In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Gordan et al found that costs of care for patients with breast, colorectal, and lung cancers were significantly higher at hospital-based vs community-based clinics, largely reflecting higher costs of chemotherapy and provider visits. Study...
In the phase II PERSIST-5 study reported in JAMA Oncology, Raut et al found that 5 years of adjuvant imatinib therapy was associated with little risk of recurrence in patients with resected intermediate- or high-risk primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). As noted by the investigators, 3...
On November 9, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with the kinase inhibitor sorafenib. KEYNOTE-224 Approval was based on KEYNOTE-224, a single-arm,...
In December, The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School will launch an innovative cancer care model called the CaLM (cancer life re-imagined) Clinic as part of its new cancer center, the Livestrong Cancer Institutes. The goal of the Livestrong Cancer Institutes and the CaLM Clinic is to...
ACCORDING TO a study by Johns Hopkins, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States.1 Lakshmi Santanam, PhD, tackled such sobering data at the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium. “Incident learning systems are not just about medical errors or data; it’s kind of a first...
A review and analysis of randomized clinical trials published by Kovic et al in JAMA Internal Medicine questioned whether interventions that prolong progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with cancer improve their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The systematic review and quantitative...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Guinter et al found that better prediagnosis and postdiagnosis dietary patterns were associated with improved overall and colorectal cancer–specific survival among patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Study Details The...
In the Italian phase II PURE-01 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Necchi et al found that neoadjuvant pembrolizumab (Keytruda) before radical cystectomy in muscle-invasive bladder carcinoma produced complete pathologic response (pT0) in 42% of patients, with pT0 being more common...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies focused on immunotherapies in lung cancer. These trials are studying combination therapies, radiotherapy plus immunotherapy, cancer vaccines, identifying biomarkers to immunotherapy...
The Persephone presentation by Helena Margaret Earl, MBBS, PhD, got a lot of publicity after a pre–ASCO Annual Meeting press release, suggesting that 6 months of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) is enough. The advice of experts has been that the evidence is inconclusive, but I have not heard a...
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of July 2016, the Hispanic population in the United States had grown to 57.5 million, making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or racial minority group. Studies have shown that U.S.-born Latinos have a higher incidence of cancer than ...
In a study reported in Cancer, Osazuwa-Peters et al found that the mortality rate from suicide among head and neck cancer survivors was twice as high as the pooled rate in survivors of 19 other cancers considered in the study. Only the rate of suicide in pancreatic cancer survivors was higher...
Three prominent medical societies have issued a new clinical guideline for physicians treating men with early-stage prostate cancer using external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT). Adoption of the guideline could make treatment shorter and more convenient for many patients with prostate cancer....
A highly sensitive blood test that detects minute traces of cancer-specific DNA has been shown to accurately determine whether patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) are free from cancer following radiation therapy. Findings were presented by...
In a cost-effectiveness analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Huntington et al found that the cost of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) would need to be reduced in order for the combination of the agent with chemotherapy in first-line treatment of stage III or IV Hodgkin lymphoma to...
A phase III trial has determined that cisplatin chemotherapy combined with radiation therapy showed high amounts of activity in human papillomavirus (HPV)-related head and neck cancer. Findings from NRG-RTOG 1016 were presented by Trotti et al the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for...
In an analysis of data from two Nurses’ Health Study cohorts reported in JAMA Oncology by Barnard et al, use of low-dose but not standard-dose aspirin was associated with reduced risk of epithelial ovarian cancer, whereas use of nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)...
In an analysis of the phase III GALLIUM trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Trotman et al found that end-of-induction fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (PET) after first-line immunochemotherapy appeared to better predict treatment outcomes than contrast-enhanced computed tomography ...
In an interim analysis of the French phase III noninferiority Carmena trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Arnaud Méjean, MD, PhD, of the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, and colleagues found that sunitinib alone was not inferior in overall survival vs nephrectomy followed by...
Radiation therapy for early-stage follicular lymphoma “is underused,” Joanna C. Yang, MD, MPH, and Joachim Yahalom, MD, declared in a recent editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 This underuse of radiation therapy can result in overtreatment with systemic therapies or overconfidence in...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. Although physical activity is associated with many positive outcomes in the general population,...
I’m a psychiatrist, so I don’t say this lightly: receiving a diagnosis of stage IV gastric adenocarcinoma made me insane. I had remembered the horrible deaths due to abdominal cancer I had seen during my medical training and was terrified that would be my fate as well. I knew from looking at the...
Recently, the term “personalized medicine” in oncology care has been overtaken by the more contemporary concept of “precision medicine.” According to the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, the newer terminology shifts the focus to improving...
Two-year maintenance therapy with olaparib (Lynparza), a poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, led to a substantial improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) in newly diagnosed patients with advanced ovarian cancer and a BRCA1/2 mutation, results from the phase III SOLO-1 trial...
Do your patients know that being overweight slows recovery and lowers cancer survival? Address this sensitive topic with the help of the “Managing Your Weight After a Cancer Diagnosis” booklet from ASCO Answers. This resource will help patients manage their weight by providing practical resources ...
As the nation battles an escalating opioid-overdose crisis, which claims more than 100 lives per day, a new study presented at the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium was designed to answer a heretofore unanswered question: How common are opioid-related deaths in patients with cancer?1 Unintended...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On April 16, 2018, nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab...
Treatment with the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor palbociclib (Ibrance) achieved a clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative advanced breast cancer that has relapsed or ...
Results of the very large, randomized, population-based NELSON trial confirm the value of low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening in people at high risk for developing lung cancer. The protective value of screening was more pronounced in women than in men. These study findings were presented at ...
The global burden of cancer is huge and growing. In 2018, there will be > 18 million new cancer cases and 9.6 million deaths.1,2 Although several recent articles have reviewed cancer in developing countries, few have focused on the Palestinian territories. There are several reasons for that,...
Nearly 1 in 6 premenopausal women being treated for early-stage breast cancer do not adhere adequately to tamoxifen therapy after 1 year of treatment, potentially putting themselves at increased risk of recurrence and reduced survival, reported a French prospective study at the European Society for ...
A pooled analysis of two large U.S. prospective cohort studies reported in JAMA Oncology by Simon et al indicates that regular use of aspirin is associated with a significant reduction in risk for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), with an apparent dose- and duration-dependent effect. Study Details...
In an analysis of two Nordic Lymphoma Group trials with long-term follow up reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lockmer and colleagues found evidence that many patients receiving rituximab (Rituxan) as initial treatment for advanced indolent lymphoma may not require the addition of...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Mrad et al found an increase in the proportion of patients with stage IV lung cancer admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) during terminal hospitalization between 1998 and 2014. A large increase in palliative care contacts also occurred,...
As reported by Mitchell et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the combination of the oral indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) enzyme inhibitor epacadostat and the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) therapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed activity in advanced solid tumors in the ...
In a Korean nationwide cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Choi et al found that hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) appeared to be more common with first-line entecavir vs tenofovir treatment for chronic hepatitis B. The study involved data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Ahmed et al found that conflict of interest (COI) disclosure slides shown during presentations at a recent American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) national meeting were shown too briefly to be fully read and often contained...
Doximity has released a new study detailing a concerning trend that could potentially impact cancer care in the United States. Doximity researchers examined retirement trends, percentage of state-trained specialists, and prevalence of breast cancer on a city-by-city basis. The report is the...
The cancer burden in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory with a 99% Hispanic population, is substantially different from that of Hispanics in the continental United States, according to Cancer Statistics for Hispanics/Latinos, 2018. The report, published every 3 years, found that men in Puerto Rico...
In a prospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Melissa A. Merritt, PhD, of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center’s Epidemiology Program, and colleagues found evidence that recent use of aspirin or nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) after diagnosis appears to...
Thirteen years ago, Stephanie Koraleski, PhD, an oncology psychologist, and Kay Ryan, PhD, RN, a cardiac nurse and breast cancer survivor, in Omaha, brought together colleagues in the fields of clinical research, nursing, nutrition, mental health, physical therapy, pharmacy, and spirituality to...
ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to duvelisib (Copiktra) for adults with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) after at least two prior therapies. Duvelisib also received accelerated...
As reported at the recent International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Horn et al, the phase III IMpower133 study has shown significant improvement in overall and progression-free survival with...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bardia et al evaluated the effects of adding an antagonist of inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (LCL161) to paclitaxel as neoadjuvant therapy in patients with localized triple-negative breast cancer who did or did not have a tumor...
With a focus on the pathology aspects of diagnosing lymphoma, the American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and the American Society of Hematology (ASH) are collaborating to develop an evidence-based clinical practice guideline for the workup of...
In a report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Madenci et al found that survivors of childhood cancer are at increased risk of late venous thromboembolism, with several factors increasing such risk. The study involved data from a...
Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is a poster child for the success of molecularly targeted therapy, with some patients appearing to be “cured” of their disease and others living for a long time after treatment with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor targeting the BCR-ABL1 protein. However, there are still...
As reported by Lin et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, cost-effectiveness modeling of treatment with the anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) in relapsed or refractory pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) showed that price reduction...
A preclinical study showing that a vaccination with a recombinant adenovirus expressing a truncated ErbB-2 antigen can cure advanced established murine breast cancer as well as extensive established metastatic lung cancer led to the launch of a small phase I study investigating a therapeutic cancer ...
On September 24, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to duvelisib (Copiktra) for adult patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) after at least two prior therapies. In addition, duvelisib...