The Conquer Cancer Foundation has an incredible opportunity for you to make an amazing impact! An anonymous donor is offering a Matching Gift Challenge, which will double the value of every gift we receive by December 31—dollar for dollar—up to $64,000! This amount is enough to fund one of our...
There has been no better time than the present for women in the field of oncology: Women at all stages of their careers are finding more opportunities and avenues to excel. At the time of the last ASCO workforce survey, women made up 28.4% of the oncologist workforce, and that proportion is rising...
The importance of achieving complete response after intensive therapy in older adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was confirmed in a follow-up analysis of the E2906 North American Intergroup trial.1 Patients in complete response had superior survival in this landmark analysis. This finding...
Richard Gorlick, MD, an expert in pediatric oncology and hematology, has joined The University of Texas MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital as the Division Head and Department Chair of Pediatrics. A pediatric cancer survivor himself, Dr. Gorlick committed his life’s work to helping young...
In his practice, Mikkael Sekeres, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, has not initiated dose reductions of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, but “anecdotally, my patients tell me that they have reduced the dose. Many of them cannot afford to continue treatment indefinitely, and some have side...
Tyrosine kinase inhibitors, such as imatinib, nilotinib (Tasigna), and dasatinib (Sprycel), have revolutionized the treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). A substantial percentage of patients achieve deep and meaningful remissions on these agents. More recently, partly driven by patients’ and ...
Stephen P. Hunger, MD, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Oncology and Director of the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and the Jeffrey E. Perelman Distinguished Chair in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,...
Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) considered at standard risk for relapse should continue to receive standard-intensity regimens, according to findings from the international randomized AIEOP-BFM ALL 2000 trial.1 A reduced-intensity treatment for children with ALL considered to have ...
The diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer have long been a source of controversy among the oncology community, the political sector, and patient advocacy groups. Most notably, the decision to biopsy a man’s prostate gland rests largely on his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test numbers, the...
Although a cure for cancer remains elusive, there are many promising ideas to eradicate this disease, including the Cancer Moonshot Initiative and an ever-increasing body of cancer research that continually drives innovative treatments in an effort to improve survival and, ultimately, find a...
Michael Gnant, MD, Professor of Surgery at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria and President of the Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group, was the invited discussant of the three studies of extended endocrine therapy. “The trials did not reach the necessary statistical levels ...
Extended endocrine therapy with an aromatase inhibitor did not improve disease-free survival in patients with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer enrolled in three studies presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The results stand in contrast to the phase III National Cancer...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet, Balar et al found that first-line atezolizumab (Tecentriq) produced durable responses in cisplatin-ineligible patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma. In the study, 119 patients from 47 sites in North America and Europe who were ...
In the phase III OAK trial reported in The Lancet by Rittmeyer et al, treatment with the anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody atezolizumab (Tecentriq) improved overall survival vs docetaxel in previously treated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results of the trial...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted accelerated approval to rucaparib (Rubraca) to treat women with advanced ovarian cancer who have been treated with two or more chemotherapies and whose tumors have a specific gene mutation (deleterious BRCA) as identified by an FDA-approved...
The first data on rare sarcomas in Asian patients were presented in three studies at the ESMO Asia 2016 Congress in Singapore. Just half of patients with advanced angiosarcoma received chemotherapy, although it improved overall survival. CIC-rearranged sarcomas were associated with a much worse...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Gary H. Lyman, MD, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and colleagues, an ASCO clinical practice guideline update panel made no changes to the 2014 recommendations for sentinel lymph node biopsy in women with early-stage breast cancer. The...
Asian patients with head and neck cancer live longer with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) immunotherapy than the overall population, according to a subanalysis of the KEYNOTE-012 trial presented at the ESMO Asia 2016 Congress in Singapore. “Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma is the seventh most...
Translational research in pancreatic adenocarcinoma has been limited by the difficulty of obtaining sufficient quality and quantity tumor tissue from patients. A study by Pietrasz et al assessing the feasibility and prognostic value of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in pancreatic adenocarcinoma has...
Regorafenib (Stivarga) improved overall survival vs placebo in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who had experienced disease progression on sorafenib (Nexavar) treatment, according to the phase III RESORCE trial reported by Bruix et al in The Lancet. Study Details In this double-blind trial, ...
Around 20% of patients with breast cancer in Sweden do not complete endocrine therapy, according to research that will be reported at the ESMO Asia 2016 Congress (Abstract 62O_PR), to be held December 16–19 in Singapore.The study in over 5,500 women found that younger patients and those who...
Studies suggest that approximately 30% to 40% of women with breast cancer report persistent hot flashes. Nocturnal hot flashes are among the most problematic because they can contribute to poor sleep. A new study published by Garland et al in Menopause shows that electroacupuncture may be effective ...
Integrating palliative care into the treatment of patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for cancers like leukemia and lymphoma can improve their quality of life, relieve symptoms associated with the procedure, and reduce depression and anxiety, not only during the 3- to 4-week ...
Patients whose lung cancer spreads to their brain typically have only 4 to 6 months left to live, but research presented by Chinese doctors suggests that using icotinib increases progression-free survival in these patients compared to whole-brain irradiation and chemotherapy combined. Yi-Long Wu,...
Patients who received first-line ceritinib experienced a 45% risk reduction for advanced anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)–positive on–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared to a control group that received chemotherapy, according to research presented at the IASLC 17th World...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Saro H. Armenian, DO, MPH, of City of Hope, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on prevention and monitoring of cardiac dysfunction in survivors of adult cancers. Recommendations were developed by an expert panel using a ...
In part 1 of the phase II ARIEL2 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Swisher et al found that the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor rucaparib was associated with prolonged progression-free survival among patients with relapsed platinum-sensitive high-grade ovarian carcinoma who had...
In the international phase III FALCON trial reported in The Lancet, Robertson et al found that progression-free survival was improved with intramuscular fulvestrant (Faslodex) vs oral anastrozole in endocrine therapy–naive women with hormone receptor–positive locally advanced or...
The artificial-intelligence platform Watson for Oncology (WFO) achieved a high degree of concordance with the recommendations of a panel of oncologists in a double-blinded validation study, according to results presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held December 6 to 10...
Postmenopausal women with breast cancer who took aromatase inhibitors demonstrated endothelial dysfunction, a predictor of cardiovascular disease, according to study results presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held December 6 to 10 (Abstract s5-07). Aromatase inhibitors are...
Ruth O'Regan, MD, of the University of Wisconsin, discusses study findings on buparlisib plus fulvestrant in postmenopausal women with HR-positive, HER2-positive, aromatase inhibitor–treated, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, who progressed on or after mTOR inhibitor–based treatment...
Jame Abraham, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, gives his perspective on study results of extended adjuvant endocrine therapy in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer who have completed previous adjuvant endocrine treatment (Abstract S1-05).
Until 1957, the prevailing thought was that since cancers develop in normal patients, they are not recognized as foreign by the immune system. That changed when Richmond T. Prehn, MD, and his laboratory assistant, Joan Main, showed that tumors induced by chemical carcinogens in mice could...
The investigational immunotherapeutic IMC-20D7S was found to be well tolerated and somewhat active in patients with advanced melanoma, including one complete response, according to the results of a phase I/Ib trial reported by Danny N. Khalil, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Clinical Cancer Research....
Although adjuvant chemotherapy decreases the risk of breast cancer recurrence, it is associated with distressing side effects, including hair loss. A prospective randomized trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the Orbis Paxman Hair Loss Prevention System (OPHLPS), a scalp-cooling device that ...
In a secondary analysis from the NRG Oncology RTOG 0617 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stephen G. Chun, MD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that use of intensity-modulated vs three-dimensional...
Reports of rare, but in some cases fatal, cardiac complications when the checkpoint inhibitors ipilimumab (Yervoy) and nivolumab (Opdivo) are used in combination should be taken seriously but should not scare patients away from potentially life-saving drugs, according to Javid J. Moslehi, MD. Dr....
Cardiovascular toxicities associated with cancer treatments are not new. What is new, and what has prompted recent articles in The New England Journal of Medicine,1,2 is the explosion of cancer therapies, which has dramatically changed the natural course of many cancers but can lead to cardiac,...
Among women enrolled in the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study I (IBIS-I), those who had certain symptoms of menopause—nausea/vomiting and headaches—were significantly less likely to be adherent to the assigned medication 4.5 years after starting the treatment, according to...
“I am greatly saddened by the death of former Congressman Melvin R. Laird, who, over the course of his distinguished career in public service, played a key role in advancing biomedical research and the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Our thoughts are with his family and the...
Although my diagnosis of stage IIIB melanoma 5 years ago came as a shock, in hindsight, it shouldn’t have been so surprising. I had noticed a small freckle-like lesion on my upper left thigh that had become itchy and occasionally bled, but it didn’t fit the ABCDE (Asymmetry, Border irregularity,...
Presurgical treatment with the investigational therapeutic abemaciclib, either alone or in combination with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole, reduced levels of Ki67, a marker of cell proliferation, in hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer cells, compared with anastrozole...
Scientific Names: Valeriana officinalis, Valeriana radix Common Names: Garden valerian, Indian valerian, Pacific valerian, garden heliotrope Overview A perennial flowering plant prevalent in Europe, Asia, and North America, valerian has a long medicinal history as a relaxant. Its potential as a...
The investigational PI3K inhibitor buparlisib, in combination with endocrine therapy, improved outcomes for patients with hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer that had progressed after treatment with everolimus (Afinitor) plus exemestane, according to data from the phase III...
Adding the investigational poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor veliparib to carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy improved the overall response rate without increasing adverse events among patients who had locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations,...
A few years ago, I had the good fortune to join a research team that intended to create a device to help dying children express their wants and needs despite communication challenges. The brain tumor team at SickKids [also known as The Hospital for Sick Children] had cared for several children...
Tina’s Wish, a nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to funding scientific research for the early detection of ovarian cancer, recently announced its eight 2017–2018 individual grant recipients after soliciting proposals nationally for the first time. Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer...
In its November 2016 issue, the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP) has published a special series that represents the results of a unique project launched in 2014 by ASCO and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to heighten awareness of ways to enhance team-based care in oncology. Concerns about...
Radiotherapy increased complications and impaired patient-reported satisfaction with reconstructed breasts in breast cancer patients who received implant reconstruction, but not in those who received autologous reconstruction, according to data from a large, prospective, multicenter cohort study...
Postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early-stage breast cancer who received the bisphosphonate ibandronate (Boniva) in addition to adjuvant hormone therapy did not have improved disease-free survival outcomes, according to data from the phase III clinical trial TEAM IIB...