Although palliative chemotherapy is used to improve quality of life for patients with end-stage cancer, a study evaluating its use found that palliative chemotherapy did not improve quality of life near death for patients with a moderate or poor performance status and that it worsened quality of...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Momtaz et al found that the rate of infusion-related reactions remained acceptably low when ipilimumab (Yervoy) 3 mg/kg was infused over 30 minutes in patients with advanced melanoma. The currently approved dose of...
Although the prevalence of genetic risk factors, such as Lynch syndrome and familial adenomatous polyposis, has been studied in the general population of individuals with colorectal cancer, patients diagnosed as adolescents and young adults are not well represented in colorectal cancer studies. A...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Garcia-Aguilar et al found that adding neoadjuvant mFOLFOX6 (modified fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, oxaliplatin) after chemoradiation improved the pathologic complete response rate in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer undergoing...
Physicians have long sought a way to accurately predict cancer patients’ survival outcomes by looking at biologic details of the specific cancers they have. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have compiled a database that integrates gene expression patterns of ...
A clinical trial has shown that patients with a specific molecular subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma are more likely to respond to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) than patients with another molecular subtype of the disease. The study was published by Wilson et al in Nature Medicine. In this phase II...
In a phase III study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hofheinz et al found that 10% urea cream was better at preventing capecitabine-related hand-foot syndrome than a new ointment (Mapisal) available in Germany that contains several antioxidants and exhibits high radical protection....
A “pill on a string” developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge could help doctors detect esophageal cancer at an early stage, helping them overcome the problem of wide variation between biopsies, suggests research published by Ross-Innes et al in Nature Genetics. The...
“A cancer diagnosis among patients with diabetes reduced adherence with evidence-based medications, particularly if patients’ life expectancy was short,” according to a study among Medicare beneficiaries reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice. “These findings emphasize ...
In a review of nearly 2,000 surveys with people whose loved ones died of cancer, researchers led by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine experts said they found a 40% increase over a 12-year period in the number of patients with cancer who participated in one form of advance care...
A study comparing the effects of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise on body fat in inactive postmenopausal women has found that 300 minutes of vigorous exercise each week was superior in reducing total fat and other adiposity measures, especially in obese women, than shorter amounts of exercise. ...
In a phase III IMPRESS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Soria et al found no progression-free survival benefit of adding gefitinib (Iressa) to platinum-based doublet chemotherapy in patients with advanced EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had acquired resistance to...
In a retrospective study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tabernero et al used commercially available BEAMing technology to assess plasma tumor DNA and protein levels in a subgroup of patients from the CORRECT trial of regorafenib (Stivarga) in metastatic colorectal cancer and examined the...
More than two-thirds of adolescents and young adults dying of cancer utilized one or more aggressive interventions in the last month of life, according to a retrospective study from researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Kaiser Permanente Southern...
UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center scientists have identified a new mechanism that delivers a key substance that fuels the growth of pancreatic and prostate cancer cells, a finding that offers new hope in the fight against two of the deadliest forms of the disease. Their findings were published by...
In an analysis of FDA Adverse Event Reporting System data reported in JAMA Oncology, Jhaveri et al found that the BRAF inhibitors vemurafenib (Zelboraf) and dabrafenib (Tafinlar) were associated with nephrotoxicity. Their findings suggest a need to monitor renal function and electrolyte levels ...
In an analysis from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Prasad et al found evidence of impaired psychosocial and neurocognitive function among long-term cancer survivors diagnosed during adolescence and young adulthood. Risk of Impairment In the...
A study published by Bianchi et al in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that genetic test results revealed by noninvasive prenatal testing for fetal chromosomal abnormalities may detect underlying conditions in the mother, including cancer. The study reports on a case...
A low-methionine diet that starves triple-negative breast cancer cells of an essential nutrient primes the cancer cells to be more easily killed by a targeted antibody treatment, according to a study published by Strekalova et al in Clinical Cancer Research. The study's senior author, Vincent...
In the phase III LUX-Lung 8 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Soria et al found that the irreversible ErbB-family inhibitor afatinib (Gilotrif) significantly improved progression-free and overall survival vs the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor erlotinib as second-line treatment in patients with ...
By combining two modalities of imaging, investigators from Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth, led by Keith Paulsen, PhD, and collaborators from Xijing Hospital in Xian, China, demonstrated that a dual breast exam using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and near-infrared spectral tomography is ...
In an analysis of the German Hodgkin Study Group HD12 and HD15 trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Haverkamp et al found that discontinuation of bleomycin and vincristine due to drug-specific adverse effects did not affect efficacy of BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide,...
In the phase II BELIEF trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, O’Connor et al found that the pan–histone deacetylase inhibitor belinostat (Beleodaq) produced durable responses in patients with relapsed/refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma. The study supported the U.S. Food...
Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University reported finding a single molecule that appears to be the central regulator driving metastasis in prostate cancer. The study, published by Goodwin et al in Cancer Cell, offers a target for the development of a drug that could prevent metastasis in prostate ...
Tobacco cessation provided a significant survival benefit for patients with lung cancer who quit smoking shortly before or after diagnosis, despite the severity of the disease. Results of this Roswell Park Cancer Institute–led study were published by Dobson Amato et al in the Journal of...
In patients with early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with stereotactic body radiotherapy, outcomes were similar between patients with biopsy-proven lesions and those with radiographically diagnosed disease, according to a study by Fischer-Valuck et al in Tumori Journal....
Women with cervical or endometrial cancer who require treatment to the para-aortic lymph nodes can safely receive extended-field intensity-modulated radiation therapy without increased risk of duodenal toxicity, according to a study by Xu et al in Practical Radiation Oncology. Extended-Field...
Despite findings of previous studies and published guidelines, nearly two-thirds of patients with T4a laryngeal cancer are not receiving a total laryngectomy—the recommended form of treatment—and, as a result, have significantly worse survival rates vs those treated with a total...
A prospective study examining weight gain in breast cancer survivors compared with cancer-free women from a familial risk cohort has found that, overall, breast cancer survivors gained significantly more weight than cancer-free women of the same age and menopausal status. According to the study...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved gefitinib (Iressa) for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletions or exon 21 (L858R) substitution mutations as detected by an...
Laboratory and animal tests of the type II inhibitor CHZ868, which stabilizes the kinase domain in an inactive conformation, are showing that the compound is highly potent against B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias (ALLs) with CRLF2 rearrangements. When combined with dexamethasone, CHZ868 induced ...
The enzyme phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) appears to be exploited in almost every type of human cancer, making it the focus of considerable interest as a therapeutic target, with many PI3K-inhibiting drugs currently in various stages of clinical development. However, PI3K inhibitors have only ...
In the largest multi-institutional study to date, patients diagnosed with bladder cancer and treated with robot-assisted surgery experienced similar results to those who underwent a traditional open operation, according to research led by scientists at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI). The ...
In a study reported in JAMA by Meester et al, microsimulation modeling of data from a U.S. community-based health-care system showed that colorectal cancer incidence and mortality were reduced with increased adenoma detection rate in colonoscopy screening, with no increase in total costs. Study...
In an analysis from the National LymphoCare Study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Casulo et al found that disease progression within 2 years of diagnosis was associated with increased mortality risk after first-line R-CHOP (rituximab [Rituxan] plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin,...
Final overall survival results of the phase III ICON7 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology by Oza et al indicate no significant increase with the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard chemotherapy in women with newly diagnosed ovarian cancer. However, overall survival benefit of...
A protein encoded by the gene glypican-1 (GPC1) present on cancer exosomes may be used as part of a potential noninvasive diagnostic and screening tool to detect early pancreatic cancer, potentially at a stage amenable to surgical treatment, according to a study completed by University of Texas MD...
A review of medical records for almost 200 patients with breast cancer suggests that more selective use of biomarker testing for such patients has the potential to save millions of dollars in health-care spending without compromising care, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. Specifically,...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued an endorsement of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) clinical practice guideline on postoperative radiation therapy for women with endometrial (uterine) cancer. The endorsement was published by Meyer et al in the Journal of...
In a study in Swedish men reported in JAMA, Loeb et al found a statistically significant increase in risk of malignant melanoma in those using oral phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors for erectile dysfunction. However, risk was not significantly elevated in men filling multiple PDE5...
Janssen Biotech, Inc, announced the opening of a daratumumab expanded access program for eligible U.S. patients. Daratumumab is an investigational human anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody being evaluated in clinical trials as a treatment for patients with multiple myeloma. The multicenter, open-label...
Researchers have a significantly better understanding of the genetic alterations found in cutaneous melanoma as part of a multi-institution, international effort of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The study, published in Cell, refined and revealed new molecular subgroups of patients who could...
Gains have been made in the overall reduction in the death rates of colorectal cancer in the United States. A new study by Siegel et al has identified three distinct geographic hot spots where colorectal cancer death rates remain elevated over other parts of the country. These hot spots were found...
In a prospective cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, May et al found that earlier palliative care consultation for inpatients with advanced cancer was associated with lower total direct costs. Study Details The study included 969 patients with advanced cancer admitted to 5...
In a National Cancer Data Base analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wang et al found that postoperative radiation therapy has been declining in use in recent years but is associated with improved overall survival in patients with incompletely resected stage II or III...
Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer that are free of mutations in the KRAS, NRAS, BRAF, and PIK3CA genes showed a significant benefit from continuing antiepidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy beyond progression following first-line chemotherapy and an anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody. ...
The phase IIIb CONSIGN trial has confirmed the benefit of regorafenib (Stivarga) in patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer, researchers announced July 3 at the European Society for Medical Oncology World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona, Spain (Abstract...
Researchers from Merck presented results from a phase III study investigating the safety and efficacy of single-dose fosaprepitant dimeglumine (Emend) for injection, a neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist, in combination with other antivomiting medicines, for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced...
In the phase III CALGB 40502/NCCTG N063H/Alliance trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rugo et al found that outcomes in first-line treatment for advanced breast cancer were better with weekly paclitaxel plus bevacizumab (Avastin) compared with weekly nanoparticle albumin-bound...
The SENRI trial has opened the window to evaluate neurokinin 1 (NK1) antagonists for emesis prevention in patients taking oxaliplatin chemotherapy, said European Society for Medical Oncology World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer (ESMO) spokesperson and antiemetics expert Fausto Roila, MD....