Researchers with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have completed the largest, most diverse tumor genetic analysis ever conducted, revealing a new approach to classifying cancers. The work, published in Cell, not only revamps traditional ideas of how cancers are diagnosed and treated, ...
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States. Active surveillance offers low-risk prostate cancer patients a means to avoid the potentially harmful side effects from treatment. In a recent article in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, a...
An analysis of the gut microbiome in patients from three clinical groups representing the multistage progression in colorectal cancer has found that the composition of the gut microbiome differentiates individuals with healthy colons from those with adenomas and carcinomas. Adding gut microbiome...
Despite the fact that smoking increases the probability of cancer recurrence and reduces survival time, many cancer survivors continue to smoke. In a new study, nearly 1 in 10 cancer survivors reported being current smokers 9 years after their diagnosis, and 83% were daily smokers averaging about...
In a trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bochner et al found no difference in complication rates or length of hospital stay with robot-assisted laparoscopic radical cystectomy vs open surgery in patients with bladder cancer. Blood loss was greater and procedure time shorter with...
Mammography-detected breast cancer is associated with a shift to earlier stage diagnosis in older women, subsequently reducing the rate of more advanced, difficult-to-treat cases, according to a new study by Malmgren et al published in the journal Radiology. The findings lend support to regular...
Cancer research lost a pioneer on August 3, 2014, with the passing of Emmanuel Farber, MD, PhD, a renowned pathologist who made fundamental contributions to our understanding of chemical carcinogenesis. Dr. Farber’s studies in experimental pathology demonstrated that chemical carcinogens are...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing and granted Priority Review to the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for ruxolitinib (Jakafi) as a potential treatment of patients with polycythemia vera who have had an inadequate response to or are intolerant of...
Physicians at Johns Hopkins have developed blood and saliva tests that help accurately predict recurrences of HPV-linked oral cancers in a substantial number of patients. The tests screen for DNA fragments of the human papillomavirus (HPV) shed from cancer cells lingering in the mouth or other...
In an analysis of patients with operable triple-negative breast cancer in two Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) adjuvant trials, Adams and colleagues found that higher stromal compartment tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte levels were associated with significantly improved disease-free survival, ...
A study reported by Gragert et al in The New England Journal of Medicine indicates that most candidates for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the United States will have a suitable adult donor on the basis of HLA matching, although many will not have optimal donors. Few will have optimal...
Although the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) has shown unprecedented clinical activity in mantle cell lymphoma, about 32% of patients do not respond to the drug and majority of responders eventually relapse. Genomic sequencing of tumor and healthy tissue from patients...
Nearly half of adult patients with lung-only metastases from Ewing sarcoma who received whole-lung irradiation were free of pulmonary relapse at 3 years, according to the results of a retrospective study in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics. With few...
Multicentric Castleman’s disease is characterized by overproduction of interleukin-6 (IL-6). In a trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, van Rhee et al found that the anti–IL-6 antibody siltuximab (Sylvant) produced a significantly better response rate vs placebo in patients with the...
Research conducted at the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) has discovered links between a set of genes known to promote tumor growth and mucoepidermoid carcinoma, an oral cancer that affects the salivary glands. The discovery could help physicians develop new treatments that...
Compared with intravenous (IV) followed by consolidation intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy, primary IV/IP chemotherapy was associated with a statistically significant improvement in overall survival—but not progression-free survival—in patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer...
A new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by researchers at Northwestern Medicine shed new light on the risks associated with the growing popularity of endoscopic resection in the treatment of localized, early-stage esophageal cancer. Merkow et al found that the...
Cancer researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered a molecule that selectively and irreversibly interferes with the activity of a mutated cancer gene common in 30% of tumors. The molecule, SML-8-73-1 (SML), interferes with the KRAS gene, whose proteins influence when cells...
A phase Ib study has found that a combination of the EGFR-targeted agents afatinib (Gilotrif) and cetuximab (Erbitux) yielded clinical responses in patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancer that had stopped responding to the EGFR inhibitors erlotinib (Tarceva) and gefitinib (Iressa). The combination...
Early surveillance imaging (< 6 months) after stereotactic body radiation therapy for early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) seems to be of limited benefit, resulting in definitive intervention in only 3% of patients, according to the findings of a study in Practical Radiation...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today expanded the approved use of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who carry deletions of the short arm of chromosome 17, which are associated with poor responses to standard treatment for CLL. Ibrutinib...
Statin use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing Barrett’s esophagus, according to a new study by Nguyen et al in Gastroenterology. Obese patients experienced the greatest level of risk reduction with statin use. While statins have been associated with a reduced risk...
The routine use of a molecular testing panel developed at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center greatly increases the likelihood of performing the correct initial surgery for patients with thyroid nodules and cancer, reported researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. The ...
A novel, dosimetry-triggered, adaptive intensity-modulated radiation therapy strategy for patients with cervical cancer may minimize the risk of target underdosing in the setting of very small margins and substantial interfractional motion, according to a study by Lim et al in the International...
Mouse models of human oral cancer treated with an agent called capsazepine showed dramatic tumor shrinkage without damage to surrounding tissues, researchers from the School of Dentistry and School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio found. The findings by...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved idelalisib (Zydelig) for the treatment of patients with three types of blood cancers. Idelalisib is being granted traditional approval to treat patients with relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Used in combination with rituximab...
Primary androgen-deprivation therapy has been widely used in localized prostate cancer, despite absence of definitive evidence of benefit in early-stage disease. In a large population-based cohort study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Lu-Yao et al found that primary androgen-deprivation therapy ...
In an analysis of metabolites in human kidney tissue, a research team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania identified an enzyme key to applying the brakes on tumor growth. The new study, published in Nature by Simon et al, demonstrated that an enzyme called FBP1,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted Genentech’s supplemental Biologics License Application and granted Priority Review for bevacizumab (Avastin) plus chemotherapy for the treatment of women with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. “The majority of women...
Noninvasive quantitative computed tomography–based texture analysis can accurately differentiate the presence of a KRAS mutation from pan–wild-type non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), based on the results of a study in PLOS ONE. Weiss et al reported that this tumor heterogeneity...
As reported by Sant et al in The Lancet Oncology, the population based EUROCARE-5 study has shown significantly improved survival in hematologic malignancies in Europe between 1997 and 2008. Although improved, survival was poorer in Eastern Europe compared with other regions. Study Details This...
Two common gene variants that lead to longer telomere length may increase the risk of glioma, according to the results of a study presented by Walsh et al in Nature Genetics. This finding suggests that telomere length may prove to be a promising epidemiologic risk factor for cancer. It is well...
In a retrospective analysis in the HF-ACTION trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jones et al found that a program of aerobic training did not reduce the rate of all-cause mortality or hospitalization in cancer patients with heart failure. Some evidence suggested that patients who...
Robot-assisted surgery to remove cancerous prostate glands is effective in controlling the disease for 10 years, according to a new study led by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. The study by Diaz et al, published in European Urology, also suggested that traditional methods of measuring the...
Although somatostatin analogs are commonly used to treat symptoms associated with hormone hypersecretion in neuroendocrine tumors, data on their antitumor effects are limited. In the phase III CLARINET trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Caplin et al found that somatostatin...
In a European study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maurichi et al identified lymphovascular invasion and regression as important prognostic factors in thin melanoma. They developed a nomogram including age, mitotic rate, ulceration, lymphovascular invasion, regression, and sentinel...
Researchers at UC Davis, University of Massachusetts, and Harvard Medical School have developed a combination drug that controls both tumor growth and metastasis. By combining a cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibitor, similar to celecoxib, and a soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) inhibitor, the drug...
ODM-201 is a novel androgen receptor inhibitor—structurally distinct from enzalutamide (Xtandi)—that acts via high-affinity binding to the androgen receptor and inhibition of receptor nuclear translocation. In the phase I/II ARADES trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fizazi et al...
New research raises the prospect of more effective treatments for cachexia, a profound wasting of fat and muscle occurring in about half of all cancer patients, raising their risk of death, according to scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In a study reported in Nature, Spiegelman et al...
A new analysis has found that rates of testicular cancer have been rising dramatically in recent years among young Hispanic American men, but not among their non-Hispanic counterparts. Published early online in Cancer, the findings indicate that greater awareness is needed concerning the increasing ...
In a study intended to help define optimal screening in individuals at high risk of melanoma, Moloney et al evaluated use of full-body examinations every 6 months along with dermoscopy and total-body photography for all patients and sequential digital dermoscopy imaging as indicated. The study,...
Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and other centers have identified novel mutations in a well-known cancer-causing pathway in lung adenocarcinoma, the most common subtype of lung cancer. Knowledge of these mutations could potentially identify a...
Invading glioblastoma cells may hijack cerebral blood vessels during early stages of disease progression and damage the brain’s protective barrier, preclinical study published in Nature Communications indicated. The finding by Watkins et al could ultimately lead to new ways to bring about the ...
Invasive breast cancers with skin involvement, regardless of size or lymph node involvement, are automatically classified as stage III locally advanced tumors, which suggests that they are a relatively serious form of cancer with poor survival. In a study published in the Journal of the American...
According to a new study, a cascade of molecular events in the bone marrow produces high levels of inflammation that disrupt normal blood formation and lead to potentially deadly disorders including leukemia. The discovery, published by the journal Cell Stem Cell, points the way to potential...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy status to CTL019, an investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) therapy for the treatment of pediatric and adult patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The Breakthrough Therapy filing...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Hedditch et al found that expression of ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter genes of the A subfamily (ABCA) had a significant impact on outcome in epithelial ovarian cancer. High ABCA1, Low ABCA5 Expression Analysis of gene...
HIV-infected people diagnosed with cancer are two to four times more likely to go untreated for their cancer compared to uninfected cancer patients, according to a large retrospective study from researchers in Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The ...
Given the changes in treatment of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the risk of late effects in those treated with current protocols may be different from that in children treated decades ago. In a study of survivors of childhood standard-risk ALL reported in The Lancet Oncology,...
Surgical resection markedly improved survival among metastatic melanoma patients whose disease is isolated to a few areas in the liver, according to new study findings published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. These results mark a departure for melanoma, which is most often...