In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Noelle Frey, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues reported achieving sustained remissions in children and adults with...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Karnak and colleagues found that WEE1 kinase inhibition increased the sensitivity of pancreas cancer to the radiosensitizing effects of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition. Treatment of human pancreatic cancer AsPC-1 and MiaPaCa-2 cells...
In the past decade, much new knowledge about the molecular underpinnings of cancer has accumulated, and the array of molecular aberrations in each individual tumor can be assessed through genomic sequencing and other tests. The rationale for and feasibility of developing molecularly targeted...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On December 19, 2014, olaparib (Lynparza) was granted accelerated...
The recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of olaparib (Lynparza) occurred concurrently with that of a companion diagnostic, BRACAnalysis CDx. This genetic test is designed to detect the presence of mutations in the BRCA genes in blood samples from patients with ovarian cancer. The BRCA...
The packed ballroom looked like a plenary session at any big medical research meeting. But on the dais were representatives of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the subject was the Agency’s proposed regulation of laboratory-developed tests, and the attendees who lined up to ask questions for...
Adding veliparib to carboplatin and paclitaxel resulted in “clinically meaningful improvements” in progression-free survival and overall survival among patients with previously untreated metastatic or advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), particularly those with squamous histology. The...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to olaparib (Lynparza) for women with advanced ovarian cancer with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated advanced ovarian cancer, as detected by an FDA-approved test, who have been treated with three...
The oncoprotein and transcription factor MYB is overexpressed in colorectal cancer and critical to proliferation and tumor cell survival. In a study reported in Clinical & Translational Immunology, Cross and colleagues developed a DNA vaccine to generate an MYB-specific immune response on the...
Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida have participated in a global effort that has identified six new regions of the genome that increase risk of epithelial ovarian cancer, according to a news release from Moffitt. The collaborative study was published recently in Nature...
At the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, a research team led by Michael Dixon, MD, of Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, shed light on the development of endocrine resistance and presented a four-gene messenger RNA (mRNA) profile that can predict response to letrozole with a high degree ...
Inotuzumab ozogamicin combined with a low-intensity chemotherapy called mini-hyper-CVD achieved highly encouraging results in older patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in a phase II study reported at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology.1 After the...
Highlighted here are summaries of four abstracts presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: They focus on the EPO-ANE-3010 clinical trial of epoetin alfa (Epogen, Procrit) in anemic patients with metastatic breast cancer, a New York Cancer Consortium trial of fulvestrant (Faslodex)...
The first poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor was developed in the early 1990s. Since then, the activity of PARP inhibitors has been explored in a variety of settings, including and perhaps most enthusiastically in the treatment of cancer. The greater dependence of several cancers on PARP,...
In a phase III trial reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Joyce O’Shaughnessy, MD, of Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center, Dallas, and colleagues found that the addition of iniparib to gemcitabine and carboplatin did not improve overall survival or progression-free survival in patients...
In a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 and as reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, an ASCO expert endorsement panel reviewed and endorsed, with minor qualifications, the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) clinical practice guidelines for management of familial/genetic ...
Approximately 5% to 6% of cases of colorectal cancer are associated with germline mutations conferring an inherited predisposition for disease. As reported by Stoffel and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 ASCO has endorsed, with qualifying statements, the European Society for Medical ...
Male breast cancer represents less than 1% of all breast cancers, which partially explains why so little is known about the disease. Two presentations at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium focused on the characteristics of male breast cancer drawn from a large international registry and...
The TNT trial, presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, provided no evidence that unselected advanced triple-negative breast cancer patients are more likely to respond to carboplatin than to docetaxel.1 However, patients with BRCA1/2 mutations do have a greater response and a...
Five decades ago, the analysis of metaphase chromosomes in the hematologic malignancies provided our first broad glimpse into the genetic anatomy of a malignant cell. Today, the advent of high-throughput methods such as next-generation sequencing, capable of surveying the entire genome, provides an ...
In two studies recently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine,1,2 whole-exome sequencing of DNA from peripheral blood cells of individuals unselected for hematologic phenotype showed that clonal hematopoiesis with somatic mutations is increasingly common with increasing age and is...
Jennifer Adair, PhD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has been named a 2015 Outstanding New Investigator by the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy (ASGCT). The award recognizes Dr. Adair’s independent research efforts to understand and improve blood stem cell–based gene...
Recent research1 conducted by Robert H. Pierce, MD, and his colleagues investigating why PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) inhibitors result in remarkably durable clinical remissions in some patients with melanoma, whereas others reap a short-term benefit or no benefit at all is showing that...
Biliary tract cancers are challenging, but a large genomic profiling study has identified potentially clinically relevant genomic alterations in up to two-thirds of patients.1 “The diverse landscape of clinically relevant genomic alterations in biliary tract cancers can serve as targets for...
In Don Quixote, the 1605 Spanish literary masterpiece by Miguel Cervantes, “Balsam of Fierabras” is mentioned often as a therapeutic panacea. It calls for mixing rosemary, wine, oil, and salt. As the story goes, the knight relied heavily on this herbal preparation to relieve him of pain from the...
ASCO will once again be offering a series of Pre–Annual Meeting Seminars ahead of its 2015 Annual Meeting in Chicago. First offered in 2012, the Pre–Annual Meeting Seminars are a series of in-depth educational opportunities dedicated to topics of interest in the oncology community. The seminars are ...
In a new study,1 more precise estimates of age-associated risks of gastric and breast cancer were derived for carriers of the CDH1 gene mutation, a cancer-predisposing gene that is abnormal in families meeting criteria for clinically defined hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC). David G....
In 2015, no cancer patients should be cured of their malignancy only to die of reactivation of hepatitis B virus (HBV),” according to Anna S. Lok, MD, the Alice Lohrman Andrews Research Professor in Hepatology and Director of Clinical Hepatology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “I...
While colorectal cancer predominantly occurs in people over 50 years old, rates are increasing among younger patients. It is important for physicians not to ignore symptoms in patients who are young, “simply because they are young,” Jason A. Zell, DO, MPH, told The ASCO Post. Dr. Zell is the...
Bookmark Title: Pandora’s DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family TreeAuthor: Lizzie StarkPublisher: Chicago Review PressPublication date: October 2014Price: $26.95; hardcover, 336 pages If we wish to learn more about cancer, we must concentrate on the cellular ...
The phase III CRYSTAL trial showed that the addition of cetuximab (Erbitux) to first-line FOLFIRI (fluorouracil, leucovorin, and irinotecan) significantly improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and objective response rates in patients with KRAS codon 12/13 (exon 2) wild-type...
In January, ASCO released its report, Clinical Cancer Advances 2015: An Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer,1 which details research advances over the past decade that have led to longer survival and better quality of life for the more than half-a-million people diagnosed with cancer each...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On March 10, 2015, the chimeric monoclonal antibody dinutuximab...
The role of next-generation sequencing (high-throughput technologies that allow DNA and RNA to be analyzed more quickly and inexpensively than earlier techniques) in breast cancer remains unclear and at present is primarily a research tool. Therefore, clinicians should be cautious in using genetic...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to Clovis Oncology’s investigational agent rucaparib as monotherapy treatment of advanced ovarian cancer in patients who have received at least two lines of prior platinum-containing therapy, with BRCA-mutated ...
Treatment of childhood cancer is remarkably successful, but still, 2,000 children die of it each year, and for some forms of the disease, no progress has been made at all, said Otis Brawley, MD, Chief Medical Officer, American Cancer Society (ACS). “At least half of all pediatric cancer survivors...
Stand Up To Cancer , Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, and National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, along with the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), announced the formation of a “Dream Team” devoted to ovarian cancer research at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015....
“Immunosignatures” may be well suited to enable the detection of ovarian cancer, researchers reported at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 20th Annual Conference.1 “We developed a new concept for disease detection based on immunosignatures. From a drop of blood, HealthTell’s...
Can metastatic breast cancer ever be cured? This issue was debated at the 32nd Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference by two experts in the field: George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, California, and Clifford A. Hudis, MD, Chief of the...
BOOKMARKTitle: p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer CodeAuthor: Sue ArmstrongPublisher: Bloomsbury PublishingPublication date: November 20, 2014Price: $19.98; hardcover, 288 pages Completed in April 2003, the Human Genome Project was one of the greatest feats of scientific exploration, an inward ...
Using a novel polymerase chain reaction assay “to efficiently assess” epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in circulating free DNA (cfDNA) from blood samples of patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the Spanish Lung Cancer Group has “shown that the EGFR L858R...
Geriatrics for the Oncologist is guest edited by Stuart Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO, and developed in collaboration with the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG). Visit SIOG.org for more on geriatric oncology. The Task Forces of the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) are ...
Poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are one of the most exciting new classes of agents in development for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Olaparib (Lynparza), the lead oral PARP inhibitor, received accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of...
PARP inhibitors offer a promising alternative for targeted therapy in ovarian cancer” and have “clear benefit in BRCA-mutation carriers,” but questions remain about when is the best time to use them and the cost-effectiveness of maintenance therapy, Elizabeth M. Swisher, MD, of the University of...
Since 1990, we have seen an approximate 35% reduction in breast cancer mortality among women in the United States. Three protagonists can share this clinical success story: prevention, early detection, and better therapies. To shed light on the current state of breast cancer research and therapy,...
The PARP enzyme functions in aiding cells as they repair DNA. Olaparib hits the target. The question is how best to use it,” said William Nelson, MD, Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. Dr. Nelson moderated a press conference where these data were...
Olaparib (Lynparza) achieved encouraging response rates in men with metastatic prostate cancer, particularly those with mutations in genes involved in DNA repair (BRCA2 and ATM, most commonly).1 If validated, these results of the TOPARP-A trial will usher in the first drug targeted to somatic or...
The ability to do genomic analysis of patients’ tumors holds great promise for revolutionizing cancer treatment, and genomics has already made some great strides. However, the Individualized Molecular Pancreatic Cancer Therapy (IMPaCT) trial is a cautionary tale about the hurdles involved in...
Isaac Brownell, MD, PhD, Investigator with the Dermatology Branch of the National Cancer Institute, commented on the findings of the Australian ONTRAC trial for The ASCO Post. “This is an interesting finding, and it expands on prior work showing reductions in [ultraviolet]-induced DNA damage and...
Two daily doses of nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, significantly reduced the occurrence of nonmelanoma skin cancers by 23% in individuals considered at high risk for these lesions in an Australian study. Results of the phase III ONTRAC trial, which will be presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual...