A study in the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP)1 measured the level of cultural competence among surgeons from six hospitals in the Puget Sound region of Washington State, home to a large population of American Indians and Alaskan Natives. According to the study, “Assessing Cultural Competence...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2016 Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Awards in Gastrointestinal Cancer, Genitourinary Cancer, Cancer Survivorship, and Quality Care. The following 74 young investigators, recognized for the scientific merit...
Addition of the antifolate receptor-α antibody farletuzumab to carboplatin/taxane did not improve progression-free survival in patients with ovarian cancer in first platinum-sensitive relapse, reported Vergote et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. However, benefit was observed in...
At this year’s ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Craig Earle, MD, MSc, of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, used Donabedian’s Triad—structure, process, and outcome—to set the stage for his presentation on the science of quality. “The theory behind Donabedian’s Triad is that structure...
Vaccines for both secondary and primary prevention of breast cancer are showing potential in clinical trials, according to Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, PhD, who is leading much of the vaccine research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Vaccine platforms being explored...
A prospective study examining a trimodality treatment approach in localized bladder cancer cases using adaptive image-guided, intensity-modulated radiation therapy found that the bladder preservation rate at 3 years was 83%. These findings were published by Murthy et al in the International Journal ...
Using the latest advances in endoscopic resection techniques, more than 75% of patients with complex colon polyps could avoid surgery for their polyp removal, according to new research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The findings, published by Raju et al in Gastrointestinal ...
The phase II portion of the Italian HD0801 study suggests that treatment based on positron-emission tomography (PET) performed early in first-line therapy for advanced Hodgkin lymphoma may improve outcome in patients at risk of first-line treatment failure. Zinzani et al reported their findings in...
“New!” “Improved!” “Throw out that old [fill in the blank] and go buy a new [fill in the blank]!” Sound familiar? The key to marketing is to convince customers that they need a product without which they had previously been quite happy. All too often, this strategy is accompanied by a caveat emptor ...
On February 26, 2016, obinutuzumab (Gazyva) was approved for use in combination with bendamustine (Bendeka, Treanda) followed by obinutuzumab monotherapy for treatment of patients with follicular lymphoma who have relapsed after or are refractory to a rituximab (Rituxan)-containing regimen.1,2...
Proton-beam radiation therapy may be an attractive option for reirradiation of recurrent head and neck cancer, with encouraging disease control and survival rates and improved toxicity rates compared to photon reirradiation, according to John Han-Chih Chang, MD. Most head and neck cancers present...
Efforts to reduce the late toxicity associated with chemoradiotherapy for locally advanced head and neck squamous cell cancer have focused on radiation therapy dose de-escalation in select populations, according to James Melotek, MD, a radiation oncologist at the University of Chicago. “Patients...
Earlier this month, experts from four major institutions issued the annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer (1975–2012). This year’s report showed that death rates continued to decline for all cancers combined, as well as for most cancer sites for men and women of all major racial and...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved obinutuzumab (Gazyva), an anti-CD-20 monoclonal antibody, for use in combination with bendamustine (Bendeka, Treanda) followed by obinutuzumab monotherapy for the treatment of patients with follicular lymphoma who relapsed after, or are...
The Cancer Drug Development Forum exists to provide, as the name implies, a meeting place to bring together academia, the pharmaceutical industry, and most important regulators for full and frank discussions to facilitate anticancer drug development. In the recent past, the Cancer Drug Development...
The phase III ICON6 trial showed that adding cediranib to platinum-based therapy increased progression-free survival and toxicity in women with first relapse of platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer, reported Ledermann et al in The Lancet. Study Details In the double-blind trial, 456 women with...
The oral Aurora A kinase inhibitor alisertib was active in combination with irinotecan/temozolomide in patients with relapsed or refractory neuroblastoma, in a phase I dose-escalation trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by DuBois et al. The maximum tolerated dose of alisertib was 60...
Using the National Cancer Institute’s Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE), researchers from Columbia University, New York, and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, identified six severe adverse events clusters in patients with advanced prostate cancer. The...
A survey of oncology surgeons from six hospitals in Washington State found that the surgeons in the sample “displayed and valued cultural awareness and sensitivity” but that “cultural awareness and sensitivity did not necessarily result in culturally competent behavior.” These findings highlight...
In the phase III HELIOS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Asher Chanan-Khan, MD, of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Jacksonville, Florida, and colleagues found that addition of the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan)...
While two advanced radiosurgery approaches—Gamma Knife and RapidArc—offer different strengths, they are equally effective at eradicating cancer in the brain, say researchers at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson. Their study, published by Liu et al in Frontiers in Oncology,...
In the phase II Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC) 022 study, reported by Freedman et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the erbB1, HER2, erbB4 inhibitor neratinib showed some activity in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer brain metastases. Study Details In the...
Weekly dose-dense paclitaxel did not provide a progression-free survival benefit over every-3-week paclitaxel in combination with carboplatin and with or without elective bevacizumab (Avastin) in patients with previously untreated ovarian cancer, according to the results of the phase III GOG-0262...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved obinutuzumab (Gazyva) for use in combination with bendamustine (Bendeka, Treanda) followed by obinutuzumab monotherapy for the treatment of patients with follicular lymphoma who relapsed after, or are refractory to, a rituximab...
For patients treated with definitive radiation therapy for oropharyngeal cancer caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), the majority of recurrences can be detected by post-treatment imaging at 3 months and physical exams during the 6 months following treatment, according to research presented by...
Like many men, it never occurred to me that I could get breast cancer. But it turns out it is more common—and deadly—than I thought, with about 2,600 men diagnosed each year with invasive breast cancer and nearly 440 dying of the disease.1 In 2010, I became one of those men, and the diagnosis was...
In 2015, the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products (OHOP) approved 16 new molecular entities. The most notable were drug approvals in disease areas such as non–small cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, renal cancer, and diseases that are particularly difficult to...
The majority of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancers rely on cost-coping strategies that alter their lifestyle in order to manage the financial burden of their care, according to research presented by Kung et al at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium (Abstract...
An ongoing pilot study, designed to assess dynamic indices of insulin and glucose homeostasis in childhood cancer survivors exposed to abdominal radiation, has found a variety of derangements in glucose and insulin homeostasis in this cohort.1 According to an analysis presented at the 2016 Cancer...
A survey of oncology surgeons from six hospitals in Washington State found that the surgeons in the sample “displayed and valued cultural awareness and sensitivity” but that “cultural awareness and sensitivity did not necessarily result in culturally competent behavior.”...
Claus Rödel, MD, of the Department of Radiotherapy, University of Frankfurt, Germany, discussed the study at the 2016 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. “The main strength of the Polish II study is clearly its innovative design,” he said. “It sequentially combines effective local radiotherapy and...
Although the results may not yet be as impressive as those seen in melanoma, lung, and kidney cancers, monoclonal antibodies targeting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) are producing responses, with some durability, in gastrointestinal cancers, according to studies presented at the 2016...
A retrospective analysis of human papillomavirus (HPV) antibodies in patients treated for oropharyngeal cancers linked to HPV infection suggests at least one of the antibodies could be useful in identifying those at risk for a recurrence of the cancer, said scientists at The Johns Hopkins...
Bookmark Title: The Fear Cure: Cultivating Courage as Medicine for the Body, Mind, and Soul Author: Lissa Rankin, MD Publisher: Hay House, Inc Publication date: February 23, 2015 Price: $25.99; hardcover, 336 pages Fear is a healthy survival mechanism, a fight-or-flight response designed to put...
As reported in The Lancet by James et al, results of the STAMPEDE trial, which used a multiarm, multistage seamless phase II/III design, showed increased survival and toxicity with docetaxel and little benefit of zoledronic acid when added to first-line long-term hormone therapy in patients with...
The outcomes of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) have dramatically improved as the result of tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment. Use of a tyrosine kinase inhibitor regimen can lower the blood CML biomarker to levels imperceptible by current detection methods. For patients in “molecular...
In the French phase III MAPS trial reported in The Lancet, Zalcman et al found that the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard cisplatin/pemetrexed (Alimta) treatment increased overall and progression-free survival in patients with newly diagnosed pleural mesothelioma. Vascular endothelial...
Charles E. Geyer, Jr, MD, FACP, of Massey Cancer Center, discusses findings from abstract S3-02, “NSABP B-36: A randomized phase III trial comparing six cycles of fluorouracil (5-FU), epirubicin, and cyclophosphamide (FEC) to four cycles of adriamycin and cyclophosphamide (AC) in patients with...
Ten years ago, ASCO created the Journal of Oncology Practice to address a gap in the literature; there were no peer-reviewed journals dedicated to the practical issues of delivering quality oncology care. The original research and editorials published in JOP focus on care delivery topics such as...
"A solid triple but not a home run” is how Karen H. Lu, MD, characterized a study in The Lancet reporting a reduction in deaths from ovarian cancer with the use of multimodal ovarian cancer screening.1 Dr. Lu’s remark was one of several, mostly but not universally, favorable and optimistic comments ...
Medical oncologist and researcher Ravi Salgia, MD, PhD, has joined City of Hope as Professor and Chair in the Department of Medical Oncology & Therapeutics Research. He will play a key leadership role in the expansion of clinical programs at City of Hope’s Duarte campus and in its clinics...
The ASCO Post is pleased to introduce this special focus on the worldwide cancer burden, beginning in this issue with a close look at the cancer incidence and mortality rates in the United States. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the...
In a phase II trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Jia Ruan, MD, PhD, and colleagues, first-line treatment with the immunomodulatory agent lenalidomide (Revlimid) and the anti-CD20 antibody rituximab (Rituxan) followed by maintenance lenalidomide and rituximab produced a high...
A seismic shift is underway in screening and treatment approaches for breast cancer. These changes are being fueled by studies showing that mammography in younger women may do more harm than good and that advances in genomic testing and a better understanding of the biology of breast cancers may...
Surveys conducted between 1950 and 1970 show that most physicians considered it inhumane to give patients with a poor cancer prognosis the bad news.1,2 Since then, it has been well established that open communication between physician and patient is an essential part of effective cancer care and...
ASCO University has created a new multidisciplinary immunology program that provides a broad overview of immunobiology, as well as an in-depth focus on topics relevant to the practicing clinician, such as treatment, efficacy, monitoring, and management of immunobiologic agents. ASCO University’s...
The homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) score may be a predictive biomarker of response to neoadjuvant platinum-based therapy in patients with triple-negative breast cancer, according to studies presented at the 2015 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. “We found, in our adjusted analysis,...
The use of T cells that are genetically engineered to express chimeric antigen receptor (CAR-T) has made headway as an approach to hematologic malignancies, with the best results achieved in leukemia. At the 2015 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, a preliminary...
In the long-term follow-up of the Italian HD2000 trial reported by Merli et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, no significant differences in overall or progression-free survival were observed after 10 years among patients with previously untreated advanced Hodgkin lymphoma receiving ABVD...
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc, announced that an updated overall survival analysis of the phase III NAPOLI-1 study of irinotecan liposome injection (Onivyde) in combination with fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin achieved a substantial improvement in 12-month overall survival compared to 5-FU and...