Breast surgeon Deanna Attai, MD, is a virtual mighty mouse as a spokesperson for her professional organization, the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS). She is as big on ideas as she is petite in stature and for actively tweeting on medical topics (@DrAttai). Assistant Clinical Professor...
A large prospective Swedish study reported by Larsson et al found a 2.2-fold increased risk of gallbladder cancer in people who consumed two or more servings of sweetened beverages a day compared with nonconsumers. The researchers also found a 1.8-fold increase in extrahepatic biliary tract cancer...
Vice President Joe Biden offered remarks on the White House’s National Cancer Moonshot Initiative on Monday, June 6, to attendees at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Essential Elements “The Moonshot Initiative can be a vehicle for major new progress against cancer, and ASCO’s Annual...
Last year, five organizations introduced new methods to compare cancer treatments. For more on ASCO’s Value Framework, see page 120. The NCCN Evidence Blocks™ use a simple graphic to show experts’ ratings of systemic therapies in five areas: efficacy, safety, quality and quantity of evidence,...
Value framework tools made a splash in 2015, with five different groups unveiling methods to help physicians and patients compare therapies based on efficacy, toxicity, and/or cost. Now these potential users are beginning to examine and debate the tools, including how and whether they will work in...
An adjuvant chemotherapy regimen improved overall survival in early-stage pancreatic cancer patients, in the large phase III European ESPAC-4 study reported at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 The combination of gemcitabine and capecitabine almost doubled the 5-year survival rate, compared to...
Formal discussant of this trial Stuart A. Grossman, MD, of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, commented that the trial did not include a best standard-of-care arm. The pivotal trial defined optimal radiotherapy as 60 Gy over 6 weeks, but this...
The combination of short-course radiotherapy and temozolomide followed by maintenance with temozolomide significantly improved survival compared with short-course radiotherapy alone in newly diagnosed elderly patients with glioblastoma, according to the results of a global cooperative group trial...
Ronald David Alvarez, MD, Ellen Gregg Shook Culverhouse Chair in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology and Vice Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has been named Chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Vanderbilt...
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has announced the hiring of Steve Stadum as Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Stadum, currently the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Knight Cancer Institute, will join Fred Hutchinson as ...
ASCO President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, issued this statement on May 10. “In comments1 submitted yesterday to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), ASCO underscored the urgent need to advance a more fair and responsible payment system for oncology than what is proposed in...
The incidence of new cases of breast cancer in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is rising, and it will take a concerted effort from the international cancer community to counteract this troubling upward trend. It has been estimated that of the 15 million cancer ...
According to a new survey of more than 1,500 consumers and nearly 600 physicians conducted for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), only 35% of Americans indicated that they were “likely” to enroll in a clinical trial. Clinical research is increasingly dependent upon larger numbers of...
“There is a tremendous interest in longer aromatase inhibitor therapy. The Oxford Overview data, presented at ASCO, show the substantial risk of recurrence in years 5 to 15, despite an initial 5 years of adjuvant endocrine treatment. “Women with lower-risk breast cancer will be less inclined to...
Jeffrey Sosman, MD, melanoma expert and researcher, will join the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University as Co-Leader of the Translational Research in Solid Tumors (TRIST) Program and Director of the Melanoma Program. He will also serve as Director for Faculty...
Five years of aromatase inhibitor as upfront therapy or after tamoxifen is the current standard of care for postmenopausal women with early hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. A new trial suggests that extending aromatase inhibitor therapy with letrozole for an additional 5 years may improve...
It can be easy to miss the forest for the trees in the interpretation of clinical trials. In particular, trials for the treatment of cancer are exceedingly complex, with long lists of inclusion and exclusion criteria, designs with hidden biases, drugs with unpronounceable names (if not cumbersome...
Richard L. Schilsky, MD (right), Chief Medical Officer of ASCO, talks with incoming ASCO CEO Clifford A. Hudis, MD (left) and outgoing CEO Allen S. Lichter, MD (center) about the passing of the torch and their perspectives on past accomplishments and future goals of the society.
On June 27, 2016, Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, will begin his tenure as Chief Executive Officer of ASCO, succeeding Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, who presided over the Society and the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO since 2006. Dr. Hudis’ dedication to ASCO dates back more than 25 years...
As reported in The Lancet by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of Yale School of Medicine, and colleagues,1 the phase II/III KEYNOTE-010 trial showed that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs docetaxel in patients with previously treated programmed cell death ligand 1...
Study discussant Paul G. Richardson, MD, the RJ Corman Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Chair at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, commented, “The evolving role of monoclonal antibodies in multiple myeloma has been worth the wait. You can...
For relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, daratumumab (Darzalex), combined with bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone, reduced relapses by 61% in the phase III CASTOR study reported at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “The results are unprecedented in a randomized study comparing a novel...
Treating head and neck cancer patients with recurrent or metastatic disease with the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) achieved significant clinical responses in nearly one-fifth of the patients from a phase II clinical trial, researchers from Dana-Farber...
During the 2016 Annual Meeting, ASCO announced the creation of the Allen S. Lichter Visionary Leader Award to recognize ASCO members who have transformed the oncology field or significantly advanced the mission of ASCO, the Conquer Cancer Foundation, or CancerLinQ, LLC, through their leadership,...
The global economic crisis has been associated with increased unemployment and reduced public-sector expenditure on health care. In a study reported in The Lancet, Maruthappu et al found that the global economic crisis beginning in 2008 was also associated with a large excess in cancer mortality...
Duke Cancer Institute researchers have found that a hypothetical leukemia patient buying the life-extending drug therapy for his condition would reach his annual out-of-pocket maximum in a month on most of the bronze policies and half of the silver policies offered through the Affordable Care Act...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yu et al identified a four-biomarker panel that was predictive of chronic graft-vs-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Discovery Cohort In the study, a quantitative proteomics approach was used to compare...
Crump et al found no disease-free survival benefit of maintenance therapy with the selective protein kinase Cb (PKCb) inhibitor enzastaurin in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who were in complete remission and at high risk of relapse after first-line chemotherapy, according to a ...
Costs associated with different breast cancer chemotherapy regimens can vary significantly, regardless of effectiveness, according to new research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Understanding cost differences should help guide informed discussions between patients and...
Skin cancer screenings performed by primary care physicians during routine office visits improve the detection of potentially deadly melanomas and find them in earlier stages, according to new research from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The results were presented by Ferris et al...
Anthony J. Olszanski, RPh, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Michael A. Davies, MD, PhD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discuss this phase III study of dabrafenib plus trametinib vs dabrafenib monotherapy in patients with unresectable or metastatic BRAF V600E/K-mutant...
Anthony J. Olszanski, RPh, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Michael A. Postow, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discuss findings from this phase III trial of nivolumab combined with ipilimumab in treatment-naive patients with advanced disease (Abstract 9505).
Lisa A. Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina, and Tuya Pal, MD, of H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, discuss the racial disparities in cancer risk management among BRCA carriers across a diverse sample of young black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white breast cancer...
Lisa A. Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina, and Julie Gralow, MD, of the University of Washington, discuss the most important data presented this year on treating breast malignancies (Abstracts LBA1, 500, and 507).
Vali A. Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Heather A. Wakelee, MD, of Stanford University, discuss findings on adjuvant chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab for early-stage non–small cell lung cancer, with outcomes based on chemotherapy subsets (Abstract 8507).
Vali A. Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Gideon Michael Blumenthal, MD, of the US Food and Drug Administration, discuss milestone analyses with immune checkpoint inhibitors, targeted therapy, and standard therapy in metastatic non–small cell lung cancer trials submitted to ...
Vali A. Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Fabrice Denis, MD, PhD, of the Institut Inter-regional de Cancérologie Jean Bernard, discuss findings from a phase III trial on an app used between visits for early detection of symptomatic relapse and complications in high-risk...
Jonathan A. Ledermann, MD, of Cancer Research UK and University College London Cancer Trials Centre, and Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss findings on overall survival in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed serous ovarian cancer receiving olaparib...
Helen MacKay, MD, of the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre, and Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss findings from this phase II study of intraperitoneal vs intravenous chemotherapy following neoadjuvant chemotherapy and optimal debulking surgery in patients with...
A. Oliver Sartor, MD, of Tulane University, and Celestia S. Higano, MD, of the University of Washington, discuss findings from this phase III study on cabazitaxel vs docetaxel in chemotherapy-naive patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (Abstract 5006).
Greater levels of leisure-time physical activity were associated with a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease events in women with nonmetastatic breast cancer, according to a study reported by Jones et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details The study involved 2,973 women (mean...
In a European phase III noninferiority trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Eichhorst et al found that progression-free survival was better with standard first-line fludarabine/cyclophosphamide/rituximab vs bendamustine/rituximab in fit patients with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)...
Lung cancer patients with oligometastases, defined as three or fewer sites of metastasis, may benefit from aggressive local therapy, surgery, or radiation, after standard chemotherapy, according to research led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. If validated in larger studies,...
Treatment with nivolumab (Opdivo) doubled overall survival and improved quality of life, with fewer side effects, in a treatment-resistant and rapidly progressing form of head and neck carcinoma, reported a large, randomized international trial co-led by investigators at the University of...
An experimental CDK inhibitor, abemaciclib, yielded encouraging and durable results against several different types of cancers, including breast cancer, lung cancer, glioblastoma, and melanoma, according to a report published by Patnaik et al in Cancer Discovery. The results of the trial supported ...
ASCO announced that a total of 58 practices in 39 states and the District of Columbia have joined CancerLinQ, ASCO’s big data initiative to rapidly improve the quality of care for people with cancer. CancerLinQ is already up and running in a number of practices and drawing on approximately...
ASCO announced that Bayer and Merck are the most recent companies to sign on to provide study drugs at no cost to patients enrolled in the Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study, joining six other companies in ASCO’s first-ever clinical trial. Since opening on March...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Wolmark et al, higher 21-gene recurrence score (RS) was strongly predictive of late disease recurrence among patients with high quantitative estrogen-receptor expression (ESR1) receiving tamoxifen for 5 years in two NRG Oncology/NSABP (National...
Adding the vascular-disrupting agent fosbretabulin to bevacizumab (Avastin) improved outcomes in patients with recurrent ovarian, tubal, or peritoneal carcinoma, according to a randomized phase II NRG Oncology/Gynecologic Oncology Group study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Monk et...
James Kochenderfer, MD, of the National Cancer Institute, discuss results of a small study on genetically modified CAR-T cells, which may well become a standard lymphoma treatment (Abstract LBA3010).