A new analysis indicated that many patients continue working after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer, but a heavy burden of symptoms may prevent them from doing so. Published by Tevaarwerk et al in Cancer, the study illustrates the need to treat difficult symptoms so that patients can maintain ...
More patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) could benefit from pembrolizumab (Keytruda), said Roy Herbst, MD, PhD, Chief of Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. Dr. Herbst presented promising results from the pivotal phase...
Five percent of cancer patients and their families were pushed into poverty in Southeast Asia between March 2012 and September 2013 because of high disease-related costs, a study (Abstract 52O) by Bhoo-Pathy et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Asia 2015 Congress in Singapore...
Novel strategies are being explored for difficult-to-treat and advanced head and neck cancer—the most heterogeneous group of malignancies that are generally associated with poor survival—and encouraging results have been presented in two trials at the first European Society for Medical...
Patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-activating mutations in advanced lung cancer seem to benefit more from afatinib (Gilotrif) than gefitinib (Iressa) as first-line treatment, Park et al reported in a study (Abstract LBA2) presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology...
On December 18, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the pembrolizumab (Keytruda) label to include approval of the drug for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma. This expansion now includes the initial treatment of patients with unresectable or...
Follow-up times of abnormal screening exams were shorter for breast cancer than they were for colorectal and cervical cancers, according to a recent study involving more than 1 million individuals who underwent these screenings. Recently published by Tosteson et al in the Journal of General...
A patient's mental health prior to surgery can influence postoperative outcomes. Removal of the bladder, or radical cystectomy, is an effective treatment for locally advanced bladder cancer, but complications occur in as many as 66% of patients. In a study published by Sharma et al in The Journal...
A recent study at Houston Methodist Hospital proved that multiple small doses of highly focused radiation therapy is safer and more effective than a single larger dose of radiation at destroying pituitary gland tumors. The findings on the use of fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy were published ...
Each year, about 1.38 million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer. Advances in treatment have facilitated a 90% 5-year survival rate among those treated. Given the increased rate and length of survival following breast cancer, more and more survivors are facing a lifetime risk of...
Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, has been elected President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2017. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2016. Additionally, four new members were elected to the ASCO Board of Directors, as well as three new...
A new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers shows wide racial and economic disparities in access to minimally invasive hysterectomies for early uterine cancer in the United States. This is despite years of accumulating evidence that the procedures to remove the uterus are linked to fewer...
Using information gleaned from more than 20,000 men, researchers at Johns Hopkins have affirmed the value of their alternative system for assessing the likelihood of growth and spread of prostate cancer. The new grading system, they said, is not only easier to use and understand, but also more...
Thyroid cancer survivors report poor quality of life after diagnosis and treatment compared with other patients who are diagnosed with more lethal cancers, according to new research from the University of Chicago Medicine. The findings, published by Aschebrook-Kilfoy et al in the journal Thyroid,...
Among patients undergoing major cancer operations, the preoperative use of blood-thinning drugs such as heparin does not increase rates of major bleeding or transfusions, and is associated with a decreased risk of blood clots, according to new study results published by Selby et al in the Journal...
A class of drugs used increasingly to help fight cancer may have the additional benefit of protecting the kidneys when packaged with the powerful chemotherapy agent cisplatin. These findings were published by Ranganathan et al in Kidney International. The nearly 40-year-old cisplatin can be a...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the first cooling cap to reduce hair loss in female breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy for marketing in the United States. Hair loss is a common side effect of certain types of chemotherapy, commonly associated with the treatment of...
In the first study of its kind, University of Southern California (USC) researchers have found that colorectal cancer risk in Californian Latinos varies widely depending on the country of origin. Their study was published by Stern et al in Cancer Causes & Control. “Hispanics are a very...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted accelerated approval to alectinib (Alecensa) for the treatment of patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have had disease progression on or are intolerant to crizotinib (Xalkori). ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved uridine triacetate (Vistogard) for the emergency treatment of adults and children who receive an overdose of the cancer treatment fluorouracil (5-FU) or capecitabine, or who develop certain severe or life-threatening toxicities within...
Among women with locally advanced or metastatic hormone receptor–positive breast cancer that was resistant to hormone therapy, those who had mutated PIK3CA detected in their blood benefited from a combination of the investigational PI3K inhibitor buparlisib and fulvestrant (Faslodex),...
Responses to tamoxifen were significantly prolonged by reducing levels of the enzyme APOBEC3B in preclinical models of estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer and significantly shortened by increasing levels of APOBEC3B, suggesting that APOBEC3B drives resistance to tamoxifen, according to...
Among patients with HER2-positive, metastatic breast cancer that had progressed despite treatment with two or more forms of HER2-targeted therapy (trastuzumab [Herceptin] and lapatinib [Tykerb]), median overall survival was increased for those treated with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (aka T-DM1...
Postmenopausal women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) had similar outcomes with disease recurrence whether they took tamoxifen or the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for 5 years after surgery, but women in the two groups had different side effects, according to results from the phase III...
For more than 20 years, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has been used to help screen for prostate cancer. However, in recent years, some task forces have called for this blood test to be abandoned because it leads to many unnecessary biopsies. Now, a new study from The Ottawa Hospital and...
Analysis of patient-reported outcomes, a secondary endpoint of the phase III NSABP B-35 clinical trial, in which anastrozole and tamoxifen were compared in postmenopausal women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) who underwent lumpectomy plus radiotherapy, found that there were no differences in...
Patients with stage II or stage III triple-negative breast cancer who had a pathologic complete response (pCR) after presurgery chemotherapy had increased event-free and overall survival compared with those who had more than minimal residual invasive disease at surgery following presurgery...
Among the various guideline-concordant local therapy options available for women with early-stage breast cancer in the United States, mastectomy plus reconstruction had the highest complication rates and complication-related costs for both younger women with private insurance and older women on...
Premenopausal women whose invasive breast cancers were of the luminal A subtype had comparable 10-year disease-free survival rates, regardless of whether or not they received adjuvant chemotherapy, according to data from the phase III Dutch Breast Cancer Cooperative Group (DBCG77B) clinical trial...
Treatment with the chemotherapy agent capecitabine increased disease-free survival for women with HER2-negative breast cancer that was not eliminated by presurgery chemotherapy, according to results from the phase III CREATE-X clinical trial presented at the 2015 San Antonio Breast Cancer...
Adding denosumab (Xgeva) to adjuvant aromatase inhibitor therapy improved disease-free survival for postmenopausal patients with early-stage, hormone receptor–positive breast cancer, according to results from the phase III ABCSG-18 clinical trial presented at the 2015 San Antonio Breast...
Systematic collection of cancer patients’ symptoms using computer surveys was linked to less frequent emergency room admissions, longer average chemotherapy adherence, greater quality-of-life improvements, and improved survival, according to a new randomized, controlled trial spearheaded by a ...
A first-in-human phase I study of multiple myeloma patients combined expanded cord blood-derived natural killer cells with transplantation of a patient’s own stem cells and high-dose chemotherapy, with little or none of the side effects seen with current treatments. Results from the clinical...
In a study update presented by Plesner et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, daratumumab (Darzalex) was shown to be safe and effective in combination with lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (Abstract 507). ...
Using a pediatric chemotherapy regimen to treat young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) significantly improved their outcomes compared to what has historically been achieved with “adult” treatment protocols, report Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists. Overall survival...
Ninety-three percent of pediatric patients (55 of 59) with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) went into remission after receiving an investigational therapy made from their own immune cells, with continuous remissions of over 1 year in 18 patients and over 2 years in nine...
Depression is a significant predictor of 5-year survival and recurrence in head and neck cancer patients, according to a new study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. These findings, published by Shinn et al in Psychosomatic Medicine, represent one of the largest reported...
In a study presented by Moureau et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting, ixazomib (Ninlaro), a recently approved oral proteasome inhibitor, significantly extended progression-free survival for patients with relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma (Abstract 727)....
Prophylactic antibiotics significantly reduce the risk of serious bacterial infections in children during the critical first month of treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer, according to a study led by investigators from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's...
A presentation by Tedeschi et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting outlined results of the phase III RESONATE TM-2 study of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) vs chlorambucil (Leukeran) in patients aged 65 years and older with treatment-naive chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small...
In a phase III study to be presented by Zelenetz et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting, idelalisib (Zydelig) plus bendamustine (Treanda) and rituximab (Rituxan), or BR, proved superior to BR alone in patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)...
In a study to be presented at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting by Stilgenbauer et al, monotherapy with the investigational agent venetoclax (ABT-199/GDC-0199) induced deep remissions—including complete remission and undetectable minimal residual...
The results of the randomized Graall-R 2005 study presented by Maury et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting found a new use for rituximab (Rituxan) in acute leukemia (Abstract 1). CD20 is present in 30% to 50% of patients with B-cell precursor acute lymphocytic...
A study presented by Stone et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting described a phase III trial of the first targeted therapy for genetically defined subset of patients with acute myeloid leukemia and its improvement of their survival (Abstract 6). Acute myeloid...
Researchers at the University of Iowa College of Dentistry are partnering with a private company to develop computer simulations that can help personalize cancer care by predicting how a patient will respond to a drug treatment. Their findings were presented by Brogden et al at the 57th American...
A study presented by Landier et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting examined the common problem of children in remission from acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) not adhering to their maintenance drug regimens, thus putting them at risk of relapse (Abstract 82). ...
Two studies presented at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting examine the common problem of cancer-associated thrombosis. One looked to validate dosing guidelines for avoiding chemotherapy-induced thrombocytopenia, a common autoimmune response to therapy; the second compared ...
A study to be reported by Raetz et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting examined the potential of using real-time genetic analysis to personalize chemotherapy regimens for children with B-cell lymphocytic leukemia (Abstract 807). The study findings were presented at a...
Two new studies to be reported at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting highlighted new insights on genetic mutations in children with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) that indicate a higher risk for debilitating chemotherapy-associated bone damage. The study findings were...
A study (Abstract LBA1) to be reported by Abbas Ali et al at the 57th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting demonstrated promising early outcomes of a first-in-human trial using a patient’s own genetically modified immune cells to eradicate multiple myeloma. The study...