In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Gralnek et al found that full-spectrum endoscopic colonoscopy had a lower adenoma miss rate compared with standard forward-viewing colonoscopy. Study Details In the study, performed at three sites in Israel, one in the Netherlands, and two in the United ...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Brinton et al assessed the role of anthropometric, medical history, and hormone-related factors in male breast cancer in the Male Breast Cancer Pooling Project. Factors found to be associated with risk included height,...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maurer et al found that patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) treated with immunochemotherapy who achieve event-free survival at 24 months have overall survival that does not differ significantly from that in the general...
In a recent study published in Science Translational Medicine, Davila et al found that 88% of patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who were treated with genetically modified versions of their own immune cells achieved overall complete response. Most...
Retreatment with cisplatin has reduced effectiveness in patients with recurrent cervical cancer who have received cisplatin with radiation therapy. In a 2×2 factorial phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Tewari et al compared cisplatin/paclitaxel vs nonplatinum...
A multicenter study led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that high-dose supplementation with both the trace element selenium and vitamin E may increase the risk of high-grade prostate cancer. This risk is dependent upon a man’s selenium status prior to taking the...
The findings of a large international prospective study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Finch et al suggest for the first time that women with BRCA1 mutations should have prophylactic oophorectomy by age 35, as waiting until a later age appears to increase the risk of ovarian...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jagsi et al found that use of breast reconstruction in patients with breast cancer undergoing mastectomy has increased over time but varies according to a number of treatment and demographic characteristics. Study Details The study involved ...
In a double-blind phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Gilbert et al assessed adding bevacizumab (Avastin), which is currently approved in recurrent glioblastoma, to radiotherapy and temozolomide in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. The addition of bevacizumab...
Survival among people with lung cancer has been better for women than men, and the findings of a recent study indicate that female hormones may be a factor in this difference. The combination of estrogen plus progesterone and the use of long-term hormone therapy were associated with the most...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ryu et al found that presence of minimal pleural effusion is associated with worsened survival in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with no effusion, particularly among patients with early-stage disease. Study...
The 10-year follow-up of the Multicenter Selective Lymphadenectomy Trial (MSLT), reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Morton et al in the MSLT Group, provides support for use of sentinel-node biopsy for thick melanomas, as well as for intermediate-thickness melanomas. Current...
Fibroblast growth factor (FGF) pathway activation may be a mechanism of escape from vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-targeted therapies. In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Motzer et al compared the VEGF and FGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor dovitinib vs sorafenib...
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified the most common genetic alteration ever reported in the brain tumor ependymoma and evidence that the alteration drives tumor development. The findings were published online in...
For head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, a reduction in the amount of radiation treatment volume to the submandibular (level IB) lymph nodes resulted in better patient-reported salivary function, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and...
New research suggests that it is safe to limit radiation therapy to lymph nodes on only one side of the neck for lateralized tonsil cancer. In addition, the study findings show that primary tumor location, rather than the amount of lymph node involvement on the tumor side of the neck, drives the...
Pathologic complete response has been proposed as a surrogate endpoint for long-term clinical benefit in breast cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established the international Collaborative Trials in Neoadjuvant Breast Cancer working group to perform a pooled analysis of...
New research is showing that sparing the contralateral submandibular gland during radiation therapy in the treatment of locally advanced head and neck cancer is technically feasible and safe even in advanced-stage, node-positive disease and base-of-tongue lesions. Limiting radiation to these major...
Pancreatic cystic lesions are frequently detected radiologic incidentalomas, a considerable proportion of which are pancreatic cancer precursors. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Jabbar et al found that proteomic mucin profiling of cyst fluid was more accurate...
Using next-generation sequencing and the clinical data of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, researchers found that combining mutant-allele tumor heterogeneity as a biomarker with patients’ human papillomavirus (HPV) status provides a reliable predictor of patient survival....
Patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx had a longer time to development of distant metastasis after initial treatment, and had more metastatic sites in more atypical locations compared to HPV-negative patients, according to research presented...
Asparaginase treatment, standard in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) regimens, is excluded or used for shorter durations in treatment of adults with ALL due to risk of toxicity. In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Douer et al evaluated a pegaspargase (Oncaspar) dosing...
A retrospective analysis of patients with oropharyngeal cancer with recurrence of disease after primary therapy in the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) studies 0129 and 0522 found that human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive patients had a higher overall survival rate than HPV-negative patients, ...
New study findings show that patients with head and neck cancer receiving daily humidification of the mouth and throat during radiation therapy had reduced symptoms of muscositis and spent nearly 50% fewer days in the hospital to manage their treatment side effects. The study by Macann et al was...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bulian et al found that CD49d-positive chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients have significantly poorer overall survival and treatment-free survival and that CD49d status is the strongest flow cytometry–based predictor of overall...
Researchers have identified a microRNA, miR-146a, that accelerates in the presence of BRAF and NRAS genetic mutations—which occur in 70% of melanoma cases—by activating the Notch signaling pathway. The finding could provide a new drug development target for patients with melanoma. The...
In a population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vaz-Luis et al assessed duration and toxicity of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) in older patients with early-stage breast cancer. They found that age and comorbidity affected treatment completion rates and that significant...
Mature results of a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Advani et al indicate that rituximab (Rituxan) is active in nodular lymphocyte–predominant Hodgkin lymphoma, which is characterized by expression of CD20 by malignant cells. Most patients relapsed, but durable...
In response to FDA's approval earlier this week of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who had received at least one prior therapy, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) issued the following statement: "After the FDA designated ibrutinib as a...
Lenalidomide (Revlimid) has been associated with risk for second primary malignancies in patients with myeloma. In a meta-analysis of individual patient data reported in The Lancet Oncology, Palumbo et al found that lenalidomide was associated with a significantly increased risk of second primary...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted full approval to omacetaxine mepesuccinate (Synribo) for injection. The full approval was based on the final analysis of two phase II trials that evaluated the efficacy and tolerability data of omacetaxine. The agent received an accelerated...
In the SAFIR01/UNICANCER study reported in The Lancet Oncology, André et al used comparative genomic hybridization and Sanger sequencing on metastatic breast cancer biopsy samples to determine the proportion of cases in which targeted therapy could be offered. They found that screening...
As reported in BMJ by Miller et al, the 25-year follow-up of the Canadian National Breast Screening Study has shown no mortality benefit of annual mammography screening for breast cancer compared with physical examination or usual care. Mammography screening was associated with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today expanded the approved use of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) for the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who have received at least one previous therapy. Ibrutinib, an oral Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was previously...
In the BRIM-3 trial, vemurafenib (Zelboraf) was associated with improved progression-free and overall survival vs dacarbazine in patients with advanced BRAF V600 mutation–positive melanoma. In an extended follow-up reported in The Lancet Oncology, McArthur et al found that superior survival...
In an open-label exploratory phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kim et al found that the antifungal agent itraconazole, which inhibits the Hedgehog signaling pathway, reduced tumor cell proliferation, Hedgehog pathway activity, and tumor area in patients with basal cell...
As mammography screening has shifted to digital technology, a range of computed radiography and direct radiography systems have emerged. Digital mammography screening with a new photon-counting technique offers high diagnostic performance, according to a study reported by Weigel et al in Radiology. ...
In patients with late-stage epithelial ovarian cancer, high levels of microRNA-181a may be predictive of chemotherapy resistance and disease progression, according to the results of a study reported by Parikh et al in Nature Communications. Thus, microRNA-181a may serve as a biomarker for prognosis ...
Using data from the whole-genome sequencing of a pair of 3-year-old female monozygotic twins, one healthy and one with the multilineage form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a team of scientists from China and the United States have identified a novel molecular target that could offer a new...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, van Ryn et al assessed patient-reported quality of care among patients with colorectal cancer in the Veterans Affairs health-care system. The investigators found significant gaps in patient-centered quality of supportive care, but also found...
In a brief communication in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Passerini et al described compassionate use experience with the ALK inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori) in a group of patients with chemoresistant advanced ALK-positive lymphoma. Response was observed in 10 of 11 patients, and...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Cunha et al found that receipt of a stem cell transplant from donors with a homozygous haplotype (h2/h2, G-A/G-A) in PTX3, the gene encoding the soluble pattern-recognition receptor pentraxin 3 (PTX3), is associated with significantly...
The pan-Canadian Prostate Cancer Risk Stratification database was created to report on the patient, tumor, and treatment factors that were predictive of biochemical and clinical outcomes in patients who underwent radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Risk stratification in the management of those with...
Studies of complications of surgery or radiotherapy for prostate cancer generally focus on incontinence and erectile dysfunction. In a population-based cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Nam et al assessed the frequency of other complications associated with such treatment and found high ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wang et al in the Children’s Oncology Group identified a common single nucleotide polymorphism, rs2232228, in the hyaluronan synthase 3 (HAS3) gene that is associated with anthracycline dose–related risk of cardiomyopathy in...
In a trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Milbury et al compared cancer symptoms, physical and mental function, depressive symptoms, fatigue, and sleep outcomes after sessions of expressive writing about cancer vs writing about neutral topics in patients with renal cell carcinoma....
Anomalies in the cytoplasmic expression of estrogen receptor beta 2 appear to be associated with poorer outcomes in patients with advanced serous ovarian cancer, according to the results of a study reported by Ciucci et al in Gynecologic Oncology. This isoform may represent an independent...
Isolated locoregional recurrence of breast cancer is associated with high risk of distant metastasis and death. In the CALOR trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Aebi et al found that adjuvant chemotherapy after complete resection improves disease-free survival in patients with isolated...
Among patients with advanced melanoma, presence of higher levels of the protein vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in blood was associated with poor response to treatment with the immunotherapy ipilimumab (Yervoy), according to a study by Yuan et al published in Cancer Immunology Research....
In patients with sporadic vestibular schwannoma, aspirin may be of benefit in minimizing tumor growth, according to the results of a retrospective study presented by Kandathil et al in Otology and Neurotology. This finding may eliminate the need for invasive therapy and may complement existing...