In a population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fung et al found a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular disease mortality during the first year after chemotherapy for testicular nonseminoma. No increased risk of cardiovascular disease mortality after surgery was...
In the phase III E3805 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Sweeney et al found that chemohormonal therapy with docetaxel plus androgen-deprivation therapy produced a significant 13.6-month increase in median overall survival vs androgen-deprivation therapy alone in men with...
Duke University researchers found that packaging the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel into nanoparticles more than doubled the drug’s effectiveness in destroying tumors in preclinical models. Their findings were published by Bhattacharyya et al in Nature Communications. Paclitaxel has been ...
Patients undergoing surgery for lung cancer may wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment, according to findings published by Faris et al in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. The 5-year relative ...
Researchers investigating a risk index for colorectal cancer and advanced precancerous polyps among average-risk people have found that patients classified as low risk had fewer advanced adenomas than patients classified as high risk. Their findings suggest that those at low risk for colorectal...
Although cisplatin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy before cystectomy is the standard of care for muscle-invasive bladder cancer, only between 25% and 50% of patients achieve a pathologic response. A study investigating biomarkers that can predict response to chemotherapy in patients with...
The 17-year follow-up in the UK Age trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology by Moss et al, indicated a reduction in breast cancer mortality during the first 10 years after diagnosis but not thereafter among women invited for annual mammography screening from age 40 to 49 years compared with...
High-grade serous ovarian cancer often responds well to the chemotherapy drug carboplatin, but it frequently recurs after the first line of treatment. A team of University of California, Los Angeles, researchers has discovered that a subset of tumor cells that don’t produce the protein CA125, ...
A team of researchers at Barts Cancer Institute–Queen Mary University of London has discovered a combination of three proteins found at high levels in urine that can accurately detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. The discovery could lead to a noninvasive, inexpensive test to...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yamoah et al identified a biomarker signature that may predict aggressive disease in African American men with prostate cancer. Study Details In the study, distribution of mRNA expression levels of 20 biomarkers associated with prostate cancer...
As reported by Eichenauer and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, an analysis of long-term outcomes suggests that involved-field radiotherapy may be the best treatment option in patients with stage IA nodular lymphocyte-predominant Hodgkin lymphoma. Study Details The study involved...
A new way to detect—and perhaps treat—one of the deadliest types of breast cancer may have been found. Led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), the study was published by Papageorgis et al in Breast Cancer Research. A subset of the triple-negative breast...
In a BIG 1-98 trial analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Metzger Filho et al found that the benefit of adjuvant letrozole vs tamoxifen was greater in patients with lobular than ductal breast carcinoma. Study Details In the BIG 1-98 trial, postmenopausal women with hormone...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Patel et al found that inflammatory cytokine levels were associated with poorer memory function in women with newly diagnosed breast cancer, with higher pretreatment levels of soluble tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor type ...
The stem cells in the gut divide so fast that they create a completely new population of epithelial cells every week. However, this quick cell division is also why radiation and chemotherapy wreak havoc on the gastrointestinal systems of patients with cancer, as such therapies target rapidly...
More than 80,000 people undergo resection of a pulmonary tumor each year, and currently the only method to determine whether the tumor is malignant is histologic analysis. A new study reported that a targeted molecular contrast agent can be used successfully to render lung adenocarcinomas...
In a phase III VALOR trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ravandi et al found that the addition of the quinolone derivative vosaroxin to cytarabine did not significantly improve overall survival in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, differences favoring...
Available data suggest an increased risk of bladder cancer with pioglitazone treatment for diabetes. In an analysis of Kaiser Permanente Northern California data reported in JAMA, Lewis et al found no significantly increased risk of bladder cancer in patients with diabetes ever using pioglitazone....
Pharmaceutical firms underinvest in long-term research to develop new cancer-fighting drugs due to the greater time and cost required to conduct such research, according to a newly published study authored by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economists. These findings were published by...
An observational study investigating the use and effectiveness of a combination regimen of intraperitoneal and intravenous chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced-stage ovarian cancer has found that although the dual approach substantially improved survival—81% of those treated with the...
Lower levels of ERCC1 (excision repair cross-complementation group 1) and thymidylate synthase expression may be predictive of longer survival in patients with metastatic colon cancer, according to a study by Choueiri et al in PLOS One. It was shown that patients with low levels of ERCC1 and...
Cancer therapy has evolved to a personalized approach, and important aspects of this method are pharmacogenomic studies that analyze associations between genetic variations and patient drug responses. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers published a study by Dressler et al in the Journal of the...
Use of gene therapy to deliver a protein that suppresses the development of female reproductive organs may improve the survival of patients with ovarian cancer that has recurred after chemotherapy. In a study published by Pepin et al in PNAS Early Edition, a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)...
Recent advances in the understanding of cancer have led to the development of more personalized therapies. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have contributed to these advances by developing the first test that analyzes the sensitivity of tumors to radiation therapy. Their findings were published by ...
A new study points to the need for increased awareness of fertility preservation options for young patients with cancer. Published by Shnorhavorian et al in Cancer, the study found that factors such as gender, education, and insurance status impact whether patients and their physicians have...
In a phase III trial conducted by the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Radiation Oncology and Breast Cancer Groups, the addition of regional nodal irradiation to whole-breast or thoracic-wall irradiation after surgery produced a marginal overall survival benefit...
After decades of overtreatment for low-risk prostate cancer and inadequate management of its more aggressive forms, patients are now more likely to receive medical care matched to level of risk, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San...
A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, reveals a protein’s critical—and previously unknown—role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The finding offers a novel target for better treating AML, and...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Carvajal-Hausdorf et al found that quantitative measurement of HER2 protein expression in intracellular and extracellular domains indicated improved disease-free survival with adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) in breast cancer ...
The 6-year follow-up of the phase III ANZMTG 01.02/TROG 02.01 trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology by Henderson et al, showed that adjuvant lymph-node field radiotherapy in melanoma patients with high risk of lymph-node field recurrence reduced the rate of recurrence but did not improve overall...
A large, population-based prospective cohort study of about 75,000 women has found that adolescent exercise is associated with reduced risk of death due to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and all causes among middle-aged and older women. After adjusting for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, the...
In a phase III noninferiority trial (SIOP WT 2001) reported in The Lancet, Pritchard-Jones et al in the SIOP (International Society of Paediatric Oncology) Renal Tumours Study Group found that omission of doxorubicin from postoperative chemotherapy for stage II to III histologic intermediate-risk...
In a study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Harding et al found that on the county level in the United States, mammography screening for breast cancer is associated with an increase in detection of small breast cancers but no reduction in breast cancer mortality. Study Details This ecologic...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted lenvatinib (Lenvima) Breakthrough Therapy designation for investigational use in patients with advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma who were previously treated with a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-targeted therapy. Lenvatinib...
In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved sonidegib (Odomzo) for the treatment of patients with locally advanced basal cell carcinoma that has recurred following surgery or radiation therapy or those who are not candidates for surgery or radiation therapy. The approval was based on...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Murphy et al found that disparity in the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in white vs black patients with stage III colon cancer may have recently reemerged after a trend of increasing use in both racial groups. Changes in Use Over...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Scagliotti et al found that the addition of the MET receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor tivantinib to erlotinib (Tarceva) did not improve overall survival in previously treated patients with locally advanced or metastatic nonsquamous ...
Lapatinib plus trastuzumab improves outcomes vs lapatinib in heavily pretreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. In the phase II TBCRC 003 study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lin et al found that earlier use of lapatinib plus trastuzumab was active in HER2-positive metastatic ...
Researchers led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have developed new diagnostic criteria to enable clinicians to distinguish malignant cancerous chest cavity masses from those caused by fungal histoplasmosis infection. Their findings were published by Naeem et al in the...
A study of long-term thyroid cancer outcomes shows, among other findings, that moderate suppression of thyroid-stimulating hormone, which drives the disease, may be as beneficial as more extreme hormone suppression. Extreme thyroid-stimulating hormone suppression is associated with increased side...
Results from a clinical trial investigating a new T-cell receptor therapy demonstrated a clinical response in 80% of patients with multiple myeloma who had advanced disease after undergoing autologous stem cell transplants. Researchers at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center modified T cells to ...
Although palliative chemotherapy is used to improve quality of life for patients with end-stage cancer, a study evaluating its use found that palliative chemotherapy did not improve quality of life near death for patients with a moderate or poor performance status and that it worsened quality of...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Momtaz et al found that the rate of infusion-related reactions remained acceptably low when ipilimumab (Yervoy) 3 mg/kg was infused over 30 minutes in patients with advanced melanoma. The currently approved dose of...
Although the prevalence of genetic risk factors, such as Lynch syndrome and familial adenomatous polyposis, has been studied in the general population of individuals with colorectal cancer, patients diagnosed as adolescents and young adults are not well represented in colorectal cancer studies. A...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Garcia-Aguilar et al found that adding neoadjuvant mFOLFOX6 (modified fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, oxaliplatin) after chemoradiation improved the pathologic complete response rate in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer undergoing...
A clinical trial has shown that patients with a specific molecular subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma are more likely to respond to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) than patients with another molecular subtype of the disease. The study was published by Wilson et al in Nature Medicine. In this phase II...
In a UK randomized phase II trial (ABC-03) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Valle et al found that adding the VEGF inhibitor cediranib to first-line cisplatin/gemcitabine did not improve progression-free survival in patients with advanced biliary tract cancer. Study Details In the double-blind...
“A cancer diagnosis among patients with diabetes reduced adherence with evidence-based medications, particularly if patients’ life expectancy was short,” according to a study among Medicare beneficiaries reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice. “These findings emphasize ...
In a review of nearly 2,000 surveys with people whose loved ones died of cancer, researchers led by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine experts said they found a 40% increase over a 12-year period in the number of patients with cancer who participated in one form of advance care...