For the first time since the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine became available for adolescent girls in 2006, the vaccination rate for the teenagers has stalled, according to data published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly...
There is ongoing debate about the efficacy of erlotinib (Tarceva) in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have wild-type EGFR. In the TAILOR trial, reported in Lancet Oncology by Marina Chiara Garassino, MD and colleagues, erlotinib was compared with standard ...
A family history of cancer increases the risk of other members of the family developing not only the same, or concordant, cancer but also a different, or discordant, cancer, according to a large study of 23,000 people in Italy and Switzerland. The study, published in Annals of Oncology, provides a...
Scientists have identified a protein that could play a crucial role in recognizing whether patients with colorectal cancer are candidates for chemotherapy due to a high risk of their cancer spreading, according to a new study published in the British Journal of Cancer. Scientists at the University...
An analysis of data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) of the height measurement at enrollment of 144,701 postmenopausal women and the risk of all cancers combined has found that 20,928 of the women had a diagnosis of one or more invasive cancers during a median follow-up of 12 years....
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have used digital versions of a standard molecular biology tool to detect a common tumor-associated mutation in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with brain tumors. In a report published in Molecular Therapy – Nucleic Acids, the...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sebastien Gouy, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy, and colleagues evaluated survival outcomes in locally advanced cervical cancer patients with negative PET-CT imaging results who underwent laparoscopic para-aortic staging surgery before...
A number of different strategies for combining chemotherapy and radiation therapy have been evaluated in the effort to improve survival in patients with high-risk medulloblastoma. In a trial (POG 9031) reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nancy J. Tarbell, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital ...
In an analysis of 5-year survival rates among black and white women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1991 and 2005, black women continued to have a lower rate of survival, with most of the difference related to factors including poorer health of black patients at diagnosis and more advanced...
Boys are more likely to receive the quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine if their mothers receive flu shots or Pap screenings, according to a study from Kaiser Permanente published in the American Journal of Public Health. Study Details The study examined the electronic health records of...
The differential diagnosis of the most common peripheral T-cell lymphoma subtypes is difficult. In a phase III diagnostic accuracy study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pier Paolo Piccaluga, MD, PhD, of the University of Bologna, and colleagues in the European T-cell Lymphoma Study Group...
In a trial (ALSYMPCA) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Chris Parker, MD, from Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey, United Kingdom, and colleagues compared the alpha emitter radium-223 dichloride (Xofigo) with best standard of care in men with castration-resistant prostate cancer and...
Decreased pregnancy rates and early menopause have been reported in female cancer survivors, although there is less information on infertility rates and reproductive interventions in these patients. In a study reported in Lancet Oncology, Sara E. Barton, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital...
In an open-label phase III trial (ASPECT) reported in Lancet Oncology, Manfred Westphal, MD, of University Hospital Eppendorf in Hamburg, and colleagues assessed the effects of locally applied adenovirus-mediated gene therapy with sitimagene ceradenovec followed by intravenous ganciclovir after...
Women who survive cancer have more frequent, severe, and troubling hot flashes than other women with menopausal symptoms, according to a study published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). But surprisingly, the cancer survivors fare better...
Few markers of ovarian cancer prognosis have been established, perhaps because potential subtype associations are missed in studies including patients with all histopathologic subtypes. In a study reported in Lancet Oncology, Weiva Sieh, PhD, of Stanford University and colleagues assessed the...
In a collaborative phase III trial of the North Central Cancer Treatment Group and Mayo Clinic reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute by Debra L. Barton, RN, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic, and colleagues, patients with cancer-related fatigue were treated with Wisconsin ginseng (a common...
The RAPID trial compared accelerated partial-breast irradiation using three-dimensional (3D) conformal external-beam radiation therapy vs whole-breast irradiation in women with invasive or in situ breast cancer ≤ 3 cm. As reported by Ivo A. Olivotto, MD, FRCPC, of the British Columbia Cancer...
Low-dose aspirin (100 mg) taken every other day may reduce a woman’s risk of developing colon cancer, according to an observational study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The findings are based on a large long-term study of 38,876 healthy women enrolled in the Women’s...
The results from a large cohort study of 3.5 million veterans in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System show that most types of cancer were associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease of between 9% and 51%. The cancers associated with the greatest reduction in ...
Cancer patients who receive chest radiation should be screened for heart disease every 5 to 10 years, according to the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) of the European Society of Cardiology and the American Society of Echocardiography. Their recommendations are outlined in the ...
Maintenance therapy is associated with improved survival in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but few studies have compared active agents in this setting. In a phase III trial (AVAPERL trial) reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology by Fabrice Barlesi, MD, PhD, of Aix Marseille...
In a study that included more than 10,000 men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer, use of androgen deprivation therapy was associated with a significantly increased risk of acute kidney injury, with variations observed with certain types of androgen deprivation therapies, according to a study in the ...
Obinutuzumab is a type II, glycoengineered, humanized anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody. In the phase II GAUGUIN studies reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology by Franck Andre Morschhauser, MD, PhD of Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire de Lille and Gilles A. Salles, MD, PhD, of Hospices ...
According to a new study, colorectal cancer survivors face an increased risk of developing subsequent primary cancers, particularly second colorectal cancers and small intestinal cancers. These findings, published online in Cancer, may help in the development of screening guidelines for patients...
The NCI-60 cell lines, which represent cancers of lung, colon, brain, ovary, breast, prostate, and kidney as well as leukemia and melanoma, are the most frequently studied human tumor cell lines in cancer research and have generated the most extensive cancer pharmacology database worldwide. As...
An analysis assessing whether depression and anxiety are more common in long-term survivors of cancer compared with their spouses and with healthy control subjects has found that anxiety, rather than depression, is most likely to be a lingering problem for both cancer survivors and their spouses....
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found that nerves play a critical role in both the development and spread of prostate tumors. Their findings, using both a mouse model and human prostate tissue, may lead to new ways to predict the aggressiveness of...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved the tyrosine kinase inhibitor afatinib (Gilotrif) for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors express epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletions or exon 21...
Improvements in radiation therapy and the development of chemotherapy regimens, such as MOPP (mechlorethamine [Mustargen], vincristine, procarbazine [Matulane], and prednisone), and ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine), in the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma have made the...
A retrospective analysis of 380 patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) registered in the Gruppo Romano Mielodisplasie Italian Regional database, which included data from 13 hematology centers in the Rome area, has found that the Revised International Prognostic Scoring System (IPSS-R) is...
A second large, prospective study by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has confirmed the link between high blood concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids and an increased risk of prostate cancer. Study Details Published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the...
Oncologists now have a new prognostic tool to help determine the risk of recurrence in patients with carcinoma of the major salivary glands and may help guide their post-treatment surveillance, according to study results published in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery. Researchers...
Previous studies have shown that anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody treatment can improve clinical outcomes in patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. In the open-label phase III SPECTRUM trial, Jan B. Vermorken, MD, of Antwerp University Hospital and...
Scientists have successfully targeted a malfunctioning immune system enzyme to kill diseased cells from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a precursor to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Reporting their results in Cancer Cell, researchers say their successful laboratory tests in human MDS...
A cohort study of 2,238 men who were evaluated for infertility at a clinic in Texas from 1989 to 2009 found that those men who had azoospermia, a condition in which no measurable sperm is present, had a 2.2-fold higher cancer risk compared with those who were nonazoospermic. The study was published ...
Among men who had undergone radical prostatectomy, daily consumption of a beverage powder supplement containing soy protein isolate for 2 years did not reduce or delay development of biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer compared to men who received placebo, according to a study in the July 10...
New evidence suggests that using advanced genetics technologies to monitor for remaining cancer cells after treatment may soon become an effective tool to inform treatment decisions and ultimately predict patient outcomes for patients with a particularly aggressive form of acute lymphocytic...
Afatinib is an oral selective ErbB family inhibitor that irreversibly blocks signaling from EGFR/ErbB1, HER2/ErbB2, and ErbB4 and has exhibited broad-spectrum activity against EGFR mutations in preclinical studies. A phase II study of afatinib in EGFR-mutation positive lung adenocarcinoma showed...
In a phase II study reported in Lancet Oncology, Timur Mitin, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues assessed the effects of adding paclitaxel or fluorouracil (5-FU) to radiation therapy plus cisplatin followed by adjuvant chemotherapy in a program of selected bladder preservation in ...
There is evidence that diets high in red and processed meat are associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer. In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Marjorie L. McCullough, ScD, and colleagues from the Epidemiology Research Program of the American Cancer Society examined the...
For patients with advanced gastric cancer, treatment with chemotherapy after surgery can reduce the risk of cancer-related death by 34% over 5 years compared to surgery alone, researchers reported at the 15th ESMO World Congress in Gastrointestinal Cancer (Abstract 007), held July 3 to 6 in...
A new analysis has found that among patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), African Americans more commonly present with advanced disease and tend to have shorter survival times than Caucasians despite receiving the same care. The results, published early online in Cancer, suggest that...
Most cancers occur more frequently in men than in women and greater height has been associated with increased risk for some cancers. In a study reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Roland B. Walter, MD, PhD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and colleagues found that...
Smokers and single men are more likely to acquire oncogenic oral human papillomavirus (HPV), according to new results from the HPV Infection in Men (HIM) Study. Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center, the National Cancer Institute, Mexico, and Brazil also reported that newly acquired oral HPV...
A jointly signed letter by ASCO and more than 50 other cancer and health-care organizations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius and Acting Secretary of the Department of Labor (DOL) Seth D. Harris asks that they provide clear federal regulations and guidance on...
A novel pairing of two investigational cancer drugs in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer showed promising activity and had manageable toxicities, according to a phase I trial published online in the European Journal of Cancer. The combination of the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP)...
Although patients with early-stage type I endometrial cancer have very good prognosis, a substantial proportion experience recurrence and die from the disease. In a study published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Alain G. Zeimet, MD, PhD, of Innsbruck Medical University, Austria, and...
According to a recently published analysis in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) is safe and effective for patients with stage I non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in a multicenter environment. In addition, radiotherapy dosage was identified as a major...
In a phase III trial (FASTACT-2) conducted in 28 centers in seven Asian countries, Yi-Long Wu, MD, of the Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences and colleagues found that the intercalated combination of erlotinib (Tarceva) and chemotherapy improved progression-free survival vs chemotherapy alone as...