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Showing 16951 - 17000Spark Discussions About Indoor-Tanning Devices
“Strong evidence suggests that using a tanning bed during adolescence or young adulthood can increase the risk of early-onset melanoma by over 40%,” Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, MD, wrote in an opinion piece for Newsweek.1 Dr. Gershenwald is Professor of Surgical Oncology, Medical Director of the...
Educating Young People on Sun-Safe Behaviors and Reducing the Risk of Melanoma
“If minors don’t tan, then they may never become adult tanners,” Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, MD, said in explaining the emphasis on teaching sun safety behaviors to young children as part of the Melanoma Moon Shot Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Dr. Gershenwald is ...
Prophylactic Cranial Irradiation vs Observation in Extensive-Disease Small Cell Lung Cancer
A Japanese phase III trial has shown no survival benefit of prophylactic cranial irradiation vs observation in patients with extensive-disease small cell lung cancer who had any response to platinum-based doublet chemotherapy and no brain metastases at baseline. These findings were reported in The...
Avelumab in Refractory Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma
The programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio) has shown activity in patients with refractory metastatic urothelial cancer, according to findings in a phase Ib study reported by Andrea B. Apolo, MD, of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, Center for Cancer Research,...
Music Therapy: Relevance in Oncology
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, authors Karen Popkin, LCAT, MT-BC, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present the case ...
A Frank Memoir About Doctors, Patients, and the Health-Care System
“In 1981, 2 days after my older brother Matthew was born, my father sawed off the tip of his index finger.” So begins No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming of Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine, a memoir by Rachel Pearson, MD, who is currently a resident at Seattle Children’s Hospital. ...
Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy for Poor Performance Status Patients With Pancreatic Cancer
There are few data to guide the management of nonmetastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in patients who are elderly or have a poor performance status. Although most such patients are offered supportive care or gemcitabine alone, the addition of stereotactic body radiotherapy may improve...
Living With Cancer Survivorship Guilt
Although I was officially diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1997, the first sign of the cancer was evident 2 years earlier, when a single lesion (a plasmacytoma) was found in a bone in my lower back. The bone was replaced with two thin stainless steel rods, and after a course of radiation therapy, ...
Ensuring Advance Directives Are Followed and Lawsuits Are Avoided
Thaddeus Mason Pope, JD, PhD, has focused his legal career on improving medical care decision-making and protecting patients’ rights at the end of life. His specific areas of legal expertise include patients’ rights, informed consent, and end-of-life medicine. Dr. Pope is the coauthor of The Right ...
Advance Care Planning: Ensuring Patients’ End-of-Life Wishes Are Honored
When Amy Berman, BSN, LHD (aged 58), stood in front of the mirror to perform a routine breast self-exam and saw redness and dimpling on her right breast, she feared they were the telltale signs of inflammatory breast cancer. “I have never self-diagnosed myself before, but I had recently read an...
Adding Pravastatin to Chemotherapy in Small Cell Lung Cancer
Following early reports associating favorable outcomes in cancer patients with the use of statins,1,2 further observational studies in this area have provided mixed findings.3 As recently reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Seckl and colleagues ...
No Survival Benefit When Pravastatin Is Added to Standard Chemotherapy in Small Cell Lung Cancer
In a UK phase III study (LUNGSTAR) reported in the Journal of Clinical -Oncology, Michael J. Seckl, MD, PhD, of Imperial College London, and colleagues found that adding pravastatin to first-line standard chemotherapy did not improve overall survival in patients with small cell lung cancer...
CDK4/6 Inhibitors Have a Manageable Toxicity Profile, Are Generally Well Tolerated in Patients With Breast Cancer
A class of oral drugs for treating breast cancer known as cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitors are generally well-tolerated, with a manageable toxicity profile for most patients. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive review of toxicities and drug interactions related to this class of...
Neoadjuvant Radiation Reduces Risk of Secondary Tumors in Early-Stage Breast Cancer
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers conducted a first-of-its-kind study comparing the long-term benefits of radiation therapy in women with breast cancer in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant settings. Their study, published by Poleszczuk et al in Breast Cancer Research, found that patients who have...
Insertion and Deletion Mutations and Immunogenicity in Solid Tumors
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Turajlic et al found that renal cell carcinomas were characterized by the highest proportion and number of frameshift insertion and deletion (indel) mutations among solid cancers and that these alterations were associated with augmented immunogenicity...
Effect of Methotrexate and Corticosteroid Strategies on Neurocognitive Function in Patients With B-Lineage ALL
In a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) study (AALL06N1) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hardy et al found that age < 10 years at diagnosis was associated with poorer neurocognitive function in patients with high-risk B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia regardless of...
MammaPrint Scoring and Indolent Node-Negative Breast Cancer
In an analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Esserman et al found that an ultralow-risk designation using the 70-gene MammaPrint assay is capable of identifying patients with node-negative disease who have a very low long-term risk of death from breast cancer after surgery without systemic therapy....
FDA Approves Neratinib for Extended Adjuvant Treatment of Early-Stage HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved neratinib (Nerlynx) for the extended adjuvant treatment of adult patients with early-stage HER2-overexpressed/amplified breast cancer, to follow adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based therapy. ExteNET Trial Approval was based on the ExteNET...
Appropriate Distress Screening and Follow-up Leads to Fewer ER Visits and Hospitalizations in Patients With Cancer
Following a cancer diagnosis, all patients experience some level of distress—regardless of disease stage. When severe and left untreated, distress can have a significant impact on health outcomes, lead to greater mortality and morbidity, affect immune function, and result in higher...
ASTRO Updates Insurance Coverage Recommendations for Proton Therapy
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued an update to its recommendations for medical insurance coverage regarding the use of proton beam therapy to treat cancer. The updated Proton Beam Therapy Model Policy provides guidance to payers on clinical indications that are...
Nivolumab Treatment Beyond Disease Progression in Advanced Melanoma
In a retrospective analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Long et al found that a substantial proportion of patients with advanced melanoma derived benefit from continued nivolumab (Opdivo) treatment after Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) version 1.1–defined disease...
CD33 Splicing Polymorphism and Response to Gemtuzumab Ozogamicin in AML
In an analysis of the phase III Children’s Oncology Group AAML0531 trial, published by Lambda et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the CD33-targeted immunoconjugate gemtuzumab ozogamicin was shown to have benefit among patients with de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who carry the CC...
Cancer Risk May Be Higher Among Holocaust Survivors
A new study indicates that survivors of the Holocaust have experienced a small but consistent increase in the risk of developing cancer. Published by Sadetzki et al in Cancer, the findings offer an example of how extreme population-level tragedies can have an impact on health. Holocaust survivors...
Anthracycline-Free Adjuvant Treatment in Early TOP2A-Normal Breast Cancer
The Danish phase III DBCG 07-READ trial has shown no difference in disease-free survival with adjuvant docetaxel/cyclophosphamide vs epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, and docetaxel in patients with early TOP2A-normal breast cancer. These trial results were reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology...
Study Demonstrates Potential for Artificial Intelligence and Whole-Genome Sequencing to Scale Access to Precision Medicine
In a study published by Wrzeszczynski et al in Neurology: Genetics, researchers at the New York Genome Center (NYGC), The Rockefeller University, and IBM illustrated the potential of IBM Watson for Genomics to analyze complex genomic data from state-of-the-art sequencing of whole genomes. The study ...
Impact of Health Insurance and Sociodemographic Status on Survival for AYAs With Cancer
According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer is the leading cause of disease-related death among adolescents and young adults (AYAs) between the ages of 15 and 39. And although cancer survival among this age group is more than 80%, AYAs have not experienced the same improvements in relative...
Blinatumomab Granted Full Approval to Treat Relapsed or Refractory B-cell Precursor ALL in Adults and Children
On July 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for blinatumomab (Blincyto) to include overall survival data from the phase III TOWER study. The approval converts blinatumomab's accelerated approval to a full approval. The sBLA...
FDA Accepts sNDA for Dasatinib in Pediatric Patients With Philadelphia Chromosome–Positive Chronic-Phase CML
On July 10, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental new drug application (sNDA) to include an indication for dasatinib (Sprycel) to treat children with Philadelphia chromosome–positive chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), as well as a powder for oral...
Factors Associated With Near-Miss/Safety Incidents in Cancer Radiotherapy
In a single-institution case-control analysis reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Judy et al found that complexity of procedure or schedule was a significant factor in near-miss or safety incidents involving cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy. Study Details The study involved a...
Overall Survival With Nivolumab vs Chemotherapy in Ipilimumab-Refractory Advanced Melanoma
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Larkin et al, the phase III CheckMate 037 trial has shown no difference in overall survival with nivolumab (Opdivo) vs investigator’s choice of chemotherapy in ipilimumab (Yervoy)-refractory advanced melanoma. More chemotherapy patients never ...
MammaPrint Test Addressed in ASCO Breast Cancer Guideline Update
New recommendations on the use of the MammaPrint genomic test issued on July 10 will help guide decisions on adjuvant systemic therapy for women with early breast cancer. The recommendations update the ASCO 2016 clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers in these patients. The...
Narrow Network Insurance Plans More Likely to Exclude Doctors at NCI-Designated and NCCN Member Cancer Centers
Patients with cancer in the United States may be unable to access care at the nation’s top hospitals due to narrow insurance plan coverage—leaving patients to choose between lower premiums or access to higher-quality cancer care. A new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the...
Delaying Lymph Node Biopsy After Melanoma Diagnosis May Not Adversely Affect Survival Rates
Postponing lymph node biopsy more than 30 days after melanoma diagnosis does not adversely impact long-term clinical outcomes, according to findings published by Nelson et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Today, management of high-risk melanomas starts with surgical removal...
Effect of Patient-Reported Symptoms on Adherence to Preventive Treatment for Breast Cancer
In an analysis of the UK cohort of the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study (IBIS-I) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Smith et al found similar effects of predefined symptoms on nonadherence in both tamoxifen and placebo recipients. IBIS-I randomized women at high risk of...
Current Performance Measures for Cervical Cancer Screening
Health-care systems use performance measures for cervical cancer screening based on guidelines from such organizations as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to monitor the appropriateness of cervical cancer screening. According to the performance measure in the Healthcare...
Idarubicin vs High-Dose Daunorubicin Induction in Newly Diagnosed Acute Myeloid Leukemia
A Korean phase III trial has shown no difference in outcomes with high-dose daunorubicin vs idarubicin induction in newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia, although high-dose daunorubicin was associated with better outcomes in patients with FLT3–internal tandem duplication (ITD) mutation....
Adding Evofosfamide to Doxorubicin in Advanced Soft-Tissue Sarcoma
A phase III trial (TH CR-406/SARC021) has shown no survival benefit of adding evofosfamide to doxorubicin in the first-line treatment of locally advanced unresectable or metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma. Trial results were reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tap et al. Evofosfamide is a...
FDA Approves Aminolevulinic Acid Hydrochloride as an Optical Imaging Agent Indicated in Gliomas
ON JUNE 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved aminolevulinic acid hydrochloride, known as ALA HCl (Gleolan), as an optical imaging agent indicated in patients with gliomas (suspected World Health Organization [WHO] grades III or IV) for preoperative imaging, as an adjunct for the...
Has a New Standard Really Been Established for the Adjuvant Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer?
THE PAST YEAR has undoubtedly been a disappointing one as far as clinical advances in pancreatic cancer go. No fewer than five high-profile randomized phase II or III trials in this setting reported negative results in 2016, ranging from next-generation cytotoxic agents1 to novel immunotherapeutic ...
Addition of Adjuvant Capecitabine to Gemcitabine Improves Survival in Patients With Resected Pancreatic Cancer
IN THE EUROPEAN phase III ESPAC-4 trial reported in The Lancet, John P. Neoptolemos, MD, of the Liverpool Clinical and Cancer Research UK Trials Unit, University of Liverpool, and colleagues found that adding adjuvant capecitabine to gemcitabine significantly improved overall survival in patients...
Conquer Cancer Foundation Researcher Spotlight: Dr. Supriya Mohile
SUPRIYA MOHILE, MD, MS Associate Professor of Medicine, Director of the Geriatric Oncology Clinic University of Rochester Medical Center Rochester, New York Older adults are the population most affected by cancer: 60% of all cancer occurs in this group. Yet the field of oncology that focuses on...
Encouraging Results With Pembrolizumab in Relapsed/Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma
AN EFFECTIVE antitumor immune response relies on cytotoxic T cells that are activated and able to target the malignant clone. As T cells become activated, they upregulate suppressive receptors including programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). Upregulation of inhibitory signals is important to...
A Great IDEA: Celebrating 15 Years of the International Development and Education Award
In 2017, ASCO and the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO are proud to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the International Development and Education Award (IDEA). The IDEA program supports the professional development of early-career oncologists in low- and middle-income countries around the world....
Pembrolizumab Is Highly Active in Relapsed/Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma
AS REPORTED in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Robert Chen, MD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, and colleagues, the phase II KEYNOTE-087 trial has shown that the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is highly active in patients with relapsed/...
Second Cancers May Be Deadlier in Child, Adolescent, and Young Adult Patients
Second cancers in children and adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are far deadlier than they are in older adults and may partially account for the relatively poor outcomes of cancer patients between the ages of 15 and 39 overall, a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis...
Neoadjuvant Studies of Endocrine Approaches in Breast Cancer Mandated Before Embarking on Large Adjuvant Studies
Largely based on studies demonstrating that letrozole can suppress plasma estradiol levels to a greater extent than anastrozole,1 the adjuvant activity of these endocrine agents were compared in 4,136 patients with node-positive breast cancer in the FACE trial. As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO ...
No Efficacy Difference Between Adjuvant Letrozole and Anastrozole in Postmenopausal Women With Early Breast Cancer
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Ian E. Smith, MD, of The Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research, and colleagues, final results of the phase III FACE trial showed no difference in disease-free or overall survival for adjuvant letrozole vs anastrozole in...
Autologous and Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation
HERE ARE SEVERAL ABSTRACTS selected from the proceedings of the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, highlighting clinical trials on autologous and allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for various hematologic malignancies. Additional selected...
Potent PARP Inhibitor Moves Ahead in BRCA-Mutated Breast Cancer
TALAZOPARIB, a novel inhibitor of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), showed encouraging efficacy in breast cancer patients with BRCA1/2 mutations in the phase II ABRAZO trial, presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting by Nicholas C. Turner, MD, of the Royal Marsden Hospital and The Institute of...
Retreatment With Checkpoint Inhibitors May Be Feasible for Some Patients With NSCLC
INCREASING NUMBERS of patients are being treated with checkpoint inhibitors, and about one-quarter to one-third will develop immune-related adverse events. One question on the minds of oncologists is can these patients be safely re-treated once their adverse events resolve? One of the first...
