In a phase I study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Rudin et al found that rovalpituzumab tesirine, a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate directed against delta-like protein 3 (DLL3), produced responses in patients with recurrent small cell lung cancer (SCLC). DLL3 is a target identified in...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Saro H. Armenian, DO, MPH, of City of Hope, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on prevention and monitoring of cardiac dysfunction in survivors of adult cancers. Recommendations were developed by an expert panel using a ...
Patients in Chandigarh, India, waited an average of 4 months before seeking a cancer diagnosis, according to a recent study. Some patients waited less than a week before seeing a doctor—while others waited 3 years. The researchers will report their findings at the ESMO Asia 2016 Congress ...
The LUME-Meso phase II trial in patients with unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma met its primary endpoint of progression-free survival. The data, presented at the 17th IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Vienna (Abstract 4191 #OA22.02), showed nintedanib (Ofev) plus...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Hellman et al, the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) showed promising activity as first-line treatment in patients in the non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cohort of the phase I CheckMate 012 study. Study Details In the...
In the phase III AURA3 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicineby Mok et al, osimertinib (Tagrisso) significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) vs platinum/pemetrexed (Alimta) among patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M–positive non–small...
On Tuesday, December 13, President Obama signed into law the 21st Century Cures Act, landmark legislation designed to improve and accelerate the pace of biomedical research in the United States. ASCO Chief Executive Officer Clifford Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, attended the White House signing ceremony...
In part 1 of the phase II ARIEL2 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Swisher et al found that the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor rucaparib was associated with prolonged progression-free survival among patients with relapsed platinum-sensitive high-grade ovarian carcinoma who had...
In the international phase III FALCON trial reported in The Lancet, Robertson et al found that progression-free survival was improved with intramuscular fulvestrant (Faslodex) vs oral anastrozole in endocrine therapy–naive women with hormone receptor–positive locally advanced or...
The artificial-intelligence platform Watson for Oncology (WFO) achieved a high degree of concordance with the recommendations of a panel of oncologists in a double-blinded validation study, according to results presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held December 6 to 10...
Postmenopausal women with breast cancer who took aromatase inhibitors demonstrated endothelial dysfunction, a predictor of cardiovascular disease, according to study results presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held December 6 to 10 (Abstract s5-07). Aromatase inhibitors are...
Virginia G. Kaklamani, MD, DSc, of The University of Texas Health Science Center, discusses new directions in prevention, early detection, and treatment of early-stage breast cancer, using genomic tests and targeted therapies.
Monica Morrow, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, recognized at this year’s meeting for scientific distinction in clinical research, summarizes her Brinker Award lecture on modifying local therapy to decrease the burden of cancer treatment.
S.P. Somashekhar, MBBS, MCh(Onco), of the Manipal Comprehensive Cancer Centre, discusses a study to assess the performance of IBM's artificial intelligence platform in comparison to a multidisciplinary tumor board (Abstract S6-07).
Eric P. Winer, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, summarizes his McGuire lecture on the past and future of breast cancer treatment.
Mothaffar Rimawi, MD, of the Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine, discusses phase II findings from a study evaluating pathologic complete response in patients with HR-positive, HER2-positive disease treated with neoadjuvant docetaxel, carboplatin, trastuzumab, and pertuzumab with or...
Patricia A. Ganz, MD, of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, summarizes two studies on using duloxetine for aromatase inhibitor–associated musculoskeletal symptoms, and aromatase inhibitors’ effect on endothelial function and heart disease (Abstracts S5-06 and S5-07).
Matthew P. Goetz, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, reviews progress made during the past year on treatment of advanced disease.
Ruth O'Regan, MD, of the University of Wisconsin, discusses study findings on buparlisib plus fulvestrant in postmenopausal women with HR-positive, HER2-positive, aromatase inhibitor–treated, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, who progressed on or after mTOR inhibitor–based treatment...
Lisa A. Carey, MD, and Maki Tanioka, MD, both of the University of North Carolina, discuss study findings on weekly paclitaxel and trastuzumab with or without lapatinib for HER2-positive breast cancer (Abstract S3-05).
Lisa A. Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina, and Ingrid A. Mayer, MD, of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discuss the current studies on neoadjuvant systemic treatment in the triple-negative disease setting.
Lisa A. Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina, discusses a session she moderated on key data presented at SABCS, and gives her expert views on putting the research data into clinical practice.
Peter Bach, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, summarizes his plenary lecture on drug costs and their effect on the affordability of cancer care worldwide (Plenary Lecture 3).
Nikhil Wagle, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the genomic sequencing of ER-positive metastatic breast cancer that has become resistant to therapies and the implications for the choice of next therapy, clinical trial eligibility, and novel drug targets (Abstract S1-01).
Joseph A. Sparano, MD, of the Montefiore Medical Center, discusses the tumor microenvironment of metastasis score and its association with early distant recurrence in HR-positive, HER2-negative early-stage breast cancer (Abstract S4-04). To view a short film on capturing imaging inside breast...
Hyo Sook Han, MD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses phase II study findings on the efficacy and tolerability of veliparib in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel vs placebo in patients with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations and metastatic breast cancer (Abstract S2-05).
Anne Hudson Blaes, MD, of the University of Minnesota, discusses the association between aromatase inhibitors, endothelial function, and early heart disease (Abstract S5-07).
Jame Abraham, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, discusses findings of the Scalp Cooling Alopecia Prevention trial for patients with early-stage breast cancer (Abstract S5-02).
Jame Abraham, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, gives his perspective on study results of extended adjuvant endocrine therapy in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer who have completed previous adjuvant endocrine treatment (Abstract S1-05).
Until 1957, the prevailing thought was that since cancers develop in normal patients, they are not recognized as foreign by the immune system. That changed when Richmond T. Prehn, MD, and his laboratory assistant, Joan Main, showed that tumors induced by chemical carcinogens in mice could...
The investigational immunotherapeutic IMC-20D7S was found to be well tolerated and somewhat active in patients with advanced melanoma, including one complete response, according to the results of a phase I/Ib trial reported by Danny N. Khalil, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Clinical Cancer Research....
Although adjuvant chemotherapy decreases the risk of breast cancer recurrence, it is associated with distressing side effects, including hair loss. A prospective randomized trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the Orbis Paxman Hair Loss Prevention System (OPHLPS), a scalp-cooling device that ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chakravarthy et al found that human papillomavirus (HPV)-driven tumors accounted for 4.1% of nonoropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck. HPV-positive tumors were associated with poorer survival and reduced...
In a secondary analysis from the NRG Oncology RTOG 0617 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stephen G. Chun, MD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that use of intensity-modulated vs three-dimensional...
CancerLinQ LLC has announced that George A. Komatsoulis, PhD, will be its first Chief of Bio-Informatics. This marks another step toward the organization’s goal of making the CancerLinQ® platform the premier system for unlocking patient data from millions of electronic health records, breaking...
Reports of rare, but in some cases fatal, cardiac complications when the checkpoint inhibitors ipilimumab (Yervoy) and nivolumab (Opdivo) are used in combination should be taken seriously but should not scare patients away from potentially life-saving drugs, according to Javid J. Moslehi, MD. Dr....
Cardiovascular toxicities associated with cancer treatments are not new. What is new, and what has prompted recent articles in The New England Journal of Medicine,1,2 is the explosion of cancer therapies, which has dramatically changed the natural course of many cancers but can lead to cardiac,...
Ruth O’Regan, MD, of the University of Wisconsin, and Ann H. Partridge, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss study findings from a session Dr. O’Regan moderated on three major trials addressing anastrozole after tamoxifen in HR-positive early breast cancer, letrozole in HR-positive...
Among women enrolled in the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study I (IBIS-I), those who had certain symptoms of menopause—nausea/vomiting and headaches—were significantly less likely to be adherent to the assigned medication 4.5 years after starting the treatment, according to...
“I am greatly saddened by the death of former Congressman Melvin R. Laird, who, over the course of his distinguished career in public service, played a key role in advancing biomedical research and the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Our thoughts are with his family and the...
Although my diagnosis of stage IIIB melanoma 5 years ago came as a shock, in hindsight, it shouldn’t have been so surprising. I had noticed a small freckle-like lesion on my upper left thigh that had become itchy and occasionally bled, but it didn’t fit the ABCDE (Asymmetry, Border irregularity,...
Presurgical treatment with the investigational therapeutic abemaciclib, either alone or in combination with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole, reduced levels of Ki67, a marker of cell proliferation, in hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer cells, compared with anastrozole...
Scientific Names: Valeriana officinalis, Valeriana radix Common Names: Garden valerian, Indian valerian, Pacific valerian, garden heliotrope Overview A perennial flowering plant prevalent in Europe, Asia, and North America, valerian has a long medicinal history as a relaxant. Its potential as a...
The investigational PI3K inhibitor buparlisib, in combination with endocrine therapy, improved outcomes for patients with hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer that had progressed after treatment with everolimus (Afinitor) plus exemestane, according to data from the phase III...
Adding the investigational poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor veliparib to carboplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy improved the overall response rate without increasing adverse events among patients who had locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer with BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations,...
Samuel Smith, PhD, of Queen Mary University of London, discusses study findings on menopausal symptoms as predictors of long‐term adherence in an International breast cancer intervention study (Abstract S5-03).
Harold J. Burstein, MD, PhD, from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, gives an update on the duration of adjuvant endocrine therapy and offers his expert views on putting the research data into clinical practice.
JANUARY 2017 2017 Oncologic Emergency Medicine ConferenceJanuary 12-13 • Houston, Texas For more information: www.mdanderson.org/education-training/professional-education/cme-conference-management/conferences/oncologic-emergency-medicine-conference.html Advances in Medical and Surgical Management...
Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses findings on the biological effects of abemaciclib in a neoadjuvant study for postmenopausal patients (Abstract S4-06).
A few years ago, I had the good fortune to join a research team that intended to create a device to help dying children express their wants and needs despite communication challenges. The brain tumor team at SickKids [also known as The Hospital for Sick Children] had cared for several children...