Testicular cancer is one of oncology’s true success stories. It is a highly treatable disease, usually curable, that most often develops in young and middle-aged men. Despite the success in testicular cancer, there are still clinical challenges ranging from staging to optimum therapeutic...
Node-positive prostate cancer has typically been excluded from clinical trials, leaving oncologists with little evidence to guide management for this group of patients. A study presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress sheds light on this issue, providing the...
Final results of the COU-AA-302 trial continue to support the survival benefit of abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) in men with chemotherapy-naive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, often referred to as the “predocetaxel space.” “The study met the overall survival endpoint and all...
The ZERO Cancer Research Fund has awarded the Jim Lafferty Memorial Research Grant in the amount of $45,000 to Peter Carroll, MD, MPH, of the University of California San Francisco, for the purpose of researching new and improved methods for early detection of prostate cancer. The grant is part of...
A growing number of oncologists in Greece are female, but women continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions, according to a survey reported at the ESMO 2014 Congress. “In Greece, and across Europe, women oncologists still find it hard to access leadership or academic positions,” said...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On November 5, 2014, ramucirumab (Cyramza) was approved for use...
According to the Metastatic Breast Cancer Network (mbcn.org): An estimated 155,000 Americans are currently living with metastatic breast cancer, and approximately 40,000 people (39,620 women and 410 men) will die from the disease this year. Between 6% and 10% of new breast cancer cases are...
In October, the newly formed Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance (MBCA) released its report, Changing the Landscape for People Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer, which details some disturbing findings. Following a yearlong analysis of 224 clinical trials, 2,281 funded research projects in...
Studies show that all cancers and related treatments have the potential to affect sexuality and sexual function. Surgery, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, bone marrow transplantation, and radiation therapy can physically impact sexual health in myriad ways, including vaginal dryness, dyspareunia,...
Adenocarcinoma of the pancreas is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in men and women in the United States. This year, about 46,000 people in this country will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and more than 39,000 will die of the disease. The ASCO Post recently spoke with Margaret A....
While the incidence of colorectal cancer in people 50 years or older has declined, the incidence among people 20 to 49 years has increased, according to a report published online recently by JAMA Surgery.1 From 1998 through 2006, the incidence of colorectal cancer declined 3% per year in men and...
Formal discussant of the poster presented by Cullen et al at the ESMO Congress, Mark A. Rubin, MD, of Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, said the Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score could be used to measure disease aggressiveness in paraffin-embedded prostatectomy and biopsy samples and should ...
A prospectively designed study establishes the17-gene Oncotype DX prostate cancer test as a robust and independent predictor of the aggressiveness of prostate cancer based on a patient’s diagnostic specimen. Tumor aggressiveness, as measured by the test’s Genomic Prostate Score, was similar in...
ASCO has issued an endorsement of the American Urological Association (AUA)/American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) guideline on the use of adjuvant and salvage radiotherapy after prostatectomy, which was based on a systematic review of medical literature. The ASCO endorsement was published ...
Advances in science and medicine have led to humans living longer than at any other time in history. According to a new report1 on mortality from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy in the United States is at an all-time high of...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has published the 20th annual edition of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), one of the eight original NCCN Guidelines published in November 1996. “Since the first NCCN...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) praised the November 11, 2014, decision proposal by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide coverage for annual lung cancer screening via low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for those at highest-risk for lung...
1965: MOPP chemotherapy cures Hodgkin lymphoma “This was the clearest proof of concept that cancer was/is curable. It gave great impulse to therapeutic research that ultimately improved outcomes in breast, colon, kidney cancer, the leukemias, and most childhood malignancies.” 2006: HPV vaccine...
To mark ASCO’s 50th anniversary, the Society called on the oncology community to select the five most pivotal advances in cancer research and patient care over the past 50 years. Now, with more than 2,000 votes cast, ASCO has announced the results on CancerProgress.Net, its interactive website on...
We are witnessing unprecedented progress in the development of therapy for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued 13 approvals since 1996 for agents that have demonstrated an impact on overall survival, pain, or...
The ASCO Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee and the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) program in evidence-based care have released a clinical practice guideline on systemic therapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The guideline was published in the Journal of Clinical...
Mortality from colorectal cancer remains a public-health concern, being the second leading cause of cancer-related death for men and women combined. The major preventive measure for colorectal cancer is to screen for and remove adenomatous polyps. Average-risk individuals (ie, those who do not have ...
The Norwegian Colorectal Cancer Prevention (NORCCAP) trial comparing colorectal cancer screening with flexible sigmoidoscopy vs no screening showed no reduction in colorectal cancer incidence or mortality after 7 years of follow-up. As reported by Øyvind Holme, MD, of Sorlandet Hospital...
The following list presents those articles published in 2014 that were observed most often by visitors to ASCOPost.com, as measured by the number of views.a To view the full version of the articles listed below, visit ASCOPost.com and enter the URL provided below each entry. 1. Continuous...
Use of the granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) sargramostim (Leukine) together with the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy) prolonged overall survival but not progression-free survival in patients with metastatic melanoma,...
The Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) announced its dedication of $58.6 million to breast cancer research at its annual Symposium & Awards Luncheon. Totaling $47 million, the 2014–2015 annual grants, awarded to more than 220 physicians and scientists on six continents, continue to fuel...
Among a large group of men with localized prostate cancer, those who engaged in higher levels of physical activity had lower rates of overall mortality and lower rates of prostate cancer-specific mortality, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.1 “Our...
Despite advances in detection and treatment, colorectal cancer remains the third deadliest cancer among men and women in the United States. To get a better understanding of the current state of this disease and what lies ahead, The ASCO Post recently spoke with colorectal cancer expert John L....
The American Cancer Society’s annual cancer statistics report found that a 22% drop in cancer mortality over 2 decades led to the avoidance of more than 1.5 million cancer deaths that would have occurred if peak rates had persisted. And while cancer death rates have declined in every state, the...
Anyone who has awoken from a decades-long amnestic spell can be forgiven for thinking that physicians cannot do anything right nowadays. Compared with decades ago, when physicians did mostly right, we now seem to be nowhere close to correctness. Nearly every malady that befalls the health-care...
Patients with unresectable stage III or IV melanoma treated with ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus sargramostim (Leukine) had longer overall survival and less toxicity than did those treated with ipilimumab alone, according to a phase II randomized clinical trial conducted by the Eastern Cooperative...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. In December 12, 2014, ramucirumab (Cyramza) was approved for use in ...
It is not enough for Mary-Claire King, PhD, to have identified the germline BRCA1 mutation associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancers. Her clinically applicable discovery is one of the world’s greatest in genetics and one for which she has been highly lauded. But not one to rest on her...
At the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, The ASCO Post sat down with geneticist Mary-Claire King, PhD, for some personal musings about her career and how she might guide young researchers who want to follow in her footsteps. Dr. King is known for a variety of accomplishments in genetics,...
The ASCO Post is pleased to introduce “Hematology Expert Review,” a new feature including a case report detailing a particular hematologic condition followed by questions. Answers to each question appear with expert commentary. In this first installment, we present two cases of older men with...
Tomorrow’s cancer breakthroughs depend on making sure that talented young researchers have the chance to succeed today. Providing early funding for women in clinical oncology research is the singular goal of Women Who Conquer Cancer, a meaningful program of the ASCO-affiliated Conquer Cancer...
Six of the studies featured in the recently released Clinical Cancer Advances 2015: ASCO’s Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer were led by researchers that whom Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF) funded early in their careers through its signature Young Investigator Award (YIA) and Career...
Male breast cancer represents less than 1% of all breast cancers, which partially explains why so little is known about the disease. Two presentations at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium focused on the characteristics of male breast cancer drawn from a large international registry and...
Acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The Central Park Five, and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History) has been making films for more than 35 years. His most recently completed project, scheduled to air on PBS this spring, is Ken Burns Presents Cancer: The Emperor of All...
In two studies recently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine,1,2 whole-exome sequencing of DNA from peripheral blood cells of individuals unselected for hematologic phenotype showed that clonal hematopoiesis with somatic mutations is increasingly common with increasing age and is...
A study presented at the 2015 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium calls into question the use of active surveillance in patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer. Patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer managed with active surveillance had almost a four times higher risk of prostate...
“Selenium supplementation of 140 or more μg/d after diagnosis of nonmetastatic prostate cancer may increase risk of prostate cancer mortality,” according to a prospective study following 4,459 men initially diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study...
In a new study,1 more precise estimates of age-associated risks of gastric and breast cancer were derived for carriers of the CDH1 gene mutation, a cancer-predisposing gene that is abnormal in families meeting criteria for clinically defined hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC). David G....
High-dose radiotherapy failed to improve overall survival at 7 years compared with standard-dose radiotherapy in men with stage II localized prostate cancer. However, the high-dose schedule had several advantages, including improved rates of local tumor control and distant metastasis, according to...
Docetaxel added to androgen-deprivation therapy did not improve overall survival over androgen-deprivation therapy alone in hormone-naive metastatic prostate cancer, according to an updated analysis of the GETUG-AFU 15 trial presented at the 2015 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.1 In a retrospective ...
Emerging evidence suggests that immunotherapy may play an important role in treating prostate cancer. In particular, preliminary results have shown that combining a new vaccine with ipilimumab (Yervoy) boosts overall survival in men with castration-resistant prostate cancer.1 A study comparing...
Among men undergoing biopsy for suspected prostate cancer, targeted magnetic resonance (MR)/ultrasound fusion–guided biopsy was associated with an increased rate of detection of high-risk prostate cancer and a decreased rate of detection of low-risk prostate cancer than was standard...
Eric J. Small, MD, of the University of California at San Francisco, discussed what he thought went wrong for cabozantinib (Cometriq) in the COMET-1 trial, yet another example of a phase III trial that failed to deliver on the promise of phase II results. “Although this was a negative study,...
Final results of the phase III, randomized double-blind, controlled COMET-1 trial were disappointing. Although the oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor cabozantinib (Cometriq) improved several secondary endpoints compared with prednisone, including bone scan response and progression-free survival, the...
AR-V7 is only one of the many prostate cancer predictive biomarker candidates currently under investigation,” said Howard Scher, MD, Chief of the Genitourinary Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. While preliminary data are promising, further development of AR-V7 will...