Women with HER2-positive breast cancer who had the highest levels of immune cells in their tumors gained the most benefit from presurgery treatment with chemotherapy and trastuzumab (Herceptin), according to results presented today at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (Abstract S1-05)....
The antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) has shown “compelling” antitumor activity in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphomas who were no longer responding to treatment, in a study presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition...
Nearly all of the patients with high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in a phase II clinical trial responded to treatment with the targeted therapy ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and the antibody rituximab (Rituxan), researchers reported at the 55th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting ...
A new analysis of the multiple myeloma IFM 2005-02 trial showed that lenalidomide (Revlimid) maintenance prolongs progression-free survival after stem cell transplantation, but does not improve overall survival. This is possibly attributed to the shorter survival time after first disease...
A new class of drugs reduced the risk of patients contracting a serious and often deadly side effect of bone marrow transplant treatments, according to a study by Choi et al published in The Lancet Oncology. The study, the first to test this treatment in humans, combined the drug vorinostat...
Compared to traditional mammography, three-dimensional (3D) mammography—known as digital breast tomosynthesis—found 22% more breast cancers and led to fewer call-backs in a large screening study at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, researchers reported today at the 99th...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) today released its final recommendation statement on screening for oral cancer in adults without signs or symptoms of oral cancer who are seen by primary care providers. This recommendation focuses on primary care professionals and is not a...
A new study has found that several months after surgery for esophageal cancer, different symptoms cluster together in different types of patients. In addition, patients with certain symptom clusters have an increased risk of dying from their disease. The findings by Wikman et al were published...
ASCO has policy and procedures for endorsing clinical practice guidelines developed by other professional organizations. As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Meyerhardt et al of the ASCO Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee, ASCO has endorsed the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO)...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today expanded the approved uses of sorafenib (Nexavar) to treat late-stage differentiated thyroid cancer. The new indication is for patients with locally recurrent or metastatic, progressive differentiated thyroid cancer that no longer responds to radioactive...
A team of researchers looking into the interplay of the immune system and cancer have found a link between a history of airborne allergies—in particular to plants, grass, and trees—with risk of blood cancers in women. The same association was not found in men, suggesting a possible...
Survivors of nasopharyngeal carcinoma who are former or current smokers are more likely to have their disease progress, relapse, or spread, and are more likely to die of their disease, compared with survivors of nasopharyngeal carcinoma who have never smoked, according to a study published in...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted regular approval for crizotinib (Xalkori) for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors are anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive as detected by an FDA-approved test. Today’s...
An investigational prostate cancer treatment slows the disease’s progression and may increase survival, especially among men whose cancer has spread to the bones, according an analysis led by the Duke Cancer Institute. The study, published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, adds...
Combining gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) with conventional chemotherapy may improve the outcome of bone marrow transplantation for some children battling high-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to a study led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The results appear in the...
Additional data for the investigational anti–PD-1 immunotherapy lambrolizumab (MK-3475) were presented yesterday at the 10th International Congress of the Society for Melanoma Research in Philadelphia. In patients with advanced melanoma, lambrolizumab demonstrated an estimated 1-year overall...
Results of a Johns Hopkins study may explain why cyclophosphamide prevents graft-vs-host disease in people who receive bone marrow transplants. The experiments point to an immune system cell that evades the toxic effects of cyclophosphamide and protects patients from a lethal form of graft-vs-host...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved ibrutinib (Imbruvica) for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma, an aggressive B-cell lymphoma that represents about 6% of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases in the United States. The drug, a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is ...
Researchers seeking to determine why breast cancers are more deadly in young women found that although only a minority of young women experience long delays between the time they detect a breast abnormality and the time they receive a diagnosis, delays in seeking care are more common in women with...
Use of a minimally invasive endoscopic procedure to remove superficial, early-stage esophageal cancer is as effective as surgery that takes out and rebuilds the esophagus, according to a study by researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida. The research, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and...
Advanced imaging techniques may be able to distinguish which patients' tumors will respond to treatment with antiangiogenic drugs and which will not. In a report published online in PNAS, researchers studied patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma who were treated with the antiangiogenic agent...
Novocure announced today that it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its NovoTAL (Transducer Array Layout) System through a Premarket Approval supplement. The NovoTAL System allows certified physicians to use the individual magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of...
The investigational anti–PD-1 immunotherapy MK-3475 showed promising objective response rates in patients with previously treated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The interim data were presented by Edward Garon, MD, Director of Thoracic Oncology at Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved obinutuzumab (Gazyva) for use in combination with chlorambucil (Leukeran) to treat patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Obinutuzumab is the first drug with Breakthrough Therapy designation to receive FDA...
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,...
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...
Both pemetrexed (Alimta) and gefitinib (Iressa) are standard second-line treatments for advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in East Asia. In a phase II trial (CTONG 0806) reported at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s 15th World Conference...
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...
The National Lung Screening Trial reported a 20% reduction in lung cancer mortality achieved through low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening of the at-risk population, compared to screening with chest x-ray. However, challenges with the clinical implication of CT screening for lung cancer...
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...
Measuring the presence and amount of the protein Vav2 may help identify breast precancers that will progress to invasive cancers, according to results presented at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held October 27 to 30 in National Harbor,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved hydrocodone bitartrate extended-release capsules (Zohydro ER) for the management of pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term treatment and for which alternative treatment options are inadequate. The drug, a Schedule ...
According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next 10 years, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will result in approximately 25 million newly insured individuals and 12 million more Medicaid beneficiaries through the the Medicaid expansion provision. While the law provides...
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...
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...
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...
A new diagnostic platform to detect BRAF mutations in melanoma and other cancer types is faster and more accurate compared with the standard method currently used in clinics, and this could help accelerate diagnosis and treatment, according to results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has assigned Priority Review to the regulatory submission for ramucirumab (IMC-1121B) as a single-agent treatment for advanced gastric cancer following disease progression after initial chemotherapy. Ramucirumab is a human monoclonal antibody that...
Patients with pancreatic cancer may benefit from an investigational member of an emerging class of anticancer drugs called antibody-drug conjugates, according to preclinical results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held October...
Two drug combinations that simultaneously block two major signaling pathways downstream of the protein KRAS, which is aberrantly active in most pancreatic cancers, may provide a new treatment option for patients with this disease, according to preclinical results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC...
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...
LEE011, an investigational small-molecule inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6, showed promising results in drug-resistant melanoma and drug-resistant breast cancer when tested in combination with other targeted therapies, according to findings presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC...
Although multiple studies have shown that high body mass index (BMI) is associated with an increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer, few studies have evaluated the impact of BMI on survival and none have used prospectively collected data on BMI. Now a large prospective study by Brian M....