As reported in The Lancet by Vratislav Strnad, MD, of University Hospital Erlangen, Germany, and colleagues, 5-year results of a phase III noninferiority trial showed no difference in local relapse, disease-free survival, or overall survival with adjuvant accelerated partial breast irradiation...
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 October 27, 2015, talimogene laherparepvec (Imlygic) was...
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 October 28, 2015, ipilimumab (Yervoy) was approved for adjuvant ...
The number of targeted therapies approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the treatment of a variety of cancers, especially hematologic malignancies, continues to rise. In 2014 alone, 4 of the 10 new agents directed at discrete molecular targets approved by the FDA were for blood...
The genetic basis for inherited colorectal cancer is proving to be a much bigger and more complicated “pie” than was appreciated just a few years ago, according to Michael Hall, MD, Director of Gastrointestinal Risk Assessment at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia. “With next-generation...
The 2015 European Cancer Congress (ECC), held recently in Vienna, represented the combined efforts of the European Cancer Organisation (ECCO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), and other partner organisations, constituting the largest European platform for oncology education. At...
A new study shows that deintensification of chemoradiation therapy translates to excellent pathologic complete response rates in low-risk human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oropharyngeal cancer.1 Patient-reported outcomes showed that side effects declined after 8 weeks. The hope is that these...
This study pushes the envelope of how to use our therapies to give the most benefit to patients we otherwise wouldn’t be treating: in this case, children under the age of 3. This age group has historically been a ‘no man’s land.’ Now we see we can treat children as young as 1 year,” said Anita...
The good news is that children as young as 1 year old with the aggressive brain tumor ependymoma can be treated safely and effectively with immediate postoperative radiation therapy, according to the results of a trial presented at the 2015 ASTRO Annual Meeting.1 “Ependymoma is the third most...
Several studies presented at the 2015 ASTRO Annual Meeting explored the use of hypofractionation (delivering higher doses of radiation in fewer fractions) in the treatment of patients with prostate cancer. These studies found comparable outcomes in terms of efficacy and adverse events. Although...
Prostate cancer has been slow to catch up with breast cancer in terms of using biomarkers, but a new study represents progress in this regard. A genomic classifier called Decipher® provides important information that can be used to make treatment decisions for men with prostate cancer and a rising...
Small-molecule inhibitors, especially ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and idelalisib (Zydelig), have greatly changed the outlook for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. William G. Wierda, MD, PhD, Professor and Center Medical Director in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD...
The treatment of Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia has been greatly impacted by an understanding of its genomics, according to Steven P. Treon, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Boston. Dr. Treon brought listeners up to date on ...
Patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer who received neratinib as extended adjuvant therapy demonstrated improved invasive disease–free survival, with an absolute benefit of 2.3% at 2 years.1 However, these results of the ExteNET trial, previously presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual...
There is a strong rationale for the use of accelerated partial-breast irradiation: The large majority of in-breast recurrences are at or near the primary site, limiting the radiation dose to the primary site has the potential to decrease side effects, and treatment can be delivered over a shorter...
Data from A-bomb survivors, persons with ankylosing spondylitis and neoplasms treated with radiation therapy, and many other sources show a strong association between exposure to ionizing radiation (particles or electromagnetic waves with sufficient energy to cause an ionization such as photons and ...
Treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) with tyrosine kinase inhibitors is “the golden child success story of targeted treatment,” Jerald P. Radich, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle, Washington, told attendees at the National...
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) has announced that Michael J. Bennett, PhD, has been elected to serve on the AACC Board as President-Elect beginning in January 2016, followed by successive terms as the Association’s 68th President in 2017 and Past President in 2018. The AACC...
Oncology nurse practitioner Mary Pazdur, RN, MSN, spent her professional life bettering the clinical care and outcomes of cancer patients, culminating in her career at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology, working with patients on cancer vaccine...
A novel interventional approach to treating liver metastases associated with colorectal cancer improved control of liver metastases, according to the SIRFLOX study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 The addition of selective internal radiation therapy to first-line chemotherapy extended...
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,...
BookmarkTitle: Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and MedicineAuthor: Damon Tweedy, MDPublisher: Picador, Macmillan PublishingPublication date: September 8, 2015Price: $26.00; hardcover, 304 pages Strained race relations over issues whose foundation is based on inequality...
DECEMBER American Society for Cell Biology Annual MeetingDecember 12-16 • San Diego, California For more information: http://ascb.org/2015meeting/ ESMO Asia 2015 CongressDecember 18-21 • Singapore For more information: www.esmo.org/Conferences/ESMO-Asia-2015-Congress JANUARY 2016 4th AACR-IASLC...
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 20, 2015, ixazomib (Ninlaro) was approved by the U.S....
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 16, 2015, daratumumab injection (Darzalex) was...
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 13, 2015, osimertinib (Tagrisso) was granted...
In a continuation of a 2014 conference that explored regulatory considerations and strategies for next-generation sequencing, the Friends of Cancer Research, with support from Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc, Pasadena, California, met to discuss the issues and problems of coordinating drug and ...
There is as yet no clinical or research focus on foot complications that result from cancer therapies. Foot conditions, however, are common and have a considerable negative impact on patients’ ambulation, quality of life, and consistent dosing of antineoplastic agents.1-4 There are currently no...
In 1990, when Bruce (B.J.) Miller, MD, was an undergraduate at Princeton University, the practice of medicine was far from his mind. Then a student in Chinese and Asian studies and later an art history major, Dr. Miller would come to pursue a career specializing in palliative medicine after an...
A clinical dilemma that is receiving a great deal of attention in the oncology community is the undue financial burden some patients face during their treatment and into survivorship. While much emphasis is put on methods to reduce and help patients navigate the complex payment system, little is...
Low- and middle-income countries bear a larger share of the global cancer burden than does the developed world,” said Greta Massetti, PhD, Associate Director for Science, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and Co-Chair of the National Cancer...
Management of the regional nodes in breast cancer has evolved from the era of the extended radical mastectomy to exclusion of axillary dissection in appropriately selected patients. Throughout this evolution, studies of nodal irradiation have been shown to improve locoregional control, usually...
Two phase III trials recently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine indicated that the addition of regional nodal irradiation was associated with no or marginal overall survival benefit but significantly improved disease-free survival in patients with early-stage breast cancer.1,2 NCIC...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Catherine Van Poznak, MD, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers to guide decisions on systemic therapy in women with metastatic breast cancer.1 The statement is based on an ASCO expert panel review...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Julie Brahmer, MD, of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, Baltimore, and colleagues found that treatment with the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitor antibody nivolumab...
A new study examining the health-care needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual patients has found myriad disparities in access to cancer care.1 The researchers reviewed nearly 170 papers published over the past 15 years on the health-care needs among this population. Although...
It has long been said that white women of European ancestry are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer, but African American women are more likely to die of it. This statement has introduced multiple articles on the topic of the racial survival disparity in breast cancer, including our own...
A recent report by DeSantis and colleagues from the American Cancer Society, summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post, presented breast cancer incidence and mortality data from an extensive analysis of the U.S. system of state-based tumor registries.1 The data showed that the incidence of breast...
The FDA approved necitumumab (Portrazza) in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin for first-line treatment of patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Necitumumab is not indicated for treatment of nonsquamous NSCLC. Necitumumab is a recombinant human IgG1...
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 10, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
Led by George Demetri, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, expert medical oncology investigators from leading academic sarcoma centers and Janssen Pharmaceuticals employees performed a phase III trial in order to provide evidence for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, George D. Demetri, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues found that treatment with trabectedin (Yondelis) significantly improved progression-free survival vs dacarbazine in patients...
The treatment of hairy cell leukemia is one of the great success stories in hematologic malignancies, with patients now having a survival that is only slightly inferior to an age-matched normal population. Purine analogs, such as cladribine, are the mainstay of first-line therapy, with...
Nivolumab (Opdivo) is a monoclonal antibody that binds to the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) receptor and blocks its interaction with its ligands PD-L1 and PD-L2, releasing PD-1 pathway–mediated inhibition of the immune response. Late last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...
In two phase II studies reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Enrico Tiacci, MD, of the University of Perugia, Italy, and colleagues found that the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf) produced responses in nearly all patients with BRAF V600E–positive hairy cell leukemia that relapsed...
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. Increasing age is directly associated with an increasing risk of cancer,...
Among the highlights at the 12th International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) was a 1-day joint meeting on acupuncture, oncology, and fascia cosponsored by SIO, the Society for Acupuncture Research, the Fascia Research Society, and the Osher Center for Integrative...
Over the past year or so, a host of new agents were approved for the treatment of patients with various types of cancer (see related article on page 1). Patrick Medina, PharmD, of the University of Oklahoma College of Pharmacy, Oklahoma City, and Monique Giordana, PharmD, BCOP, of Regions...
Tough initial treatment decisions have “long-lasting ramifications and affect the entire treatment paradigm” for women with ovarian cancer, according to Bradley J. Monk, MD, FACS, FACOG, of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, Phoenix. In a true collaborative presentation at the Annual JADPRO...
Using multiplatform profiling, researchers have identified potentially targetable biomarker aberrations in a large cohort of geriatric breast tumors.1 According to the study, presented at the 2015 Breast Cancer Symposium, these data may help researchers to design clinical trials focusing on...