Prostate cancer will be diagnosed in 233,000 American men in 2014. It is one of the leading causes of death by a cancer (killing ~29,500 men annually).1 Hundreds of thousands of men undergo prostate biopsies each year, most for either benign disease or for a cancer that will never lead to their...
Researchers at the University of California Davis have determined that surgical biopsies can be safely performed on select patients with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer, which should enhance their access to drugs that target specific genetic mutations such as epidermal growth factor receptor...
Patrick G. Johnston, MD, PhD, FMedSci, Professor of Oncology and President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, grew up in Derry, a city in Northern Ireland. Derry is distinct in being Ireland’s only remaining fully intact walled city, considered one of the finest examples of a walled ...
The Ohio Hematology Oncology Society (OHOS) was formed 2 decades ago to advocate for and provide educational seminars and networking opportunities to hematologists and medical oncologists throughout the states of Ohio and West Virginia. Today, the society is focused on the needs of its nearly 200...
Intertriginous areas refer to skin folds (such as axillae, inguinal creases, and inframammary creases), which are characterized by increased friction, temperature, and occlusion. Intertriginous drug reactions are an underrecognized side effect associated with pegylated liposomal doxorubicin...
The International Federation of Head and Neck Oncologic Societies (IFHNOS), as part of the opening ceremonies of its 5th World Congress, and in collaboration with the annual meeting of the American Head and Neck Society (AHNS), will proclaim July 27th as “World Head and Neck Cancer Day.” The...
Oncologists now have a means of bringing personalized medicine to advanced squamous cell carcinoma, and it involves a biomarker-driven clinical trial that maximizes the chance of successful treatment and new drug approvals. Lung-MAP (Lung Cancer Master Protocol) is a unique concept in which the...
Despite promising new agents and therapeutic approaches, 5-year lung cancer survival rates have lagged far behind those of most other malignancies. To shed light on some of the important issues facing lung cancer experts, The ASCO Post recently spoke with internationally recognized lung cancer...
The information in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies of children with cancer. The studies include pilot and phase I and II studies evaluating new therapies, functional imaging tests, tests to measure the neuropsychological and behavioral function in...
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected people diagnosed with cancer are two to four times more likely to go untreated for their cancer compared to uninfected cancer patients, according to a large retrospective study from researchers in Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center and the National...
Despite evidence from a number of prospective, randomized controlled trials showing that screening mammography reduces breast cancer mortality, screening mammography has been the subject of continual debate, controversy, and conflicting guidelines. Recently, the Swiss Medical Board, tasked with...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation has an excellent track record of finding and funding the most promising young investigators. Past recipients Joyce F. Liu, MD, MPH, and Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, received funding from the Conquer Cancer Foundation early in their career and at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting...
It has been almost 10 years since the Institute of Medicine released its influential report, “From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition,” in which it stressed that all patients completing cancer treatment should receive a survivorship care plan. Since then, the need to help...
In a series of articles on the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s CancerProgress.Net website, past ASCO presidents are sharing their recollections of the major issues during their terms. Emil J Freireich, MD, FASCO, (1980–1981), remembered that during his presidency, ASCO began the process of...
“Illumination” is a provocative word, evoking as it does the banishment of the darkness of ignorance by the light of new knowledge. Today, we are benefiting from a steady stream of new knowledge about the molecular basis of cancer and the interaction between host and tumor immunology. The concept...
The addition of the novel agent MM-398 to standard treatment improved overall survival in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who have already received gemcitabine, according to a phase III trial reported at the ESMO 16th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona.1 “Patients...
Commenting on the RECOURSE data,1 ESMO spokesperson Jean-Yves Douillard, MD, PhD, Professor of Medical Oncology, Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest (ICO) René Gauducheau, Saint-Herblain, France, said, “The phase III trial of TAS-102 is a global study and confirms the results of the phase II study...
The new combination agent TAS-102 can improve overall survival compared to placebo in patients whose metastatic colorectal cancer is refractory to standard therapies, researchers reported at the ESMO 16th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona.1 “Around 50% of patients with...
More than 400 abstracts—a record—were submitted for the 27th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology in Chicago. Here is a small sampling of those studies, with comments from the abstract authors. Token Economy to Improve Compliance BMT Bucks form the basis of a...
All four studies presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting Plenary Session were at least partially funded by federal dollars, bringing long overdue attention to the value of federally supported cancer research. Perhaps because of this high visibility, ASCO leaders took to the soapbox to sound the...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to belinostat (Beleodaq), a histone deacetylase inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma, a rare and fast-growing type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). “This is the...
Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, PhD, RD, Professor and Webb Endowed Chair of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, formal discussant for the SHAPE-2 and LEAN trials at the ASCO Annual Meeting, emphasized the importance of weight loss, but noted that it can be challenging for...
Obesity and physical inactivity are associated with an increased risk of developing and dying of breast cancer via several proposed mechanisms. Two studies presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting explored the relationships among exercise, weight loss, and breast cancer risk. One study was...
The majority of women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations experience sexual dysfunction, menopausal symptoms, cognitive and stress issues, and poor sleep following risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy, according to results of a study from the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at...
The investigational tyrosine kinase inhibitor lenvatinib reduced disease progression by 79%, as compared to placebo, in patients with metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer that is refractory to radioactive iodine in the phase III SELECT trial. These findings were presented at the 2014 ASCO...
Carmen J. Allegra, MD, Professor of Medicine and Chief of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Florida, Gainesville, who discussed the findings at the ASCO Annual Meeting, said the study upholds what has become the practice of many oncologists—to use adjuvant FOLFOX...
Patients with curatively resected rectal cancer are more likely to be disease-free at 3 years after treatment with an oxaliplatin-containing regimen than with fluorouracil (5-FU)/leucovorin, Korean investigators of the phase II multicenter ADORE trial reported at the ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Study...
The emerging approach to treating metastatic melanoma is a full-throttle effort to stimulate an immune response. One of the components of this strategy could be intralesional injections, according to studies presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting. T-VEC Oncolytic Immunotherapy Talimogene...
At the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, one phase III trial confirmed the promise of a novel agent in advanced multiple myeloma, while another cooperative group trial returned some rather surprising results in newly diagnosed myeloma patients. Panobinostat Doubles Response, Prolongs Remission The phase...
Judging from its visibility at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, the concept of “value” in cancer care has reached critical mass. “ASCO is leading this difficult discussion on value in cancer care. This had to happen,” said Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, Immediate Past President of ASCO and Chief of the ...
The ASCO Post recently spoke with ASCO Immediate Past President Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, about his term as ASCO President. Dr. Hudis discussed his thoughts on ASCO today and shared his perspective on a number of important issues in oncology, including value in cancer care, big data, and more....
Long-term results from the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 9802 study in high-risk grade 2 gliomas were presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting. The study’s mature analysis showed a 41% reduction in mortality at 5 years with combination radiation therapy followed by six cycles of PCV...
Survivors of childhood cancers were hospitalized more often and for longer durations because of blood disorders and other problems, many years after cancer treatment was completed, compared with the general population, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers &...
The requirements for sound evidence of a drug’s therapeutic benefit have translated laboratory experience to human testing. In the laboratory, experimental animals give their lives to lethal testing of drugs and scientific analysis. LD50, the terminology denoting an anticipated 50% death rate of...
Higher-dose carflizomib (Kyprolis) “provided a high overall response rate with a remarkable duration of response in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma” in a phase II study, Nikoletta Lendvai, MD, PhD, and colleagues from Memorial Sloan Kettering Center, New York, wrote in Blood....
“Despite the strong scientific rationale and preclinical data, everolimus [Afinitor] plus best supportive care failed to improve survival over placebo plus best supportive care” among patients with advanced hepatocellular cancer that progressed during or after receiving sorafenib (Nexavar), or who...
A retrospective study finding a 49% false-positive of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) testing among patients with a history of resected colorectal cancer, “suggests that confirmation of an ongoing increase in CEA level should be universal practice before an extensive workup is initiated,” Anya...
Patients with poor performance status have an increased incidence of adverse effects from therapy and worse overall outcomes than those with good performance status, but “a selected proportion may still benefit from standard therapy,” according to a review article published in the Journal of the...
Theorizing that an exaggerated perceived benefit from contralateral prophylactic mastectomy may have led to the substantial increase in its use in recent years, researchers from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis used a Markov simulated decision-analytic model to evaluate the magnitude of...
The information in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with bladder cancer. The list includes randomized and nonrandomized phase 0 to III studies as well as observational clinical trials evaluating new therapies, surgical techniques, and...
The Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute (ALCMI) recently launched a new study, the Genomics of Young Lung Cancer, to understand why lung cancer occurs in young adults, who quite often are athletic, never smokers and do not exhibit any of the known lung cancer genetic mutations. ALCMI, a...
An updated study reporting a 20% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer and a 19% increased risk of lethal prostate cancer among men who have had vasectomies generated coverage by the medical and major media, including CBS News and The New York Times, and can be expected to prompt questions...
Long-term results from the Health Professionals Follow-up Health Study have shown a 20% increased risk of advanced prostate cancer and a 19% increased risk of lethal prostate cancer among men who had vasectomies.1 According to the study’s lead author, Mohummad Minhaj Siddiqui, MD, it is...
Cancer patients need more than good health care: they need health caring, according to palliative care specialist Harvey M. Chochinov, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba and Director of the Manitoba Palliative Care Research Unit, CancerCare Manitoba. Health ...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Cao and colleagues identified mutations in insulin-like growth factor (IGF) pathway genes that were significantly associated with mortality in prostate cancer. Analysis of 530 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 26 IGF...
Michael S. Katz, MBA, has lived longer than any of his doctors thought he would. A two-time cancer survivor, Mr. Katz was diagnosed, first with multiple myeloma in 1990 and then with colorectal cancer in 2008, and has spent the past 2 decades tirelessly advocating for patients with cancer. The...
The first sign I had that something might be wrong was an uncontrollable itch all over my body. Although I had never had anything like that before, the problem was easy to initially dismiss. I’m a respiratory therapist and visit patients in their homes daily, so I chalked up the itchiness to an...
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has announced that V. Craig Jordan, PhD, will join the institution in October 2014 as a Professor in Breast Medical Oncology and Molecular and Cellular Oncology. Dr. Jordan will focus on the new biology of estrogen-induced cell death with the goal...
The term “telemedicine,” which is sometimes used interchangeably with “telehealth” and “m-health” (for mobile health) and is now collectively called “connected health,” involves the use of information and communications technology to connect patients with their providers through a variety of...
Academy Award winning actor and producer Michael Douglas was the guest of honor at the opening day of the International Federation of Head and Neck Oncologic Societies (IFHNOS) 5th World Congress on July 27 in New York (see page 22 for more on the World Congress). He came not to plug the release of ...