Nearly 1 in 2 Canadians is expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, according to a new report—Canadian Cancer Statistics 2017—released by the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada. For males, the...
There is considerable scope to develop digital resources by means of which teenagers and young adults living with cancer can receive information and connect with both professionals and fellow patients. Such tools could help them gain different perspectives on treatment and survivorship, said Esha...
Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) has announced the launch of a 3-year research study that will investigate the link between new-onset diabetes and pancreatic cancer. The main goal is to detect the often lethal cancer at a curable stage. The study was developed by a team of physicians and...
As reported by Hua et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, long-term survivors of colorectal cancer with KRAS wild-type tumors had improved survival with regular use of any nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) post diagnosis. The study involved data from 2,149 patients aged 18 to 74...
The phase III UK TACT2 trial has shown no efficacy benefit of accelerated vs standard epirubicin and a potential quality-of-life benefit of capecitabine vs CMF (cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, fluorouracil) as adjuvant therapy for breast cancer. The findings were reported in The Lancet Oncology by...
When patients with metastatic cancer used a Web-based tool to self-report symptoms proactively during treatment, they lived 5 months longer than did patients assigned to usual care. In addition, they had improved quality of life and fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations compared with...
Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, the Sophie Caroline Steves Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said the trial demonstrates “the challenge of analyzing six individually conducted studies in a pooled analysis.” The study’s “potential...
Patients with stage III colon cancer considered at low risk for recurrence may be treated effectively—and incur less neurotoxicity—with 3 months of an oxaliplatin-based regimen as compared with the standard 6 months, according to the results of the International Duration Evaluation of Adjuvant...
“[THE STREAM, Conquer Fear, and CALM] studies focus on the psychosocial aspects of coping with cancer. One theme that binds them is that oncologists take pride in the fact that we treat people with cancer [with the emphasis on people] and care for them, their caregivers, and their support...
Fifteen years ago, my internist advised me to lose weight. But after seeing the yo-yo effects of dieting on friends and colleagues, I knew I would find the process of losing weight and gaining it back frustrating, so I ignored my physician’s advice. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed late this past...
Angela Hartley Brodie, PhD, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and an internationally recognized scientist whose groundbreaking cancer research is considered among the greatest advances in treating breast cancer, passed away on...
A draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advises that for men aged 55 to 69, the decision to be screened for prostate cancer should be an individual one, based on the man’s own values and priorities and discussions with a clinician about the potential benefits...
For a man aged 55 to 69 years, the decision to be screened for prostate cancer should be an individual one, based on the man’s own values and priorities and discussions with a clinician about the potential benefits and harms of screening, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advised in ...
In a UK phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Middleton et al found that adding the multi–tyrosine kinase inhibitor vandetanib (Caprelsa) to gemcitabine did not improve overall survival in patients with previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic carcinoma. John P....
In a Swedish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stacy Loeb, MD, of New York University, and colleagues found that use of testosterone replacement therapy was not associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer and was associated with a lower risk of aggressive cancer among...
The emerging field of molecular pathology focuses on the study and diagnosis of disease through the examination of genes and gene activity within organs and tissues. This information has transformed our thinking about the biologic diversity of breast cancers and has enhanced our treatment...
After undergoing nearly 5 years of intensive medical training, IBM’s Watson for Oncology cognitive computing system is starting to make good on its promise to accelerate personalized care for patients with cancer. The system has been trained by oncologists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, authors Ting Bao, MD, DABMA, MS, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present the case...
In both inpatient and outpatient medical settings, the physician-patient communication process can become more difficult as a disease progresses. Conflicts due to a misunderstanding of therapeutic goals and/or a patient’s values can slowly arise over time among patients, their surrogates, and...
MANY FACTORS can influence treatment decisions patients make concerning their cancer care. These include safety, efficacy, and cost, among other concerns. Recently, CancerCare, a national organization dedicated to providing assistance at no cost to anyone affected by cancer, established the...
Breast cancer surgeon Monica Morrow, MD, came from a town in the far northeast reaches of suburban Philadelphia. “I guess because there were only two girls in our family, I was the son my father never had, and he reared me that way. When we were playing catch, if I missed the ball and got hit in...
Three years ago, early results from the U.S. Intergroup C10403 trial,1 which evaluated the effectiveness of treating adolescent and young adults (AYAs) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using an intensive pediatric regimen, showed significant improvement in event-free and overall survival...
IN AN EFFORT to find new strategies to personalize treatment for pediatric patients, Seattle Children’s Hospital has opened the first clinical trial applying next-generation T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing and single-cell gene expression analysis to better understand how the immune system drives...
THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) has awarded $24 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch) to continue operating the NCI’s primary public access point for cancer information in both English and Spanish. With the new contract, the Contact Center will emphasize clinical trial ...
I recently saw a patient in our survivorship clinic. She was treated at age 15 years for Hodgkin lymphoma and is now in her early 50s. During the prior 2 decades, she had developed both bilateral breast cancer and thyroid cancer, as well as multiple basal cell carcinomas, all occurring within her...
In a retrospective multicenter cohort study reported in JAMA, Lucie M. Turcotte, MD, MPH, of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues found that the risk of subsequent neoplasms in 5-year survivors of childhood cancers decreased between those diagnosed in the 1970s vs the 1990s but ...
DREXEL UNIVERSITY has recognized the Chief Executive Officer of ASCO, Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, as a Drexel 100 member. Created in 1992 to celebrate Drexel’s centennial, inductees to the Drexel 100 are university alums celebrated for their significant contributions to their respective...
A NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI)-funded training program in distress screening is being offered at no cost for competitively selected trainees in September 2017 at City of Hope, Duarte, California. Oncologists and other health-care professionals who are interested in learning how to successfully...
Three separate brief psychological interventions aimed at helping cancer patients cope with distress have shown improvements in quality of life and well-being across the continuum of cancer care. The interventions were studied—respectively—in newly diagnosed cancer patients, survivors after cancer...
SIDNEY KIMMEL, leading cancer philanthropist, has been elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest societies and independent policy research centers. Mr. Kimmel is among 228 newly elected members of the Academy and 1 of 8 corporate and philanthropic...
Three-year follow-up data from the phase III RAY study in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma were presented at the 14th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. These results demonstrated that the subset of patients treated with ibrutinib...
Data from the TRANSCEND trial of JCAR017 in relapsed and refractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) was presented at the 2017 International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. JCAR017 is Juno Therapeutics’ investigative chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) ...
An interim analysis of MAGNIFY, a phase IIIb, randomized, open-label, multicenter study of the R2 combination regimen (lenalidomide [Revlimid] plus rituximab [Rituxan]) in patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma, was presented at the International Conference on Malignant...
An updated interim analysis from an ongoing phase I/II clinical trial evaluating brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) and nivolumab (Opdivo) in relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland (Abstract...
Clinical data from an ongoing phase I clinical trial evaluating ADCT-402 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the 14th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. ADCT-402 is a novel antibody-drug conjugate composed of a ...
A phase III equivalence trial has shown comparable pathologic complete response rates with the proposed trastuzumab biosimilar CT-P6 vs reference trastuzumab (Herceptin) in neoadjuvant treatment of HER2-positive early breast cancer. The study was reported by Stebbing et al in The Lancet Oncology....
On June 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved aminolevulinic acid hydrochloride, known as ALA HCl (Gleolan), as an optical imaging agent indicated in patients with gliomas (suspected World Health Organization [WHO] Grades III or IV) for preoperative imaging, as an adjunct for the...
Data was recently presented from the phase III GENUINE trial of ublituximab, a novel glycoengineered anti–CD20 monoclonal antibody, in combination with ibrutinib (Imbruvica), a Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, for the treatment of high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), at the...
Data from the chemotherapy-free triple combination of umbralisib, an oral, next generation PI3K delta inhibitor; ublituximab, a novel glycoengineered anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody; and ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) and...
Positive interim efficacy data from an ongoing phase II clinical trial of tazemetostat, a first-in-class, oral enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) inhibitor, as a single-agent treatment for relapsed or refractory patients with follicular lymphoma or diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) grouped by...
A retrospective analysis reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice by Einstein et al showed the benefits of embedding palliative care in a clinic specializing in targeted and immune-based treatments in patients with melanoma or renal cancer. Study Details The study included data from 114...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Morrow et al found that the rates of surgery after initial lumpectomy for stage I or II breast cancer have decreased with dissemination of guidelines advocating a minimal negative surgical margin. A 2014 consensus statement of the Society of Surgical Oncology...
Researchers presented a preclinical study at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) that demonstrated the efficacy and optimal dose for targeted photodynamic therapy (PDT) to treat prostate cancer before and during surgery (Abstract 7). Targeted...
Patients with neuroendocrine tumors may experience fewer symptoms and survive longer by undergoing peptide-receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) combined with a drug that makes tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy, said researchers at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear...
Simultaneous injections of the radiopharmaceuticals fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18 FDG) and fluorine-18 sodium fluoride (F-18 NaF) followed by quantitative scanning significantly improved image quality and detection of bone metastases at a lower dose, according to research presented at...
According to a study by Olszewski and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Medicare Part D beneficiaries without a low-income subsidy may face daunting barriers in affording oral immunomodulatory drugs for myeloma. The low-income subsidy markedly reduces out-of-pocket costs for...
The phase III ASCEND-5 trial has shown a significant improvement in progression-free survival with ceritinib (Zykadia) vs chemotherapy in advanced ALK-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously treated with crizotinib (Xalkori) and chemotherapy. Trial results were reported in...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of daratumumab (Darzalex) in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies including lenalidomide (Revlimid) and a...
A first-in-human study presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) (Abstract 385) demonstrated the feasibility and safety of imaging with the novel human monoclonal antibody HuMab-5B1, to enable highly specific targeting for the cancer...
Neuroendocrine tumors are difficult to manage and unlikely to be cured, but researchers intend to slow progression of these tumors and aid survival by personalizing patient doses of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT), according to research presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the...