The novel mechanism of action of drugs that inhibit the cyclin D–dependent kinases CDK4 and CDK6 has prompted effective new treatment strategies. Although the bulk of the data supporting the use of selective CDK4/6 inhibitors is currently in breast cancer, patients with other tumor types are...
As reported by Blum et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the efficacy analysis of the combined adjuvant Anthracyclines in Early Breast Cancer (ABC) Trials showed better invasive disease-free survival with taxane plus doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide (TaxAC) regimens vs six cycles of...
Survivors of melanoma are more likely to limit their exposure to ultraviolet radiation than those who have not had the disease, but more than 10% continue to intentionally tan, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.1 The study surveyed 724 people diagnosed ...
Long-term survivors of melanoma are more likely than those who have not been diagnosed with the disease to use sunscreen, protective clothing, and other means to limit exposure to the sun, according to a survey of melanoma survivors and controls about ultraviolet radiation exposure and protective...
End-of-life care in any patient with cancer is challenging for the patient, family, and physician. Issues faced at the end of life include pain, depression, loss of dignity, and hopelessness. In the geriatric patient, additional complexities are present in the form of comorbid conditions,...
Researchers from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle reported early results from a small study of their chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product (JCAR014) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition....
Scientific Name: Vaccinium macrocarpon Common Names: Mossberry, sassamanash, bounceberry Case Study M.C. is a 55-year-old woman with a history of stage I endometrial cancer, diagnosed and curatively treated 5 years ago. Since then, she has been having urinary tract infections from time to time....
Orthopedic surgeon Kristy L. Weber, MD, became the second Vice President of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Board of Directors at the organization’s 2017 Annual Meeting. Her new role is the first position in a 4-year term of volunteer service that includes Dr. Weber serving as...
On March 21, 2017, Gravely et al published a study1 in Lancet Public Health on the 2003 global tobacco control treaty’s impact on the adoption of tobacco-reduction measures around the world, which has led to a 2.5% reduction in global smoking rates. The treaty obligates the 180 countries committed...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF) of ASCO recently announced the recipients of its 2017 International Innovation Grant. The 1-year grant of up to $20,000, given directly to each awardee’s nonprofit organization or government agency, funds research projects aimed at improving cancer care in low-...
ASCO and the Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF) proudly announce the winners of ASCO’s Special Awards, the Society’s highest honors, and the CCF Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award. The recipients of these awards include researchers, patient advocates, and global oncology leaders who have worked ...
“Dr. Neuman and colleagues point out that patients often will seek out information on their diagnosis preconsultation,” commented session co-moderator Steven L. Chen, MD, a surgical oncologist with OasisMD in San Diego. “Their study demonstrates that the provision of high-quality information can...
ASCO strongly supports increasing access to investigational new treatment options for patients with cancer, while raising serious concerns about recently proposed federal “right-to-try” legislation as well as state-enacted right-to-try laws. In a position statement released April 4, 2017, ASCO said ...
“Avelumab (Bavencio) is the very first drug approved for Merkel cell carcinoma, an orphan disease that is uncommon in the United States. For that reason, pharmacologic development has been slow. In this case, laboratory evidence provided a rationale for testing checkpoint inhibitors in Merkel cell ...
Avelumab (Bavencio) achieved durable responses in patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, according to longer-term follow-up of the phase II JAVELIN study, the largest study conducted to date in this relatively rare orphan cancer.1 Results were presented at the 2017 American Association for ...
The combination of trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus lapatinib (Tykerb) achieved positive results in patients with heavily pretreated, HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer, according to the final results of the phase II HERACLES-A trial. This two-pronged, HER2-directed approach achieved clinical...
To better understand the conditions and mechanisms driving health disparities in the United States, The Lancet partnered with physicians and public health researchers from the City University of New York, Harvard Medical School, Cornell University, Yale School of Medicine, and the New York...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Pusic et al, patient-reported outcomes in the Mastectomy Reconstruction Outcomes Consortium Study indicate that autologous tissue breast reconstruction is associated with greater breast satisfaction and greater sexual and psychosocial well-being...
The incidence of colorectal cancer continues to increase among young adults, with the sharpest increase among those aged 20 to 29, according to a recent article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.1 This trend has been called disturbing and ominous, but the widely reported results of...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) inducted its newly elected class of Fellows of the AACR Academy at its Annual Meeting, held April 1–5, 2017, in Washington, DC. 2017 Class of Fellows Sir Adrian P. Bird, PhD, Buchanan Professor of Genetics, Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, ...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO (CCF) is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2017 CCF Merit Awards in Gastrointestinal Cancers, Cancer Survivorship, Genitourinary Cancers, Immuno-Oncology, and Quality Care. The following 65 young researchers, recognized for the scientific merit of their ...
Al Covens, MD, Professor and Chair of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Toronto, and Head of Gynecologic Oncology at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, commented on the phase II findings of axalimogene filolisbac: “As almost all cervical cancers are human papillomavirus (HPV)-related, this...
Deane L. Wolcott, MD, FAPOS, is the 2017 recipient of the Holland Distinguished Leadership Award, which was presented recently at the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida. Dr. Wolcott is the founding Director of Oncology Supportive Care Services at...
A combination of two HER2-targeted therapies, trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb), showed clinical benefit in patients with heavily pretreated HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer, according to final results from the phase II HERACLES clinical trial, presented by Siena et al at the ...
In a study of four immunohistochemistry programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression assays registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), scoring was highly concordant for expression in tumor cells but poorly concordant for scoring in immune cells in non–small cell lung...
As reported by Kochenderfer et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, remission in patients with advanced lymphoma induced by treatment with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells targeting CD19 (CAR-19) is associated with elevated serum interleukin-15 (IL-15) levels. Study Details The study...
In the upcoming decades, the number of older adults with cancer will drastically increase due to aging of Western societies.1 The risk of cancer strongly increases with age. Consequently, all future oncologists will be exposed to the challenges of caring for this heterogeneous population. Older...
Despite the controversy surrounding “Death With Dignity” laws, which allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients, they have a long history of majority support from Americans. According to a Gallup poll taken in 2015, nearly 7 in 10 Americans (68%) agreed that...
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 Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present a case study...
The treatment of multiple myeloma is becoming increasingly complicated. This is not only because of the complexity of the disease, but also because of the increasing number of effective combination treatments and continuous development of new drugs. This has resulted in an ever-increasing number ...
Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangements define a subset of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients for whom ALK inhibitors are highly effective. In PROFILE 1014, the multitargeted ALK inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori) was shown to be superior to platinum/pemetrexed (Alimta) chemotherapy...
Discussant Heather L. McArthur, MD, MPH, Medical Director of Breast Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, called the plinabulin findings “provocative,” especially considering the substantial impact on durability of response. Specifically with the addition of plinabulin to docetaxel, ...
Sheldon M. Feldman, MD, has been named Chief of the Division of Breast Surgery and Surgical Oncology and Director of Breast Cancer Services at Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, the clinical arm of the National Cancer Institute–designated Albert Einstein Cancer Center. He will also join...
Study discussant Heather L. McArthur, MD, MPH, Medical Director of Breast Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, noted that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has been shown to prevent HPV-related malignancies and eradicate high-grade, HPV16-positive premalignant lesions....
With thousands of devices to track and manage health and wellness, eHealth tools are beginning to transform modern health care and research, demonstrating quantifiable improvements in patient outcomes. According to the results of a randomized controlled trial (Reimagine), breast cancer survivors...
Tracey L. Evans, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the data supporting use of chemotherapy with radiation in locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer, targeted treatments and immunotherapy, and some of the controversies now debated.
In a substudy of a European phase III trial (Nordic Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology ALL2008) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Nygaard Nielsen et al found that higher leukocyte DNA-incorporated thioguanine nucleotide (DNA-TGN) levels were associated with an improved relapse-free...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Green et al found that risk factors for death within 1 month of diagnosis of childhood cancer included age up to 1 year, specific diagnoses, and minority race/ethnicity. The study involved analysis of data from SEER (Surveillance,...
ASCO and the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO (CCF) have proudly announced the winners of ASCO's Special Awards, the Society's highest honors, and the CCF Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award. The recipients of these awards include researchers, patient advocates, and global oncology leaders...
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) has decided to award the inaugural Sjöberg Prize 2017 to James P. Allison, PhD, Professor and Vivian L. Smith Distinguished Chair in Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Tony Hunter, PhD, American Cancer Society...
Immunotherapy has been a major advance in lung cancer, but it is not without its challenges, according to Sanjay Popat, PhD, FRCP, a consultant medical oncologist and reader in cancer medicine at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK. He reviewed some of the challenges pertaining to the use of...
Last year’s inaugural Cancer Survivorship Symposium stressed the importance of bringing together the fields of medical oncology and primary care to ensure a coordinated effort to help patients with cancer transition to long-term survivorship care. Building on that goal, the 2017 Cancer Survivorship ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Larissa Nekhlyudov, MD, MPH, of Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and colleagues, ASCO has endorsed the 2016 American Cancer Society (ACS) guideline on head and neck cancer survivorship care. The endorsement was based on ...
Three invited discussants explored the results of these recent immunotherapy studies in lung cancer as well as their potential clinical implications at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 17th World Conference on Lung Cancer. KEYNOTE-021 trial “Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is...
An older trial designed to evaluate the benefits of adjuvant therapy following radical prostatectomy in patients with high-risk prostate cancer showed no difference in overall or disease-free survival between 2 years of androgen-deprivation therapy and 2 years of androgen-deprivation therapy plus...
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide. It affects 80% of individuals, with the initial infection usually occurring between the ages of 15 and 24. Persistent infection with oncogenic HPV genotypes, primarily 16 and 18, is the cause of virtually all...
Endocrine therapy for breast cancer has evolved over the years. Initial endocrine therapies consisted of ablative procedures (oophorectomy, adrenalectomy, and hypophysectomy). With the availability of pharmaceutical estrogens, progestins, and androgens, ablative procedure utilization begin to...
Although the overall incidence rate of colorectal cancer in the United States has been declining rapidly since the mid-1980s, the decrease has been in older adults. During this same period, incidence rates have been increasing sharply for adults younger than age 50, finds a study by the American...
Scientific Name: Glycine max Common Names: Soybean, soya, tofu, miso, tempeh Overview An annual herb indigenous to East Asia, soy was domesticated more than 3,000 years ago for its pods and edible seeds. It is now the world’s most important legume crop and is grown in diverse climates. Foods...
Phase I Study Title: Phase I Study to Determine the Effects of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Secreting Interferon Beta in Patients With Advanced Ovarian Cancer Study Type: Phase I/interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: MD Anderson Cancer Center Purpose: To find the...