On October 19, 2016, the platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFR-α)-blocking antibody olaratumab (Lartruvo) was granted accelerated approval in combination with doxorubicin for the treatment of soft-tissue sarcoma not amenable to curative treatment with radiotherapy or surgery and...
Let’s Win is an online community for persons with pancreatic cancer (www.letswinpc.org), but it is far more than a typical support group. Let’s Win propels interested users toward cutting-edge research, based on its founders’ commitment that no patient with pancreatic cancer should settle on the...
In a new report published by Young et al in Cancer Medicine,1 a two-gene circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) blood test for postsurgical monitoring of colorectal cancer recurrence has been shown to detect twice the number of recurrence cases as carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) testing, a standard-of-care...
On October 18, 2016, the indication for erlotinib (Tarceva) in the treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was modified to limit use to patients with tumors with specific epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in maintenance or second- or greater-line treatment; these mutations...
In an analysis of data from the National Cancer Database reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Go et al found a lower risk of all-cause mortality among patients with multiple myeloma treated at higher-volume facilities. Study Details The study included patients diagnosed with multiple...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Liu et al found no progression-free survival benefit of adding the anti-HER3 (ErbB3) antibody seribantumab to paclitaxel in unselected patients with advanced platinum-resistant or -refractory ovarian cancer. However, exploratory...
I have served as a patient advocate in many different ways since I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2000. For many years, my advocacy was focused on issues related to breast cancer. Since 2012, I have also been engaged in identifying and meeting the needs of the rapidly growing...
Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, Deputy Director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University and Assistant Dean for Cancer Research in the Emory School of Medicine, was honored with the Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Chair for Cancer Research. The endowment was established to support a key leader...
The Perlmutter Cancer Center at New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center has named clinician-scientist Kwok-Kin Wong, MD, PhD, as its new Chief of Hematology and Medical Oncology. His recruitment promises to transform the medical center’s research and clinical programs in lung cancer and...
Fox Chase Cancer Center has been designated as a National Pancreas Foundation Center by the National Pancreas Foundation (NPF), a nonprofit organization that provides hope for those suffering from pancreatic cancer and other pancreas-related diseases. Fox Chase is the only institution in the...
I still remember the day I met Kensie. It was Valentine’s Day. I had sneaked out of the hospital to get my wife a Valentine’s Day card, taking my place among scores of other husbands and boyfriends in front of the rapidly emptying rack of cards. As I started browsing, my beeper sounded. It was the ...
Nonrhabdomyosarcoma soft-tissue sarcomas account for about 5% of all childhood malignancies and are also diagnosed in adolescents and young adults, as well as in older adults, and can require different approaches to treatment based on a patient’s age and stage of disease. These sarcomas comprise...
As cancer therapies improve and the population as a whole increases, there are rising numbers of elderly patients with cancer. More than half of patients newly diagnosed with cancer are aged 65 years or older.1 In January 2012, it was estimated that more than 8 million cancer survivors were over...
The ASCO Research Community Forum held its 2016 Annual Meeting from September 25–26, at ASCO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Nearly 100 physician investigators and research staff from all types of research sites across the United States attended the meeting. Each year, the ASCO Research...
On October 18, 2016, the anti–PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) antibody atezolizumab (Tecentriq) was approved for the treatment of metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) progressing during or following platinum-containing chemotherapy.1,2 Patients with epidermal growth factor receptor ...
CancerLinQ LLC, a wholly owned nonprofit of ASCO, announced on October 20, 2016, that more than 1 million patient records are now in the CancerLinQ™ platform. In addition, 70 practices have signed agreements to participate in CancerLinQ, representing more than 1,500 oncologists. “We are excited to...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its first biosimilar drug, filgrastim-sndz (Zarxio), in 2015, allowing it to compete with the granulocyte colony-stimulating factor filgrastim (Neupogen) to treat neutropenia in chemotherapy patients. So far, filgrastim-sndz is the only...
Florida Atlantic University has named Phillip M. Boiselle, MD, as the new Dean of the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. Dr. Boiselle, who currently serves as Associate Dean for Academic and Clinical Affairs and Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, and is a member of the...
Olivier Michielin, MS, MD, PhD, Head of Personalized Analytical Oncology and the Melanoma Clinic at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland, said the study was well designed, well conducted, and addressed an important clinical question “at the time of its inception.” But he agreed with Dr....
There has been debate as to the optimal dose of single-agent ipilimumab (Yervoy) in metastatic melanoma. A phase III study presented at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress—the first to directly compare these doses—concluded that 10 mg/kg is more effective, but also more...
Invited discussant Celeste Lebbé, MD, of the Hospital Saint Louis in Paris, noted that the study met its primary endpoints and produced “very impressive data”; however, “major toxicity” was a concern. She said that in this small study of 18 patients (10 for efficacy), several lessons were learned: ...
As neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapy for stage III melanoma patients with palpable disease, the combination of ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus nivolumab (Opdivo) was shown to be a promising, though also toxic, combination in a phase Ib study reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) ...
In the phase III MINDACT trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Fatima Cardoso, MD, of Champalimaud Clinical Center–Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, and colleagues found that adjuvant chemotherapy may be avoidable in women with early-stage breast cancer who are at high clinical...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to olaratumab (Lartruvo) in combination with doxorubicin to treat adults with certain types of soft-tissue sarcoma. Olaratumab is approved for use with the FDA-approved chemotherapy drug doxorubicin for the treatment...
Tagging gold nanoparticles with a small dose of radiation has helped researchers trace the precious metal as it delivers a drug right into the heart of cancer cells, according to new laboratory research presented by Bavelaar et al at the 2016 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer...
On October 24, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors express programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) as determined by an FDA-approved test. This is the first...
In a spirited debate, abounding with citations of clinical trials and other evidence, but not without humor and mutual respect, E. Shelley Hwang, MD, MPH, and Armando E. Giuliano, MD, reviewed the data and their clinical experience managing ductal carcinoma in situ and reached opposite...
Although progress in treatment and supportive care for children with cancer has resulted in improved survival of these patients, some survivors experience ongoing medical conditions from their cancer or its treatment, including poor general health, poor mental health, functional impairment,...
The successes observed with various immune oncologic treatment approaches have largely bypassed pancreatic cancer, but this may be about to change, based on emerging insights into how and why these tumors evade attacks by T cells. At the 2nd International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference, two...
The injectable oncolytic immunotherapy talimogene laherparepvec (also known as T-VEC, Imlygic) may become a valuable component of combination immunotherapy approaches in melanoma, a strategy believed to help overcome resistance of tumors to single-agent immunotherapies. “[Talimogene laherparepvec] ...
Standard treatment for advanced head and neck cancer—including chemotherapy and radiation—causes painful side effects that impair quality of life, as well as the ability to socialize and engage in daily life activities. A new study of patients with platinum-refractory recurrent, metastatic head...
“Low-grade gliomas are biologically and clinically heterogeneous entities with different genetic drivers,” said formal discussant of this trial, Guido Reifenberger, MD, of Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf, Germany. “The BRAF V600 mutation is a novel therapeutic target in gliomas occurring in ...
About 10% of children with low-grade gliomas have the BRAF V600E mutation, and preliminary studies suggest that the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib (Tafinlar) may play an important role in treating this group of patients. A phase I/II trial presented at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology...
In a Lancet Oncology article, Yang et al examined clinical, policy, safety, and regulatory considerations for generic oncology drugs focusing on the United States, Canada, European Union (EU), Japan, China, and India. Available data do not identify safety concerns in the United States, Canada, EU,...
A new analysis indicates that many men with prostate cancer obtain second opinions from urologists before starting treatment, but surprisingly, second opinions are not associated with changes in treatment choice or improvements in perceived quality of prostate cancer care. Published by...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Gomez et al found that local consolidative therapy (with or without maintenance therapy) improved progression-free survival in patients with stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had up to three metastatic disease lesions and no...
In the phase II portion of a German phase II/III trial (FLOT4) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Al-Batran et al found that preoperative docetaxel-based vs anthracycline-based triplet therapy produced a higher complete histopathologic regression rate in patients with resectable gastric or...
Patients with malignant melanoma are more likely to respond to immunotherapy treatment if they have greater diversity in their gut bacteria, according to new research presented by Wargo et al at the National Cancer Research Institute's (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool, United Kingdom....
Fulvestrant (Faslodex) was superior to anastrozole as initial treatment of hormone receptor–positive, endocrine therapy–naive, advanced breast cancer, significantly reducing the risk of disease progression or death, according to the results of the phase III FALCON study presented at the 2016...
The phase III KEYNOTE-045 trial, investigating the use of the anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) therapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with previously treated advanced urothelial cancer, met the primary endpoint of overall survival, according to a news release issued by Merck. In...
A number of lung cancer specialists were anxious to comment on the positive findings of KEYNOTE-024 and were equally perplexed about the negative results of CheckMate-026. All agreed that the overall survival benefit makes pembrolizumab (Keytruda) a game-changer for the first-line treatment of...
Checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized the treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but evidence of their benefit was restricted to the second-line setting. However, early-phase trials with both pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo) demonstrated favorable results in...
An international team of researchers from the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has completed a detailed map of the genomic landscape for core-binding factor acute myeloid leukemia (CBF-AML). The work reveals differences in the...
The recall rate of screening mammography is reduced when radiologists compare with more than one prior mammogram, according to a recent study by Hayward et al in American Journal of Roentgenology. “Our findings suggest that radiologists who make comparisons with more than one prior...
As many as 60% of patients with cancer report distress following a cancer diagnosis, and this stress can have a significant impact on patients’ well-being, resulting in psychosocial problems, physical side effects, and dissatisfaction with their health care. To examine the impact of distress ...
As expensive cancer biologics move off patent, biosimilar products are coming on board. These are highly similar versions of licensed biologics that demonstrate near-fingerprint identity to their reference products in terms of structure and potency. Biosimilars represent a major opportunity for...
Formal discussant Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD, of Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France, and Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Oncology (the official journal of the European Society for Medical Oncology [ESMO]), tried to put these findings into perspective. He pointed out that when applying the...
Combining immunotherapy with a standard chemotherapy doublet appears to be an attractive option for the front-line treatment of advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the results of a phase II study presented at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)...
The formal discussant of this trial, Axel Bex, MD, PhD, of The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, was cautious in interpreting these results to be practice-changing. “I congratulate the investigators for the first-ever positive trial for adjuvant treatment of renal cell carcinoma,” he...
Sunitinib (Sutent) improved disease-free survival by more than 1 year when used as adjuvant treatment for high-risk locoregional renal cell carcinoma following nephrectomy, but with the cost of toxicity. S-TRAC is the first phase III trial showing a benefit for adjuvant therapy in renal cell...