In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Andreas du Bois, MD, PhD, Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at Kliniken Essen-Mitte in Essen, Germany, and colleagues found that maintenance therapy with the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) and platelet-derived...
The powerful and important study by Kurian et al,1 reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, adds vital information to the discussion regarding use of contralateral prophylactic mastectomy among patients with unilateral breast cancer in the United States.2,3 Based upon data from the California...
In an observational cohort study reported in JAMA, Allison W. Kurian, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues assessed use of and mortality after bilateral mastectomy, breast-conserving surgery plus...
The FIRST trial—reported by Benboubker and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine and summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post (page 93)—is a landmark study.1 It is one of the largest randomized trials in multiple myeloma ever conducted. More importantly, it is a well-designed trial...
In the phase III FIRST trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lotfi Benboubker, MD, Service d’Hématologie et Thérapie Cellulaire, Hôpital Bretonneau, Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire (CHRU), Tours, France, and colleagues found that continuous lenalidomide (Revlimid) plus...
While the incidence of colorectal cancer in people 50 years or older has declined, the incidence among people 20 to 49 years has increased, according to a report published online recently by JAMA Surgery.1 From 1998 through 2006, the incidence of colorectal cancer declined 3% per year in men and...
At the opening press conference of the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), 2014 President Bruce G. Haffty, MD, FASTRO, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Rutgers–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Associate Director at the...
The ASCO Nominating Committee has selected Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, and Patrick J. Loehrer, Sr, MD, FASCO, as candidates for the position of 2015-2016 President-Elect (2016-2017 President). In the abridged interviews below, the candidates discuss their vision for the Society and their leadership ...
A secondary analysis of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project B-32 trial1 indicates that radiation therapy does not increase the incidence of lymphedema in patients with node-negative breast cancer, according to research presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s...
Hope S. Rugo, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education at the University of California, San Francisco, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discussed the results of the RESILIENCE trial presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology ...
In patients with locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, the addition of sorafenib (Nexavar), a broad-spectrum tyrosine kinase inhibitor, to capecitabine did not improve progression-free or overall survival in the phase III RESILIENCE trial. The findings were presented at the European Society ...
The effort to identify new biomarkers for response and outcomes in lung cancer is advancing, according to studies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress in Madrid. Immunohistochemical expression of folate receptor for vintafolide and thymidylate synthase for...
For advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), targeting of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation and the ALK abnormality has become an established strategy. Later-generation drugs in these categories are now showing efficacy in trials, including for the treatment of...
Carfilzomib (Kyprolis), as a single agent, failed to improve survival in relapsed and refractory myeloma patients, as compared with a corticosteroid and optional cyclophosphamide, in the phase III FOCUS trial, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress in Madrid.1...
Formal discussant of the RADIANT-3 trial at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, Alexandria Phan, MD, of Houston Methodist Cancer Center, agreed that the crossover to open-label everolimus (Afinitor) by placebo patients probably muddied the waters in the survival estimate....
Final results from the RADIANT-3 trial showed a 6-month difference in overall survival favoring everolimus (Afinitor) plus best supportive care over placebo plus best supportive care in patients with well-differentiated advanced and progressive pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.1 Although the...
The final analysis of the international phase III QUASAR2 trial confirmed the lack of benefit for bevacizumab (Avastin) as part of the adjuvant treatment of colorectal cancer. “There is no role for bevacizumab in combination with capecitabine as adjuvant treatment for colorectal cancer,” said...
In a subgroup analysis of the pooled results of the EINSTEIN-DVT and EINSTEIN-PE trials reported at the 2014 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress and published recently in The Lancet Haematology, Martin H. Prins, MD, of Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht,...
The phase III CONCUR trial1 of regorafenib (Stivarga) monotherapy in Asian patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer confirmed the overall survival benefit seen in the previous CORRECT trial,2 and in a planned subgroup analysis, suggesting the benefit is substantial in patients ...
Studies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress in Madrid added insight regarding maintenance therapy in metastatic colorectal cancer, an area lacking a clear recommended strategy following first-line regimens. Two phase III trials found benefit for bevacizumab...
During a special session at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress, additional analyses from the FIRE-3 and Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB)/SWOG 80405 trial were presented, and an expert panel was charged with putting the findings into context. Role of Subsequent...
Now that clinicians know to “think beyond KRAS” in metastatic colorectal cancer—and test for all RAS mutations, not just those in exon 2—it seems this is still not sufficient for selecting the best drugs. At the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress in Madrid, a proffered paper ...
More than 150 oral and poster presentations were featured at the 2014 Breast Cancer Symposium, held September 4–6 in San Francisco. The multidisciplinary meeting is sponsored by ASCO, the American Society of Breast Disease, American Society of Breast Surgeons, American Society for Radiation...
The use of targeted therapies in indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) is a burgeoning area. New targeted therapies directed at the cell surface, intracellular pathways, and the microenvironment are being studied for relapsed indolent NHL. These treatments, if validated in large randomized trials,...
ASCO has issued an endorsement of the American Urological Association (AUA)/American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) guideline on the use of adjuvant and salvage radiotherapy after prostatectomy, which was based on a systematic review of medical literature. The ASCO endorsement was published ...
Two phase III studies presented at the Best of ASCO meeting in Chicago shed more light on the role of maintenance therapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer undergoing first-line treatment with oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. The two studies compared maintenance therapy with bevacizumab...
Improvements over the past 3 decades in 5-year survival rates for patients with osteosarcoma and Ewing’s sarcoma owe a lot to chemotherapy clinical trials conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG), Mark Agulnik, MD, acknowledged at the Best of ASCO meeting in Chicago. Dr. Agulnik is...
Targeted agents have started to make inroads in sarcoma therapies, and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is the poster child for this success,” Mark Agulnik, MD, stated in summarizing progress in GIST and other sarcomas at the Best of ASCO meeting in Chicago. Dr. Agulnik is Associate Professor, ...
It turns out that in addition to treatment-related toxicity, cancer patients commonly experience “financial toxicity,” a phrase that is increasingly coming into parlance in the cancer community. Patients should be assessed for financial toxicity as early as possible following diagnosis so that they ...
The “graying of America” poses increasing challenges for the cancer community in terms of rising numbers of cases of cancer and costs associated with geriatric care. The scope of this problem and potential solutions were explored by Andrew E. Chapman, DO, FACP, at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium in ...
Over the past decade, there has been growing concern in the oncology community about overdiagnosis and overtreatment of cancers that prove to be indolent and nonlethal, resulting in unnecessary and sometimes harmful procedures. At this year’s ASCO Quality Care Symposium in Boston, this important...
Overutilization of health-care interventions has become a prime target of efforts to rein in health-care costs. Overtreatment of cancer patients is associated with a number of common harms to the patient—not just financial harm to the health-care system. At the recent ASCO Quality Care Symposium in ...
Advances in science and medicine have led to humans living longer than at any other time in history. According to a new report1 on mortality from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy in the United States is at an all-time high of...
The treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) represents one of the major triumphs in the field of hematologic malignancies. With either the vitamin A derivative all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) combined with anthracycline-based chemotherapy or ATRA plus arsenic trioxide (Trisenox),...
The IMPRESS trial asks a simple question: Should you continue an [epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor] while you switch to chemotherapy,” said Solange Peters, MD, PhD, Head of the Thoracic Malignancies Program at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, at the European ...
For patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive lymphoma in a National Cancer Institute of Canada clinical trial, second-line treatment with GDP (gemcitabine, dexamethasone, and cisplatin) was as effective as DHAP (dexamethasone, cytarabine, and cisplatin). Treatment with GDP “can be considered ...
A surveillance strategy for patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma treated with chemoradiation and surgery (trimodality therapy) can potentially be customized based on surgical pathology stage, according to an analysis of 518 patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma who underwent trimodality...
An “epidemic of diagnosis” of thyroid cancer is occurring in South Korea and “absolutely could happen here,” according to H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Hanover, New Hampshire. Dr. Welch is coauthor of an article...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes clinical studies actively recruiting people with Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), including AIDS-related NHL, as well as studies that are also recruiting patients with multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma....
I know it sounds odd, but the past 10 years spent living with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been very productive, wonderful years. It is not the life I had before my diagnosis, but it is the life I remember most clearly, and knowing how deadly this cancer is, I’m grateful for every day of ...
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 November 14, 2014, bevacizumab (Avastin) in combination with...
DECEMBER Society of Urologic Oncology 15th Annual MeetingDecember 3-5 • Bethesda, Maryland For more information: http://suonet.org/meetings/2014/default.aspx UICC World Cancer CongressDecember 3-6 • Melbourne, AustraliaFor more information: www.worldcancercongress.org 1st Rome International Meeting ...
"This year was actually a boon for the patient and survivor care section,” Arif H. Kamal, MD, said at the Best of ASCO meeting in Seattle, where he reviewed the leading abstracts and gave some of his own perspective. “What you see is a lot of the limitations of research in the palliative care and...
The overriding consensus from the 2014 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium: Patient-Centered Care Across the Cancer Continuum held in Boston was that achieving optimal high-quality cancer care requires both state-of-the-art cancer therapy and the integration of palliative care principles...
A 4-year study1 involving 461 patients with advanced stages of lung, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, breast, and gynecologic cancers has found that providing early outpatient palliative care vs standard oncology care alone improved quality of life and patient satisfaction. The study participants...
Each year, about 70,000 adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are diagnosed with cancer in the United States, almost six times the number of cases diagnosed in children up to 14 years of age. While overall cancer survival rates continue to rise—according to the American Cancer Society, there are...
The use of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors as human cancer therapy has focused on the impact of these agents on epigenetic regulation and gene transcription. However, the use of HDAC inhibitors in myeloma may be working through a different mechanism. Specifically, HDAC6 is known to regulate...
In the phase III PANORAMA 1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jesus F. San-Miguel, MD, of Clinica Universidad de Navarra-CIMA, Pamplona, Spain, and colleagues found that adding the pan-deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat to bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone improved progression-free...
On December 3, 2014, Robert S. Miller, MD, FACP, FASCO, will start his new position as Medical Director of ASCO’s Institute for Quality (iQ). Established in 2012 to oversee the development of clinical practice guidelines, the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI), the QOPI Certification...
ASCO recently launched a new and redesigned version of Cancer.Net, its patient-facing website that includes timely, comprehensive, and oncologist-approved information. With support from the Conquer Cancer Foundation, Cancer.Net is able to bring the expertise and resources of ASCO to your patients...