A retrospective analysis to determine the efficacy of neoadjuvant systemic therapy for breast cancer patients with and without BRCA mutations found the overall prognosis was similar in both groups of patients. “No significant differences were noted in survival outcomes with respect to BRCA status...
Addressing a patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs during the cancer journey, integrative medicine combines such time-honored therapies as nutrition, exercise, and meditation alongside allopathic approaches to cancer care, with the ultimate goal of improving survival rates and reducing ...
Gastrointestinal cancers are a key therapeutic area in research, and science is moving forward in that arena at a fast clip. But how are those who focus on gastrointestinal malignancies in the clinic supposed to stay on top of it all? One great way is to attend the annual Gastrointestinal Cancers...
Susan Halabi, PhD, thinks in terms of probabilities. Based at Duke University School of Medicine, where she is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Dr. Halabi specializes in the design and analysis of clinical trials, statistical analysis of biomarker and microarray data, and ...
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. “There is a perception out there...
Several American and European clinical trials have yielded mixed results on the survival advantage of preoperative chemoradiotherapy for patients with locally advanced esophagogastric junction adenonocarcinoma. However, a distinguished panel at the 2011 ASTRO Annual Meeting did agree that surgery...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 6th Annual Congress on Hematologic Malignancies, held recently in New York, included reviews of the management of hematologic diseases as well as discussions of outstanding issues in the field. The following is a synopsis of some of the important...
The issue of chemotherapy drug shortages continues with no end in sight. Many heartfelt human interest stories have been told on television, in newspapers, and even to Congress, but the bottom line is that little, if any, action has been taken. Uniquely American Problem News of the generic...
Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, MD, Chair of Medical Breast Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said he was “disappointed but not surprised” at the FDA decision to withdraw the bevacizumab (Avastin) indication in breast cancer. “Once the FDA put this in the hands of ODAC, ...
“The message” of a meta-analysis of 17 randomized trials of breast-conserving surgery with or without radiation, “should be that the benefits of radiation are not temporary, that it provides an increased chance of cure,” Thomas A. Buchholz, MD, told The ASCO Post. The meta-analysis was conducted by ...
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. “After breast-conserving surgery,...
On September 1, 2011, Ronald A. DePinho, MD, became only the fourth President in the 70-year history of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dr. DePinho spent the previous 14 years as head of Dana-Farber’s Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science. In a recent interview...
Gastric cancer is diagnosed in nearly 1 million people globally each year and is responsible for 740,000 deaths, making it the second leading cause of cancer death in the world. According to the American Cancer Society, more than 21,000 people in the United States were diagnosed with gastric...
Adding an inhibitor of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) to hormonal therapy for advanced breast cancer effectively circumvents resistance, suggest updated results of the randomized BOLERO-2 trial. With a median follow-up of 12.5 months, the likelihood of disease progression or death among...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Awards will be presented to 20 leading oncology trainees for their important contributions to gastrointestinal cancer research. This year’s recipients will be recognized at the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, which takes place January 19-21 in...
Chemotherapy can be delivered before breast-conserving therapy or after surgery, without influencing long-term local-regional recurrence, a large study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center confirmed. The data were presented at the 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco.1 “A ...
More than 14 years after an NIH Consensus Panel finding of “efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting,” an informal show-of-hands poll at the Eighth International Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) Conference indicated acupuncture was not yet fully...
“Many new frontiers exist in integrative medicine,” NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, stated in his keynote address at the Eighth International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) in Cleveland. “The evidence is overwhelming that these approaches are being used by many...
Surgical oncologists urged other cancer providers to appreciate the potentially curative role that surgery can play in the management of many stage IV solid tumors, in a session during the American College of Surgeons 97th Annual Clinical Congress in San Francisco. Pulmonary Metastases Stephen G....
Wild-type p53 emerges from a latent state and becomes stabilized and activated in response to genotoxic and cellular stress signals, resulting in the transcriptional modulation of multiple genes involved in regulating cell-cycle progression, senescence, and apoptosis. More than 50% of human tumors...
Personalized medicine: It’s a phrase that reverberates across all cancer meetings. “Matching the right drug to the right patient” will be accomplished, in the not too distant future, through genomic sequencing of the tumor and targeted, less toxic therapy. This much has been established—or has it?...
Partial breast brachytherapy is less effective and more toxic than whole-breast irradiation when used after lumpectomy, suggests an analysis of Medicare claims data. In the 2000–2007 study of more than 130,000 older women with breast cancer—the largest of its kind to date—the rate of mastectomy in...
In findings likely to intensify the debate about the role of bevacizumab (Avastin) in advanced breast cancer, the AVEREL trial concludes that adding this antiangiogenic antibody to standard therapy prolongs progression-free survival by about 3 months in women with HER2-positive locally recurrent...
Gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) may have a second chance for regulatory acceptance, as studies presented at ASH 2011 demonstrated that gemtuzumab can be safely and effectively given by adjusting the dosing and treatment schedule. Gemtuzumab ozogamicin was approved for the treatment of acute...
A novel inhibitor of B-cell receptor signaling produced high rates of remission and was well tolerated in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who were refractory to at least two previous treatments, reported Susan O’Brien, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center,...
Susan O’Brien, MD, Professor in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, has a special interest in novel developments in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). At the 2011 ASH Annual Meeting, she discussed her picks of top newsmakers in ...
Initial results from the PACE (Ponatinib Ph+ ALL and CML Evaluation) trial added to accumulating evidence that the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ponatinib should soon be considered for front-line treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). “Robust responses were observed in all patient cohorts,” said...
Given the results of the BELA trial, with the problems of treatment side-effect management realized and seemingly resolved, Elias Jabbour, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, assumes bosutinib will be approved in chronic myeloid...
Adding an inhibitor of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) to an aromatase inhibitor more than doubled the time to disease progression in patients with advanced, treatment-refractory breast cancer in the phase III BOLERO-2 trial, whose updated results were presented at the San Antonio Breast...
Modest benefit reported from AVEREL1 triggered comments among trialists about the future of bevacizumab (Avastin) in breast cancer. “Although there’s controversy about the recent revoking of FDA approval of bevacizumab for metastatic breast cancer, I think there is a consensus in our disappointment ...
Attendees at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), held recently in in San Diego, were able to choose from a wide range of interesting and important sessions exploring hematologic malignancies. In addition to The ASCO Post’s regular news coverage from the meeting,...
This year, ASCO is cosponsoring a new series of intimate, discussion-based seminars to be held just before the start of the Annual Meeting in June. The three seminars, which start at 1:00 PM on Thursday, May 31, and continue through noon on Friday, June 1, the first day of the Annual Meeting, are: ...
A study led by James C. Yao, MD, Assistant Professor and Deputy Chair of Gastrointestinal Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, was presented at the 2012 Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancers Symposium in San Francisco and highlighted in the meeting’s press program. In the ...
In the ongoing debate over how to control rising cancer care costs, it is vital to identify usage patterns of expensive new technologies. A recent study examined the relationship between Medicare reimbursement and the increasing use of intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT).1 The ASCO Post...
The startling molecular heterogeneity of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer is now obvious and helps to explain the poor outcomes observed in this patient subset. Comprehensive genomic and transcriptomic interrogation of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer is elucidating the molecular...
A re-analysis of the RADIANT-2 trial, which evaluated everolimus (Afinitor) in patients with advanced nonpancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, has yielded prognostic factors that identify a group of patients who are not only at high risk for recurrence but who may derive benefit from treatment with...
In a phase III RADIANT-4 trial reported in The Lancet, Yao et al found that everolimus (Afinitor) and supportive care significantly prolonged progression-free survival vs placebo and supportive care in patients with advanced nonfunctional neuroendocrine tumors of the lung or gastrointestinal tract. ...
Throughout the course of medical history, we have witnessed innovations that have initially been met with skepticism but have later revolutionized our management of patients with specific disorders. The recent history of oncology drug development is full of instances where a drug that was...
The National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently convened a workshop on cancer informatics to examine and discuss needs and challenges facing biomedical researchers, which will in turn affect the way oncology is practiced in the future. “This is a time of huge scientific ...
Mutations in the KRAS oncogene play a critical role in cancer cell growth and resistance to treatment. In colorectal cancer, the presence of any mutant amino acid substitution in the K-Ras protein predicts a poorer response to targeted therapy. In non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), however, there...
Ronald D. Alvarez, MD, Professor and Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was elected the 44th President of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology at the society’s 43rd Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer held March 24-27, 2012, in Austin, Texas....
The human genome contains a large variety of endogenous retroviral sequences (approximately 8% of the genome). Although most of these are highly defective, the human endogenous retrovirus type K (HERV-K) family shows conservation of apparently intact retroviral genes and is transcriptionally active ...
As introduced in our report on page 1 of this issue, counterfeit pharmaceuticals are an increasingly important safety concern, and three of the most prominent drug-counterfeiting episodes in recent years have involved hematology/oncology products. Counterfeit Erythropoietin Helen B., a 61-year-old...
Scott M. Lippman, MD, has been named Director of Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, effective May 1, 2012. Dr. Lippman was previously Chair of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. “As the new...
Among older women with invasive breast cancer and treated with lumpectomy, brachytherapy compared with whole-breast irradiation was associated with a decreased likelihood of long-term breast preservation and an increased likelihood of complications, but no difference in overall survival, according...
Immunotherapeutic approaches, including vaccines, a monoclonal antibody, and a combination of low-dose interleukin (IL)-2 (Proleukin) and retinoic acid, are showing some success in clinical trials investigating the prevention of breast cancer recurrence in women at high risk, the treatment of...
JUNE World Conference on Interventional OncologyJune 14-17 • Chicago, Illinois For more information: www.wcio2012.org Emerging Strategies in Treatment of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Head & Neck CancerJune 16 • Atlanta, Georgia For more information: http://cancernetus.com 8th Central European ...
With medical information now just a click away, it’s difficult to imagine a time before the Internet existed, when finding answers to questions about serious diseases was nearly impossible. When I was diagnosed with liposarcoma 33 years ago, there was only one oncologist in my hometown of Tyler,...
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. Older women treated for invasive...
Denosumab (Xgeva) significantly delayed time to first bone metastases among men with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer enrolled in a phase III randomized, placebo-controlled trial. The time to first bone metastasis was 33.2 months among the 716 patients randomly assigned to receive ...