undiagnosed cancer. The study also suggests that these clots predict poorer survival in patients with liver and pancreatic cancer. Clotting and Cancer Risk Compared to...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Beltran et al found that whole-exome sequencing of metastatic and treatment-resistant cancers revealed biologically informative alterations in the majority of cases. Although treatment recommendations could be made in the majority of cases, treatment was guided ...
Women who were exposed to higher levels of the pesticide DDT in utero were nearly four times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer as adults than women who were exposed to lower levels before birth, according to a study published by Cohn et al in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & ...
Houston Methodist Neurological Institute neurosurgeon David Baskin, MD, presented preliminary data from a phase II clinical trial that suggests gene therapy (AdV-Tk therapy), which uses a mediated herpes simplex virus, combined with a traditional treatment—surgical resection—could ...
As reported in JAMA Oncology, Shankar et al developed a rapid genotyping assay to detect single nucleotide variants in telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter and isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) genes that may assist in intraoperative decisions to perform definitive neurosurgical...
Scientists at multiple institutions have found a new way of classifying brain cancers that could very well change how the illness is diagnosed and treated. The study, a project of The Cancer Genome Atlas, found striking molecular differences between various forms of gliomas by looking at the makeup ...
It is estimated that one of every three Latina women will be diagnosed with cancer during her lifetime. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, along with collaborators at the University of South Florida, recently published a study about the attitudes and cultural perspectives of Latinas undergoing...
A study led by the University at Buffalo (UB) and Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) has identified beliefs and personality traits associated with higher levels of distress in patients with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. The findings support the value of emotional and informational support for...
A study by Dahlstrom et al investigating the usefulness of serum antibodies to human papillomavirus (HPV)-16 DNA antigens as predictors of survival for patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma has found that E1, NE2, and E6 antibody positivity were all strongly associated with improved overall and...
In a phase III trial (ABCSG-18) reported in The Lancet, Gnant et al found that adjuvant denosumab (Xgeva) reduced the risk of clinical fracture in women with breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitor therapy. Study Details In the double-blind study, 3,420 women from Austria and Sweden with...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lichtenthal et al found that parents who have lost a child to cancer report wanting and frequently using mental health services, although barriers to seeking care exist and retention in care is suboptimal. Study Details The cross-sectional...
In the largest study of its kind, transplant physicians at Mayo Clinic in Florida have found that liver cancer patients have similar beneficial outcomes whether using organs donated by patients after cardiac death or brain death. The study was recently published by Croome et al in the American...
Interpace Diagnostics, a subsidiary of PDI, Inc, announced new data demonstrating the clinical value of BarreGen, a molecular diagnostic test that predicts the risk of progression from Barrett’s esophagus to esophageal cancer approximately 3 to 4 years before the cancer develops. These...
More than half of all cancer patients experience pain, most often associated with the malignancy type, body location, and disease progression. Pain researchers participating in a symposium at the American Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting last month reported that the relationship between...
New cases of virtually all types of cancer are rising in countries globally—regardless of income—but the death rates from cancer are falling in many countries, according to a new analysis of 28 cancer groups in 188 countries. These findings were published by Fitzmaurice et al in JAMA...
In a Swedish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, He et al identified numerous predictors of discontinuation of adjuvant hormone therapy in patients with breast cancer. Study Details The study involved 3,395 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2008 in Stockholm who...
Although various drugs have improved outcomes for metastatic colon cancer patients, researchers continually strive to find new agents to improve treatment. Antibody-drug conjugates are a promising option, due to the fact that they can deliver chemotherapy directly into a targeted cell, destroy...
Squamous cell anal carcinomas are rare, representing only about 2% of gastrointestinal cancer diagnoses. These cancers, which are associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV), sometimes prove very difficult to treat, recurring or developing metastases following standard treatment. Seeking to...
A phase III trial comparing 5 years of tamoxifen vs 5 years of the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for postmenopausal women treated for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) found 10-year breast cancer–free interval rates were higher in the anastrozole group than in the tamoxifen group (93.5% vs...
A collaborative team of researchers led by Alex A. Adjei, MD, PhD, FACP, of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, shared results from the first clinical study of the anticancer effects of the novel agent entolimod on May 30 at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago (Abstract 3063). Their findings confirm ...
Investigators for the nationwide trial NCI-MATCH: Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice announced at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago that the precision medicine trial will open to patient enrollment in July. The trial seeks to determine whether targeted therapies for people whose tumors...
The oral investigational anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor alectinib shrank tumors in almost half of patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease had progressed following crizotinib (Xalkori) treatment. Positive results from two clinical...
For patients with melanoma and micrometastases, as shown by positive sentinel lymph node biopsy, complete lymph node dissection did not improve survival, according to results of a randomized study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA9002). “This is the first study which...
As the practice of genetically profiling patient tumors for clinical treatment decision-making becomes more commonplace, a recent study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center suggests that profiling normal DNA also provides an important opportunity to identify inherited mutations...
A federally funded phase III trial found that adding whole-brain radiation therapy to radiosurgery did not significantly extend survival of patients with one to three small metastases of the brain, although it did help to control the growth of brain metastases, as evidenced by imaging studies....
A randomized phase III study resolves long-standing questions about the optimal timing of neck lymph node surgery for patients with early-stage oral cancer by showing that elective neck dissection both improves survival and lowers recurrence rates compared to therapeutic neck dissection performed...
Survivors of childhood cancer in recent eras have shown a significant reduction in late mortality, and “for the first time, we have been able to attribute that to fewer deaths from treatment-related causes or fewer deaths from late effects of the primary therapy,” Gregory T....
New findings by researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center show that informing parents about their child’s cancer prognosis—even when the prognosis is less than favorable—is much more likely to give parents peace of mind and hope, rather...
A randomized phase III trial among patients with previously untreated melanoma found that initial therapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) alone more than doubled the median progression-free survival compared with ipilimumab (Yervoy) alone (6.9 vs 2.9 months), and the benefit was even greater when the two...
Findings from the PERSIST-1 study of patients with myelofibrosis show that the JAK inhibitor pacritinib is significantly more effective than best available therapy, which includes a range of off-label treatments, for easing the symptoms of myelofibrosis. At a landmark analysis at 24 weeks of...
First results from a randomized phase III study show that the combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) improves outcomes for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) that progressed despite prior therapy. At a median follow-up of 17 months,...
Patients whose metastatic stomach or esophageal cancers were driven by a mutated HER2 gene had markedly improved response rates and survival when bevacizumab (Avastin) was added to a standard drug combination. Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who led the research, will report these...
Immunotherapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) produced a clinically meaningful overall response rate in a study among 132 patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The overall objective response rate was 24.8%, and 57% of patients experienced some tumor...
A phase II study identified the first genomic marker—mismatch repair deficiency—to predict clinical benefit of immune checkpoint blockade with the anti–PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Among 50 patients with colorectal cancer, 62% of the 25 patients with mismatch...
Being very overweight in your teens may double the risk of developing bowel cancer by the time you are middle-aged, suggested research published by Kantor et al in the journal Gut. A high level of an indicator of systemic inflammation—erythrocyte sedimentation rate—at this age is...
In a preplanned interim analysis of the international open-label STEVIE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Basset-Seguin et al have provided safety data and efficacy outcomes with the use of vismodegib (Erivedge) for 1 year in patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma. STEVIE was designed to...
Cancer patients with brain metastases who develop blood clots may safely receive blood thinners without increased risk of dangerous bleeding, according to a study published by Donato et al in Blood. Cancer increases a patient’s risk of developing blood clots, and an anticoagulant is often...
Two studies from researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center add to preliminary evidence that high-dose radiation treatment, or stereotactic body radiotherapy, appears to be safe and as effective as standard radiation treatment for certain patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer....
African American patients have a disproportionately high rate of cancer and yet are less likely than Caucasian patients to participate in oncologic clinical trials that can significantly improve quality of life. Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University explored the differences ...
Researchers at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered that for women with a relatively common inherited mutation, known as the KRAS-variant, abrupt lowering of estrogen may increase their breast cancer risk and impact breast cancer biology. Scientists also found that women with...
A new study finds that women who are diagnosed with breast cancer and have a family history of the disease face no worse a prognosis after treatment than other women with breast cancer. The study, which was published by Eccles et al in the British Journal of Surgery, offers a positive message for...
Nearly 20% of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma “wait more than 3 months from presentation to diagnosis, which can contribute to interval tumor growth,” Patel et al concluded in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. They based their conclusions on a review of...