Three leading national cancer organizations have issued a consensus guideline for physicians treating women who have ductal carcinoma in situ treated with breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation. The new guideline has the potential to save many women from unnecessary surgeries,...
Prophylactic mastectomy that preserves a woman’s nipple is oncologically safe in patients with deleterious BRCA mutations, according to the largest study yet to evaluate this approach in this high-risk population. “In more than 500 risk-reducing nipple-sparing mastectomies in 348 deleterious...
According to William C. McGaghie, PhD, Professor of Medical Education and Professor of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, the principles of today’s clinical medical education are rooted in a 19th century model that is no longer useful in a...
On August 25, 2016, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) posted a final research plan on screening for intimate partner violence, elder abuse, and abuse of vulnerable adults. The draft research plan for this topic was posted for public comment from May 26 to June 22, 2016. The Task...
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published its landmark report “The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding,” which recognized the scarcity of research in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and the...
In a pivotal phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Stephan Stilgenbauer, MD, of Ulm University, Germany, and colleagues found that the BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax (ABT-199) produced a high response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) with the 17p ...
The presence of extramedullary disease at acute myeloid leukemia (AML) diagnosis was not an independent prognostic factor for worse survival, based on an analysis of data from the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group–American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ECOG-ACRIN) reported by Ganzel...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology by Anas Younes, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues, treatment with the anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) produced response in two-thirds of patients with...
Sumanta K. Pal, MD, has had a longer career in oncology than many other colleagues his age. Perhaps the reason for that may center on his starting college at the age 13 and medical school at the age of 17. Today this internationally recognized leader in genitourinary cancers is Assistant Professor ...
Study Title: Long-Pulsed 1064 nm Nd:YAG Laser Treatment of Basal Cell Carcinoma (BCC) Study Type: Interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: University of California, San Diego; Massachusetts General Hospital Purpose: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of laser...
A recent report regarding pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for advanced Merkel cell carcinoma ushered in a more optimistic era in the treatment of this rare but often lethal skin cancer.1 The ASCO Post spoke with one of the field’s leaders, Paul Nghiem, MD, PhD—the first author of the study—about the...
On August 5, 2016, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was granted accelerated approval for treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and disease progression on or after platinum-containing chemotherapy.1,2 As a condition of the accelerated approval, Merck is...
Physicians from Carolinas HealthCare System’s Neurosciences Institute and Levine Cancer Institute are among the authors of a recent study published by Brown et al in JAMA.1 The study showed how among patients with one to three brain metastases, the use of stereotactic radiosurgery alone, compared...
As reported by Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, and colleagues at the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and European Society of Surgical Oncology (ESSO), the rising global burden of cancer and inequalities in surgical oncology education ...
Clinical trials focused on older adults with cancer were featured prominently at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting. There was a plenary session in glioblastoma, a clinical symposium on immunotherapy, and multiple educational lectures highlighting the growing literature and unique challenges in the...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation for chimeric antigen receptor–engineered T cells directed against the target protein CD4 (CD4CAR) for the treatment of peripheral T-cell lymphoma. William Tse, MD, Chief of the Blood and Marrow Transplantation Division ...
The ability to cure a majority of patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma is one of the major milestones of success in the combination chemotherapy era. It has been over 40 years since Bonadonna and colleagues in Milan developed the ABVD regimen (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Peter Johnson, MD, of the Cancer Research UK Centre, University of Southampton, and colleagues found similar efficacy with continued ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine) vs omission of bleomycin (AVD) after...
Immune response measured in tumor biopsies during the course of early treatment predicts which melanoma patients will benefit from specific immune checkpoint blockade drugs, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found in a report published by Chen et al in Cancer...
Although there is some overlap, past research has shown that the challenges faced by African American breast cancer survivors differ somewhat from Caucasian women. But the studies that demonstrated difference were not designed to explore those challenges in depth. Now new research from Thomas...
Assessment of minimal residual disease was associated with improved prediction of outcome in responders, as well as complete responders, in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who respond to treatment. Kovacs et al reported these findings, which are based on an analysis of two phase...
In a phase III trial (EURAMOS-1) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Marina et al found no improvement in event-free survival by adding postoperative ifosfamide/etoposide to cisplatin, doxorubicin, and methotrexate in patients with newly diagnosed high-grade osteosarcoma who responded poorly to...
The number of docetaxel cycles completed was associated with improved overall survival among men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer receiving docetaxel, prednisone, and lenalidomide (Revlimid; DPL) or docetaxel/prednisone (DP), in the phase III Mainsail trial. de Morrée et...
For at least the past quarter of a century, radiobiologists and radiation oncologists have debated the role of hypofractionation (fewer total fractions with a higher dose per fraction) for prostate cancer. The debate stems from the unique radiobiology of prostate cancer and the best means to...
In June 2016, the European Hematology Association Congress convened in Copenhagen, Denmark. The educational and scientific program highlighted state-of-the-art clinical practice and the latest findings in hematology research. The ASCO Post brings its readers brief summaries of some of the important ...
Outcomes for adults with high-grade and aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) appear to be better when these patients are treated with pediatric-inspired protocols, according to Mitchell S. Cairo, MD, Chief of the Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation, Maria...
Certain factors increase the risk of unplanned readmission in the month after head and neck cancer resection requiring free tissue reconstruction, finds an analysis of data from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) of the American College of Surgeons.1 Nearly 1 in 10 patients...
“This study is actually surprising to me, because earlier studies of that particular antibody as a single therapy for this disease, salivary duct carcinoma, showed it was not very effective, with only 10% to 15% response rates,” session co-moderator, M. Boyd Gillespie, MD, MSCR, Professor and Vice ...
Patients undergoing transoral robotic surgery for head and neck cancer may experience improvements in some outcomes when given an extended course of corticosteroids, finds a randomized controlled trial reported at the 9th International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer.1 Relative to peers given...
Electrical stimulation of the spinal accessory nerve during neck dissection for head and neck cancer may reduce the development of shoulder dysfunction, according to a double-blind randomized controlled trial.1 A year after surgery, patients given intraoperative electrical stimulation had...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Press et al found notable discrepancies between recent ASCO–College of American Pathologists (ASCO-CAP) changes in the recommendations for evaluation of HER2 amplification by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and FISH scores...
Jemal et al described findings indicating a continued decline in the incidence of localized/regional-stage prostate cancer at 2 years after the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendation against routine prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in men aged ≥ 50 years in 2011, in a letter ...
By identifying residual dysplasia in the tumor bed, Lugol’s iodine staining may improve pathologic outcomes with resection of oral and oropharyngeal cancers, according to interim findings of a UK randomized controlled trial reported at the 9th International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer.1...
A team of researchers, using a novel approach, found that while many cancer centers offer palliative and supportive care services, patients may face challenges when trying to access them. The study showed that expanding awareness and education to patient-facing cancer center employees about such...
A randomized clinical trial found that introducing palliative care shortly after a diagnosis of certain metastatic cancers greatly increases a patient’s coping abilities, as well as overall quality of life. Researchers also found that early integration of palliative care results in an...
Patients with cancer have heightened risks of unintentional and intentional injuries during the diagnostic process, revealed findings from a large study published by Shen et al in The BMJ. A range of injuries are common, and some are potentially life-threatening, the study showed. The authors...
University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers, by tracking p16INK4a, a molecular marker that has been shown to increase in white blood cells as people age, have uncovered clues suggesting that stem cell transplant is linked to a marked increase in the...
The words “cost control,” “value-based health care,” and similar iterations are floating around freely these days to make us aware of the unsustainable upward trajectory of health-care costs. We are reminded constantly about how health care in America currently costs more than $3.4 trillion...
Approximately 20% of patients with follicular lymphoma will relapse within 2 years of diagnosis. Although the optimal management of these patients has not been established, clinicians may be guided by data from recent clinical trials, according to Nathan H. Fowler, MD, Associate Professor and...
Two recent European phase III trials with different study designs focused on hypofractionated vs conventional radiotherapy in localized prostate cancer. Investigators in the CHHiP trial1 showed that the hypofractionated approach is noninferior to standard fractionation, with no increase in side...
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) identified 14 genes regulating genome integrity that were consistently overexpressed in a wide variety of cancers. They then created a scoring system based upon the degree of gene overexpression. For...
Researchers funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) have shown that when the metabolite fumarate accumulates in a hereditary form of renal cancer, it leads to an epigenetic reprogramming that drives cancer, according to a study published by Sciacovelli et al in Nature. The tumor growth...
Intratumoral tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte level and prominent peritumoral Crohn’s-like lymphoid reaction appear to be independent prognostic factors for survival in colorectal cancer, according to a study reported by Rozek et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The findings...
Approximately one in four patients who undergo radical prostatectomy experience a cancer recurrence. Now a study by Stura et al investigating a prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based computational model that uses four consecutive postsurgical PSA values has found the mathematical model to be highly...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Nishino et al identified the rates of PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) inhibitor–related pneumonitis in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), renal cell carcinoma, and melanoma. Rates were...
Retinoic acid may play a critical role in suppressing colorectal cancer in mice and humans, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Mice with the cancer have lower-than-normal levels of the metabolite in their gut, the researchers found. Furthermore, colorectal...
Adolescent girls from BRCA1/2-positive and breast cancer families appear to have higher self-esteem and similar psychosocial adjustment compared with their peers but experience greater breast cancer–specific distress and perceived risk of breast cancer. Bradbury et al reported these findings...
In the phase III CASTOR trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Palumbo et al found that adding the anti-CD38 antibody daratumumab (Darzalex) to bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone markedly improved progression-free survival among patients with relapsed or relapsed and refractory...
A group of University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers is calling for an overhaul of the process that determines which cancer drugs used off-label—or beyond their approved use—are reimbursed by federally funded health insurance in the United...
In a phase III trial (MINDACT) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Cardoso et al found that adjuvant chemotherapy may be avoidable in women with early-stage breast cancer who are at high clinical risk but low genomic risk as determined by the 70-gene signature assay (MammaPrint)....