A large-scale genetic analysis of women with ovarian cancer with no known family histories of breast or ovarian cancer has found that one-fifth of them had inherited alterations in genes known to be associated with these cancers. The findings could lead to the development of better screening...
Patients with cancers of the head and neck who received intensity-modulated radiation therapy experienced improved outcomes, as well as reduced toxicities, compared to patients receiving conventional radiation therapy, according to findings published online in Cancer by Beadle et al. The study is...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Brooks et al found that oncology clinicians considered 19% of hospitalizations for patients with gastrointestinal cancers to be avoidable. Study Details In the study, 201 sequential hospital admissions in 154 patients with gastrointestinal...
Afatinib (Gilotrif) improves progression-free survival compared with pemetrexed (Alimta)/cisplatin in first-line treatment of patients with EGFR mutation–positive advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In the phase III LUX-Lung 6 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Wu ...
Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy delays administration of optimal chemotherapy in stage II to III rectal cancer. In a pilot study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Schrag et al assessed outcomes with neoadjuvant FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin)/bevacizumab (Avastin) with...
Preclinical data suggest a role of angiotensin II in colorectal cancer. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Makar et al assessed whether use of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) treatment for hypertension was...
In a phase III trial (LUME-Lung 1) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Reck et al assessed the addition of nintedanib to docetaxel in second-line treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The combination significantly improved progression-free survival in all patients and improved overall ...
The reported prevalence of platinum-associated ototoxicity in children with high-risk neuroblastoma varies widely due to small patient samples and use of disparate grading scales. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Landier et al in the Children’s Oncology Group assessed...
According to the final results of the phase III CAIRO3 trial by the Dutch Colorectal Cancer Group, maintenance treatment with capecitabine plus bevacizumab (Avastin) significantly delayed progression compared to observation in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, and in a subset of patients, ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Marcucci et al assessed whether including epigenetic changes—ie, DNA methylation—as molecular risk factors could improve risk stratification in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). They found that a seven-gene score integrating DNA...
Irinotecan drug-eluting beads given simultaneously with FOLFOX (leucovorin, fluorouracil, oxaliplatin) and bevacizumab (Avastin) in patients with unresectable liver metastasis from colorectal cancer improved response rates, increased resectability and prolonged hepatic progression-free survival in...
In patients undergoing gastric resection for gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancers, high levels of angiogenic and growth factors are associated with poorer overall survival, according to the results of a retrospective study presented by Park et al in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Thus, these ...
A detailed study of tissue samples from more than 200 patients with multiple myeloma has found that an individual patient’s tumor can harbor populations of cancer cells equipped with different mutations. The result could have therapeutic ramifications for future patients, according to study...
Interim results from an ongoing phase II clinical trial in patients with various types of advanced neuroendocrine tumors show that a new chemotherapy combination of capecitabine and temozolomide either stalled disease progression or shrank tumors in 95% of patients whose disease worsened after...
Triple-negative breast cancer may be considered a relative contraindication to breast-conserving surgery. In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Gangi et al from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles assessed outcomes in a large cohort of women undergoing breast-conserving surgery at their...
Obinutuzumab (Gazyva) is a glycoengineered type 2 anti-CD20 antibody that appears to exhibit increased activity against chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells (CLL), with increased antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity and reduced complement-dependent cytotoxicity, compared with rituximab (Rituxan). ...
In a study reported as a research letter in JAMA, Sarna et al found that the prevalence of smoking among U.S. health-care professionals was 8.3% in 2010/2011, representing decreases of 23.4% since 2003 and 19.3% since 2006/2007. A previous study had shown no marked reduction in smoking rates among...
ALK and ROS1 gene rearrangements, which are known to drive subsets of lung cancer, appear to be present in some colorectal cancers as well, according to the results of a study published in Molecular Cancer Research. The findings by Aisner et al suggest that therapies used to target these two...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mahmud et al evaluated the effectiveness of the quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine against cervical dysplasia using population-based individual level data routinely collected in Manitoba. They found that a high proportion of...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Zhao et al assessed factors associated with pain severity changes in ambulatory patients with solid tumors in the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group E2Z02 (Symptom Outcomes and Practice Patterns) trial. They found that approximately...
In an individual patient data meta-analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Houssami et al found that preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was not associated with differences in local recurrence or distant recurrence compared with conventional imaging in women with breast...
Over the past several years, there have been recurring shortages of widely used generic chemotherapy agents in the United States. In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, Gogineni et al described a survey of U.S. oncologists regarding types and frequency of chemotherapy shortages and...
In a Children’s Oncology Group study (AGCT0132) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Billmire et al found that overall survival can be preserved in patients with stage I pediatric malignant ovarian germ cell tumor with a strategy of initial surveillance after surgical resection....
“Eliminating tobacco use is the most important thing we can do to prevent lung and other cancers, as well as the many other diseases its use causes. Today’s news confirms that we are making progress. However, the global health challenges from tobacco are still growing. “This new...
Tobacco control efforts are having a major impact on Americans’ health, a new analysis of lung cancer data suggests. The rate of new lung cancer cases decreased among men and women in the United States from 2005 to 2009, according to a report in this week’s Morbidity and Mortality...
Many patients with chronic-phase chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in complete molecular response have molecular relapse after discontinuation of imatinib (Gleevec) treatment. In a French multicenter observational study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rousselot et al assessed the...
In a phase III intergroup trial (Gynecologic Oncology Group Protocol 219) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, DiSilvestro et al in the Gynecologic Oncology Group and National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group evaluated the addition of the hypoxic cell sensitizer...
EGFR is overexpressed in the majority of advanced epithelial ovarian carcinomas, and there is evidence indicating that overexpression is associated with poorer prognosis. In a phase III European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC)-Gynaecological Cancer Group and Gynecologic...
In a research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Chinn et al surveyed physicians’ attitudes towards hospice treatment if they were terminally ill with cancer and assessed how physician preferences might affect timing of hospice discussions with their terminally ill patients. They...
The addition of Imprime PGG, a type of immunotherapy, to chemoimmunotherapy with carboplatin, paclitaxel, and cetuximab (Erbitux) resulted in improved response rates and overall survival rates in patients with late-stage, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the results of a phase ...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fenske et al compared outcomes with early or late autologous vs reduced-intensity conditioning allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in a population of patients with chemotherapy-sensitive mantle cell lymphoma. They found no...
Treatment with the drug decitabine prior to administration of chemotherapy and a cancer vaccine yielded clinical benefit for women with recurrent ovarian cancer, suggesting that this combinatorial chemoimmunotherapy may provide a new treatment option for patients with the disease, according to a...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Traeger et al evaluated risk of depression symptoms and psychosocial service use by race and sex among patients with newly diagnosed lung cancer. The investigators found that black men have the highest prevalence of depressive symptoms, white ...
Dasatinib (Sprycel) resulted in “faster and deeper responses” compared to imatinib (Gleevec) among patients with newly diagnosed chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), according to a 3-year follow-up of the randomized phase III DASISION (Dasatinib vs Imatinib Safety In...
In a noninferiority trial (SINS) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Bath-Hextall et al compared imiquimod 5% cream vs surgical excision for nodular and superficial basal cell carcinomas. Imiquimod cream was found to be inferior to surgical excision, but it may have a role in treatment of low-risk...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved revised prescribing information and a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for ponatinib (Iclusig) that allows immediate resumption of its marketing and commercial distribution. The prescribing information includes a revised...
While acknowledging that the full potential of cancer immunotherapy remains unclear, the editors of the journal Science said that the approach of using the immune system to attack tumors marks a turning point in the treatment of cancer. The successes of cancer immunotherapy in clinical trials in...
Approximately 40% of patients with Hodgkin or non-Hodgkin lymphoma have tumor cells that express the type II latency Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) antigens latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) and LMP2. T cells specific for these antigens are present in low levels and may be rendered nonreactive by the...
In a study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Patz et al of the NLST Overdiagnosis Manuscript Writing Team estimated the magnitude of overdiagnosis using low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). They estimated that more than 18% of...
Antitumor immune responses may be inhibited by immune checkpoints in the tumor microenvironment including effects of PD-1 (programmed cell death 1), a co-inhibitory receptor on tumor T cells that impairs T-cell function. In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Westin et al assessed the ...
In the phase III START trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Butts et al assessed whether maintenance treatment with the MUC1 antigen–specific immunotherapy tecemotide could prolong overall survival in patients with unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Gatta et al, the population-based EUROCARE-5 study has shown improved survival for all childhood cancers combined in Europe between 1999–2001 and 2005–2007 and persistence of regional survival disparities. Study Details The study involved analysis ...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by De Angelis et al, the population-based EUROCARE-5 study has shown improved cancer survival over time in all European regions, although regional disparities remain. Study Details In this retrospective observational study, data from 107 cancer registries...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sivendran et al assessed the degree to which publication of phase III trials in oncology conformed with CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) recommendations for reporting adverse events. They found that adverse event...
It has been posited that aspirin treatment may reduce risk for colorectal cancer through inhibition of WNT/cadherin-associated protein β1 (CTNNB1, or β-catenin) signaling. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Nan et al investigated the potential role of the ...
The addition of carboplatin to a neoadjuvant regimen significantly increased the rate of pathologic complete response in patients with triple-negative breast cancer. The results from the CALGB/Alliance 40603 study were reported at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (Abstract S5-01)....
Adjuvant use of bisphosphonates reduced the risk of bone recurrence by 34% and the risk of breast cancer death by 17% in postmenopausal women with early breast cancer in a large meta-analysis conducted by the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG). The potentially...
In postmenopausal women receiving hormone replacement therapy, low-dose tamoxifen did not significantly reduce the risk of breast cancer but did increase climacteric symptoms, according to the phase III study results presented by DeCensi et al in the Annals of Oncology. However, beneficial trends...
Five years of treatment with anastrozole reduced the risk of primary breast cancer by 53% in postmenopausal women at high risk for developing the disease, according to an analysis of the IBIS II trial. Anastrozole reduced the risk of estrogen receptor–positive invasive cancers by 58%. The...
Among older women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer, it is reasonable to omit whole-breast radiation therapy after breast-conserving surgery and neoadjuvant hormone therapy if the patient’s tumors have high levels of estrogen receptor expression, but radiation should remain...