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Showing 2251 - 2300Expert Point of View: Laura A. Dawson, MD
Session moderator Laura A. Dawson, MD, of the University of Toronto, commented on this study by Dr. Ross and colleagues for The ASCO Post: “Moving forward, I think we need to change the way we make treatment decisions, no question. Treatment based on profiling is the way of the future. Dr. Ross’...
Targeting Biliary Tract Cancers Through Genomic Profiling
Biliary tract cancers are challenging, but a large genomic profiling study has identified potentially clinically relevant genomic alterations in up to two-thirds of patients.1 “The diverse landscape of clinically relevant genomic alterations in biliary tract cancers can serve as targets for...
Expert Point of View: Jaffer A. Ajani, MD
Jaffer A. Ajani, MD, Professor of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, discussed the two studies. He emphasized the impressive cytoreductive activity of AMG 337. “Granted, it was only 13 patients, but in 13 patients, 8 [responders] is a...
Inhibiting the MET Pathway in Gastroesophageal Cancer: Hits and Misses
The MET pathway appears to be important in gastroesophageal cancers, but response to a targeted agent may depend on the class of drugs. A robust response to the novel small-molecule MET inhibitor AMG 337 was observed, but a monoclonal antibody targeting MET fell flat, in studies reported at the...
New Data Reported in Colorectal, Gastric, and Pancreatic Cancers
The 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, held January 15–17 in San Francisco, attracted almost 4,000 attendees, who heard or viewed data from nearly 800 scientific abstracts and lectures. Here are our summaries of some of the many important developments from the meeting. Bevacizumab Plus...
Five Questions Can Guide the Treatment of Relapsed Myeloma
Joseph Mikhael, MD, MEd, myeloma expert at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Scottsdale, and Associate Dean of the Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, considers five questions when selecting treatment for patients with multiple myeloma who relapse. “With prolonged survival, which approaches 10...
Optimal Timing of Rectal Surgery: 60 Days or Less Post Chemoradiation Therapy
For the treatment of locally advanced rectal cancer, the optimal timing between the end of neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy and surgical resection appears to be 60 days, according to an analysis of the National Cancer Database presented at the 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 An interval ...
Many Cancer Patients at Risk for Hepatitis B Virus Reactivation
In 2015, no cancer patients should be cured of their malignancy only to die of reactivation of hepatitis B virus (HBV),” according to Anna S. Lok, MD, the Alice Lohrman Andrews Research Professor in Hepatology and Director of Clinical Hepatology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. “I...
Too Early to Use Genome Sequencing for Breast Cancers in the Clinic
The role of next-generation sequencing (high-throughput technologies that allow DNA and RNA to be analyzed more quickly and inexpensively than earlier techniques) in breast cancer remains unclear and at present is primarily a research tool. Therefore, clinicians should be cautious in using genetic...
Should Oncologists Be Ordering Breast Cancer Gene Panels?
Two oncologic surgeons squared off at the 32nd Miami Breast Cancer Conference to debate whether breast cancer genetic susceptibility panel testing is ready for routine use in the clinic. J. Michael Dixon, MD, Professor of Surgery and Consultant Surgeon at the Edinburgh Breast Unit in the United...
20 Years of NCCN: The Best Is Yet to Come
As the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) celebrates its 20th year, The ASCO Post asked its Chief Executive Officer, Robert W. Carlson, MD, to reflect on the organization’s accomplishments, mission, and future and on the role he may have played in its success. The Early Years You became...
Immunosignature Technology May Detect Ovarian Cancer With a Drop of Blood
“Immunosignatures” may be well suited to enable the detection of ovarian cancer, researchers reported at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 20th Annual Conference.1 “We developed a new concept for disease detection based on immunosignatures. From a drop of blood, HealthTell’s...
NCCN Posters of Interest Included Studies in Kidney, Breast, and Endometrial Cancers, Melanoma, and Cost Issues
The quality and quantity of original research presented at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference continue to grow since poster sessions debuted a few years ago. The ASCO Post offers summaries for just a few that caught our eye, out of more than 65 presented this year....
Experts Debate: Can We Cure Metastatic Breast Cancer?
Can metastatic breast cancer ever be cured? This issue was debated at the 32nd Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference by two experts in the field: George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, California, and Clifford A. Hudis, MD, Chief of the...
Moffitt Cancer Center Hosts First HPV Summit
In February 2015, the President’s Cancer Panel reported that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination uptake among boys and girls was falling drastically short of target rates, posing “a serious but correctable threat to progress against cancer.” In response, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)...
HPV-Related Anal Cancer on the Rise
More than 7,200 cases of anal cancer were diagnosed in 2014—approximately 2,600 in men and 4,600 in women—representing an increase of more than 4,000 from 8 years ago. In more than 90% of patients, infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause, tagging anal cancer as a largely...
NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®): 2015 Updates
For 2 decades, the NCCN Guidelines® have been recognized as the standard of cancer care in the United States, combining evidence, experience, and choice, so that multidisciplinary cancer treatment teams—including patients—are empowered to make informed decisions about cancer care,” said Robert W....
Expert Point of View: Isaac Brownell, MD, PhD
Isaac Brownell, MD, PhD, Investigator with the Dermatology Branch of the National Cancer Institute, commented on the findings of the Australian ONTRAC trial for The ASCO Post. “This is an interesting finding, and it expands on prior work showing reductions in [ultraviolet]-induced DNA damage and...
Simple Means of Preventing Nonmelanoma Skin Cancer Reported
Two daily doses of nicotinamide, a form of vitamin B3, significantly reduced the occurrence of nonmelanoma skin cancers by 23% in individuals considered at high risk for these lesions in an Australian study. Results of the phase III ONTRAC trial, which will be presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual...
Expert Point of View: Philip L. McCarthy, MD
Another exciting multiple myeloma treatment will be presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting,” Philip L. McCarthy, MD, Professor of Oncology and Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Center at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York, commented in an interview with The ASCO Post....
Novel Agent Elotuzumab Added to Lenalidomide/Dexamethasone Extends Progression-Free Survival in Multiple Myeloma
The monoclonal antibody elotuzumab, given with lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone, extended progression-free survival by a median of 5 months, compared with lenalidomide/dexamethasone alone, in the eagerly awaited phase III ELOQUENT-2 trial, which will be presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual...
Expert Point of View: Julie A. Margenthaler, MD
Julie A. Margenthaler, MD, of Siteman Cancer Center, St. Louis, who moderated a press briefing at the American Society of Breast Surgeons 16th Annual Meeting, commented on these findings and fielded some questions about the procedure. Dr. Margenthaler indicated that although nipple-sparing...
Nipple-Sparing Mastectomy Shown to Be Oncologically Safe
Mastectomies that preserve the nipple and an envelope of breast skin are as safe as more radical operations for qualifying early-stage breast cancer patients, according to a meta-analysis and systematic literature review presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons 16th Annual Meeting.1...
Cost Analysis of Bilateral Prophylactic Mastectomy
Bilateral prophylactic mastectomy may ease cancer-related anxiety for patients at high risk of breast cancer, but it does very little to contain the costs. A study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons 16th Annual Meeting found that bilateral prophylactic mastectomy was not...
Expert Point of View: Neil Howard Segal, MD, PhD
Neil Howard Segal, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, who discussed the study at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, emphasized that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) exerted a “clear benefit in patients with mismatch repair deficiency,” based on the “very impressive response rate of...
Mismatch Repair Deficiency Predicts Benefit With Pembrolizumab in Colorectal Cancer
A genetic marker to predict response to anti–PD-1 (anti-programmed cell death protein 1) antibodies may have emerged in colorectal cancer, a tumor type that is a newcomer to the anti–PD-1 ballgame. In a phase II study of colorectal cancer patients treated with pembrolizumab (Keytruda), the presence ...
Expert Point of View: Michael B. Atkins, MD
Michael B. Atkins, MD, Deputy Director, Lombardi Cancer Center of Georgetown University, Washington, DC, discussed CheckMate 067 at the Plenary Session. Pending overall survival data, he concluded, “Nivolumab and nivolumab plus ipilimumab are superior to ipilimumab. These treatments (along with...
CheckMate 067: Dual Checkpoint Blockade Proves Effective in Advanced Melanoma
In advanced melanoma, combination treatment with nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) more than doubled the median progression-free survival time over ipilimumab alone in the CheckMate 067 trial. That said, single-agent nivolumab proved almost as powerful in patients expressing the programmed ...
Eribulin Improves Overall Survival in Difficult-to-Treat Sarcoma Types
Eribulin (Halaven), a cytotoxic agent approved for advanced/metastatic breast cancer, may improve overall survival for patients with two common and difficult-to-treat forms of advanced/metastatic sarcoma, investigators reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Eribulin is a microtubule inhibitor...
Expert Point of View: Lynn Schuchter, MD, and Vernon Sondak, MD
Lynn Schuchter, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, a designated ASCO expert, commented at the press briefing that the results might apply to a select group of patients concerned about lymphedema but not yet to the broader population. “I would say that this is a really important...
Not All Stage III Melanoma Patients Need Complete Nodal Dissection
Complete lymph node dissection did not improve survival in melanoma patients randomized to this practice, vs sentinel lymph node biopsy alone, German investigators reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “This is the first study that tested the typical recommendation of complete lymph node...
Expert Point of View: Joseph A. Sparano, MD, and Don Dizon, MD
Joseph A. Sparano, MD, Professor of Medicine and Women’s Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, was the formal discussant of the study and commented, “These findings confirm the strong signal observed in the phase II PALOMA1 trial, and there were no subgroups that did not...
Expert Point of View: Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD
Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD, Director of the Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis Program, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and New York Presbyterian Hospital, served as the study’s discussant. She called the 29% response rate in this heavily pretreated or refractory population...
Single-Agent Daratumumab Activity Deemed ‘Remarkable’ in Refractory Multiple Myeloma
Heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma achieved rapid, durable, and deepening responses to the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody daratumumab, in a phase II study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “Daratumumab showed remarkable single-agent activity in heavily pretreated and...
Oncolytic Immunotherapy in Melanoma: It’s Not All About PD-1
The benefit from immune-directed therapies in patients with advanced melanoma is not limited to the exploding field of checkpoint inhibitors. According to Robert Andtbacka, MD, Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology, at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City,...
Poliovirus for Glioblastoma Grabs National Attention
Researchers at The Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke University are being barraged by patients wishing to enroll in their clinical trial of an engineered poliovirus for recurrent glioblastoma. This comes as a result of a CBS 60 Minutes interview with lead researcher Matthias...
Cost of Immunotherapy Projected to Top $1 Million per Patient per Year
If new immunotherapy combinations were administered to the half a million Americans dying of cancer each year, the nation’s price tag for treating them—for just 1 year—could top $174 billion, according to projections by Leonard Saltz, MD, Chief of Gastrointestinal Oncology and Chair of the Pharmacy ...
Investigators Update PVS-RIPO Data in Glioblastoma
At the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, Annick Desjardins, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology at Duke University Medical Center, presented a brief update on the ongoing study of oncolytic PVS-RIPO in glioblastoma, which now includes 24 patients.1 The median age of enrolled patients is 57, most have a...
Expert Point of View: Lloyd Damon, MD
Lloyd Damon, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, discussed the study and noted that although ruxolitinib (Jakafi) is associated with a fair amount of anemia and thrombocytopenia, pacritinib did not increase these conditions in PERSIST-1. In fact, treatment was...
Pacritinib for Myelofibrosis: Effective in Patients With Thrombocytopenia
An emerging JAK inhibitor, pacritinib, appears not only effective in a broad population of patients with myelofibrosis but also among a subset with very low platelet counts, investigators from the global phase III PERSIST-1 trial reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “There is a huge unmet...
Expert Point of View: Shanu Modi, MD
Study discussant Shanu Modi, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, commented, “Neither T-DM1 [Kadcyla] nor T-DM1 plus pertuzumab [Perjeta] proved to be superior to the old standard of care, taxane plus trastuzumab [Herceptin]. MARIANNE was a valiant trial, but THP (taxane,...
Ado-Trastuzumab Emtansine Fails to Replace Standard of Care in First-Line Metastatic Breast Cancer
Results are now in for the phase III MARIANNE trial. Although ado-trastuzumab emtansine (formerly known as T-DM1, Kadcyla) proved noninferior to trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus a taxane in the first-line metastatic breast cancer setting, it performed no better than the standard of care.1 “T-DM1 and...
Expert Point of View: Michael P. Link, MD
“We have had remarkable success in treating patients with cancer. Millions of survivors are a testament to this success. But the ‘cost of cure’ borne by our patients is substantial in terms of diminished quality and quantity of life,” commented the formal discussant of the study Michael P. Link,...
Survivors of Childhood Cancer Living Longer, Largely Due to Treatment Improvements
Survivors of childhood cancers can expect longer lives than their peers of 30 years ago. Improvements in the care of children with cancer have reduced the long-term mortality rate, according to an analysis of 34,000 participants in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study.1 Cumulative all-cause late...
Precision Medicine Trials Bring Targeted Treatments to More Patients
At the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, both ASCO and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) unveiled details of new precision medicine trials that will greatly expand the number of patients with cancer who are benefiting from targeted agents. The trials will match a patient’s tumor molecular profile with an ...
Expert Point of View: Daniel G. Coit, MD
Daniel G. Coit, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Melanoma Guidelines Panel, discussed the findings reported by Lewin et al at the ASCO Annual Meeting. “This is a small retrospective study examining a prospective...
PET/CT Detects Asymptomatic Melanoma Recurrences
In monitoring patients with melanoma at high risk for relapse, surveillance imaging with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose–positron-emission tomography (FDG-PET)/computed tomography (CT) can detect asymptomatic metastases and thus facilitate early treatment, according to Australian investigators who presented ...
Expert Point of View: Martin J. van den Bent, MD
Commenting on the EF14 study was Martin J. van den Bent, MD, of The Brain Tumor Center at Erasmus MC Cancer Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, who was reticent to predict that tumor treating fields will become a standard of care. He noted that 57% of patients are still alive; therefore, the...
New Concept for Brain Tumors: Tumor Treating Fields
A novel treatment modality that applies electric forces to brain tumors via scalp electrodes improved outcomes in a study reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 In the first report of the full dataset, tumor treating fields significantly and consistently prolonged both progression-free...
Expert Point of View: Keith T. Flaherty, MD
Keith T. Flaherty, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Termeer Center for Targeted Therapy, Boston, was interviewed by The ASCO Post for his thoughts on the findings from Atreya and colleagues. He believes the study’s outcomes are sufficient for...
