The rates of administering chemotherapy to patients with solid cancers within a month of succumbing to their disease remain high, which calls for a paradigm shift to consider initiating palliative care at an earlier stage and formulating clear guidelines for end-of-life care, according to findings...
Lurbinectedin showed promising clinical benefit in pretreated patients with metastatic breast cancer and BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, including patients previously treated with platinum, according to phase II trial results presented by Balmaña et al at the 2016 European Society for Medical...
Fulvestrant (Faslodex) significantly increases progression-free survival in women with hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer, particularly those with less aggressive lower-volume disease, Ellis et al reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in ...
Nintedanib (Ofev) improves progression-free survival but not overall survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who are not responding to standard therapies, according to the results of the phase III LUME-colon 1 trial presented by Van Cutsem et al at the 2016 European Society of...
Immunotherapy has shown promising results in the first- and second-line treatment of metastatic bladder cancer in two phase II trials presented by Galsky et al and Balar et al at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Copenhagen (Abstracts LBA31_PR and LBA32_PR,...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Unger et al found that use of finasteride vs placebo in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial was associated with a modestly increased risk of depression and a modestly reduced risk of procedures for benign prostatic...
In a phase III trial reported at the recent European Society for Medical Oncology Congress and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Hortobagyi et al, first-line treatment with ribociclib, a selective inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6), resulted in significantly longer...
Ceritinib (Zykadia) provides longer progression-free survival than chemotherapy in crizotinib–pretreated patients with non–small cell lung cancer harboring an ALK rearrangement, according to results of the phase III ASCEND-5 study presented by Scagliotti et al at the European Society...
The first phase III study of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in previously treated non–small cell lung cancer has seen significant improvements in survival compared to standard chemotherapy, reported Barlesi et al at the European Society for Medical...
A phase III trial of sunitinib (Sutent) has met its primary endpoint of disease-free survival for adjuvant treatment of high-risk renal cell carcinoma after nephrectomy, reported Ravaud et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2016 Congress in Copenhagen (Abstract LBA11_PR)....
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy with an anthracycline plus ifosfamide was associated with significant survival gains in patients with soft-tissue sarcoma of the trunk or extremities who are at high-risk of recurrence, in an interim analysis that led to the early discontinuation of a trial presented by...
Most women with breast cancer reported high primary care physician quality, engagement, and communication, with a minority reporting high levels of primary care physician participation in treatment decisions, according to a study reported by Wallner et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology....
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Etienne et al, long-term follow-up in the French Stop Imatinib (STIM1) study indicates imatinib can be safely stopped in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) with undetectable minimal residual disease sustained for at least 2 years. Study...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is set to become a new option for first-line treatment of patients with advanced lung cancer and high programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression, according to the results of the phase III KEYNOTE-024 trial presented by Reck et al at the 2016 European Society for ...
The PARP inhibitor niraparib significantly improves the outcome of platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer, according to full data from the ENGOT-OV16/NOVA trial presented by Mirza et al at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Copenhagen (Abstract LBA3_PR), and...
The addition of the CDK4/6 inhibitor ribociclib to letrozole therapy significantly improved progression-free survival in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer, reported Hortobagyi et al at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology...
Sumanta K. Pal, MD, of the City of Hope, discusses phase II findings on the efficacy and safety of nivolumab monotherapy in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer who have received prior treatment. Follow him on Twitter: @montypal
Yung-Jue Bang, MD, PhD, of Seoul National University Hospital, discusses phase III study findings on olaparib and paclitaxel in patients with advanced gastric cancer who have progressed following first-line therapy. (Abstract LBA25)
A partnership that added health navigation services to 2-1-1 call centers helped a significant number of underserved Texans receive cancer control measures such as Papanicolaou (Pap) tests and smoking cessation help, according to a study (PR12, C49) presented at the 9th Association for Cancer...
In an exploratory analysis of the REACH trial in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma reported in JAMA Oncology, Zhu et al found a borderline survival benefit of second-line ramucirumab (Cyramza) vs placebo among patients with a Child-Pugh score of 5 and a significant benefit among patients with a...
African American cancer survivors are more likely than whites to experience lasting debt or forgo necessary medical care as they struggle with the financial burden of cancer, while whites are somewhat more likely to use existing assets to pay for their cancer care, according to a study (C13)...
Implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in California may have led to a significant increase in the number of Hispanic breast cancer patients at a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center and an increase in the number of Hispanic women who consented to participate in a...
In a National Cancer Data Base analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Seisen et al found that high-intensity local treatment was associated with an overall survival benefit in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. Quoc-Dien Trinh, MD, of Brigham and Women’s...
A collaborative modeling study evaluating outcomes for various screening intervals for women over the age of 50 based on breast density and risk for breast cancer has found that average-risk women with low breast density undergoing triennial screening and higher-risk women with high breast density...
In a prospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Shu et al found that risk for serous/serous-like endometrial carcinoma appeared to be increased after risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) without hysterectomy in women harboring the BRCA1 mutation. The overall risk of uterine cancer...
Long-term follow-up in the phase III QuiRedex trial indicates continued benefit of lenalidomide (Revlimid)/dexamethasone vs observation in preventing disease progression in patients with high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma, as reported by Maria-Victoria Mateos, PhD, of Instituto de Biologia...
To make information about clinical trials widely available to the public, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule on September 19 that specifies requirements for registering certain clinical trials and submitting summary results information to ClinicalTrials.gov....
The release of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Safety Communication “alerting women about the risks associated with the use of tests being marketed as ovarian cancer screening tests”1 and recommending against using these tests comes not as a result of startling new studies, but from an...
In a Safety Communication directed at women and physicians, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alerted women “about the risks associated with the use of tests being marketed as ovarian cancer screening tests” and recommended “against using currently offered tests to screen for ovarian...
Despite my breast cancer diagnosis 4 years ago, I feel really lucky. My cancer was detected relatively early, stage IIB, during a routine mammogram screening—a test that many of my lesbian friends skip because they don’t want to deal with a medical system steeped in a heterosexual culture that is...
We pass them every day on our way to the hospital, the street dwellers of our town in India. Their home consists of a plastic sheet suspended between four poles on the pavement. One day, two women sat under the plastic sheet in happy conversation. It had rained heavily the previous night, and I...
Mr. C is almost 90 now, but every summer the boxes of squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, and other vegetables from his truck farm still arrive like clockwork at our door. The cancer that required treatment 17 years ago has never recurred. He’s now struggling with a new problem, recovering from a broken...
There are only a few months to go before program changes go into effect under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) on January 1, 2017. MACRA was enacted more than a year ago to replace the Sustainable Growth Rate formula for updates to the Medicare physician fee schedule, and it ...
Ethiopia, similar to other African countries, has a significant shortage of physicians. Currently, there are 0.3 physicians for every 100,000 people, a rate that is substantially lower than the 2 physicians per 100,000 people found in the rest of Africa. This year, the First Lady of Ethiopia,...
The Conquerors Circle is the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s (CCF) first-ever donor appreciation society. Donors who contribute $1,000 annually are members of the Conquerors Circle. In appreciation for their generous and loyal support of CCF, Conquerors Circle members receive exclusive benefits based...
Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, began his term as ASCO President-Elect in June 2016 and will serve as 2017–2018 President. A thoracic cancer specialist, Dr. Johnson is Chief Clinical Research Officer and institute physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical...
Eric Fearon, MD, PhD, has been named Director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Fearon, the Emanuel N. Maisel Professor of Oncology at the University of Michigan, is a nationally recognized investigator in cancer genetics. His research has led to a greater...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently announced a collaboration with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation to incorporate the Foundation’s wealth of genomic and clinical data about the disease into the NCI Genomic Data Commons. NCI’s Genomic Data Commons is a publicly available database...
Susan M. O’Brien, MD, one of the nation’s foremost leukemia experts, told The ASCO Post that she wanted to become a doctor since her earliest memories. “The idea of being able to help sick people always appealed to me,” said Dr. O’Brien, who was born in Manhattan but spent her formative years in...
When it comes to cancer-causing viruses like human papillomavirus (HPV), researchers are continuing to find that infection with one strain may be better than another. In an analysis of survival data for patients with oropharyngeal cancer, researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC)...
What are the factors that add up to the best outcomes for patients who have surgery to treat cancer? Looking for a better way to measure quality of care and share best practices in surgical oncology, a team from Roswell Park Cancer Institute developed a quality assessment tool and validated it in a ...
In the phase III EORTC (European Organisation for Research and Treatment) 22033-26033 intergroup trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Baumert et al found no progression-free survival difference between temozolomide chemotherapy and radiotherapy alone in patients with high-risk low-grade glioma....
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Judith A. Paice, PhD, RN, of Northwestern University, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on management of chronic pain in survivors of adult cancers.1 The guideline was based on literature review by an expert panel,...
Ever since the immune checkpoint agents arrived, the pace of clinical investigation in oncology has continued to accelerate with an ever-increasing number of trials of single-agent and combination therapies with novel designs that are transforming our drug-development process. However, even in...
The advent of more effective systemic therapies, which extend patients’ lives, has also resulted in an increasing incidence of brain metastases, for which clinicians must determine appropriate treatment. Whole-brain radiotherapy has been the traditional treatment modality, but stereotactic...
Three years ago, IBM’s Watson supercomputer was best known for defeating two former champions on the TV game show Jeopardy! Today, it is grabbing headlines for becoming an important assistant in cancer care. Able to read and understand millions of pages of text within seconds, Watson caught the...
The Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization gathered philanthropic, civic, medical, and business leaders in Washington, DC, September 14 to formally launch a $27 million, 10-city initiative to reduce breast cancer death rates among African American women. “African American women are almost 40%...
An international leader in harnessing a patient’s own stem cells to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin (UW) Carbone Cancer Center on September 1. Jacques Galipeau, MD, FRCP(C), came from the Winship Cancer Center at Emory University, where he...
In the phase III CASTOR trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Antonio Palumbo, MD, of the University of Turin, and colleagues found that adding the anti-CD38 antibody daratumumab (Darzalex) to bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone markedly improved progression-free survival among ...
In the 20th century, the field of statistics developed and was gradually applied to clinical research. The use of statistics allows clinical researchers to form reasonable and accurate inferences from collected information and to make sound decisions in the presence of uncertainty. Moreover,...