Antibody-drug conjugates, checkpoint inhibitors, and single-dose intraoperative radiation therapy for breast cancer were included in the Cleveland Clinic's Ninth Annual Top 10 Medical Innovations List released earlier today. The list identifies those advances likely to have a major impact on...
The phase III ALSYMPCA trial showed that radium-223 (Xofigo) increased overall survival vs placebo patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer and symptomatic bone metastases. In a prespecified subgroup analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Hoskin et al found that overall survival...
In a UK phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tristram et al found that topical cidofovir and topical imiquimod were active in the treatment of vulval intraepithelial neoplasia, suggesting that such treatment may constitute an alternative to surgery. Study Details In the open-label...
Earlier planned joint analyses of outcomes in the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-31 trial and North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) N9831 trial showed that adding trastuzumab (Herceptin) to adjuvant chemotherapy improved disease-free survival and overall...
The pathophysiology of steroid refractoriness in graft-vs-host disease in allogeneic stem cell transplantation is not completely understood, although there is evidence that endothelial cell stress, which involves endothelial thrombomodulin, plays a role. In a study reported in the Journal of...
Although low mitotic count, surgery, and disease-free interval of more than 6 months were associated with improved survival in women with recurrent or persistent uterine leiomyosarcoma, only low number of mitoses was identified as an independent predictor of survival post relapse, according to...
In a phase III ARCHER 1009 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ramalingam et al found no progression-free survival benefit of the irreversible pan-HER tyrosine kinase inhibitor dacomitinib vs erlotinib among all patients with pretreated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) or among those...
In the phase III NCIC CTG BR.26 Trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ellis et al found that treatment with the irreversible pan-HER tyrosine kinase inhibitor dacomitinib was not associated with an overall survival benefit compared with placebo in patients with pretreated advanced or...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Surgery, Lau et al found that implementation of a multidisciplinary hepatopancreaticobiliary surgical program in a Veterans Affairs (VA) health-care region resulted in improved care and outcomes. The study involved analysis of practices and outcomes ...
In a subgroup analysis of the pooled results of the EINSTEIN-DVT and EINSTEIN-PE trials reported in The Lancet Haematology, Prins et al found that the recurrence rate for venous thromboembolism in cancer patients receiving anticoagulant therapy with oral rivaroxaban (Xarelto) was similar to that in ...
First evaluation of a pioneering “co-rounding” partnership between medical oncologists and palliative care specialists at Duke University Medical Center shows improvements in both health system–related and patient-related outcomes. The first year of the new partnership—set...
In a phase III French Intergroup trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Guimbaud et al found that FOLFIRI (fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, and irinotecan) significantly prolonged time to treatment failure compared with ECX (epirubicin, cisplatin, and capecitabine) in first-line...
Researchers at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, the University of Turku, Finland, and the University of Oslo, Norway, have discovered a previously unknown molecular-level mechanism that may partly explain the increased growth of cancer cells. The study, published in the British Journal of...
Efforts at implementing survivorship care plans have met with limited success in oncology practice, in part due to the time required to complete survivorship care plans, lack of role clarity, and lack of reimbursement for time to complete the documents. In response, ASCO convened a Survivorship...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Maude et al reported achieving sustained remissions in children and adults with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using autologous CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells. Study Details In the...
Neratinib is an irreversible pan-tyrosine kinase inhibitor with activity against HER1, HER2, and HER4. In a phase I/II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Saura et al found that the combination of neratinib and capecitabine exhibited high activity in patients with trastuzumab...
Findings from a study of more than 23,000 women suggest that the Medicare Part D Extra Help program, which provides low-income subsidies for medications, improves adherence to hormone therapy after breast cancer surgery in all racial/ethnic groups and reduces racial/ethnic disparities. The study,...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sudo et al found that many patients undergoing definitive chemoradiotherapy (bimodality therapy) for esophageal cancer can derive substantial survival benefit from subsequent salvage surgery, supporting a practice of intensive...
ASCO has endorsed the recently developed joint College of American Pathologists (CAP), International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and Association of Molecular Pathologists (AMP) guideline on molecular testing for selection of patients with lung cancer for EGFR and ALK inhibitor ...
Known cancer-driving genomic aberrations in localized lung cancer appear to be so consistently present across tumors that a single biopsy of one region of the tumor is likely to identify most of them, according to a paper published by Zhang et al in Science. The study led by scientists at The...
Some cancers, like breast and prostate cancer, are driven by hormones such as estrogen and testosterone, but to date, there are none that are understood to be driven by the lack of a hormone. New evidence reported by researchers at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, suggests that human...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Schmitt et al found that adding aprepitant to granisetron and dexamethasone significantly reduced chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in myeloma patients undergoing high-dose melphalan conditioning and autologous stem cell...
In the phase III TANIA trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, von Minckwitz et al found that adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to chemotherapy in second-line treatment improved progression-free survival after first-line bevacizumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER2-negative locally recurrent or...
Three studies reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology provide information on maintenance treatment with the synthetic retinoid tamibarotene in acute promyelocytic leukemia, potential implications of QT interval prolongation related to arsenic trioxide (Trisenox), and potential health-related...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved bortezomib (Velcade) injection for previously untreated patients with mantle cell lymphoma. This is the first treatment in the United States to be approved for use in previously untreated patients with mantle cell lymphoma. Bortezomib was...
Regulatory approval of bevacizumab (Avastin) plus docetaxel in metastatic breast cancer was withdrawn in Europe in February 2011 and in the United States in November 2011. The phase III IMELDA trial comparing maintenance capecitabine/bevacizumab vs bevacizumab after first-line bevacizumab/docetaxel ...
Melphalan in combination with bortezomib (Velcade) should be maintained as one of the standards of care for the treatment of elderly patients with multiple myeloma, concluded Spanish trialists reporting updated results from the GEM2005 study comparing bortezomib/melphalan/prednisone with...
As reported in The Lancet by Robert et al, the anti–programmed-death receptor-1 (PD-1) antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda) produced durable responses in a phase I trial in patients with ipilimumab (Yervoy)-refractory melanoma. The study provided the basis for the recent accelerated approval of...
In the 4-year interim follow-up of the VIVIANE study reported in The Lancet by Skinner et al, the human papillomavirus (HPV) 16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccine was found to be protective against 6-month persistent infection or cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 1 or higher (CIN1+) associated with...
Abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) is approved for use in combination with prednisone in the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. As reported by Sternberg et al in The Lancet Oncology, results of an open-label, early-access protocol trial initiated prior to approval indicated no...
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to John O’Keefe, FRS, and to May-Britt Moser, PhD, and Edvard I. Moser, PhD, for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain. This “inner GPS”...
A retrospective study led by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital has found an overuse of colonoscopies for colorectal cancer screening and surveillance. The study demonstrated that endoscopists commonly recommended shorter follow-up intervals than established guidelines support, and these...
A recently reported U.S. population-based case-control study in women aged 55 to 74 years indicated that current use of calcium channel blockers for ≥ 10 years was associated with increased risk of ductal breast cancer (odds ratio [OR] = 2.4) and lobular breast cancer. In a Swedish case-control...
In the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) 70103 study, comorbidity was associated with shorter overall survival among older women with early-stage breast cancer and good functional status receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. “The presence of four or more conditions appeared to be a threshold for ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to Ariad Pharmaceutical’s investigational agent AP26113 for patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are resistant to crizotinib...
In a pooled analysis reported in The Lancet Haematology, Trotman et al found that 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron-emission tomography/low-dose computed tomography (PET-CT) provides improved prognostic information over conventional contrast-enhanced CT in assessment of response to first-line...
There are no large-scale direct comparisons of outcomes with intensity-modulated radiation therapy vs conventional external-beam radiation therapy in patients with soft-tissue sarcoma of the extremity. In a single-institution experience reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Folkert et al at ...
A temporary rise in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) scores after radiotherapy may have an association with outcomes in patients with prostate cancer, according to the study findings presented by Naghavi et al in the International Journal of Clinical Oncology. Experiencing a PSA bounce was...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sorror et al found that a composite comorbidity-age index was better than age alone in predicting nonrelapse mortality and survival in patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Study Details The study included data...
In a phase III trial, treatment with everolimus (Afinitor) resulted in a median overall survival of over 3 and a half years in patients with well-differentiated and progressive pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, representing what the study authors called a "clinically important" although not...
A study of a nine-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine that provides protection against HPV types 6, 11, 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58, has found it to be highly safe and efficacious. If vaccination programs with this new-generation vaccine are effectively implemented, approximately 90% of...
In a phase II expansion study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Smith et al found that the multikinase inhibitor cabozantinib (Cometriq) showed activity in previously treated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Cabozantinib targets include VEGFR2 and MET kinases. Study...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chawla et al found that the combination of a hypoxia-activated alkylating prodrug (TH-302) and doxorubicin was active in first-line treatment of advanced soft-tissue sarcoma. TH-302 is a prodrug of the cytotoxic alkylating agent...
The monoclonal antibody nivolumab achieved superior response rates and a longer duration of response than standard chemotherapy in patients whose melanoma has progressed after treatment with ipilimumab (Yervoy), according to preliminary data from a phase III trial presented at the ESMO 2014...
The MAGRIT trial showed disappointing results for a developmental vaccine called MAGE-3 in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had undergone surgical resection. This is the largest vaccine trial conducted in lung cancer, and investigators hoped that an immunotherapy approach...
Robert S. Miller, MD, FACP, FASCO, Assistant Professor of Oncology and Oncology Medical Information Officer at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, has been named Medical Director of the Institute for Quality (iQ) of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). ...
For advanced/metastatic melanoma patients with BRAF mutations, two pathway inhibitors are much better than one, according to studies presented at the ESMO 2014 Congress that demonstrated improved progression-free and overall survival for regimens combining a BRAF inhibitor with an inhibitor of the...
The tyrosine kinase inhibitor afatinib (Gilotrif) was significantly superior to methotrexate as second-line therapy in patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck who progressed after platinum-based chemotherapy, according to results of the LUX-Head & Neck 1 trial. The...
For the first time, studies show that a drug is effective in treating cancer-related cachexia. Oral anamorelin hydrochloride increased lean body mass, achieved weight gain, and improved quality of life in patients with cancer-related cachexia in two pivotal phase III studies presented at the ESMO...
In the final overall survival analysis of the phase III CLEOPATRA trial, patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer patients lived 15.7 months longer if they received pertuzumab (Perjeta) in addition to trastuzumab (Herceptin) and docetaxel, investigators reported at the ESMO 2014...