MAY 13th Annual Meeting of the Association for Cancer Immunotherapy (CIMT)May 11-13 • Mainz, Germany For more information: www.meeting.cimt.eu 54th Annual Conference of the Particle Therapy Co-Operative GroupMay 18-23 • San Diego, California For more information: http://ptcog54.org American...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed or refractory neuroblastoma. The studies include pilot, observational, phase I, phase II, and phase III trials investigating single-agent and...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved ramucirumab (Cyramza) for use in combination with FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan) for the treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer whose disease has progressed on a first-line bevacizumab (Avastin)-,...
Physicians are being “bombarded” with changes in health care and beyond, Richard R. Barakat, MD, FACS, noted in his Presidential Address at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer. These changes are being precipitated by steeply rising health-care costs amid...
Overdiagnosis associated with breast cancer screening has been the subject of much attention in recent years. The notion that cancer screening—largely believed to be beneficial—could actually be harmful is simultaneously fascinating and difficult to believe. With the publication of multiple studies ...
In a study reported in Lancet, Jolyn Hersch, MApplSc, of the University of Sydney, and colleagues found that use of a decision aid containing information on overdetection in breast cancer screening was associated with an increased rate of informed choice regarding screening, a reduced rate of...
Hodgkin lymphoma is generally thought to be a malignancy with a favorable prognosis. Overall, approximately 80% of patients will have durable, long-term remissions with initial chemotherapy. Some patients, however, demonstrate evidence of disease progression, and these patients usually receive...
In the phase III AETHERA trial reported in The Lancet, Craig H. Moskowitz, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues found that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) consolidation therapy after autologous stem cell transplantation prolonged progression-free survival by 18 months vs...
“Bevacizumab [Avastin] prevents new blood vessels from growing, but what about the blood vessels that are already in the tumor?” Presenting that challenge to participants at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer in Chicago, Bradley J. Monk, MD, of the University of...
Stand Up To Cancer , Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, and National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, along with the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), announced the formation of a “Dream Team” devoted to ovarian cancer research at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015....
The quality and quantity of original research presented at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference continue to grow since poster sessions debuted a few years ago. The ASCO Post offers summaries for just a few that caught our eye, out of more than 65 presented this year....
As clinical research struggles to keep up with the pace of new immunotherapies, one of the burning questions is how best to combine the new drugs. A new study found that the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) is superior to ipilimumab alone as front-line therapy for untreated ...
Can metastatic breast cancer ever be cured? This issue was debated at the 32nd Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference by two experts in the field: George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, California, and Clifford A. Hudis, MD, Chief of the...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) proved superior to ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of unresectable advanced melanoma in the global phase III KEYNOTE-006 trial. Pembrolizumab significantly improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and overall response rate compared with ipilimumab, which...
A study finding that just doing some leisure time physical activity reduces overall and cancer-specific mortality by 20% and that more activity can provide even greater survival benefits concludes that health-care professionals should encourage inactive patients to perform more leisure time...
There’s good news for those who recognize the benefits of exercise but feel they have neither the time nor energy for frequent workouts: A recent study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine1 has found that just performing “some” leisure time physical activity, even below the recommended minimum level, ...
I first met Michael Katz, MBA, in 2004, 3 years after my brother, Dom, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and we were at a crossroads in his care and needed advice. Although an experimental regimen of thalidomide (Thalomid) and dexamethasone had successfully put Dom in remission for a year (the...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO). These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Sandra M. Swain, MD, of Washington Cancer Institute, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, and colleagues, the final prespecified overall survival analysis in the phase III CLEOPATRA study showed a significant 15.7-month increase in median overall ...
No one ever expects to hear the words “you have cancer,” but over the course of the day, over 5,000 people in the United States are given that news.1 I first heard those words in the summer of 2007 and have been living with cancer ever since. At the time of my diagnosis, I knew this would forever...
BOOKMARKTitle: Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical CareAuthor: H. Gilbert Welch, MDPublisher: Beacon PressPublication date: March 3, 2015Price: $24.95; hardcover, 241 pages He’s the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most medicines. —Benjamin Franklin...
MAY American Association for Cancer Research: Advances in Brain Cancer ResearchMay 27-30 • Washington, DC For more information: www.aacr.org ASCO Annual MeetingMay 29-June 2 • Chicago, Illinois For more information: am.asco.org 2015 ASCO State Affiliates’ ReceptionMay 31 • Chicago, Illinois For...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing and review Bristol-Myers Squibb’s supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for nivolumab (Opdivo) for the treatment of previously untreated patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma. The FDA also granted Priority...
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 April 24, the monoclonal antibody ramucirumab (Cyramza) was...
The treatment landscape for metastatic melanoma has recently undergone a remarkable transformation. Prior to 2011, clinicians and patients were presented with difficult decisions between therapies without proven survival benefit. Now, similarly difficult but much more hopeful choices are posed...
In the phase III KEYNOTE-006 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, Head of the Dermatology Unit at the Institut Gustave Roussy, Paris, and colleagues found that the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda) increased...
Geriatrics for the Oncologist is guest edited by Stuart Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO, and developed in collaboration with the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG). Visit SIOG.org for more on geriatric oncology. The Task Forces of the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) are ...
The recent publication of the results of our National Cancer Institute (NCI) RO1-funded randomized controlled trial of meaning-centered group psychotherapy for advanced cancer patients in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 and the accompanying summary published in this issue of The ASCO Post,...
The role of a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician at cancer centers continues to grow, as survivors live longer and national cancer organizations advocate for more rehabilitation services throughout the continuum of survivorship care. Working with physiatrists at your institution can...
In the past 2 decades, the incidence of thyroid cancer has risen steeply, with rates now growing by 5.5% annually.1 In 2014, 62,980 new cases of thyroid cancer were diagnosed in the United States. The good news is that, overall, the prognosis of thyroid cancer remains excellent; 97.8% of patients...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Martin Schlumberger, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy, and colleagues found that the multikinase inhibitor lenvatinib (Lenvima) produced a large improvement in progression-free survival vs placebo in patients with advanced...
The report from Dr. Steven Narod and colleagues recently published in JAMA1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post adds to the growing evidence regarding observed disparities in breast cancer outcomes by race and ethnicity among women in the United States. Since 1990, breast cancer death rates ...
Large, randomized phase III clinical trials showed that the addition of HER2-targeted therapy to chemotherapy for patients with early-stage, HER2-overexpressing breast cancers substantially decreased the risk of recurrence and improved survival. The chemotherapy given in these trials varied, but it ...
In a phase II study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that adjuvant paclitaxel and trastuzumab (Herceptin) was associated with high invasive disease-free survival in women with small, node-negative,...
Ever since the early application of adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer decades ago, it has been recognized that there is always a price to pay for its success in reducing breast cancer mortality. Most of that “cost” is commonly considered in terms of the potential morbid short- and long-term...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Antonio C. Wolff, MD, of Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, and colleagues found a low but higher-than-expected incidence of marrow neoplasms in patients receiving adjuvant radiation therapy or chemotherapy...
The use of dietary supplements by patients with cancer has increased significantly over the past 2 decades despite insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness. Finding reliable sources of information about dietary supplements can be daunting. Patients typically rely on family, friends, and...
On March 31, 2015, Harold Varmus, MD, left his position as Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to join the faculty of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York as its Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine. Dr. Varmus was also named Senior Associate Core Member of the New York...
BOOKMARKTitle: The Story of Pain: From Prayer to PainkillersAuthor: Joanna BourkePublisher: Oxford University PressPublication date: 2014Price: $34.95: hardcover, 416 page “Pain may even kill. It may overwhelm the nervous system by its mere magnitude & duration.” —Peter Mere Latham, 1871...
The combination of docetaxel plus prednisone has been a standard therapy in advanced prostate cancer since 2004.1 Since then, there have been multiple randomized phase III trials comparing this standard of care with additional drug therapy. None has demonstrated improvement in outcome. Lenalidomide ...
In the phase III MAINSAIL trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, of Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues found that the addition of lenalidomide (Revlimid) to docetaxel-prednisone in chemotherapy-naive men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate...
Question 1: In the current era of tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy, which prognostic model is best to assess the prognosis of a person with a new diagnosis of CML? Correct Answer: D. All of the above Expert Perspective Despite not being perfect, all of these scores are reasonably effective at...
Sokal Score1 Derives from a multivariate analysis of survival of 813 patients diagnosed with chronic phase CML between 1962 and 1981 (0.0116 × (age [years] – 43.4)) + (0.0345 × (spleen size [cm] – 7.51) + (0.188 × ((platelets [109/L]/700)^2 – 0.563)) + (0.0887 × (blasts [%] – 2.10)). Smaller...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present “Hematology Expert Review,” an occasional feature that includes a case report detailing a particular hematologic condition followed by questions. Answers to each question, along with expert commentary, can be found in the sidebar. In this installment, we present...
Prostate cancer survivors currently approach 3 million in number and comprise 43% of all male cancer survivors in the United States.1 These men face myriad unique oncologic, functional, emotional, and psychological issues that require evaluation and management throughout the survivorship phase of...
Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are one of the most exciting new classes of agents in development for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Olaparib (Lynparza), the lead oral PARP inhibitor, received accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of...
In April 2015, the American College of Physicians (ACP) released its clinical advice guideline, Cervical Cancer Screening in Average-Risk Women: Best Practice Advice From the Clinical Guidelines Committee of the American College of Physicians.1 The guideline aims to reduce the overuse of cervical...
PARP inhibitors offer a promising alternative for targeted therapy in ovarian cancer” and have “clear benefit in BRCA-mutation carriers,” but questions remain about when is the best time to use them and the cost-effectiveness of maintenance therapy, Elizabeth M. Swisher, MD, of the University of...
More than 7,200 cases of anal cancer were diagnosed in 2014—approximately 2,600 in men and 4,600 in women—representing an increase of more than 4,000 from 8 years ago. In more than 90% of patients, infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause, tagging anal cancer as a largely...
A new “off-the-shelf” treatment promises to induce remission in rituximab (Rituxan)-refractory Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated lymphoproliferative disorder, a potentially fatal complication of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Historically, this complication has been difficult to treat...