Available data suggest that risk of febrile neutropenia is greatest during the first two cycles of chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maureen J. Aarts of Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and colleagues...
Use of a minimally invasive endoscopic procedure to remove superficial, early-stage esophageal cancer is as effective as surgery that takes out and rebuilds the esophagus, according to a study by researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida. The research, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and...
On October 31, 2013, Ariad Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of ponatinib, agreed to an FDA request to suspend marketing and sales of the drug due to the risk of life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels. The FDA states that it will continue to evaluate ponatinib to further ...
Several novel agents targeting the HER2, C-MET, and VEGF receptors have achieved encouraging results in gastric cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Charles Fuchs, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, reviewed these new approaches in a presentation at the...
Most patients with estrogen receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer who initially respond to endocrine treatments will eventually develop resistance to the therapies. A study by Ido Wolf, MD, Head of the Oncology Department at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel, and colleagues...
Hopes are high that TAS-102, a novel oral nucleoside agent, will turn out to be an advance in the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer, said Howard Hochster, MD, of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, speaking at the Chemotherapy Foundation...
Preliminary results of an ongoing clinical trial suggest that the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf)—indicated for the treatment of metastatic melanoma with BRAF V600E mutation—may have an important role in the treatment of hairy cell leukemia. The cornerstone of therapy for this...
Advanced imaging techniques may be able to distinguish which patients' tumors will respond to treatment with antiangiogenic drugs and which will not. In a report published online in PNAS, researchers studied patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma who were treated with the antiangiogenic agent...
The strategy of autologous stem cell transplantation as consolidation in high-intermediate– or high-risk diffuse aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) has not been specifically examined in the rituximab (Rituxan) era. In a phase III trial (Southwest Oncology Group 9704) reported in The New...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine, Zehra B. Omer, BA, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues assessed how the description of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) affected selection of treatment options. They found significant differences in treatment...
Because statins exhibit immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects that may ameliorate graft-vs-host disease, they may be a safe strategy following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mehdi Hamadani, MD, and colleagues ...
Propofol is increasingly being used for sedation in screening colonoscopies in low-risk patients. In the United States, propofol can be administered only by an anesthesiologist, which can raise the cost of the procedure by $600 to $2,000. In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Internal...
The investigational anti–PD-1 immunotherapy MK-3475 showed promising objective response rates in patients with previously treated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The interim data were presented by Edward Garon, MD, Director of Thoracic Oncology at Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center ...
Results from the Costa Rica HPV16/18 Vaccine Trial (CVT) has found that 4-year efficacy against 12-month HPV16/18 persistent infection was similarly high among women who received one, two, or the recommended three doses of the bivalent HPV16/18 L1 virus-like particle vaccine (Cervarix). The...
Teenagers and young adults are at increased risk of suicide after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a study published today in Annals of Oncology. A study of nearly 8 million Swedes aged 15 and over found that among the 12,669 young people diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 15 and...
Standardized criteria for initiating palliative care consultations can substantially improve the care of patients with advanced solid tumors, according to research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, led by Kerin Adelson, MD, Coordinator for Ambulatory Oncology Quality for the Tisch...
In a Canadian study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Kerry S. Courneya, PhD, of the University of Alberta, and colleagues assessed the impact of different levels of physical exercise on physical functioning in women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer....
In a phase I trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, and colleagues assessed the effects of nivolumab—a human immunoglobulin G4-blocking antibody against the T-cell programmed death 1 checkpoint ...
Patients with non–small cell lung cancer who have the ALK gene rearrangement usually respond to the drug crizotinib (Xalkori), with a median duration of response of approximately 10 months. In a study reported by Shirish Gadgeel, MD, of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, and colleagues at...
Both pemetrexed (Alimta) and gefitinib (Iressa) are standard second-line treatments for advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in East Asia. In a phase II trial (CTONG 0806) reported at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s 15th World Conference...
In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Thomas E. Hutson, DO, PharmD, of Baylor Sammons Cancer Center and colleagues compared the second-generation VEGFR inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) with sorafenib (Nexavar) as first-line treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. There was no...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Julia Wade, PhD, of Bristol University, United Kingdom, and colleagues assessed the psychological impact of prostate biopsy. They found that postbiopsy symptoms can be associated with increased anxiety, independent of anxiety associated...
The longer a woman with breast cancer has to travel to reach a comprehensive cancer center, the more likely she is to have later-stage disease at diagnosis, and the more likely she is to have a mastectomy, according to study by medical student Krishan Jethwa and colleagues from the University of...
Men who spend the most time engaged in sedentary behaviors are at greatest risk for recurrence of colorectal adenomas, benign tumors that are known precursors of colorectal cancers, according to results presented at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention...
Vaccines currently available to prevent the two most common strains of human papillomavirus (HPV), HPV 16 and 18, responsible for about 70% of cervical cancers, may not be protective in African American women, according to a study by Cathrine Hoyo, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor in the Obstetrics...
Men with short-ended chromosomes in the immune cells in their blood were at increased risk for aggressive prostate cancer compared with men with long-ended chromosomes in blood immune cells, according to results presented at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer...
Measuring the presence and amount of the protein Vav2 may help identify breast precancers that will progress to invasive cancers, according to results presented at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held October 27 to 30 in National Harbor,...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Taxiarchis V. Kourelis, MD, and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic attempted to define a threshold of bone marrow plasma cell number that could serve to define light chain amyloidosis as light chain amyloidosis with multiple myeloma. They found that ...
In a phase I study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Donald M. Cannon, MD, of University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and Mountain States Tumor Institute, and colleagues attempted to identify the maximum tolerated dose of dose-escalated hypofractionated radiation...
According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next 10 years, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will result in approximately 25 million newly insured individuals and 12 million more Medicaid beneficiaries through the the Medicaid expansion provision. While the law provides...
Since 1994, many thousands of women with breast cancer from families severely affected with the disease have been tested for inherited mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2, and the vast majority of those patients were told that their gene sequences were normal. With the development of modern genomics...
Patient assistance programs can help patients with breast cancer meet a variety of needs that might otherwise interfere with getting recommended adjuvant therapies such as radiation, chemotherapy, and hormonal treatments, according to a study published recently in the online edition of...
New research ties preparative procedures and complications associated with blood or bone marrow transplant with diminished sexual health in both men and women who have undergone the procedure. Study data, published today in Blood, confirm chronic graft-vs-host disease as a potential source of...
Treating aggressive lung cancer with the diabetes drug metformin along with radiation and chemotherapy may slow tumor growth and recurrence, suggested new preliminary findings from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings will be presented by...
Previously reported results of the phase III EORTC intergroup 40983 trial showed that perioperative chemotherapy with FOLFOX4 (leucovorin, fluorouracil [5-FU], and oxaliplatin) increased progression-free survival compared with surgery alone in patients with initially resectable liver metastases...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, of Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, and colleagues assessed the addition of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) to gemcitabine in patients with previously untreated...
A functional biomarker that can predict whether BRAF-mutant melanomas respond to drugs targeting BRAF could help guide the treatment of patients with these cancers, according to results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held...
Axitinib plasma exposure may correlate with efficacy in metastatic renal cell carcinoma, according to population pharmacokinetic data. In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brian I. Rini, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues evaluated the effects of axitinib dose titration in...
In patients with heavily pretreated advanced BRCA-related breast and ovarian cancers, the investigational poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor BMN673 produced an objective response rate of more than 40% and delayed disease progression by more than 6 months, according to a multicenter phase ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, I-Chan Huang, PhD, of University of Florida at Gainesville, and colleagues investigated the association between prevalence of symptoms and health-related quality of life in adult survivors of childhood cancer enrolled in the St. Jude...
In a phase III trial (EORTC [European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer]/GIMEMA [Gruppo Italiano Malattie Ematologiche dell’Adulto] consortium AML-17 trial) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sergio Amadori, MD, of Tor Vergata University Hospital in Rome, and...
In the RIGHT trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology, Yoon-Koo Kang, MD, of University of Ulsan College of Medicine in Seoul, and colleagues assessed the effects of imatinib (Gleevec) rechallenge in patients with metastatic or unresectable gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) after objective...
Patients with pancreatic cancer may benefit from an investigational member of an emerging class of anticancer drugs called antibody-drug conjugates, according to preclinical results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held October...
Two drug combinations that simultaneously block two major signaling pathways downstream of the protein KRAS, which is aberrantly active in most pancreatic cancers, may provide a new treatment option for patients with this disease, according to preclinical results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC...
The nanopharmaceutical CRLX101, a novel inhibitor of topoisomerase-1 and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 alpha, may be capable of overcoming resistance of tumors to antiangiogenic agents, according to preclinical and early clinical studies that have evaluated CRLX101 in combination with...
The investigational drug PF-06463922 may have the potential to become a new treatment option for patients who have lung cancer harboring abnormalities in the ALK gene, according to preclinical results (Abstracts A277, PR10/B107, and C253) presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on...
LEE011, an investigational small-molecule inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6, showed promising results in drug-resistant melanoma and drug-resistant breast cancer when tested in combination with other targeted therapies, according to findings presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC...
Approximately 50% of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who develop resistance to inhibitors of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have acquired a second mutation, T790M, which no current EGFR inhibitors target. This may change if the AstraZeneca investigational compound...
Risk and risk factors for congestive heart failure in older breast cancer patients receiving trastuzumab have not been clearly defined. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mariana Chavez-MacGregor, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues...
In a randomized phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by R. Wendel Naumann, MD, of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and colleagues, the addition of vintafolide to pegylated liposomal doxorubicin improved progression-free survival in women with...