In the phase III COMPLEMENT 1 trial reported in The Lancet, Hillmen et al found that the addition of the anti-CD20 antibody ofatumumab (Arzerra) to chlorambucil (Leukeran) increased progression-free survival among patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who were not considered candidates...
In a randomized phase II trial (SWOG S0925) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yu et al found that the addition of cixutumumab to androgen-deprivation therapy did not significantly increase the rate of undetectable prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in patients with newly diagnosed...
In the phase III RAISE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tabernero et al found that the addition of the antiangiogenic anti-VEGFR2 antibody ramucirumab (Cyramza) to second-line FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan) improved overall survival in patients with metastatic colorectal...
No approved targeted therapies exist to treat triple-negative breast cancer, but new chemotherapeutic treatment strategies are helping shrink tumors so that less breast tissue needs to be removed during surgery. New research led by Brigham and Women's Hospital finds that breast-conserving therapy...
In the phase III LUX-Head & Neck 1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Machiels et al found that afatinib (Gilotrif) improved progression-free survival vs methotrexate in patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck progressing after first-line platinum...
Combination treatment with the poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) and the investigational phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor BKM120 was safe and yielded evidence of clinical benefit for women with triple-negative breast cancer and for those with high-grade...
Combining the immunostimulatory anti-CD40 monoclonal antibody CP-870,893 with the immune checkpoint inhibitor tremelimumab was found to be safe, with clinical evidence of response in patients with advanced melanoma, according to phase I clinical trial data presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, ...
The investigational immunotherapy MPDL3280A was safe, tolerable, and showed early signs of durable clinical activity in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, according to data from a first-in-human phase I clinical trial presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Matasar et al found that Hodgkin lymphoma patients treated during adulthood were at increased risk of all-cause and second primary malignancy mortality compared with SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and...
The immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to be safe and yielded durable responses in patients with advanced, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Those with high levels of the protein PD-L1 in their tumors had better clinical outcomes, according to phase I KEYNOTE-001 clinical...
In the first randomized trial to compare two U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved immune checkpoint inhibitors as first-line therapy for patients with advanced melanoma, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) yielded significantly better treatment outcomes than ipilimumab (Yervoy) for all endpoints...
More than 60% of patients with Epstein-Barr virus–associated lymphoproliferative disorder (EBV-LPD) that was nonresponsive to standard rituximab (Rituxan) treatment responded to a new type of immunotherapy called Epstein-Barr virus–specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (EBV-CTL) therapy....
In the randomized phase II EMERGE study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yardley et al found that the anti–glycoprotein NMB (gpNMB) antibody-drug conjugate glembatumumab vedotin may improve response rate over alternative chemotherapy in patients with advanced refractory breast...
Three or more hours of walking per week can boost the vitality and health of prostate cancer survivors. Men and women who have survived colorectal cancer and are regular walkers also reported lower sensations of burning, numbness, tingling, or loss of reflexes that many often experience after...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Treon et al found that ibrutinib (Imbruvica) was highly active and produced durable responses in patients with previously treated Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia. Response rates were highest in patients with MYD88 mutation and...
In the COLOR II study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bonjer et al found similar rates of locoregional recurrence and disease-free and overall survival with laparoscopic vs open resection of rectal cancer. Study Details In the trial, 1,044 patients from 30 sites in 8 countries in ...
In the phase III VANTAGE-014 study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Krug et al found that treatment with the histone deacetylase inhibitor vorinostat (Zolinza) did not improve overall survival vs placebo in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma who had progressed on previous chemotherapy....
Most patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who discontinued ibrutinib (Imbruvica) early “were difficult to treat and had poor outcomes,” according to a study of patients enrolled in four different clinical trials of ibrutinib, with or without rituximab...
Men who reported taking muscle-building supplements, such as pills and powders with creatine or androstenedione, reported a significantly higher likelihood of having developed testicular cancer than men who did not use such supplements, according to a study by Li et al in the British Journal of...
In the phase II TBCRC009 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Isakoff et al found that platinum monotherapy was active in treatment of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, particularly in cases with BRCA1/2 mutation, and that an assay of genomic instability characteristic of...
Public health programs that devote a portion of their funding to encourage more boys to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV)—rather than merely attempting to raise coverage among girls—may ultimately protect more people for the same price, a study from Duke University...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stevanovíc et al observed complete regression of metastatic cervical tumors in two patients following a single infusion of human papillomavirus (HPV)-targeted tumor-infiltrating T cells. In the protocol, nine patients with metastatic cervical ...
In a phase I cohort-expansion study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, McDermott et al found that nivolumab (Opdivo) produced durable responses in patients with previously treated advanced renal cell carcinoma. Responses continued after nivolumab discontinuation in some patients. Study...
In patients with previously irradiated recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, the combination of stereotactic body radiation therapy plus cetuximab (Erbitux) appears to be safe and effective, according to a study by Vargo et al in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology...
In the phase III National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG) MA.31 trial, first-line treatment with lapatinib (Tykerb) vs trastuzumab (Herceptin) combined with a taxane was associated with poorer progression-free survival and greater toxicity in patients with advanced...
A large retrospective cohort study of more than 32,000 Medicare beneficiaries diagnosed with melanoma has found that one in five patients experience a delay of surgery that is longer than 1.5 months. Those patients undergoing biopsy and surgery by dermatologists had the lowest risk for delay, which ...
In the phase III EORTC 18071 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Eggermont et al found that adjuvant ipilimumab (Yervoy) significantly improved recurrence-free survival vs placebo in patients with completely resected stage III melanoma at high risk of disease recurrence. Ipilimumab was...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to Clovis Oncology’s investigational agent rucaparib as monotherapy treatment of advanced ovarian cancer in patients who have received at least two lines of prior platinum-containing therapy, with...
In a phase I/II study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ahmed et al found that infusion of T cells expressing HER2-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) with a CD28.ζ signaling domain (HER2-CAR T cells) could produce persistent CAR T cell levels for ≥ 6 weeks in patients with...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maio et al found a 5-year survival rate of 18% among treatment-naive patients receiving ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus dacarbazine in a phase III trial. The findings support other data indicating long-term survival in some patients receiving...
Long-term analysis of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 9903 demonstrates that the addition of erythropoietin did not improve local-regional control for anemic patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who receive radiation therapy or chemoradiation, according to a study published...
In the phase III AETHERA trial reported in The Lancet, Moskowitz et al found that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) consolidation therapy after autologous stem cell transplantation prolonged progression-free survival by 18 months vs placebo in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma at risk for relapse or...
Elevated nocturnal cortisol levels prior to surgery in patients with ovarian cancer were associated with shorter survival time, according to a study by Schrepf et al in Psychoneuroendocrinology. Thus, night-time cortisol levels may prove to be a noninvasive biomarker of ovarian cancer disease...
In a study reported in JAMA, Elmore et al found a substantial rate of disagreement between pathologist diagnosis based on single breast biopsy slides and the consensus-derived diagnosis of a panel of pathologists. Disagreement rates were highest for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and atypical...
In the phase III CheckMate 037 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Weber et al found that treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) resulted in a significantly greater response rate vs chemotherapy as second- or later-line treatment in patients with advanced melanoma progressing after ...
According to researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), hepatic parenchymal preservation, in which a surgeon removes less than a lobe of the liver in a patient undergoing an operation for liver cancer, is associated with lower mortality and complication rates. Their study...
In the ENABLE III study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bakitas et al found that early vs delayed initiation of a palliative care intervention did not result in improved patient-reported outcomes or resource use. Early initiation was associated with better 1-year survival. Study...
In the ENABLE III study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dionne-Odom et al found that early vs delayed use of a palliative care intervention for family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer reduced caregiver depression scores and caregiver stress burden. No differences in...
Researchers investigating the prevalence of childhood cancer survivors and the population-level burden of morbidity in these survivors have found that although the number of childhood cancer survivors has increased by nearly 60,000 since 2005, the majority of those who have survived 5 or more years ...
In a study of women with high-grade endometrial cancer, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found sentinel lymph node mapping accurately identified all women with node-positive, high-risk endometrial cancer, when prospectively compared to a complete pelvic and...
In an Italian 2×2 phase III trial reported in The Lancet, Del Mastro et al found that dose-dense adjuvant therapy with sequential epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, and paclitaxel (EC-P) with or without fluorouracil (5-FU) increased disease-free survival vs standard-interval therapy in early-stage ...
In patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, the combination of panobinostat (Farydak) and carfilzomib (Kyprolis) appears to be safe and effective, according to a phase I/II study by Berdeja et al in Haematologica. Further evaluation of this combination treatment is warranted to establish ...
In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fassnacht et al found that linsitinib, an insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) and insulin receptor inhibitor, did not improve overall survival vs placebo in patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic...
The growing use of sophisticated abdominal imaging techniques, which has led to a marked increase in the findings of incidental pancreatic cysts, has prompted the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) to issue new recommendations in the management of asymptomatic neoplastic pancreatic...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stone et al found that the combination of cytarabine and amonafide L-malate, a DNA intercalator and non–ATP-dependent topoisomerase II inhibitor, did not improve complete remission rate compared with cytarabine plus...
In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Moskowitz et al found that a salvage strategy involving brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) treatment followed by 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (PET) and augmented ifosfamide, carboplatin, and etoposide (ICE) in PET-positive...
In a European trial (Berlin-Frankfurt-Muenster study group trial ALL-SCT-BFM 2003) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Peters et al found no difference in event-free survival with stem cell transplantation using matched unrelated vs sibling donors in pediatric patients with high-risk...
In a retrospective study in the European EUROS1 cohort reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mazières found that crizotinib (Xalkori) treatment was associated with an 80% response rate in patients with stage IV lung adenocarcinoma with ROS1 rearrangement. Study Details The study...
In the phase III MAINSAIL trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Petrylak et al found that the addition of lenalidomide (Revlimid) to docetaxel-prednisone in chemotherapy-naive men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer was associated with significantly worse overall survival. The...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Ross et al found potentially targetable genomic alterations in most carcinomas of unknown primary site using comprehensive genomic profiling. Adenocarcinomas of unknown primary site frequently harbored receptor tyrosine kinase/Ras/MAPK pathway alterations....