The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued a new clinical guideline for the management of oropharyngeal cancer. The guideline, “Radiation therapy for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma: An ASTRO Evidence-based Clinical Practice Guideline,” was published by Sher et ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) issued congratulations to Allison S. Betof, MD, PhD, on her election to Chairperson-elect of the Associate Member Council (AMC) of AACR. Dr. Betof assumed office at the AACR Annual Meeting earlier this month and will serve as Chairperson-elect...
In an Australian study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Haydu et al found that conditional melanoma-specific survival was worse within the first 2 years of diagnosis of stage III disease for men, increasing age, and increasing American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage. The...
In an analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Moran et al found that a radiotherapy boost for ductal carcinoma in situ with local control after whole-breast radiotherapy was associated with a reduction in the risk for ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence. Study Details The analysis pooled...
The combination of trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus lapatinib (Tykerb) achieved positive results in patients with heavily pretreated, HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer, according to the final results of the phase II HERACLES-A trial. This two-pronged, HER2-directed approach achieved clinical...
On April 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) removed the risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) requirements for the use of epoetin alfa and darbepoetin alfa to treat patients with anemia due to associated myelosuppressive chemotherapy. The Agency's announcement regarding...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Katz et al found that most patients considering contralateral prophylactic mastectomy for stage 0 to II breast cancer were satisfied with surgical decision-making. Most surgeons discussed contralateral prophylactic mastectomy and most did not recommend against...
A new analysis of patients who have undergone treatment for prostate cancer shows a connection between androgen-deprivation therapy and dementia, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Previous studies from Penn have shown men who undergo...
An individual patient-level meta-analysis has shown that the Decipher® (GenomeDx) genomic classifier is capable of distinguishing risk groups for metastatic disease after radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer. The study was reported by Spratt and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical...
Despite highly aggressive therapy that includes maximal tumor resection, high-dose radiation, and temozolomide chemotherapy, the prognosis for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma is dismal, with a median survival of less than 15 months, prompting researchers to study novel approaches to...
Matching the size of a tumor to the body’s immune response could help physicians tailor immunotherapy treatments for patients with metastatic melanoma. Researchers found that patients who didn’t respond to treatment had an imbalance between the size of their tumor and how exhausted...
A study of data from large prospective U.S. cohorts has shown that current cigarette smoking, greater pack-years, and heavy smoking were associated with poorer survival among patients with pancreatic cancer. The study was reported by Yuan et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details...
Findings offered by a University of Kansas (KU) researcher at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in early April suggest a possible therapeutic intervention for “chemobrain,” the cognitive impairment that plagues up to a third of cancer patients following chemotherapy. ...
In a Spanish phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, García-Donas et al found that maintenance therapy with vinflunine improved progression-free survival vs best supportive care alone in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma with disease control on first-line chemotherapy....
In a study of Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-9 (SEER-9) data reported in JAMA, Lim et al found that both thyroid cancer incidence and mortality have increased over recent decades, reflecting increases in papillary thyroid cancer incidence and mortality. These findings suggest that the...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Martinelli et al found that blinatumomab (Blincyto) produced complete responses in patients with relapsed/refractory Philadelphia chromosome–positive (Ph+) B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) progressing after...
Using state-of-the-art gene-editing technology, scientists from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago have discovered a promising target to treat atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor, a highly aggressive and therapy-resistant brain tumor that mostly occurs in infants. They found...
A study published by Smith et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates that different therapies for early-stage breast cancer have very different relative values. Some therapies may have fewer complications and be much less expensive than others. Women may be making treatment...
The final results of the European phase III International Extranodal Lymphoma Study Group (IELSG)-19 trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Zucca et al, showed that event-free and progression-free survival were better with rituximab (Rituxan) plus chlorambucil vs either agent alone...
Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have begun to establish a biological basis for the long-held but not well-tested theory that neighborhood exposures can impact health outcomes. Shannon Lynch, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor in the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase, led a team...
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 Apolo et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This patient cohort is part of the...
A French phase III trial (IFM 2009), reported by Attal et al in The New England Journal of Medicine, has shown that consolidation treatment with lenalidomide (Revlimid), bortezomib (Velcade), and dexamethasone (RVD) was associated with poorer progression-free survival vs high-dose chemotherapy and...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted marketing authorization to the ipsogen JAK2 RGQ PCR Kit, manufactured by QIAGEN GmbH, to detect mutations affecting the Janus tyrosine kinase 2 (JAK2) gene. This is the first FDA-authorized test intended to help physicians in evaluating...
The length of the telomeres that protect the tips of chromosomes may predict cancer risk and be a potential target for future therapeutics, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) scientists reported at the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in...
Interim results from the phase Ib/II FB-10 clinical trial of neratinib given in combination with the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1, Kadcyla) were reported in a poster at the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, according...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Pusic et al, patient-reported outcomes in the Mastectomy Reconstruction Outcomes Consortium Study indicate that autologous tissue breast reconstruction is associated with greater breast satisfaction and greater sexual and psychosocial well-being...
An analysis of patients from 4 prospective radiotherapy trials for locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) conducted at 2 centers in Michigan showed that grade ≥ 3 cardiac events occurred in more than 10% of patients. The study was reported by Dess et al in the Journal of...
Scientific and clinical pioneers have one thing in common: they move beyond their comfort zone and take calculated risks. One such pioneer, whose calculated risks gave hope to otherwise hopelessly ill people, was Thomas E. Starzl, MD, PhD, who performed the world’s first successful liver...
On March 13, the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor ribociclib (Kisqali) was approved for use in combination with an aromatase inhibitor as initial endocrine-based therapy for the treatment of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast ...
The incidence of colorectal cancer continues to increase among young adults, with the sharpest increase among those aged 20 to 29, according to a recent article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.1 This trend has been called disturbing and ominous, but the widely reported results of...
For more than 3 decades, Nancy E. Davidson, MD, has dedicated her clinical and research career to better understanding the molecular mechanisms driving the development of breast cancer and to the discovery of more effective therapies to treat the disease. The recipient of an ASCO Young...
With its recently issued clinical practice guideline update, reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, ASCO has spoken: Interdisciplinary palliative care teams improve the outcomes of cancer care; patients live longer and feel better.1 There is no doubt. Multiple well-designed studies show the...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline update on integration of palliative care into standard oncology care.1 This update of a 2012 ASCO provisional clinical opinion2 is based on an Expert Panel’s systematic review of data reported between...
The success of cancer therapy has led us to an interesting place. Patients with cancer are certainly concerned about collateral damage that may occur with the treatment of their condition; however, impressive improvements in survival with treatment of many cancers are so compelling that these...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Saro H. Armenian, DO, MPH, of City of Hope, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on prevention and monitoring of cardiac dysfunction in survivors of adult cancers.1 Recommendations were developed by an expert panel...
The Applied Proteogenomics Organizational Learning and Outcomes (APOLLO) network, which represents a partnership among the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Department of Defense, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, has tapped the Paulovich Laboratory at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved niraparib (Zejula) for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer, whose tumors have achieved complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy....
Al Covens, MD, Professor and Chair of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Toronto, and Head of Gynecologic Oncology at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, commented on the phase II findings of axalimogene filolisbac: “As almost all cervical cancers are human papillomavirus (HPV)-related, this...
Overall survival in recurrent, metastatic cervical cancer was substantially extended with a Listeria-based immunotherapy approach that targets the human papillomavirus (HPV), investigators reported at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting.1 Of 50 evaluable patients, 19 were alive at...
Lauren Lawrence, MBA, RHIA, has been promoted to Vice President of Karmanos Cancer Network. She will report to Justin Klamerus, MD, MMM, President of Karmanos Cancer Hospital and Karmanos Cancer Network. Ms. Lawrence most recently served as Executive Director of Community-Based Programs at the...
Formal discussant of this abstract, Alessandro Volpe, MD, of the University of Eastern Piedmont Hospital, Maggiore Della Carita Hospital, Novara, Italy, commented that nephron-sparing surgery is recommended for clinical stage T1 tumors; however, when compared with ablation, the advantages of...
Selected “healthy” patients with clinical T1 renal cell carcinoma may be safely treated with percutaneous cryoablation, according to a single-center study of experience at the Mayo Clinic.1 “In healthier patients, our experience shows that cryoablation achieved good short-term oncologic control...
Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD, was elected by the members of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) as its President-Elect for 2017–2018. She officially became President-Elect at the AACR Annual Meeting 2017, held in Washington, April 1–5, and will assume the presidency in April 2018 at the ...
Deane L. Wolcott, MD, FAPOS, is the 2017 recipient of the Holland Distinguished Leadership Award, which was presented recently at the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. Dr. Wolcott is the founding Director of Oncology Supportive Care Services at...
Patients with breast cancer who perceive having enough and the right kinds of social support tend to be less stressed, although a paucity of research exists on the social support needs of young women with metastatic breast cancer, according to Amanda Ginter, PhD. Dr. Ginter, Assistant Professor in ...
Elderly patients with cancer are far less likely to be diagnosed with depression than patients in any other age group for two primary reasons: There is an overlap between cancer symptoms/treatment side effects and the diagnostic criteria for depression, and older adults are more likely to present...
At this year’s ASCO Quality Care Symposium, CancerLinQ’s Vice President and Medical Director, Robert S. Miller, MD, shed light on CancerLinQ’s current and future value in the oncology community.1 Dr. Miller opened by explaining to the audience that CancerLinQ™ is an instrument for quality...
Implementation science encompasses the study of methods to accelerate integration of evidence into practice and policy to improve health-care outcomes. At the 2017 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Sandra A. Mitchell, PhD, CRNP, of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the National...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to avelumab (Bavencio) on March 23, 2017, for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, including those who have not received prior chemotherapy. Avelumab is a...
A protein known as arginine methyltransferase 1 (PRMT1) may be a potential therapeutic target for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, according to results presented by Giuliani et al the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Washington, DC (Abstract 3016)....