The Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium at the University of Colorado Cancer Center reported that 24 of 920 patients (3%) with advanced-stage lung cancer in a recent study had mutations in the gene HER2. According to the study, published by Pillai et al in Cancer, 71% of these patients were...
A systematic review and meta-analysis has found no association between vasectomy and high-grade, advanced, or fatal prostate cancer but a weak association with any prostate cancer. These findings were reported in JAMA Oncology by Bhindi et al. Study Details The analysis involved 53 studies,...
Several national cancer organizations have released a joint position statement to guide the future of cancer health disparities research. The statement, which was published by Polite et al in Cancer Research, represents a unified strategy by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the...
As reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Morton et al have identified gene loci associated with radiation-related risk of breast cancer in survivors of childhood cancer. Study Details The study was a genome-wide association study of breast cancer in female survivors of...
As reported by Turtle et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor–modified (CAR) T-cell therapy produced high response rates in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia previously treated with ibrutinib (Imbruvica). Study Details In the phase I/II study, ...
Gastric cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in both men and women worldwide. In 2014, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project discovered there are four molecular subtypes of gastric cancer: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), microsatellite instability (MSI), genomically stable (GS), and...
A study in the offspring and third-generation cohorts of the Framingham Heart Study showed that eligibility for statin therapy was associated with an increased risk for cancer and cancer mortality. These findings were reported by Pursnani et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details...
After 19.5 years of follow-up in the PIVOT trial, radical prostatectomy was not associated with significantly improved all-cause or prostate cancer mortality vs observation among men with localized prostate cancer. The long-term follow-up data were reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by ...
Today, investigators at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) announced the opening of enrollment for a unique precision medicine clinical trial. NCI-COG Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (Pediatric MATCH) is a nationwide trial to explore...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the indication for ipilimumab (Yervoy) injection for intravenous use to now include the treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma in pediatric patients 12 years of age and older. Ipilimumab was evaluated in 2 trials of pediatric...
For patients with advanced, inoperable stage III lung cancer, concurrent chemotherapy and proton-beam radiotherapy offers improved survival compared to historical data for standard of care, according to a new study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The research, published by...
Janowitz et al have developed a new model for estimating glomerular filtration rate (GFR) that improves accuracy compared with chromium-51 (51Cr) EDTA excretion measurements and accuracy of carboplatin dosing compared with other published models in cancer patients. Their findings were reported in...
A West German Study Group phase II trial, reported by Harbeck et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, has shown a higher pathologic complete response rate with neoadjuvant ado-trastuzumab emtansine (formerly known as T-DM1; Kadcyla) with or without endocrine therapy vs trastuzumab (Herceptin)...
How well patients with cancer fared after chemotherapy was affected by their social interaction with other patients during treatment, according to a new study by researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the University of...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bendzsak et al found that centralization of surgery services to high-volume hospitals in Ontario was not independently associated with improved operative mortality rates in lung cancer. In April 2007, a policy was implemented to regionalize...
In an Italian phase III trial reported by Locatelli et al in The Lancet Oncology, a lower vs higher dose of rabbit anti–T-lymphocyte globulin (ATLG) was associated with a nonsignificantly greater incidence of acute graft-vs-host disease but better event-free and overall survival in children...
THE CENTERS for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released its proposed rule outlining changes to the Quality Payment Program (QPP) for 2018. ASCO is encouraged by the flexibility added to QPP in the proposal, which includes an extended transition period through the end of 2018 for both the...
IN JUNE 2017, President Trump installed the final member of his cancer care leadership team, Norman “Ned” Sharpless, MD, who will serve as the Director of the National Cancer Institute. Director Sharpless is an accomplished researcher with experience leading a wide range of clinical and...
It was Friday night of the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. I planned to meet a friend, another 2nd-year heme-onc fellow, at a “free drink thing,” as she called it. I sheepishly entered the hotel bar, made a nametag at the insistence of the greeter, and started edging my way through the crowd. ...
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR RADIATION ONCOLOGY (ASTRO) has announced the 2017 ASTRO Gold Medalists. Søren M. Bentzen, DSc, PhD; Louis B. Harrison, MD, FASTRO; and Michael L. Steinberg, MD, FASTRO, have been awarded the annual honor given to ASTRO members who have made outstanding lifetime...
KHURSHID GURU, MD, an acclaimed robotic surgeon, has been named Chair of the Department of Urology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Dr. Guru, who was recruited to Roswell Park in 2005 to direct the Institute’s robotic surgery program, will lead a team of more than 50 faculty members, clinicians,...
THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has announced that the President of the Society for the 2020–2021 term will be Solange Peters, MD, PhD, Head of the Medical Oncology Service and Chair of Thoracic Oncology, Oncology Department at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois in...
WITH THE RECENT efficacy findings, improvements in survival, and resultant U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitors across multiple solid tumor indications, the publication of yet another positive trial adds to the...
IN THE PHASE II KEYNOTE-055 trial, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to produce durable responses in patients with platinum- and cetuximab (Erbitux)-refractory head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.1 Results of the trial were reported by Joshua Bauml, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania,...
THE TREATMENT OF metastatic urothelial carcinoma experienced a long period of stagnation until the recognition that targeting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) pathway could yield deep and durable responses.1-3 Cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy has been the reference standard for...
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 was the first federal law to mandate that group health insurance plans and state-licensed insurance issuers provide coverage of standard-of-care costs for patients enrolled in approved clinical trials, effective on January 1, 2014. Under...
More than half of patients with cancer undergo radiotherapy. Due to a phenomenon known as radiation-induced bystander effect, in which irradiated cells leak chemical signals that can travel some distance to damage unexposed healthy cells, many suffer side effects such as hair loss, fatigue, and...
The most comprehensive analysis yet of medulloblastoma has identified genomic changes responsible for more than 75% of the brain tumors, including two new suspected cancer genes that were found exclusively in the least understood disease subgroups. The study from an international research...
A study reported by Moreau et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicated no difference between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron-emission tomography–computed tomography (PET-CT) in detecting bone lesions at diagnosis in patients with multiple myeloma. PET-CT normalization...
In a U.S. single-institution study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Mahajan et al found that stereotactic radiosurgery to the surgical cavity reduced local recurrence vs observation in patients with completely resected brain metastases. Study Details In the trial, 128 evaluable patients at MD...
The phase III NRG Oncology RTOG 0436 trial has shown no survival benefit of adding cetuximab (Erbitux) to paclitaxel/cisplatin and radiation therapy in patients with esophageal cancer treated without surgery. These results were reported by Suntharalingam et al in JAMA Oncology. Study Details In...
IN THE PHASE III KEYNOTE-045 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs investigator choice of chemotherapy as second-line treatment ...
AT THE NATIONAL Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 22nd Annual Conference, experts from several fields met with journalists to highlight “what’s hot” in their specialties. The ASCO Post captured that conversation. Myeloproliferative Neoplasms Guidelines NCCN HAS LAUNCHED new NCCN Clinical...
DIGITAL TOMOSYNTHESIS is rapidly replacing full-field digital mammography, because “it allows a more efficient diagnostic workflow and leads to a more confident interpretation,” according to Elizabeth A. Morris, MD, FACR, Chief of the Breast Imaging Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, ...
FOR PATIENTS WITH BREAST CANCER who have metastases to the central nervous system (CNS), clinicians should think twice before administering whole-brain radiotherapy, according to Kimberly Blackwell, MD, Professor of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Duke University Medical...
CHECKPOINT INHIBITION was effective against malignant pleural mesothelioma in the MAPS-2 study of the French Cooperative Thoracic Intergroup. At the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, researchers reported a disease control rate of up to 50% when patients were treated with immunotherapy after relapse in a...
SYSTEMATIC LYMPHADENECTOMY in patients with advanced ovarian cancer and complete resection offered no improvement in progression-free or overall survival in the Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup’s LION trial, reported at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting by Philipp Harter, MD, PhD, of the German...
“COMBINATION STRATEGIES are being developed, but the big question is what and how to combine,” said formal discussant Siwen Hu-Lieskovan, MD, of the University of California Los Angeles. “Anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) therapy works at the last step of T-cell activation and relies on...
CHECKPOINT INHIBITORS have dramatically changed the landscape of the treatment of melanoma, lung, bladder, and other cancers. Researchers are focusing on exploring ways to extend the use of checkpoint inhibitors to other disease states and to combine them with novel agents and improve outcomes. At ...
STEVEN J. COHEN, MD, Director of the Rosenfeld Cancer Center at Jefferson Health/Abington Hospital, Abington, Pennsylvania, and Vice Chair of Medical Oncology at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, and Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, Head of Medical Oncology and the Gastrointestinal Tumors and...
TUMOR “SIDEDNESS” in colon cancer has become a topic of great interest, after right-sided tumors were shown to have a worse prognosis than left-sided ones and biologics were found to differ in efficacy based on side. At the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, studies explored why this might be so. Three...
SPINAL CORD COMPRESSION associated with metastatic cancer can be effectively treated with a single dose of radiotherapy, according to the results of a phase III British study that showed multiple radiotherapy doses to be no better than one treatment.1 Up to 10% of all patients with cancer will...
UPDATED RESULTS from the ELIANA clinical trial of CTL019 (tisagenlecleucel)—an investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy—found that remission rates are maintained at 6 months in relapsed/refractory pediatric and young adult patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia....
STUDIES PRESENTED at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting have shown that for melanoma that metastasizes to the brain, the combined use of checkpoint inhibitors and targeted agents can be effective. In COMBI-MB, 58% of patients responded intracranially to the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib (Tafinlar) plus the...
CONGRESS RECENTLY passed its fiscal year (FY) 2017 spending bill, which contains an additional $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This marks the first time in more than a dozen years that Congress funded back-to-back increases for the NIH, demonstrating the bipartisan...
On July 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a combination tablet (Vosevi) to treat adults with chronic hepatitis C virus genotypes 1–6 without cirrhosis or with mild cirrhosis. This fixed-dose, combination tablet contains two previously approved drugs—sofosbuvir and ...
As reported by Sivendran et al in the Journal of Oncology Practice, half of patients in a large community-based cancer institute did not know their stage of cancer, and one-third did not know of their cancer-free/in-remission status. Study Details The study involved 208 adult patients treated at...
The phase I CheckMate 016 trial has shown activity of the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) in metastatic renal cell carcinoma. These findings were reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Hammers et al. Study Details In the dose-escalation study, patients were...
In the phase III NCCTG N107C/CEC.3 trial, stereotactic radiosurgery to the surgical cavity reduced cognitive deterioration and was associated with similar overall survival vs whole-brain radiotherapy in patients with resected brain metastasis. These results were reported by Brown et al in The...
Immunotherapy researcher and oncologist Edus H. Warren, MD, PhD, has been selected to lead the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch) program in Global Oncology in its effort to transform cancer care in sub-Saharan Africa, China, and other regions by providing greater access to the...