As health-care providers, we have an obligation and a responsibility not only to care for our patients, but also to educate them—and the general public—about their cancer risk and ways to reduce or prevent it. We are living in the golden era of cancer prevention and treatment, made possible by...
At an educational session at the 2015 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition, Sagar Lonial, MD, of Emory University, Atlanta, elaborated upon this topic. The pooled analysis of daratumumab (Darzalex) monotherapy, he said, “demonstrated significant activity and, not only this,...
The anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody daratumumab (Darzalex) took center stage among multiple myeloma studies presented at the 57th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition. In relapsed/refractory patients, daratumumab plus lenalidomide (Revlimid)/dexamethasone yielded an 81%...
Breast cancer afflicts 1 in 8 women in their lifetime, and 1 in 25 die from this disease. Although a number of randomized trials have demonstrated the clear benefits of mammography screening in women up to age 74 on reducing mortality, data are sparse in women over age 74, especially among...
Although historically the leading cause of death among survivors of childhood cancer has been cancer recurrence, adverse late effects of cancer therapy have become the leading cause of death 30 years after diagnosis, and those deaths are frequently attributed to premature cardiovascular disease,...
A gene that is known to suppress the growth and spread of many types of cancer has the opposite effect in some forms of colorectal cancer, University of Missouri (MU) School of Medicine researchers have found. It is a finding that may lay the foundation for new colorectal cancer treatments. Results ...
Long travel distances continue to be a significant obstacle to breast reconstruction after mastectomy for breast cancer, according to a study published by Abornoz et al in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. “While greater patient awareness and insurance coverage have contributed to greater...
In the phase III HELIOS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Chanan-Khan et al found that the addition of the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) increased progression-free survival in patients with chronic lymphocytic ...
A new analysis indicated that many patients continue working after being diagnosed with metastatic cancer, but a heavy burden of symptoms may prevent them from doing so. Published by Tevaarwerk et al in Cancer, the study illustrates the need to treat difficult symptoms so that patients can maintain ...
As reported in The Lancet and at the recent San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, Ganz et al found differences in patient-reported outcomes with anastrozole vs tamoxifen in the phase III National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-35 trial in postmenopausal women with hormone...
Jack Cuzick, PhD, FMedSci, of Queen Mary, University of London, discusses his phase III study on postmenopausal women with DCIS who had similar outcomes whether they took tamoxifen or anastrozole for 5 years after surgery. (Abstract S6-03)
Andrew Seidman, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Sabine Siesling, PhD, of the Netherlands Comprehensive Cancer Organization, discuss the improved overall survival after 10 years in women who received breast-conserving surgery compared with those who received mastectomy with...
Hagop M. Kantarjian, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses a study that compared efficacy and safety results of using 5-day and 10-day regimens of a novel hypomethylating agent in 103 treatment-naïve AML patients who were not candidates for intensive chemotherapy (Abstract 458).
More patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) could benefit from pembrolizumab (Keytruda), said Roy Herbst, MD, PhD, Chief of Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven. Dr. Herbst presented promising results from the pivotal phase...
Five percent of cancer patients and their families were pushed into poverty in Southeast Asia between March 2012 and September 2013 because of high disease-related costs, a study (Abstract 52O) by Bhoo-Pathy et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Asia 2015 Congress in Singapore...
Novel strategies are being explored for difficult-to-treat and advanced head and neck cancer—the most heterogeneous group of malignancies that are generally associated with poor survival—and encouraging results have been presented in two trials at the first European Society for Medical...
Patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-activating mutations in advanced lung cancer seem to benefit more from afatinib (Gilotrif) than gefitinib (Iressa) as first-line treatment, Park et al reported in a study (Abstract LBA2) presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology...
On December 18, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the pembrolizumab (Keytruda) label to include approval of the drug for the treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma. This expansion now includes the initial treatment of patients with unresectable or...
Sarat Chandarlapaty, MD, PhD, of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses results from this study that showed patients with ER-positive metastatic breast cancer who had a D538G and/or a Y537S mutation in the ESR1 gene had significantly worse median overall survival (Abstract S2-07).
A large prospective study of postmenopausal women investigating an association between periodontal disease and breast cancer risk has found that among all women in the study, the risk of breast cancer was 14% higher in women who had periodontal disease. Among women who had quit smoking within the...
Follow-up times of abnormal screening exams were shorter for breast cancer than they were for colorectal and cervical cancers, according to a recent study involving more than 1 million individuals who underwent these screenings. Recently published by Tosteson et al in the Journal of General...
A patient's mental health prior to surgery can influence postoperative outcomes. Removal of the bladder, or radical cystectomy, is an effective treatment for locally advanced bladder cancer, but complications occur in as many as 66% of patients. In a study published by Sharma et al in The Journal...
In an analysis of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)–Medicare database reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wang et al found that use of preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was associated with overdiagnosis of contralateral breast cancer among older...
A recent study at Houston Methodist Hospital proved that multiple small doses of highly focused radiation therapy is safer and more effective than a single larger dose of radiation at destroying pituitary gland tumors. The findings on the use of fractionated stereotactic radiotherapy were published ...
Unlike a number of other cancers in which young age at diagnosis is understood to represent distinct disease biology, the genomics and clinical characteristics of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in young patients are poorly understood. A study by Sacher et al investigating the relationship ...
Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, has been elected President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2017. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2016. Additionally, four new members were elected to the ASCO Board of Directors, as well as three new...
A new study led by Johns Hopkins researchers shows wide racial and economic disparities in access to minimally invasive hysterectomies for early uterine cancer in the United States. This is despite years of accumulating evidence that the procedures to remove the uterus are linked to fewer...
Using information gleaned from more than 20,000 men, researchers at Johns Hopkins have affirmed the value of their alternative system for assessing the likelihood of growth and spread of prostate cancer. The new grading system, they said, is not only easier to use and understand, but also more...
In the phase III HELIOS trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology, Chanan-Khan et al found that adding the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) increased progression-free survival in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or...
Thyroid cancer survivors report poor quality of life after diagnosis and treatment compared with other patients who are diagnosed with more lethal cancers, according to new research from the University of Chicago Medicine. The findings, published by Aschebrook-Kilfoy et al in the journal Thyroid,...
Among patients undergoing major cancer operations, the preoperative use of blood-thinning drugs such as heparin does not increase rates of major bleeding or transfusions, and is associated with a decreased risk of blood clots, according to new study results published by Selby et al in the Journal...
Previously published reports from the randomized phase III Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) protocol 240 clinical trial showed that adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to a chemotherapy regimen of paclitaxel plus cisplatin or topotecan significantly increased overall survival and progression-free survival ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the first cooling cap to reduce hair loss in female breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy for marketing in the United States. Hair loss is a common side effect of certain types of chemotherapy, commonly associated with the treatment of...
In the first study of its kind, University of Southern California (USC) researchers have found that colorectal cancer risk in Californian Latinos varies widely depending on the country of origin. Their study was published by Stern et al in Cancer Causes & Control. “Hispanics are a very...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted accelerated approval to alectinib (Alecensa) for the treatment of patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have had disease progression on or are intolerant to crizotinib (Xalkori). ...
Two studies evaluating the ability of myChoice HRD, a homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) test, to identify patients with breast cancer who are likely to respond to platinum-containing therapies have found that the test is effective in optimizing therapy selection for patients. The diagnostic ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved uridine triacetate (Vistogard) for the emergency treatment of adults and children who receive an overdose of the cancer treatment fluorouracil (5-FU) or capecitabine, or who develop certain severe or life-threatening toxicities within...
Among women with locally advanced or metastatic hormone receptor–positive breast cancer that was resistant to hormone therapy, those who had mutated PIK3CA detected in their blood benefited from a combination of the investigational PI3K inhibitor buparlisib and fulvestrant (Faslodex),...
Responses to tamoxifen were significantly prolonged by reducing levels of the enzyme APOBEC3B in preclinical models of estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer and significantly shortened by increasing levels of APOBEC3B, suggesting that APOBEC3B drives resistance to tamoxifen, according to...
Among patients with HER2-positive, metastatic breast cancer that had progressed despite treatment with two or more forms of HER2-targeted therapy (trastuzumab [Herceptin] and lapatinib [Tykerb]), median overall survival was increased for those treated with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (aka T-DM1...
Postmenopausal women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) had similar outcomes with disease recurrence whether they took tamoxifen or the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for 5 years after surgery, but women in the two groups had different side effects, according to results from the phase III...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ou et al found that the investigational ALK inhibitor alectinib, which is active against acquired crizotinib (Xalkori) resistance mutations and exhibits high CNS penetration, was associated with considerable activity in patients with ...
For more than 20 years, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test has been used to help screen for prostate cancer. However, in recent years, some task forces have called for this blood test to be abandoned because it leads to many unnecessary biopsies. Now, a new study from The Ottawa Hospital and...
In a study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Lehman et al found no difference in the diagnostic accuracy of digital screening mammography with vs without computer-aided detection. Study Details The study assessed the accuracy of digital screening mammography interpreted with (n = 495,818) vs...
Analysis of patient-reported outcomes, a secondary endpoint of the phase III NSABP B-35 clinical trial, in which anastrozole and tamoxifen were compared in postmenopausal women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) who underwent lumpectomy plus radiotherapy, found that there were no differences in...
Patients with stage II or stage III triple-negative breast cancer who had a pathologic complete response (pCR) after presurgery chemotherapy had increased event-free and overall survival compared with those who had more than minimal residual invasive disease at surgery following presurgery...
Among women with early-stage breast cancer, those who received breast-conserving surgery plus radiation had improved overall survival after 10 years compared with patients who received a mastectomy—76.8% vs 59.7%, respectively—according to a Dutch study by van Maaren et al. After...
A study by Chandarlapaty et al investigating whether mutations in the estrogen receptor are common in patients with advanced breast cancer and how they affect patient outcomes has found that the D538G and Y537S mutations in the estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1) gene are prevalent in patients with advanced ...
Among the various guideline-concordant local therapy options available for women with early-stage breast cancer in the United States, mastectomy plus reconstruction had the highest complication rates and complication-related costs for both younger women with private insurance and older women on...
Premenopausal women whose invasive breast cancers were of the luminal A subtype had comparable 10-year disease-free survival rates, regardless of whether or not they received adjuvant chemotherapy, according to data from the phase III Dutch Breast Cancer Cooperative Group (DBCG77B) clinical trial...