New research published online in Blood suggests that the diversity of bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract of patients receiving stem cell transplants may be an important predictor of their post-transplant survival. Potential Connections Previous studies have shown that the intensive treatment...
A “reasonable” delay prior to surgery for colon cancer may not result in worse outcomes, according to the results of a retrospective study presented by Amri et al in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Flexibility in scheduling surgery may lead to an improvement in the quality and safety...
Used as a conditioning regimen for allogeneic transplantation in patients with acute leukemia, reduced-intensity total-body irradiation yielded similar overall and relapse-free survival rates to those seen with myeloablative total-body irradiation but with shorter hospital stays and fewer intensive ...
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine have completed the first comprehensive survey of e-cigarettes for sale online, and the results, they believe, underscore the complexity in regulating the rapidly growing market for the electronic nicotine delivery devices....
Prone accelerated intensity-modulated radiation therapy with a concomitant boost produced excellent local tumor control and cosmesis while sparing normal tissues in women with early-stage breast cancer, according to the 5-year study results reported by Osa et al in the International Journal of...
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is considered a “nonimmunogenic” neoplasm and does not typically respond to immunotherapy, in part due to a complex tumor microenvironment that provides a formidable barrier to immune infiltration and function. A new study by Lutz et al has found that by ...
A study by researchers from Danbury Hospital Biomedical Research Institute in Connecticut has found that patients with ovarian cancer who relapse shortly after neoadjuvant chemotherapy to shrink their tumor prior to surgery have high levels of expression of HGF and c-Met proteins. The...
A small study of 18 patients with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy has found a significant increase in cognitive complaints and significant correlations between these increases and decreases in multitasking-related brain activation. The study by Deprez et al is published in the Journal of...
A unique public-private collaboration among the National Cancer Institute (NCI), SWOG Cancer Research, Friends of Cancer Research, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), five pharmaceutical companies (Amgen, Genentech, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and AstraZeneca’s global...
Women who begin menstruation at an older age have a significantly increased risk of developing a brain tumor, a Moffitt Cancer Center study shows. The results are part of a large multicenter study to determine potential risk factors associated with the development of glioma and meningioma. The...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Eberth et al found that needle biopsy is underused in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, with a number of surgeon factors contributing to underuse. The study involved Medicare data from 89,712 patients with breast cancer seen between...
In the first phase III trial assessing the combination of an insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) inhibitor with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for advanced nonadenocarcinoma non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the addition of the fully human immunoglobulin G2 monoclonal...
Palliative resection of the primary tumor was associated with a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, according to the results of a study reported in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Gresham et al noted...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Tammemägi et al assessed smoking cessation rates among participants undergoing chest x-ray or computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). Among patients without a subsequent ...
There may be significant genomic differences between patients with invasive lobular breast cancer and those with invasive ductal breast cancer, according to the results of a study presented by Sawyer et al in PLOS Genetics. This finding may lead to further insights into the biology of lobular...
Stopping statin therapy is safe for patients with cancer who have a life expectancy of less than 1 year, according to a randomized study reported at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago (Abstract LBA9514). Discontinuing statins did not shorten survival and provided a number of important...
Adding goserelin (Zoladex) to standard chemotherapy may be an effective method of preserving fertility among women with early-stage hormone receptor–negative breast cancer, according to findings from a federally funded phase III clinical trial. In the S0230/POEMS study, reported at the 2014...
The use of radiotherapy for the index ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) may affect subsequent treatment of tumor recurrences and complications after breast-conserving surgery, reported Greenberg et al in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Based on the results of this retrospective cohort study, the...
As reported in JAMA Ophthalmology, McCannel and colleagues identified three cases of subfoveal neurosensory retinal detachment among patients receiving MEK inhibitor therapy for metastatic cancer in clinical trials requiring ophthalmologic examination at their institution. In all cases, the toxic...
Findings from a phase III randomized study suggest that women with breast cancer and bone metastasis who have received at least nine doses of zoledronic acid over the previous year can safely scale back dosing from every 4 weeks to every 12 weeks without compromising the effectiveness of the...
According to a phase II study, customizing radiation doses based on response to induction chemotherapy and other prognostic factors may allow lower doses of radiation therapy to be administered to some patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer without compromising...
Findings from a large phase I study of 411 patients with advanced melanoma show that the PD-1–targeting antibody pembrolizumab (MK-3475) produced responses in 34% of patients, including 28% of patients whose disease progressed on prior treatment with ipilimumab (Yervoy). Among those who...
Adjuvant therapy with ipilimumab (Yervoy) for patients with high-risk stage III melanoma significantly improved recurrence-free survival, the primary endpoint of the phase III EORTC 18071/CA 184-029 study. Patients randomly assigned to receive ipilimumab had a 9-month absolute improvement in...
The combination of two investigational oral drugs, the PARP inhibitor olaparib and the antiangiogenic drug cediranib, significantly extended progression-free survival and increased the overall response rate compared to olaparib alone in a phase II study among women with recurrent,...
A large phase III study, ALTTO (Adjuvant Lapatinib and/or Trastuzumab Treatment Optimisation), found no statistically significant differences in 4-year disease-free survival among women with early HER2-positive breast cancer who received adjuvant treatment that combined the HER2-targeted drugs...
A joint analysis of two phase III trials demonstrated that the aromatase inhibitor exemestane more effectively prevents breast cancer recurrences than tamoxifen when either was given with ovarian function suppression to premenopausal women with hormone-sensitive cancers. Exemestane plus ovarian...
Oncologists now have a new understanding of the toxicity levels of specific chemotherapy regimens used for women with early-stage breast cancer, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The retrospective study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mandelblatt and colleagues attempted to determine whether cognitive impairment is present in older patients with breast cancer prior to systemic therapy. They found that although there were no global differences in cognitive function between...
According to a large study of Caucasian women investigating chronic sun exposure over long durations in adulthood and sun exposure in early life, those who had at least five blistering sunburns when they were 15 to 20 years old had a 68% increased risk for basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has issued an update to its clinical practice guideline on the use of adjuvant endocrine therapy for women with stage I to III hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. The guideline was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Duration...
Researchers have identified a mutated gene common to adenosquamous carcinoma tumors, the first known unique molecular signature for this rare, but particularly virulent, form of pancreatic cancer. The findings by Liu et al are published in Nature Medicine. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading...
In a recent study in Annals of Internal Medicine, Vater et al analyzed the content of 409 unique clinical advertisements on television and in magazines placed by 102 cancer centers in 2012. The researchers assessed each ad for types of clinical services promoted, information provided about...
A patient-centered educational and behavioral program focusing on self-care strategies appears to be an effective way to reduce the risk of lymphedema in survivors of breast cancer, according to the results of a prospective study by Fu et al at New York University. These findings, reported in the...
The addition of sorafenib (Nexavar) to yttrium-90 radioembolization was associated with higher rates of biliary complications and potentially more acute rejections prior to transplantation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, according to the results of a prospective randomized pilot study....
In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, Zhu et al described identification of resistance mutations in acute promyelocytic leukemia patients receiving arsenic trioxide (Trisenox) and all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) therapy. The direct-binding targets of arsenic trioxide in the...
The cancer community is mourning the death of Selma Schimmel who passed away on May 21, 2014, from malignant psoas syndrome, a complication of ovarian cancer. Ms. Schimmel died at Providence Tarzana Medical Center near her home in Los Angeles, California. She was 59. A tireless and fierce advocate ...
In a recent study by the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium (LCMC), investigators incorporated tumor genotyping into therapeutic decision-making for patients with lung adenocarcinomas. An oncogenic driver was detected in 64% of tumors from patients in this study. According to data from this study...
In a phase III trial (CA184-043) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kwon et al assessed the effects of adding ipilimumab (Yervoy) after radiotherapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer progressing after docetaxel chemotherapy. The investigators found no improvement...
One of the first studies to analyze the effectiveness of screening survivors of childhood cancer for early signs of impending congestive heart failure found improved health outcomes but suggested that less frequent screening than currently recommended may yield similar clinical benefit. Researchers ...
A proposed metric of quality of cancer care is whether chemotherapy is administered in the last 14 days of life. In a retrospective study of patients at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Rodriguez et al found an overall rate of chemotherapy use in ...
In an article in The Lancet Oncology, Sartor et al report symptomatic skeletal event outcomes in the phase III ALSYMPCA trial, which was the study supporting the May 2013 approval of radium-233 dichloride (Xofigo) in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer and bone metastases. They found ...
A randomized phase Ib study of a combination of low radiosensitizing doses of gemcitabine and fractionated doses of 90Y-clivatuzumab tetraxetan in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal cancer who had received at least two prior systemic therapies, has found a significant survival advantage in...
A series of studies evaluating the cost-effectiveness, risks, and outcomes associated with detecting, diagnosing, and treating testicular cancer were presented at a press conference during the 2014 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association in Orlando, Florida. Although...
According to the results from three studies published in European Urology, the 17-gene Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score is a significant predictor of disease aggressiveness at the time of diagnosis before intervention with radiation or surgery. The test provides more precise and individualized...
Two preclinical studies of tumor samples taken from 39 patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and 39 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma has found that for both these pancreatic cancers, CD47 is expressed at elevated levels on the cells that make up the bulk of the tumors and on...
Researchers investigating the effects of water pipe smoking on the health of young adults have found elevated levels of nicotine, cotinine, tobacco-related cancer-causing agents, and volatile organic compounds, including benzene and acrolein, in the urine of users. Given the significant intake of...
In the large phase III SQUIRE trial of necitumumab (IMC-11F8) in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin in the first-line treatment of advanced squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), patients with stage IV metastatic disease showed a statistically significant improvement in overall...
A new model projects 5-year outcomes of implementing the recent U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations for annual low-dose computed tomography (CT) lung cancer screening in a high-risk Medicare population. The model estimates that gradual implementation of the screening...
According to early results from a phase I study, a new targeted drug, PLX3397, appears remarkably active against a rare neoplastic joint disorder known as pigmented villonodular synovitis. The study evaluated patients whose disease had progressed despite all other available therapies. More than...
Findings from a phase I study of a new mutant-selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor, AZD9291, point to a promising new treatment option for patients with advanced, EGFR-mutant, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that is resistant to standard EGFR...