A recent study by Darby and colleagues showed a significant linear increase in risk for major coronary events according to mean cardiac dose of radiation (7.4% per Gy) in patients receiving radiation therapy for breast cancer between 1958 and 2001. In an analysis reported in a research letter...
Results from the Costa Rica HPV16/18 Vaccine Trial (CVT) has found that 4-year efficacy against 12-month HPV16/18 persistent infection was similarly high among women who received one, two, or the recommended three doses of the bivalent HPV16/18 L1 virus-like particle vaccine (Cervarix). The...
The inclusion of multiple hormones—rather than just adding one or two individually—in breast cancer risk prediction models may improve prediction of the disease and could help better identify women who would benefit from chemoprevention, according to a study by Shelley S. Tworoger, PhD, ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked the manufacturer of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ponatinib (Iclusig) to suspend marketing and sales of the drug because of the risk of life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels. Ariad Pharmaceuticals has agreed to...
Teenagers and young adults are at increased risk of suicide after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a study published today in Annals of Oncology. A study of nearly 8 million Swedes aged 15 and over found that among the 12,669 young people diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 15 and...
Standardized criteria for initiating palliative care consultations can substantially improve the care of patients with advanced solid tumors, according to research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, led by Kerin Adelson, MD, Coordinator for Ambulatory Oncology Quality for the Tisch...
A new educational tool for oncologists may enhance compliance with quality care standards and improve the value of cancer care, ultimately resulting in big cost savings for health-care systems, according to Karen Fields, MD, and colleagues from H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute,...
In a phase I trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, and colleagues assessed the effects of nivolumab—a human immunoglobulin G4-blocking antibody against the T-cell programmed death 1 checkpoint ...
Patients with non–small cell lung cancer who have the ALK gene rearrangement usually respond to the drug crizotinib (Xalkori), with a median duration of response of approximately 10 months. In a study reported by Shirish Gadgeel, MD, of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, and colleagues at...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today announced its second “Top Five” list of opportunities to improve the quality and value of cancer care. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO), ASCO’s second Top Five list was released as part of the Choosing...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Julia Wade, PhD, of Bristol University, United Kingdom, and colleagues assessed the psychological impact of prostate biopsy. They found that postbiopsy symptoms can be associated with increased anxiety, independent of anxiety associated...
The longer a woman with breast cancer has to travel to reach a comprehensive cancer center, the more likely she is to have later-stage disease at diagnosis, and the more likely she is to have a mastectomy, according to study by medical student Krishan Jethwa and colleagues from the University of...
Men who spend the most time engaged in sedentary behaviors are at greatest risk for recurrence of colorectal adenomas, benign tumors that are known precursors of colorectal cancers, according to results presented at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention...
Men with short-ended chromosomes in the immune cells in their blood were at increased risk for aggressive prostate cancer compared with men with long-ended chromosomes in blood immune cells, according to results presented at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Taxiarchis V. Kourelis, MD, and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic attempted to define a threshold of bone marrow plasma cell number that could serve to define light chain amyloidosis as light chain amyloidosis with multiple myeloma. They found that ...
In a phase I study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Donald M. Cannon, MD, of University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and Mountain States Tumor Institute, and colleagues attempted to identify the maximum tolerated dose of dose-escalated hypofractionated radiation...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Jean M. Mitchell, PhD, of Georgetown University, examined patterns of use of intensity-modulated radiation therapy to treat prostate cancer among urologists in private practice who have integrated intensity-modulated radiation therapy into ...
Since 1994, many thousands of women with breast cancer from families severely affected with the disease have been tested for inherited mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2, and the vast majority of those patients were told that their gene sequences were normal. With the development of modern genomics...
A newly discovered potential gene-diet interaction for colorectal cancer may shed light on the statistically significant increased risk of colorectal cancer that is associated with consumption of red and processed meat, according to a study reported yesterday at the American Society of Human...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Patricia G. Moorman, PhD, of Duke University Medical Center, and colleagues evaluated risk of ovarian and breast cancer among oral contraceptive users with BRCA1/2 mutations. The study showed a significantly reduced risk of ovarian...
Patient assistance programs can help patients with breast cancer meet a variety of needs that might otherwise interfere with getting recommended adjuvant therapies such as radiation, chemotherapy, and hormonal treatments, according to a study published recently in the online edition of...
New research ties preparative procedures and complications associated with blood or bone marrow transplant with diminished sexual health in both men and women who have undergone the procedure. Study data, published today in Blood, confirm chronic graft-vs-host disease as a potential source of...
Treating aggressive lung cancer with the diabetes drug metformin along with radiation and chemotherapy may slow tumor growth and recurrence, suggested new preliminary findings from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The findings will be presented by...
In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, Ségolène Hescot, MD, of Université Paris Descartes, and colleagues reported evidence of irreversible pancreatic atrophy in two patients after long-term sorafenib treatment. Both patients received cumulative doses of sorafenib...
A functional biomarker that can predict whether BRAF-mutant melanomas respond to drugs targeting BRAF could help guide the treatment of patients with these cancers, according to results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held...
Axitinib plasma exposure may correlate with efficacy in metastatic renal cell carcinoma, according to population pharmacokinetic data. In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brian I. Rini, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues evaluated the effects of axitinib dose titration in...
In patients with heavily pretreated advanced BRCA-related breast and ovarian cancers, the investigational poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor BMN673 produced an objective response rate of more than 40% and delayed disease progression by more than 6 months, according to a multicenter phase ...
In a phase III trial (EORTC [European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer]/GIMEMA [Gruppo Italiano Malattie Ematologiche dell’Adulto] consortium AML-17 trial) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sergio Amadori, MD, of Tor Vergata University Hospital in Rome, and...
In the RIGHT trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology, Yoon-Koo Kang, MD, of University of Ulsan College of Medicine in Seoul, and colleagues assessed the effects of imatinib (Gleevec) rechallenge in patients with metastatic or unresectable gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) after objective...
The investigational drug PF-06463922 may have the potential to become a new treatment option for patients who have lung cancer harboring abnormalities in the ALK gene, according to preclinical results (Abstracts A277, PR10/B107, and C253) presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on...
Approximately 50% of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who develop resistance to inhibitors of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have acquired a second mutation, T790M, which no current EGFR inhibitors target. This may change if the AstraZeneca investigational compound...
Risk and risk factors for congestive heart failure in older breast cancer patients receiving trastuzumab have not been clearly defined. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mariana Chavez-MacGregor, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues...
In a randomized phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by R. Wendel Naumann, MD, of Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and colleagues, the addition of vintafolide to pegylated liposomal doxorubicin improved progression-free survival in women with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating an increasing frequency of reports of serious and life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels of patients taking the antileukemia drug ponatinib (Iclusig). Ponatinib is indicated for the treatment of patients with...
An international research team led by scientists from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center has discovered a genetic mutation linked to low-risk bladder cancer. The findings, published in Nature Genetics, identified STAG2 as one of the most commonly mutated genes in bladder cancer,...
An international consortium co-led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia has identified four genetic variants associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer and its precursor, Barrett’s esophagus. The...
Survivorship care plans, consisting of treatment summaries and follow-up plans, are intended to promote coordination of post-treatment cancer care, but little is known about how they are being used in routine oncology practice. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer...
Standard and reduced high-dose volume radiation therapy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer provide comparable tumor control and decreased late toxicity when compared to surgery, according to a study published in the October issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology...
Hot flashes occur in approximately 80% of androgen-deprived men. In a randomized study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Mara Z. Vitolins, DrPH, MPH, RD, of Wake Forest School of Medicine, and colleagues, neither venlafaxine nor soy protein—both of which have been used to...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Ghada N. Farhat, PhD, of University of Balamand in Beirut, and colleagues found that women with lower pretreatment endogenous estrogen levels are at greatest risk of breast cancer during estrogen-plus-progestin therapy. Study...
Adjuvant endocrine therapy beyond 5 years reduces recurrence in patients with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer. Recent studies from the transATAC cohort have shown that immunohistochemical markers (IHC4), Oncotype DX recurrence score, and PAM50 risk of recurrence score are associated...
Among patients with pancreatic cancer who had surgery for removal of the cancer, treatment with the drug gemcitabine for 6 months resulted in increased overall survival as well as disease-free survival, compared with observation alone, according to a study in published in the October 9 issue of...
The Program Chairs of the 2013 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, which will be held December 10–14, 2013, have highlighted what they consider to be the most important abstracts to be presented at the Symposium. In a telebriefing in advance of the December meeting, C. Kent...
Etirinotecan pegol is a topoisomerase-I inhibitor designed to provide prolonged tumor cell exposure to the active metabolite of irinotecan. In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ahmad Awada, MD, of Jules Bordet Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles, and colleagues examined...
Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons....
Sentinel lymph node surgery provides reliable nodal staging information and is associated with less morbidity than axillary lymph node dissection in patients with clinically node-negative breast cancer. The American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z1071 (Alliance) trial examined the...
There is an absence of biomarkers to indicate which patients with stage I non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) would best benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Juan Sandoval, PhD, of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute in...
In a phase III trial (GRANITE-1 study) reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology by Atsushi Ohtsu, MD, PhD, of the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Kashiwa, Japan, and colleagues, everolimus (Afinitor) plus best supportive care did not prolong overall survival compared with placebo plus best...
Myeloablative conditioning with cyclophosphamide combined with intravenous busulfan (Busulfex) was associated with better leukemia-free and overall survival than conditioning with cyclosphosphamide and total-body irradiation in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who were in first complete...
As reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mila Donker, MD, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute, and colleagues analyzed the effects of adjuvant radiotherapy after local excision for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) on long-term risk for local recurrence and survival in patients from the EORTC...