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Showing 13151 - 13200Survival Benefit of Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy Less Than 1% at 20 Years, but Numbers of Procedures Have Increased
For women with stage I and II breast cancer without BRCA mutations, the absolute 20-year survival benefit from contralateral prophylactic mastectomy was less than 1%, regardless of age, estrogen receptor status, and cancer stage, according to a decision analysis study using a Markov model to...
Cancer Has Given Me Courage
In 1986, I was pregnant with my third child and excited to be interviewing for a job on the assembly line at a General Motors plant near my home in Brodhead, Wisconsin. Hiring requirements included a physical examination and a chest x-ray, which was done by my obstetrician to avoid any radiation...
NIH Awards Two New Grants to Explore the Understanding of Genomics Research in Africa
Two grants totaling more than $300,000 will support studies on genomic literacy among Africans as it relates to research conducted in Africa by African investigators. The 3-year grants are part of the Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa) program, funded by the National Institutes of...
Ongoing Clinical Trials Actively Recruiting Patients With Kidney Cancer
The information in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with kidney cancer. The list includes a pilot study and observational, randomized, and nonrandomized phase II and phase III studies evaluating new therapies, combination therapies,...
Identifying Impending Death Helps Patients and Caregivers
Significant weight loss, cachexia, and being bedbound signal that a cancer patient is dying. However, identifying the specific signs that give physicians the ability to predict death is not well described in the literature. To better understand why predicting death is an important part of the care...
Program Offers Unique Intervention for Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia
If Anand P. Jillella, MD, has his way, no future patient with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) will experience a delay in treatment or lack for an expert consult—and few, if any, will die of this condition. Mortality from APL is much higher than most oncologists think, especially during the first ...
Phase III Trial of Figitumumab Plus Chemotherapy in Advanced NSCLC Stopped Early for Futility and Increased Harm
In the first phase III trial assessing the combination of an insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) inhibitor with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for advanced nonadenocarcinoma non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the addition of the fully human immunoglobulin G2 monoclonal antibody...
AACI Members Elect New Leadership, Members to Board of Directors
The Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) has announced the election of Stanton L. Gerson, MD, as Vice-President/President-Elect for a 6-year term, effective in October 2014. Dr. Gerson is the Asa and Patricia Shiverick- Jane Shiverick (Tripp) Professor of Hematological Oncology,...
Lung Screening–Detected Abnormalities Other Than Cancer Result in Smoking Cessation: National Lung Screening Trial Analysis
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Martin C. Tammemägi, PhD, of Brock University, Ontario, and colleagues assessed smoking cessation rates among participants undergoing chest x-ray or computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer in the National Lung Screening ...
Bevacizumab in Persistent, Recurrent, or Metastatic Cervical Cancer
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On August 14, 2014, bevacizumab (Avastin) was approved for the...
A World Free From the Fear of Cancer—Is It Possible?
By every definition, ASCO’s 50th Annual Meeting was a huge success. The halls were buzzing as nearly 35,000 attendees shared excitement about cancer research. This was a banner year for federally funded clinical trials—all four of the abstracts selected for ASCO’s Plenary Session were backed by...
Palbociclib Expanded Access Program Open to Eligible Breast Cancer Patients
Pfizer Inc announced that the company has initiated a multicenter, open-label expanded access program in the United States for the investigational oral CDK 4/6 inhibitor, palbociclib. Through the program, palbociclib is being made available for use in combination with letrozole for postmenopausal...
Expert Point of View: Wyndham H. Wilson, MD, PhD
Since the presentation on mediastinal lymphoma at the Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference, Wyndham H. Wilson, MD, PhD, Chief of the Hematological Malignancies Therapeutics Section, Metabolism Branch, Cancer Research Center, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, offered The ASCO Post...
A Cautionary Note on Radiotherapy
Clinicians should use radiotherapy very judiciously in the treatment of mediastinal lymphomas, especially in young patients, recommended Wyndham H. Wilson, MD, PhD, Chief of the Hematological Malignancies Therapeutics Section, Metabolism Branch, Cancer Research Center, of the National Cancer...
Best Way to Treat Mediastinal Lymphomas Is Still Unclear
A variety of treatment options used today can achieve good outcomes in patients with mediastinal lymphomas, according to James O. Armitage, MD, the Joe Shapiro Professor of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. He discussed some of the current evidence helping to refine...
Protocol Modifications Decrease Toxicity, Increase Event-Free Survival in Children With Down Syndrome Treated for ALL
Protocol modifications to address increased risk of toxicity and excess early mortality among children with Down syndrome being treated for B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) proved safe for patients with Down syndrome, and these patients had event-free survival similar to those without Down ...
Advances in Hematopoietic Cell Transplant for Pediatric AML Reduce Toxicity and Expand Access, but Relapse Remains a Problem
Advances in allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for children with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have resulted in less toxic pretransplant conditioning regimens and expanded access to transplantation, but post-treatment leukemic relapse remains a big problem. The progress and continuing...
Bortezomib Retreatment in Multiple Myeloma
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On August 8, 2014, the approved use of bortezomib (Velcade) in...
FDA Approves Bevacizumab for Aggressive and Late-Stage Cervical Cancer
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the antiangiogenic agent bevacizumab (Avastin) for the treatment of persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer. The new indication is approved for use in combination with paclitaxel and cisplatin or paclitaxel and topotecan. The FDA ...
FDA Approves First Noninvasive DNA Screening Test for Colorectal Cancer
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Cologuard, the first stool-based colorectal screening test that detects the presence of red blood cells and DNA mutations that may indicate the presence of certain kinds of abnormal growths that may be cancers such as colon cancer or...
Understanding the Impact of Results From CALGB/ SWOG 80405 and Other New Data in Colorectal Cancer
The Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB)/Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) 80405 trial, presented during the Plenary Session at this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, demonstrated that cetuximab (Erbitux) and bevacizumab (Avastin) confer similar benefits as first-line treatment with chemotherapy for KRAS...
Emerging Approaches in Acute Myeloid Leukemia
With the emergence of molecular diagnostics and new therapeutics, the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is entering a new era. Hugo F. Fernandez, MD, Associate Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplantation at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, spoke with The ASCO Post about how he...
Treating Multiple Myeloma in 2014
The field of multiple myeloma is rapidly changing, and the shifts that are occurring impact the management of these patients, from initial diagnosis through multiple relapses. At the 9th Annual New Orleans Summer Cancer Meeting, Sergio A. Giralt, MD, Chief of the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant...
Targeting KRAS Mutations in Lung Cancer: No Longer Impossible
The KRAS mutation has long been considered “undruggable,” but new approaches in drug development may change this. The end result could be effective new treatment options for KRAS-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to David R. Gandara, MD, who described the emerging findings at...
Jury Still Out on Interim PET for Response-Adapted Therapy in Hodgkin Lymphoma
Interim positron-emission tomography (PET) scans provide good prognostic information in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma, but more research is needed to determine whether patients benefit when the findings are used to alter treatment, according to Oliver Press, MD, PhD, Professor at the University of ...
International Group Updates Recommendations on Managing Lymphoma
An international multidisciplinary group of experts has updated their recommendations for staging and treatment response assessment in patients with Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Bruce D. Cheson, MD, Professor of Medicine, Deputy Chief of Hematology-Oncology, and Head of Hematology at the...
Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy an Effective Option for Early-Stage Lung Cancer Patients
Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is safe and effective in early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as it confers local control in 90% or more patients with T1 disease, according to Roy Decker, MD, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Therapeutic Radiology at Yale Cancer...
John H. Saiki, MD, SWOG Investigator, Dies at 77
John “Jack” Harris Saiki, MD, Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico Department of Medicine, Hematology/Oncology Division, lived the history of modern day oncology with a career spanning 44 years. In the early days of his career, with the support of a grant from the federally funded New ...
Allogeneic Conditioning Regimen Reduces Myelosuppression, Graft-vs-Host Disease in Lymphocytic Leukemia/Lymphoma
The combination of bendamustine (Treanda), fludarabine, and rituximab (Rituxan), or BFR, was shown to be safe and effective conditioning for patients with relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia/lymphoma receiving allogeneic stem cell transplantation from related or unrelated donors. “Remarkably,...
No Survival Benefits With Erlotinib and Whole-Brain Radiotherapy for NSCLC With Multiple Brain Metastases
“To exploit the potential radiosensitizing properties, the direct effect on brain metastases, and systemic activity of erlotinib,” researchers from the United Kingdom tested concurrent erlotinib and whole-brain radiotherapy followed by maintenance erlotinib in patients with of non–small cell lung...
Pro-oxidant Molecule Imexon Shows Clinical Activity in Relapsed/Refractory B-Cell NHL
The pro-oxidant molecule imexon (Amplimexon/NSC-714597) produced an overall response rate of 30% in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) participating in a phase II study. Noting that “lymphoma cells are subject to higher levels of oxidative stress than their normal...
Potential for Therapeutic Autovaccination Against Solid Tumors With Intratumoral Poly-ICLC
In a study reported in Cancer Immunology Research, Salazar and colleagues found a remarkable response to a strategy of sequential intratumoral and intramuscular injections of the stabilized dsRNA viral mimic and pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) polyinosinic-polycytidylic...
PD-1 Identifies Patient-Specific CD8-Positive Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Melanoma
Adoptive transfer of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes can mediate regression of metastatic melanoma. However, there are no effective markers to identify and select patient-specific repertoires of tumor-reactive and mutation-specific CD8-positive lymphocytes, limiting the ability to develop strategies ...
LCS6 Genotype Not Associated With KRAS Mutation Status or Outcome in Stage III Colon Cancer
A let-7 microRNA-complementary site (LCS6) polymorphism in the 3’UTR of KRAS has been shown to disrupt let-7 binding and upregulate KRAS expression. As reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Sha and colleagues found that LCS6 genotype was not associated with KRAS mutation status or disease-free...
Tissue Microenvironment Affects Activity of PTEN in Leukemia
The tumor suppressor PTEN, which is underexpressed in many cancers, dephosphorylates phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-triphosphate and thus inhibits activity of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases involved in growth factor and survival factor signaling through effectors such as Akt and mTOR. As reported in...
The Role of Music Therapy in Cancer Care
Music therapy, an established adjuvant to standard cancer care, is offered in a growing number of cancer centers throughout the United States and internationally. Defined by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) as “the evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individual...
ASTRO Awards Seven Physicians a Total of $675,000 to Fund Radiation Oncology-Specific Studies
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) presented seven physicians a total of $675,000 in awards and grants to advance radiation oncology research. The awards will fund studies in radiation and cancer biology, radiation physics, translational research, outcomes/health services research, ...
I Work for You
The following essay by James O. Armitage, MD, is excerpted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was co-edited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and at thebigcasino.org. The ...
2014 Oncology Meetings
SEPTEMBER Celebrating 100 Years of Retinoblastoma Center in New York: 1914-2014September 18-19 • New York, New York For more information: www.mskcc.org/events/cme Palliative Medicine and Supportive Oncology 2014 – The 17th International SymposiumSeptember 18-20 • Henderson, Nevada For more...
Sequencing Analysis of Tumor DNA: Is It All in the Plasma?
Massively parallel sequencing analyses have demonstrated that most of the common malignancies display relatively complex repertoires of somatic genetic alterations, that the number of highly recurrent mutations is limited, and that a large number of genes is mutated in a small minority of tumors...
Potential of Liquid Biopsies in Detecting Cancer and Establishing Prognosis
Tests in development to detect circulating tumor cells that escape from solid tumors and travel through the blood, spreading cancer to new sites, may serve as an alternative to conventional tissue biopsy for early cancer diagnosis and gene-expression analysis over the next decade. According to...
Delivering Cancer Care in Low-Income Countries
In eealthy industrialized nations like the United States, escalating costs of cancer care have put the term “cost-effective care” on the forefront of health-care policy discussions. However, the cost issues we wrestle with in our $3 trillion health-care system are vague abstractions for much of the ...
Using Electronic Health Records to Improve Communication With Patients
Clinicians may argue that electronic health records (EHRs) interfere with the patient-physician relationship, and patients may complain about “distracted doctors,” too busy with computer screens to make eye contact, but according to Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, MA, of Duke University School of Medicine...
Ongoing Clinical Trials Actively Recruiting Patients With Intraocular Cancer
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies of children and adults with intraocular cancers. The studies include pilot, phase 0, phase I, phase II, and observational trials evaluating new combination therapies, vaccines, optical...
Study Finds Increased Breast Cancer Screening Costs in Medicare Population but No Increase in Cancer Detection
In a study of the use of breast cancer screening modalities in the Medicare population reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Brigid K. Killelea, MD, MPH, FACS, and colleagues at Yale University School of Medicine, Yale Cancer Center, and Yale–New Haven Hospital, New Haven,...
Breast Cancer Screening Using Tomosynthesis in Combination With Digital Mammography
In a study reported in JAMA and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Friedewald and colleagues1 showed that the addition of tomosynthesis to digital mammography2 resulted in a decrease in the screening recall rate3 and an increase in the cancer detection rate.4,5 This retrospective analysis of...
Adding Tomosynthesis to Digital Mammography Decreased Recall Rate, Increased Cancer Detection Rate in Breast Cancer Screening
In a large multicenter study reported in JAMA, Sarah M. Friedewald, MD, of the Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, Center for Advanced Care, Park Ridge, Illinois, and colleagues found that use of tomosynthesis plus digital mammography reduced the recall rate and increased the cancer detection rate...
National Cancer Institute Launches the National Clinical Trials Network to Expedite Scientific Advances
In March, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) transformed its Cooperative Group Program into the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). Spurred by recommendations in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2010 report, A National Cancer Clinical Trials System for the 21st Century: Reinvigorating the NCI...
Timing and Meaning of Do-Not-Resuscitate Orders in the Palliative Care Setting
Although a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order does not mean “do not treat,” that is how it is often interpreted, according to a study examining the level of care oncology inpatients at a tertiary care hospital received.1 The study found that the interpretation of DNR orders among oncology nurses and...
Complications No Different Between Open and Robot-Assisted Radical Cystectomy When Open Urinary Diversion Performed
We read the letter to the editor in the July 24, 2014, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine entitled, “A Randomized Trial of Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Radical Cystectomy,” with great interest.1 Provocative Results In the letter, reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Bochner and...
