Accelerated partial-breast irradiation was designed to be a faster, more convenient, and potentially safer way for many women with breast cancer to reduce their mortality risk and help keep their cancer from returning after surgery. But a new study shows that despite the availability of accelerated ...
Fresh research at Sahlgrenska Academy has found that antioxidants can double the rate of melanoma metastasis in mice. The results reinforce previous findings that antioxidants hasten the progression of lung cancer. According to Martin Bergö, PhD, people with cancer or an elevated risk of...
Bone marrow transplantation is a lifesaving therapy for many patients with blood cancers like leukemias and lymphomas. Currently, the gold standard blood-generating stem cells are obtained from a donor, most likely a sibling, with a perfect match to the patient in order to minimize the chance of...
For a malignant tumor to form, cancer cells must evade the immune system's attack. Numerous studies have already shown that cancer spreads particularly aggressively if there is an unfavorable balance between suppressing and active immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. “But we didn't...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved nivolumab (Opdivo) to treat patients with metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease progressed during or after platinum-based chemotherapy. Nivolumab is a monoclonal antibody that that blocks the...
Surgical removal of melanoma that has metastasized to the abdomen appears to help patients live more than twice as long as those who receive only medical therapy, according to study results presented at the 2015 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. In more than 1,600 patients...
As time lapses, many patients who have undergone a colonoscopy become less and less likely to recall when and where they last had the procedure performed, who the doctor was who performed it, whether polyps were found, and, if so, the number and size of those polyps, according to new study results...
Surviving neuroblastoma as a child can come with just as many challenges as the cancer itself, mainly because of the toxic effects of chemotherapy. But a team of surgeons is in the nascent stages of developing a more targeted, less toxic method of treating neuroblastoma patients with chemotherapy....
For younger women with early-stage, noninherited breast cancer on one side, a unilateral mastectomy leads to a slightly higher quality of life and lower costs over the next 20 years compared with contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, according to new study results presented at the 2015 Annual...
All relatives of individuals with colorectal cancer are at increased risk for this cancer, regardless of the age of diagnosis of the index patient in the family, according to a study published by Samadder et al in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. These findings may impact future guidelines ...
An innovative service model that partners radiation oncology with palliative care leads to better results for patients, according to a new analysis. The model of care, established at Mount Sinai Medical Center, is one of only a handful in the country. The study (Abstract 110) will be presented at...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved an expanded indication for the Optune tumor treating fields device to treat patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme. It is given along with the chemotherapy drug temozolomide following standard treatments that include...
Disparities in outcomes for children with retinoblastoma suggest unequal access to primary care, researchers from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center reported in a study published by Truong et al in JAMA Pediatrics. Although virtually all the children in the study...
Almost half of patients with advanced lung cancer receive more than the recommended number of radiation treatments to reduce their pain, according to a new study published by Koshy et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Radiation therapy that is palliative can reduce the pain from...
A study evaluating the effects of bariatric surgery on obese women most at risk for cancer has found that the weight-loss surgery slashed participants' weight by one-third and eliminated precancerous uterine growths in those who had them. Other effects included improving patients' physical quality...
On October 2, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to treat patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease has progressed after other treatments and with tumors that express programmed cell...
The latest results from a trial of a combination of two targeted therapies (dabrafenib [Tafinlar] and trametinib [Mekinist]) to treat advanced melanoma have shown that patients are living significantly longer on the combined therapy than patients treated with vemurafenib (Zelboraf) alone. Caroline...
A prospective study of guideline-based, postoperative, image-guided intensity-modulated radiation therapy in patients with prostate cancer found low toxicity profiles and favorable patient-reported quality of life following treatment, with researchers concluding that toxicity and health-related...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an anti–PD-1 therapy, may be effective as monotherapy in patients with advanced unresectable nasopharyngeal carcinoma whose tumors express programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). Data from a phase Ib study, KEYNOTE-028, showed an overall response rate of 22.2% in 27...
At the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria, early results were announced (Abstract 21LBA) from a pivotal phase II study, IMvigor 210, of the investigational cancer immunotherapy atezolizumab (anti–PD-L1; MPDL3280A) in people with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial...
On September 30, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo) in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of patients with BRAF V600 wild-type, unresectable, or metastatic melanoma. The FDA is scheduled to make a decision on ...
Gastric cancer is typically associated with late-stage diagnosis, as well as high mortality. A study by Li et al in The American Journal of Pathology points to a pivotal role played by the biomarker microRNA (miR)-506 in gastric cancer. Patients whose primary gastric cancer lesions express high...
An international team of researchers has shown that the use of the mTOR inhibitor everolimus can delay tumor growth among both gastrointestinal and lung neuroendocrine tumors. This is particularly important for patients with lung tumors, the researchers say, because there is currently no approved...
Results from a multicenter randomized international trial of an innovative treatment show a marked improvement in the length of time patients with midgut neuroendocrine tumors experience progression-free survival, researchers reported at the 2015 European Cancer Congressin Vienna, Austria, on...
Millions of people are unable to receive necessary treatment worldwide because of a chronic underinvestment in radiotherapy resources, according to a major new Commission on access to radiotherapy, published in by Atun et al in The Lancet Oncology, and presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress ...
First results from the largest international comparison of the treatment of elderly patients with breast cancer have shown substantial differences in the use of surgery, hormone therapy, and chemotherapy among European countries. The European Registration of Cancer Care (EURECCA) study compared the ...
A study published by Forero-Torres et al in Blood reported that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) is an effective and safe first course of treatment for older patients with Hodgkin lymphoma who are unfit for chemotherapy. Ineligibility for Chemotherapy Although standard chemotherapy can...
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive disease that is difficult to treat and is frequently diagnosed only when it has metastasized. Five-year survival rates in SCLC, which accounts for about 14% of all lung cancers, are very low, at only 6%. Researchers presented novel findings (Abstract...
In a special session on cancer in pregnancy at the 2015 European Cancer Congress (Abstract 3205), Frédéric Amant, MD, PhD, said that new results from a study of 129 children, aged 1–3, born after prenatal exposure to cancer treatment, showed normal development of their...
Living in overcrowded conditions appears to protect children and young adults against developing a particular type of Hodgkin lymphoma. This protective effect seems to suggest that infections earlier in life may stimulate the immune system to deal with future infections and cancerous cells more...
Colorectal cancer is on the rise among younger patients. Although some of the younger-onset cases can be explained by hereditary factors, the majority arise spontaneously. Researchers have now found that tumors in younger patients with colorectal cancer may be molecularly distinct from those of...
Unraveling the genetic sequences of cancer that has spread to the brain could offer unexpected targets for effective treatment, according to new research (Abstract 2905) presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria, and published simultaneously by Brastianos et al in...
Young women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer may be more likely to remain fertile if they also receive hormonal treatment, according to new research (Abstract 1957) presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria, and published simultaneously by Lambertini et al in Annals ...
Over 80% of the 15 million people diagnosed with cancer worldwide in 2015 will need surgery, but less than one-quarter of them will have access to proper, safe, affordable surgical care when they need it, according to a major new Commission examining the state of global cancer surgery. The...
Aspirin improved survival in patients with tumors situated throughout the gastrointestinal tract, results from a large study in the Netherlands showed. This is the first time that survival data from patients with tumors in different gastrointestinal locations have been analyzed at the same time;...
Each year in Europe, 6,000 young people die from cancer, and two-thirds of those who survive suffer from treatment-related side effects. Although there has been considerable progress in the treatment of childhood cancers over the past few decades, and cancer in childhood is rare, these are major...
Patients with cancers of the mid and lower throat may have higher survival rates if their initial treatment includes surgery, according to new research (Abstract 2804) presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria. Researchers explained that a nationwide study in Taiwan found...
The targeted drug nivolumab (Opdivo) significantly prolonged survival in patients with advanced kidney cancer whose disease had progressed after their first treatment, according to the results (Abstract 3LBA) presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress (ECC) in Vienna, Austria, and published...
Comparisons of cancer patients’ survival and care in Europe up to 2007 showed that although more patients are surviving for at least 5 years after diagnosis, there are large variations among countries, which are particularly significant in cancers of the blood. Milena Sant, MD, from the...
Patients with advanced kidney cancer lived for nearly twice as long without their disease progressing if they were treated with cabozantinib (Cometriq), a drug that inhibits the action of tyrosine kinases. Toni Choueiri, MD, presented the research (Abstract 4LBA) at the Presidential Session of the...
Although most patients with breast cancer are cured after treatment, in about one in five patients, the cancer will recur, returning either to the same place as the original tumor or metastasizing to other parts of the body. Now, researchers have taken an important step toward understanding why...
A protein known to play a role in transporting the molecular contents of normal cells into and out of various intracellular compartments can also turn such cells cancerous by stimulating a key growth-control pathway. By conducting a large-scale search for regulators of the signaling pathway known...
A rare form of skin cancer known as desmoplasmic melanoma may possess the highest burden of gene mutations of any cancer, suggesting that immunotherapy may be a promising approach for treatment, according to an international team led by University of California San Francisco (UCSF) scientists. One...
Drugs that target key proteins involved in cholesterol metabolism could represent a promising new treatment strategy for a broad range of cancers, according to research by Fox Chase Cancer Center investigators. The study, published by Gabitova et al in Cell Reports, reveals that deficiency in the...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved trifluridine/tipiracil (Lonsurf) for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have been previously treated with chemotherapy and biologic therapy and are no longer responding to treatment. The new agent is an oral combination of...
Adjuvant radiation therapy may be omitted for elderly women with estrogen receptor–positive, early-stage breast cancer who receive hormone therapy. Limited data exist to guide treatment decision-making for elderly women with triple-negative breast cancer. As some findings thus far have shown...
A new retrospective analysis explored local recurrence rates for women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) treated between 1978 and 2010. In the research (Abstract 32) by Van Zee et al, to be presented September 25 at the 2015 Breast Cancer Symposium, in San Francisco, investigators evaluated a...
Women who are carriers of mutated BRCA genes are known to have a significantly higher risk for developing breast and ovarian cancers than those who do not have the mutations. A viewpoint published recently in JAMA Oncology by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles questioned...
Voriconazole, commonly used to prevent and treat fungal infections in lung transplant recipients, significantly increases the risk for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma in this population, according to a new study by University of California San Francisco researchers. The team recommends physicians ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network announced the opening of the 2016 Research Grants Program to support early-career investigators to focus on pancreatic cancer. Two grant mechanisms, the Pathway to Leadership Grant and the Career...