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Showing 14201 - 14250Using Pharmacogenetics to Predict Cancer Prognosis, Response to Treatment, and Toxicity
Although clinical trials are helpful in determining the effectiveness of a specific drug across a patient population, they are not as reliable at pinpointing how well a particular patient will respond to the drug or dosing regimen or how the drug may impact the patient’s quality of life from...
Rise in Oropharyngeal Cancer Incidence in the UK Not Solely Driven by HPV
The rise in the incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma in the United Kingdom from 2002 to 2011 was not solely attributable to a rise in the incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive disease, according to a study published in Cancer Research,1 which reported that the proportion of ...
Barriers and Opportunities Reported in the Study of Human Papillomavirus Education and Immunization Efforts
Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates remain low across the United States, with fewer than 40% of girls and just over 21% of boys receiving the recommended vaccine series. Research from Roswell Park Cancer Institute has identified barriers that need to be overcome to improve vaccination...
Expert Point of View: Elizabeth Jaffee, MD
Elizabeth Jaffee, MD, Deputy Director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, commented on the promise of neoantigens during a press briefing at the 2nd International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference. “In addition to the development of new drugs...
Personalized Vaccines May Protect Patients With High-Risk Melanoma
The field of cancer vaccines may be reinvigorated by a new understanding, and the therapeutic leveraging, of neoantigens. Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston are exploring this novel approach as a means of protecting patients with high-risk melanoma from recurrence. Early...
When Breath Becomes Air: Dr. Lucy Kalanithi Reflects on Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s Life and Writing
Perhaps more than any other book in recent memory, When Breath Becomes Air has struck a chord among readers, both inside the medical community and among the public, desiring an honest and philosophical consideration of death. The autobiographical account of Paul Kalanithi, MD, a physician diagnosed ...
Arti Hurria, MD: From Leadership Development Program to Board of Directors
Arti Hurria, MD, a geriatric oncologist at City of Hope in Duarte, California, is the first graduate of ASCO’s Leadership Development Program to be elected to ASCO’s Board of Directors. Within 5 years of completing the program, Dr. Hurria went from learning leadership skills to applying them to...
New Member Categories Provide Specialized Support to Cancer Care Team Members
As part of ASCO’s ongoing effort to fully support all members of the cancer care team, it recently created three new member categories: Advanced Practice Providers, Practice Administrators, and Patient Advocates (see sidebar). Originally part of the Affiliated Health Professionals member category, ...
Free PQRS Reporting Now Available Through QOPI®; No Additional Reporting Required
ASCO is pleased to announce that oncology practices can now complete all of their Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS)1 requirements through the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) platform. All users will be able to use the QOPI system to fulfill the Oncology Measures Group set of 7...
Precision Promise Clinical Trial Focuses on Precision Medicine, Collaboration, and Data-Sharing in Pancreatic Cancer
The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network recently announced Precision Promise, the first large-scale precision medicine trial designed to transform outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer. The organization also announced the 12 initial Precision Promise Clinical Trial Consortium sites selected to...
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and Sanger Institute, UK Agree to Full Exchange of Cancer Data
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK, have agreed to a full exchange of cancer mutation data to support the discovery and understanding of genetic mutations causing cancers. The agreement will provide regular updates and exchanges of data between both...
What We Know and What We Need to Know About Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Advanced Ovarian Cancer
Ever since the landmark studies of Griffiths and colleagues in the 1970s,1 primary cytoreductive surgery followed by chemotherapy with the objective of achieving minimal residual disease has been the standard approach for women with advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer. However, what is...
SGO and ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline on Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Newly Diagnosed Advanced Ovarian Cancer
As reported by Alexi A. Wright, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO and the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) have released a clinical practice guideline on neoadjuvant therapy for patients with newly diagnosed stage IIIC or IV...
Expert Point of View: Olivier Michielin, MS, MD, PhD
The paper’s invited discussant was Olivier Michielin, MS, MD, PhD, Head of Personalized Analytical Oncology and the Melanoma Clinic at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland. He called the findings of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment (EORTC) 18071 trial a “new landmark in...
Adjuvant Ipilimumab Improves Survival in High-Risk Melanoma
Patients with stage III melanoma who were considered to be at high risk for recurrence derived an overall survival benefit from adjuvant treatment with ipilimumab (Yervoy), although it came at the price of considerable toxicity, according to updated survival results from the phase III European...
Mount Sinai and Thomas Jefferson University Researchers Receive Falk Foundation Grant to Study Uveal Melanoma
Uveal melanoma is the second most common type of skin cancer. Approximately 50% of patients with uveal melanoma will develop metastasis, most commonly to the liver. The disease can appear more than 10 years after the primary lesion has been removed, lying dormant for long periods. There are...
With Changing Strategies for Laryngeal Cancer, Multidisciplinary Team Approach Is Key
The treatment of cancer of the larynx has changed dramatically in recent years. With organ preservation now possible in many cases, it is more important than ever for patients to receive guidance from every corner of the field. In a recent article in the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP),1 a...
NIH Expands National Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced awards to add four regional medical center groups to the national network of health-care provider organizations that will implement the Precision Medicine Initiative Cohort Program. Combined, the new health-care provider organizations will...
German Society Salutes ‘Big Four’ for Pioneering Work in Women’s Health Care
Diethelm Wallwiener, MD, President of the German Society for Gynaecology and Obstetrics, announced “The Big Four of the Millennium” at the 61st Congress of the Society, held recently in Stuttgart, Germany. The award recognizes individuals’ whose work in the 20th century created the standards of...
Consensus on Defining and Measuring Lymphedema Is Needed to Advance Efforts to Intervene Early and Prevent Progression
“Early intervention might prevent lymphedema progression,” Alphonse Taghian, MD, PhD, said at the 18th Annual Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium in Chicago, but the lack of a universal definition of lymphedema and agreement on how to optimally measure it impedes phase III studies to test that...
Breast Cancer Study Finds Higher Mortality Rate in Black Women Than White Women, and the Disparity Is Growing
The Avon Foundation for Women recently released a new study on the racial disparities in breast cancer mortality in the 50 largest cities in the United States between 2005 and 2014. Published in Cancer Epidemiology,1 the study was conducted by Sinai Urban Health Institute in collaboration with the...
FDA Grants Accelerated Approval to Olaratumab for Treatment of Advanced Soft-Tissue Sarcoma
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to olaratumab (Lartruvo) in combination with doxorubicin to treat adults with certain types of soft-tissue sarcoma. Olaratumab is approved for use with the FDA-approved chemotherapy drug doxorubicin for the treatment of ...
NCCN Issues New Clinical Practice Guidelines for Myeloproliferative Neoplasms
Myeloproliferative neoplasms are a group of blood cancers characterized by significant symptoms and a high risk of transformation into acute leukemia. These cancers—myelofibrosis, essential thrombocythemia, and polycythemia vera—affect approximately 13,000; 134,000; and 148,000 patients in the...
Expert Point of View: Colleen A. Lawton, MD
“This is very exciting work and is exactly what we need in prostate cancer,” said Colleen A. Lawton, MD, Vice-Chair of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and moderator of a press conference where the study by Spratt et al was discussed. “The prognostic measures we use are rough and...
Prognostic and Predictive Molecular Subtypes of Prostate Cancer Identified
Members of the oncology community have long complained that prostate cancer lags behind breast cancer regarding biomarkers for prognosis and treatment, but the good news is that this gap is narrowing. In the largest study of its kind to date, presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American...
ESMO 2016: Pooled Analysis Shows PD-L1 Expression as a Biomarker for Nivolumab Plus Ipilimumab Response in Advanced Melanoma
A pooled analysis from three clinical trials in advanced melanoma shows that although patients treated with nivolumab and nivolumab plus ipilimumab with ≥ 5% programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumor expression have similar progression-free survival, durable response rates were higher for the...
ESMO 2016: Meta-analysis Confirms Superiority of Concomitant Over Induction Chemotherapy in Nonmetastatic Head and Neck Cancer
Patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma achieved prolonged overall survival when concomitant chemotherapy was administered with locoregional treatment or radiotherapy, according to findings from a large meta-analysis reported by Blanchard et al at the European Society for Medical...
Expert Point of View: Vinai Gondi, MD
Formal discussant of both trials, Vinai Gondi, MD, Director of CNS Radiation Oncology at Northwestern Medicine Cancer Center in Warrenville, Illinois, offered a somewhat more nuanced take on the data from these studies. To begin, he commended the authors of both studies. “These were both...
Stereotactic Radiosurgery Achieves Better Quality of Life and Improved Cognition Than Whole-Brain Radiotherapy
Two separate randomized trials presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) affirmed the value of stereotactic radiosurgery as an option for postoperative treatment of the surgical cavity of resected brain metastases, potentially avoiding the cognitive...
COA Releases 2016 Community Oncology Practice Impact Report
On October 4, the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) released the 2016 Community Oncology Practice Impact Report, which tracks the changing landscape of cancer care in the United States. It documents a 121% increase in community cancer clinic closings and a 172% increase in consolidation into...
Safety of Extreme Hypofractionation Reassuring in Intermediate-Risk Prostate Cancer
Giving patients larger fractions of radiation over shorter periods (ie, hypofractionation) is gaining ground in several types of cancers. This approach is attractive for patients’ convenience, shortening treatment and travel times, and also for resource utilization. Several studies have shown that ...
Expert Point of View: Brian Kavanagh, MD
“Lung cancer patients are living longer with stereotactic body radiation therapy. Patients should have access to this care. It would be tragic if we couldn’t give this treatment to patients who need it,” said Brian Kavanagh, MD, President of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and...
Retrospective Studies Confirm Survival Benefit of Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy in Early-Stage NSCLC
Stereotactic body radiation therapy is becoming more widely adopted for the treatment of early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Along with its increasing uptake, survival has significantly increased over the past decade, according to two large retrospective studies presented at the 58th...
New SSO-ASTRO-ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline Clarifies the Question of Margins for Breast-Conserving Surgery in Ductal Carcinoma in Situ
In 2014, the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) published a “Consensus Guideline on Margins for Breast-Conserving Surgery With Whole-Breast Irradiation in Stages I and II Invasive Breast Cancer.”1 A multidisciplinary expert guideline used a...
Margins for Breast-Conserving Surgery With Whole-Breast Irradiation in Ductal Carcinoma in Situ
A clinical practice guideline on margins for breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation in ductal carcinoma in situ has been jointly developed by the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO), the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), and ASCO.1-3 The recommendations were...
‘Dear Presidential Candidates’: A Letter From an Oncologist
Dear Presidential Candidates: Wouldn’t it be great if history’s Alexander the Great was actually Dr. Alexander Fleming, the doctor-scientist who saved millions of lives by discovering penicillin, rather than the other Alexander, who conquered and killed thousands of innocent people? Wouldn’t it be...
Study Shows Strong Evidence Supporting Radiation Boost to Tumor Bed in Ductal Carcinoma in Situ
A radiation boost to the local tumor bed following treatment with breast-conserving therapy (ie, local excision followed by whole-breast radiation therapy) improves local control for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ, according to a study of pooled data from 10 academic centers,1 presented at...
Dutch Study Shows High Prevalence of Early Endocrine Disorders in Survivors of Childhood Brain Tumors
Clement et al found that 25% of survivors of childhood brain tumors were diagnosed with endocrine disorders over 6.6 years of follow-up, based on a Dutch nationwide study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study involved data from 718 survivors diagnosed at age ≤ 18 years with a...
Expert Point of View: Stephen R.D. Johnston, MD
“These results apply to about two-thirds of women with advanced breast cancer, ie, those with hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer,” noted the formal discussant of this paper, Stephen R.D. Johnston, MD, of the Royal Marsden Hospital, London. “At present with first-line endocrine...
Combination of Ribociclib and Letrozole Improved Progression-Free Survival in Hormone Receptor–Positive Advanced Breast Cancer
The combination of the selective CDK4/6 inhibitor ribociclib plus letrozole significantly improved progression-free survival in hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer. When ribociclib was added to letrozole, progression-free survival improved by 44% compared with letrozole alone,...
ESMO 2016: First-Line Pembrolizumab Plus Chemotherapy Significantly Improves Outcomes in Advanced NSCLC
The addition of the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to standard first-line chemotherapy for treatment-naive advanced non–small cell lung cancer significantly improves response rates and progression-free survival, Langer et al reported at the 2016...
Study Finds Increased Risk for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma in HIV-Infected Patients
In the HIV-negative population, there is growing evidence suggesting that chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are both associated with the development of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), although the mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. The incidence rate of NHL ...
Vice President Biden Delivers Cancer Moonshot Report, Announces Public and Private Sector Actions to Advance Cancer Moonshot Goals
Today in the Oval Office, Vice President Joe Biden delivered the Cancer Moonshot report to the President and the American public. The report summarizes the work of the Cancer Moonshot Task Force since its creation in January and lays out the Vice President’s strategic plan for transforming...
First-Line Pembrolizumab Improves Survival vs Platinum-Based Chemotherapy in Advanced PD-L1–Positive NSCLC
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved progression-free and overall survival vs platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ≥ 50% PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) expression and no sensitizing EGFR...
HHS Finalizes MACRA Rule, ASCO Applauds Focus on High-Quality Patient-Centered Care
Today, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) finalized a landmark new payment system for Medicare clinicians that will continue the Administration’s progress in reforming how the health-care system pays for care. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of ...
ESMO 2016: Researchers Identify Factors Associated With End-of-Life Chemotherapy Use
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...
ESMO 2016: Antitumor Activity Demonstrated With Lurbinectedin in Patients With Metastatic Breast Cancer and BRCA Mutations
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...
ESMO 2016: Fulvestrant Improves Progression-Free Survival in Advanced Breast Cancer
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 ...
ESMO 2016: Nintedanib Improves Progression-Free Survival but Not Overall Survival in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
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...
ESMO 2016: Immunotherapy Shows Promising Results in First- and Second-Line Treatment of Metastatic Bladder Cancer in Two Trials
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,...
