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Showing 2301 - 2350Advances in Medical Oncology Over the Next Decade
The next 10 years are expected to usher in unprecedented advances in oncology, including molecularly driven diagnostic and therapeutic developments, whole genome sequencing that results in true precision-based medicine, survivorship care plans that address long-term quality of life concerns, and...
Cancer Does Not Discriminate
Looking back, my son Max’s fall as he was running after another little boy while playing baseball was such a blessing. Although he landed on his right arm, the fall didn’t seem severe enough to cause him to cry out in such excruciating pain. But after several hours of icing the bruise failed to...
Accelerated Partial-Breast Irradiation Using 3D Conformal Radiation Therapy Causes More Adverse Events Compared With Whole-Breast Irradiation
The RAPID trial compared accelerated partial-breast irradiation using three-dimensional (3D) conformal external-beam radiation therapy vs whole-breast irradiation in women with invasive or in situ breast cancer ≤ 3 cm. As reported by Ivo A. Olivotto, MD, FRCPC, of the British Columbia Cancer...
Study Shows Increased Risk of Mental Disorders in Childhood Cancer Survivors and Potential Increased Risk in Young Siblings
Survivors of childhood cancer are at risk for long-term adverse physical and mental effects, but little is known about the effects of illness in siblings of these patients. In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Lasse Wegener Lund, MD, of the Danish Cancer Society Research Centre and...
Applying Molecular Profiling to Clinical Practice: Promises and Challenges
A “new kind of pathology,” with anatomy and histology being supplemented by molecular etiology, has been emerging over the past decade and promises better response rates among patients with cancer, as genomic alterations continue to be identified and treated with targeted therapies. “The list of...
Front-Line Treatment Strategies to Achieve Long-Term Control of CLL Combined With Optimal Quality of Life
“The management of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is undergoing profound changes. Several new drugs have been approved for CLL treatment (fludarabine, bendamustine [Treanda], and the monoclonal antibodies alemtuzumab [Campath], rituximab [Rituxan], and ofatumumab [Arzerra]), and many more drugs ...
Intralesional Cytokine Therapy in Cutaneous Melanoma: A Call for Clinical Trials
Cutaneous melanomas are mostly an immunogenic group of tumors, but they are also heterogeneous. Therefore, therapeutic specificity and autogenetic approaches are essential to secure beneficial results. The objective of sentinel lymph node biopsy, at the time of diagnosis, is to identify patients...
SIDEBAR: Expect Questions About Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy: Carefully Review Risks and Alternatives
Physicians were considered the most important source of information about contralateral prophylactic mastectomy in a survey of 123 women who were diagnosed with cancer in one breast and chose to have the contralateral procedure. While 80% of the women reported that they spoke with their physicians...
Low-Dose CT Screening Identifies More Early Lung Cancer but Has Lower Positive Predictive Value vs Radiography
Results of the two rounds of annual incidence screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) vs radiography in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) were recently reported by Denise R. Aberle, MD, Professor of Radiology and Bioengineering at the University of California at Los Angeles and...
Cabozantinib in Medullary Thyroid Cancer: A Landscape-Shaping New Treatment
Medullary thyroid cancer is derived from parafollicular C cells in the thyroid gland. The disease is sporadic in about 75% of cases and hereditary in the remaining 25%.1 Oncogenic mutations in the gene for tyrosine kinase receptor rearranged during transfection (RET) are driver genetic alterations...
AACR Cancer Progress Report 2013 Highlights Critical Importance of Biomedical Research
On September 17, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) presented highlights of its 2013 Cancer Progress Report1 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. AACR Chief Executive Officer Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), opened the program with a double-edged message, first citing the...
'Master Protocol' Could Revolutionalize Trials in Lung Cancer, and Eventually Other Cancers
Cancer advocates and clinical trialists, for some time, have been proposing a radical change to the laborious drug development process—that industry, academia, funding sources, and other stakeholders actually pool their brain power and financial means and work together, not separately, to develop...
A Look Ahead: How the FDA Is Adapting in the Era of Precision Medicine
Dubbed “Cancer Czar” by the media, Richard Pazdur, MD, Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Hematology and Oncology Products, said he has the “best job in oncology, with a unique vantage point in cancer drug development.” An oncologist for more than 30 years—including...
The Devastating Impact of Sequestration on Medical Research
The primacy of science and the overwhelming belief in medical research by the American people has sustained the research community and improved quality of life roughly since the turn of the 20th century. Almost without exception, the American people have voted for politicians who promise improved...
Expert Point of View: Paul Baas, MD, PhD
“It is very good to have a drug for patients who are smokers and former smokers. The antibody works in both adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, and is already very active in phase I with very few side effects. This is such impressive data that [perhaps] we could leap directly to a phase III ...
FDA Hears Proposals on Codevelopment of Companion Diagnostics for Breakthrough Therapies
A companion diagnostic developed for use with a drug that has received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should automatically be eligible for priority review, according to an expert panel that presented this proposal and four others to the FDA in...
Two Patients in One, Mom and Baby: Managing Coincident Pregnancy and Lymphoma
The news that she is both pregnant and has been found to have a potentially lethal malignancy is one of the most emotionally wrenching events any young woman ever faces. Understandably, the patient, her partner, their families, and even their caregivers find this experience fraught with anxiety and ...
Multicenter Analysis of Outcomes of Lymphoma in Pregnancy
Lymphoma is the fourth most frequent cancer to occur in pregnant women. In a multicenter retrospective analysis reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Andrew M. Evens, DO, MSc, Chief of Hematology/Oncology at Tufts University Medical Center, Boston, and colleagues examined treatment,...
New Report Examines Trends in End-of-Life Care
Although fewer Medicare patients with cancer died in the hospital in 2010 than in the years 2003–2007, aggressive treatment continues at the end of life, according to a new report from the Dartmouth Atlas Project.1 The findings also show that a significant number of patients were likely to receive...
Finasteride for Prostate Cancer Prevention: Long-Term Results Disappointing but Reassuring
All medical care should seek to achieve one or more of three goals: to relieve suffering, to prevent future suffering, or to prolong life. Care for cancer is no exception, and minimizing suffering from cancer and prolonging life has primarily resulted from advances in treatment. Although there are...
Trebananib Improves Progression-Free Survival in Recurrent Ovarian Cancer
Trebananib, an investigational antiangiogenesis inhibitor with a different mechanism of action than bevacizumab (Avastin), significantly improved progression-free survival in recurrent platinum-resistant and partially platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer in the phase III TRINOVA-1 trial. The addition...
Cediranib Achieves 'Groundbreaking' Results in Relapsed Ovarian Cancer
The investigational oral vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor cediranib extended progression-free survival when given with platinum-based chemotherapy and improved overall survival when given as maintenance therapy in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. Experts are hopeful that...
Strong Showing for Ado-Trastuzumab Emtansine in Advanced HER2-Positive Heavily Pretreated Breast Cancer
Results of the phase III TH3RESA trial show that the antibody-conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla), formerly known as T-DM1, extends progression-free survival in women with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer that progressed on two or more previous HER2-directed therapies including...
IOM Report Illuminates U.S. Cancer Care Crisis and Offers Framework for Change
In September, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies issued its report, Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis,1 published more than a decade after its first study on the quality of cancer care in the United States. The authors of the...
Ipilimumab Conveys Long-Term Survival Benefit in Pooled Analysis of Metastatic Melanoma Patients
In the treatment of metastatic or locally advanced unresectable melanoma, the anti–CTLA-4 monoclonal antibody ipilimumab (Yervoy) conveys long-term survival benefits, with some patients alive out to 10 years, according to the largest survival analysis of the immunomodulating agent, presented at the ...
Gastric Cancer: Time to Revisit Angiogenesis
Progress in the treatment of gastric cancer has lagged behind advances in other solid tumor malignancies. A modest but clear survival benefit with the use of adjuvant therapy combined with surgery has been achieved, including the use of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy as shown in large-scale...
Benefits and Controversies in Survivorship Care Plans
Since the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM’s) 2005 report, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Translation,1 survivorship plans have received growing attention. In short, a survivorship care plan is the record of a patient’s cancer history and recommendations for follow-up care. At ASCO’s...
Expert Point of View: Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD
Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Leuven in Belgium, the formal discussant of the late-breaking abstract, noted there is strong rationale for studying TP53 status in relation to rectal cancer outcomes, but he felt the findings of EXPERT-C could not yet be ...
Innovative Payment Models Needed to Sustain Quality Cancer Care
Nationally regarded health-care expert Lee N. Newcomer, MD, MHA, began his presentation at this year’s ASCO Quality Care Symposium with a rhetorical question. “Why are we talking about money when we’re gathered in San Diego for 2 days to discuss some wonderful ways to impact the quality of cancer...
Cancer Has Given Me a Greater Appreciation for Life
I’ve been blessed with good health for most of my life, and I was careful to keep it that way. I don’t smoke, I eat a healthy diet, and I maintain a healthy weight. I also was fortunate to be born with pretty good genes and have no family history of cancer. In fact, except for an occasional...
Ginkgo biloba
The use of dietary supplements by patients with cancer has increased significantly over the past 2 decades despite insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness. Finding reliable sources of information about dietary supplements can be daunting. Patients typically rely on family, friends, and...
National Cancer Policy Summit: Setting Priorities for the Next 3 Years
Welcome to the meeting we hold every 3 years to choose our next projects,” said John Mendelsohn, MD, Chair of the National Cancer Policy Forum and Director of the Khalifa Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. “We have here a...
Patient-Reported Outcomes, a Central Component to Value and Rapid-Learning Systems
With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010, value became the operative word in assessing the success of health care, from outcomes to cost. To drive more value, the Affordable Care Act seeks to implement initiatives such as comparative effectiveness research that...
Expert Point of View: Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO
Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, the Stuart B. Padnos Professor of Breast Cancer Research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, wrote an accompanying editorial on the value of these newly developed omics-related criteria.1 Dr. Hayes pointed out that since the cloning of the human genome, there has...
NCI-Led Scientists Develop Criteria for 'Omics' Tests Used in Clinical Investigations
High-throughput “omics” technologies that generate molecular profiles on tumor specimens are increasingly being incorporated into clinical trials, but some of these assays have not been well validated, leading many in the research community to question their fitness for use in patient-care...
Breast Cancer Vaccines for Primary Prevention Move Toward Clinical Use
The first candidate vaccine to prevent recurrence of breast cancer entered clinical trials about 8 years ago, and since then, the idea of a vaccine for secondary prevention has gained traction; more such vaccines are now in development. But this fall, it was vaccines for primary prevention that had ...
Radiotherapy Benefit in Young Women With Node-Positive Breast Cancer May Vary by Intrinsic Subtypes
Radiation therapy appears to significantly decrease local recurrence in premenopausal women with node-positive and luminal A tumors, based on an analysis of two small but independent randomized series reported at the 2013 European Cancer Congress in Amsterdam.1 “Though not definitive, our study...
Transplant Now or Later for High-Risk Aggressive Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma?
The use of high-dose chemotherapy and autologous hematopoietic blood or marrow transplantation for high-risk aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma has been extensively evaluated over the past few decades. This treatment was originally used only for patients with relapsed aggressive lymphoma. However, as...
S9704 Trial: Autologous Transplantation as Consolidation in Aggressive Lymphoma
Autologous bone marrow or stem cell transplantation has had an important role in the treatment of aggressive lymphoma for several decades. The important results of the PARMA study1 demonstrated that patients in first relapse who remained chemosensitive had improved progression-free and overall...
Praise for The ASCO Post
There is so much “stuff” to read and remember—just to get through a day or a week—that it can be difficult to find time to surf the Web and search information sites, even if you select only a few to review routinely. For those of us who focus on one oncology specialty, The ASCO Post is an...
African Americans Report Receiving Few Positive Recommendations by Physicians About Joining Clinical Trial
A study among African American patients with cancer who had declined to participate in a therapeutic clinical trial found that few patients reported receiving a positive recommendation from their physician to participate in the trial. “Patients gave multiple refusal reasons,” researchers led by...
Increased Ultraviolet Radiation Exposure May Protect Against HL, Particularly in Those With EBV-Positive Disease
Increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation may offer protection against Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), particularly against Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-positive HL, according to a pooled analysis of studies involving 1,320 HL patients and 6.381 controls. “Our pooled analysis of 7,701 participants from 4...
January Is National Pancreatic Cancer Clinical Trials Awareness Month
January marks the annual observance of National Pancreatic Cancer Clinical Trials Awareness Month. The 5-year survival rate of pancreatic cancer is just 6%. In the effort to highlight the urgent need to improve the survival rate for this disease, the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network is educating...
Using Hyperthermia for Cancer Treatment: Proofs, Promises, and Uncertainties
With the headline, “Rare Cancer Treatments, Cleared by F.D.A. but Not Subject to Scrutiny,” a recent article in The New York Times reported that several medical centers were treating patients with cancer using a hyperthermia system that had received a Humanitarian Use Device approval from the U.S....
With the Goal of Curing Cancer, Ezra M. Greenspan, MD, Helped Usher in the Modern Era of Chemotherapy
Two events in Ezra M. Greenspan’s early adult life convinced him to pursue a career in medicine: the death of a college friend from pneumonia when the two were students at Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences and his own bout with the disease soon after. Saved by a local physician who...
Science Magazine Names Cancer Immunotherapy as Scientific Breakthrough of the Year
While acknowledging that the full potential of cancer immunotherapy remains unclear, the editors of the journal Science said that the approach of using the immune system to attack tumors marks a turning point in the treatment of cancer.1 The successes of cancer immunotherapy in clinical trials in...
Developing Intermediate Endpoints in Immunotherapy
“The immune system holds tremendous potential for long-term sustained antitumor activity,” said James P. Allison, PhD, Immunology Chair, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, as he opened a panel discussion at a meeting cosponsored by the Friends of Cancer Research and the...
Activation of Innovative Lung Cancer Master Protocol Officially Announced, Enrollment to Begin in March
At a recent meeting in Washington, DC, Friends of Cancer Research and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution officially announced activation of the Lung Cancer Master Protocol, a new research strategy that has the potential to hurdle or bypass known clinical trial...
Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, Elected ASCO President for 2015–2016 Term
Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, has been elected President of ASCO for a 1-year term beginning in June 2015. She will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2014. “ASCO is a very diverse and multifaceted organization with so much to offer its membership. The ...
Inhibition of LAT Transporters and Leucine Uptake: A Step Forward for Therapeutic Strategies in Prostate Cancer
The seminal study by Wang and colleagues reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post suggests a potential new therapeutic option in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. The authors draw attention to the reliance of cancer cells on...
