On November 16, 2017, sunitinib malate (Sutent) was approved for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients at high risk of recurrent renal cell carcinoma following nephrectomy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the findings of the double-blind phase III S-TRAC trial in which 615...
SINCE 2003, every iteration of the American Cancer Society’s Nutrition Guidelines for Cancer Survivors has advocated for a plant-based diet with ample quantities of whole grains, as well as vegetables and fruits.1-3 This recommendation has been based primarily on data that such foods play in...
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, part of Montefiore, and Hackensack Meridian Health John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center have secured a 5-year, $6.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify biomarkers that may predict...
IN A STUDY reported in JAMA Oncology, Mingyang Song, MD, ScD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and colleagues found that higher fiber intake after diagnosis of nonmetastatic colorectal cancer is associated with improved colorectal cancer–specific and overall survival.1 ...
Despite advances in prevention, early detection, and treatments, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Although cigarette smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, about 10% of these patients are lifelong never smokers for whom the molecular...
On December 19, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular -approval to cabozantinib -(Cabometyx) for treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The FDA previously approved cabozantinib in 2016 for treatment of patients with advanced RCC who have...
In 2017, the District of Columbia (DC) became the seventh jurisdiction in the United States to legalize medical aid in dying,1 which gives terminally ill patients the option of how and when they die. The new DC statute is nearly identical to earlier enacted medical aid in dying statutes in...
BOSUTINIB ( BOSULIF) is the latest tyrosine kinase inhibitor that has shown a superior molecular response profile when compared with imatinib.1,2 An orally available dual SRC/ABL1 inhibitor, the drug was shown in preclinical studies to have a potent inhibitory activity against BCR-ABL1 and minimal ...
For nearly 20 years, chemoradiation using single-agent platinum therapy has been the standard of care for advanced or recurrent cervical cancer.1 More recently, the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) 240 trial tested the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to platinum-based chemotherapy, which...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Jean-Sebastien Frenel, MD, of the Institut de Cancerologie de l’Ouest, Centre Rene Gauducheau, Saint-Herblain, France, and colleagues, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) treatment was found to be active in patients with programmed cell death ligand 1...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1999 to 2015, more than 183,000 people have died in the United States from overdoses related to prescription opioids, including methadone, oxycodone, and hydrocodone.1 To stem the epidemic in prescription opioid–related use and ...
INCREASING THE DOSE density of chemotherapy lowers the risk of recurrence and breast cancer death by about 15% in women with early breast cancer, according to a large, meticulously conducted meta-analysis by the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG).1 The trials included in...
KIMBERLY BLACKWELL, MD, one of the nation’s leading breast cancer researchers, will join Lilly Oncology as Vice President of Early Phase Development and Immuno-oncology as of March 12, 2018. Dr. Blackwell is currently Professor of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Duke...
AWARD-WINNING physician-researcher Mohamad Cherry, MD, has joined Atlantic Hematology Oncology, part of Atlantic Health System’s Atlantic Medical Group at the Carol G. Simon Cancer Center. Dr. Cherry, who is board certified in internal medicine, hematology, and medical oncology, joins Atlantic...
COMMENTING ON THIS STUDY, Marisa Weiss, MD, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Breastcancer.org, said: “It is great to see a compliance rate of 80% at 2 years. When you talk to a patient about extending adjuvant therapy for 2 years instead of 5 extra years, it may be this will encourage...
An additional 5 years of aromatase inhibitor therapy after 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy failed to improve disease-free survival compared with an additional 2 years of aromatase inhibitor therapy in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer, according to the results ...
PREMENOPAUSAL WOMEN with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer benefited substantially from the addition of ribociclib (Kisqali) to first-line endocrine therapy plus medical ovarian suppression, according to results from the MONALEESA-7 study.1 At the 2017 San Antonio...
FRONT-LINE TREATMENT of advanced Hodgkin lymphoma with brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) plus doxorubicin/ vinblastine/dacarbazine (A+AVD) achieved superior outcomes compared with the standard four-drug regimen of doxorubicin/bleomycin/vinblastine/dacarbazine (ABVD). The substitution of brentuximab...
Immunotherapy in PD-L1–Positive Advanced Cervical Cancer Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) treatment was active in patients with programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–positive advanced cervical cancer enrolled in the phase Ib KEYNOTE-028 trial. The findings were reported by Jean-Sebastien Frenel, MD, of...
THE COMBINATION of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) achieved favorable responses in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to initial results of the phase II CLARITY trial presented at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual ...
COMMENTING ON the ALCYONE trial for The ASCO Post, Keith Stewart, MB, ChB, the Carlson and Nelson Endowed Director of the Center for Individualized Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, said, “Daratumumab added to a combination of drugs that we don’t use much anymore in the United...
FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED multiple myeloma patients not eligible for transplant, the addition of the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody daratumumab (Darzalex) to subcutaneous bortezomib (Velcade), melphalan, and prednisone (VMP) reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50%, the phase III ALCYONE...
IN THE PHASE III BFORE trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Jorge E. Cortes, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues, the SRC/ABL kinase inhibitor bosutinib (Bosulif) improved response rates vs imatinib in the first-line treatment of patients with...
POSITIVE DATA about chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in lymphoma continue to accrue. Long-term follow-up of the pivotal ZUMA-1 trial shows that patients with refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) continue to have durable responses to the CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy...
THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh Medical School was established in 1726 during the Scottish Enlightenment. As one of the oldest medical schools in the English-speaking world, it is interesting to reflect on the seminal contributions made centuries ago by several alumni that are still relevant to the...
On December 19, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) released a Draft Evidence Report assessing the comparative clinical effectiveness and value of tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta). The draft report, along with draft voting...
On December 20, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody nivolumab (Opdivo) for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma with involvement of lymph nodes, or in patients with...
On December 20, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to pertuzumab (Perjeta) for use in combination with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and chemotherapy as adjuvant treatment of patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer at high risk of recurrence. APHINITY...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Jeanne Carter, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline adaptation of the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) guideline on interventions to address sexual problems in people with cancer....
A phase II study (ACE-LY-004) reported in The Lancet by Wang et al showed durable responses with the Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor acalabrutinib (Calquence) in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma. The study supported the recent approval of acalabrutinib in this setting....
On December 19, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to cabozantinib (Cabometyx) for treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The FDA previously approved cabozantinib in 2016 for treatment of patients with advanced RCC who have received...
On December 19, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to bosutinib (Bosulif) for treatment of patients with newly diagnosed chronic-phase Philadelphia chromosome–positive chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). BFORE Trial Approval was based on data from ...
A study using California Cancer Registry data showed that survival improvements in patients with cancer between 1997 and 2014 have largely been limited to those with private or Medicare insurance. These findings were reported in JAMA Oncology by Libby et al. Study Details The study involved...
In the Asian phase III TERRA trial, trifluridine/tipiracil (Lonsurf) produced a significant improvement in overall survival vs placebo among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer refractory or intolerant of standard chemotherapies with or without exposure to biologic therapies. These findings...
On December 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for the use of osimertinib (Tagrisso)—a third-generation, irreversible epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor with clinical activity against central...
Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, has been elected to serve as the President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2019. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2018. Additionally, five...
The Federal Communications Commission’s Connect2Health Task Force (C2HFCC) has announced that the FCC and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have joined forces, signing a memorandum of understanding that will focus on how increasing broadband access and adoption in rural areas can improve...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Bickell et al found underuse of treatment for clinically significant prostate cancer was infrequent among white and black patients at two New York City hospitals, but black men accounted for nearly all such underuse of treatment. As noted by...
The phase III KEYNOTE-061 trial investigating pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a second-line treatment for patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma did not meet its primary endpoint of overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] = ...
The American Medical Association (AMA) is reminding physicians that the Medicare reimbursement system has changed, and, if they have not done so already, they have until December 31, 2017, to take a few simple steps to avoid a Medicare payment penalty in 2019. The changes are part of the...
On December 6, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) delivered a letter from the current AACR President and Past Presidents—as well as Fellows of the AACR Academy that include 18 Nobel Laureates—to urge leaders in the House and Senate to “move quickly to finalize a...
On December 5, Clovis Oncology announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for rucaparib (Rubraca) and granted Priority Review status to the application, with a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) date of April 6, 2018. In...
At the Special Conference on Pediatric Cancer Research, convened in Atlanta by the American Association for Cancer Research, investigators announced updated clinical data from the larotrectinib (LOXO-101) pediatric phase I SCOUT trial. Bayer and Loxo Oncology are jointly developing larotrectinib,...
A Norwegian population–based cohort study indicated that the use of warfarin was associated with a reduced risk of cancer overall and site-specific cancers among patients aged > 50 years. The findings were reported in JAMA Internal Medicine by Haaland et al. As noted by the investigators,...
Ulixertinib (BVD-523) is an ERK1/2 kinase inhibitor with potent preclinical activity in BRAF- and RAS-mutant cell lines. Now, a multicenter phase I study investigating its safety and efficacy in the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors has found that ulixertinib to have an acceptable...
On December 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for priority review of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) to treat intermediate- and poor-risk patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma. The FDA also previously...
At the 59th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, Wang et al presented results from the open-label, single-arm phase II ACE-LY-004 clinical trial, which served as the basis for the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accelerated approval of acalabrutinib...
At the 59th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, Hunger et al presented data from the phase II CA180-372 study in pediatric patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated with dasatinib (Sprycel) added ...
Updated results from the phase III ALCANZA clinical trial evaluating brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in CD30-expressing cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) were presented by Horwitz et al at the 59th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 1509). The presentation...
In a study in the PETACC-8 trial population reported in JAMA Oncology, Taieb et al found that the risk of recurrence in patients with stage III colon cancer differed for the primary tumor location according to RAS- and BRAF-mutation status. Study Details A total of 2,559 patients were...