New research published by Chopra et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network calls for much greater integration between cardiologists and oncologists for patients with coronary artery disease who are diagnosed with cancer. Coronary artery disease is the most...
INVITED STUDY discussant Michael J. Overman, MD, Professor of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, is a co-investigator on CheckMate 142, which led to the approval of another immunotherapy doublet—nivolumab plus ipilimumab—in patients...
THE COMBINATION of durvalumab and tremelimumab prolonged median overall survival by 2.5 months compared with best supportive care alone in patients with advanced treatment-refractory colorectal cancer. These findings, which are from the randomized phase II Canadian Cancer Trials Group (CCTG) CO.26...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted multiple Priority Reviews and accepted a supplemental new drug application: Priority Review for Entrectinib in NTRK Fusion–Positive Solid Tumors and Metastatic, ROS1-Positive NSCLC This week, the FDA accepted new drug...
ON JANUARY 22, 2019, 23andMe received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for a genetic health risk report on the hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome MUTYH-associated polyposis. The clearance follows the FDA’s authorization for 23andMe’s BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants) Genetic...
The proliferation of immunotherapeutics in the treatment of cancer over the past decade has revolutionized the way many cancers are treated, especially lung cancer and melanoma, as well as some blood cancers, including leukemia and lymphoma, drastically improving outcomes for many patients with...
Although colorectal cancer rates in older adults have been decreasing in the United States since the mid-1980s, incidence rates for the cancer have been increasing among young and middle-aged adults, according to a study by the American Cancer Society (ACS). Based on the new data, in 2018, the ACS...
The first report from a phase II, multicenter clinical trial has found that a newer, more aggressive form of radiation therapy—stereotactic ablative radiation—can extend long-term survival for some patients with stage IV cancers, while maintaining their quality of life. The study was...
A new study has found rates are increasing for 6 of 12 cancers related to obesity in younger adults in the United States, with steeper increases in progressively younger ages and successively younger generations. The study, published by Sung et al in The Lancet Public Health, also looked at rates...
World Cancer Day 2019—February 4—highlights the need for urgent action to increase early-stage cancer detection, screening, and diagnosis to significantly improve patients’ chances of survival. Taking place with the theme of “I Am and I Will,” World Cancer...
In a Japanese phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hayashi et al found that standard site-specific treatment based on gene-expression profiling was not associated with better outcomes vs empirical paclitaxel and carboplatin in patients with cancer of unknown primary site....
In a single-center retrospective case series analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Smith et al found that a watch-and-wait approach was associated with a high rate of rectal preservation and pelvic tumor control in patients with rectal cancer with complete clinical response to neoadjuvant therapy,...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Gray et al found that constitutional loss of function single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the pattern recognition receptors FPR1, TLR3, and TLR4 were not associated with preferential benefit of oxaliplatin in colorectal cancer. As...
Surgery is an integral part of treatment of elderly patients with solid malignancies. The times we are living in will be remembered by health-care providers for the significant “contradictions” in the medical and surgical care of elderly patients with cancer. On the one hand, it has been...
In a news item reported in The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet journalist Manjulika Das reviewed two U.S. retrospective studies indicating that patients diagnosed with cancer are at increased risk of suicide. High Standardized Mortality Ratio In one study, published by Zaorsky et al in Nature...
Forty-six medical advocacy organization and professional societies have called on President Donald Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to end the government shutdown and, in...
On January 22, 23andMe received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for a genetic health risk report on MUTYH-associated polyposis, a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome. The clearance follows the FDA’s authorization for 23andMe’s BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants)...
Pieter Tanis, MD, PhD, of Amsterdam University Medical Centers, discusses study findings on adjuvant hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) in patients with colon cancer who are at high risk of peritoneal metastases (Abstract 482).
Francesca Battaglin, MD, of the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses phase III study data on genetic variants used to predict the efficacy of cetuximab in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (Abstract 564).
Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses phase III study findings on S-1/oxaliplatin vs uracil and tegafur/leucovorin as adjuvant chemotherapy for high-risk stage III colon cancer (Abstract 484).
Carl C. Schimanski, MD, PhD, of the Municipal Hospital Darmstadt, discusses phase II study findings on adjuvant immunotherapy with tecemotide after colorectal cancer liver metastasectomy (Abstract 480).
The delivery of all radiotherapy and chemotherapy neoadjuvantly—also known as total neoadjuvant therapy—has improved complete response and downstaging rates compared to treatment after surgery in patients with rectal cancer. In a study presented by Chapman et al at the 2019...
Patients with advanced or perforated colon cancer may be at elevated risk of peritoneal metastases. Since many patients with peritoneal metastases are diagnosed at a late stage, researchers sought to study the effectiveness of hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) in the adjuvant...
According to a new American Cancer Society report published by Susan M. Gapstur, PhD, MPH, American Cancer Society Senior Vice President of Behavioral and Epidemiology Research, and colleages in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, the highest priority in a national cancer control plan is the...
A steady 25-year decline has resulted in a 27% drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States between 1991 and 2016. The data come from “Cancer Statistics, 2019,” the American Cancer Society’s annual report on cancer rates and trends. The report was published by Siegel et al in CA: A...
The phase II CCTG CO.26 trial evaluated whether the combination of durvalumab, a programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor, and tremelimumab, an anti–cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) antibody, plus best supportive care improved survival vs best supportive care ...
Ever since President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law on March 23, 2010, the nondiscrimination provision of the law, Section 1557, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in certain health ...
Although the emergence of immune checkpoint inhibitors over the last decade has revolutionized the treatment of patients with metastatic cancers, only a minority of patients experience long-lasting benefit from the therapy. A study investigating the association between tumor mutational burden and...
In a single-center retrospective analysis reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Thom et al found that advanced practice providers—nurse practitioners and physician assistants—were effective in providing survivorship care to adult patients with cancer in accordance with Institute ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued the following new designations and clearances: Fast Track Designation for Itolizumab for the Treatment of Acute Graft-vs-Host Disease The FDA granted Fast Track designation to itolizumab for the treatment of acute graft-vs-host ...
A steady 25-year decline has resulted in a 27% drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States between 1991 and 2016. The data come from “Cancer Statistics, 2019,” the American Cancer Society’s annual report on cancer rates and trends. The report was published in CA: A...
Nearly three-quarters of patients with young-onset colorectal cancer are diagnosed with an advanced stage of the disease, a significantly higher percentage than has been reported for their more mature peers, according to a report from the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. The findings of...
Ten years after a negative colonoscopy, patients who were rescreened for colorectal cancer had a lower risk of being diagnosed with and were less likely to die from colorectal cancer compared with those who did not undergo colorectal cancer screening, according to a study published by Lee et al...
New research published by Song et al in Arthritis Research & Therapy evaluated the link between lupus and cancer risk, supporting the data from earlier studies. The newer study indicates an association between systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and increased risk for several cancers (blood,...
A new study may bolster existing evidence that survivors of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma face an elevated risk of developing various types of solid tumors many years later. The study showed that certain subgroups of patients have an especially high risk. Published by Holmqvist et al in the journal...
In a Dutch study reported in JAMA Surgery, Michael P.M. de Neree tot Babberich, MD, of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, and colleagues found that postoperative outcomes were better in patients with colon cancer, but not rectal cancer, detected...
FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO, author Neil Canavan attended a scientific conference to learn what he could about the then-emerging field of immunotherapy for cancer. After a presentation by Zelig Eshhar, PhD, principal investigator in the Department of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science...
Nicholas J. Petrelli, MD, FACS, Bank of America Endowed Medical Director of the Christiana Care Health System’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute in Newark, Delaware, recently received the Annual Commendation for Excellence from Christiana Care’s Medical-Dental Staff. An expert ...
A program that provided individually tailored lifestyle recommendations for patients undergoing screening for colorectal cancer helped encourage healthy behavior, according to results published by Knudsen et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “It is well known that...
An international team of researchers has developed, calibrated, and validated a novel tool for identifying the genetic changes in Lynch syndrome genes that are likely to be responsible for causing symptoms of the disease. The results were published by Drost et al in Genetics in Medicine. ...
In a UK trial (seAFOod Polyp Prevention) reported in The Lancet by Hull et al, no differences in adenoma prevention were found after treatment with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), aspirin, both, or placebo in patients with high-risk findings on colonoscopy. On the...
In a trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Manson et al, vitamin D supplementation was found to have no benefit in reducing risk of invasive cancer vs placebo over 5 years of follow-up. Study Details The trial was a randomized, placebo-controlled trial, with a two-by-two...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Cohen et al found evidence that primary resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) can be explained in some cases by misdiagnosis of microsatellite instability (MSI) or defective mismatch repair (dMMR) status....
JULIEN TAIEB, MD, Professor of Medicine at Paris Descartes University in France, said the MODUL cohort was based on a clear rationale for adding atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to bevacizumab (Avastin) in the metastatic colorectal cancer setting. In immunodeficient mice, the combination of an...
ADDING ATEZOLIZUMAB (Tecentriq) to a fluoropyrimidine plus bevacizumab (Avastin) did not improve outcomes for patients with BRAF wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer enrolled in the umbrella MODUL trial.1 “Despite activity in other, immune-responsive tumor types, there was no improvement in...
IN PATIENTS with a controlled primary tumor and up to 5 oligometastatic lesions, delivering stereotactic ablative radiotherapy was associated with a 13-month improvement in overall survival when compared with palliative standard-of-care treatments alone (41 months vs 28 months; P = .09).1...
THE 2018 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting hosted a meeting of the minds of the world’s premier cancer immunologists. In addition to the cutting-edge laboratory science explored and presented at the meeting, numerous phase I clinical trials and a few phase II studies offered ...
As the global burden of cancer grows, cancer control measures must be tailored to regional and national priorities, underscoring the need for high-quality cancer registries, according to Christopher P. Wild, PhD, Director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. Earlier...
Researchers, patients with cancer, and philanthropists have come together to launch Count Me In, a nonprofit organization aimed at patient-partnered research. Count Me In allows patients with cancer anywhere in the United States or Canada to easily share their medical information, personal...
In a trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Manson et al, marine n-3 (omega-3) fatty acid supplementation was found to have no benefit in reducing the risk for invasive cancer vs placebo over 5 years of follow-up. Higher intake of n-3 fatty acids has been associated with a reduced ...