The availability of newer agents that have transformed treatment outcomes in multiple myeloma has naturally led to interest in studying these drugs earlier in precursor states, such as monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance and smoldering myeloma. Recent evidence suggests that this may...
In a Scottish study reported in The Lancet Psychiatry, Walker et al assessed the prevalence and adequacy of treatment of major depression in patients with cancer of different primary sites. The prevalence of major depression ranged from 5.6% in patients with genitourinary cancers to 13.1% in those...
In a prospective cohort study in the population of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial, Zhou et al found that frontal plus moderate vertex baldness at age 45 is associated with increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer. The findings were reported in the...
There are few data available on long-term risk of colorectal cancer mortality after adenoma removal. In a Norwegian study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Løberg et al found that patients who had low-risk adenomas removed had lower colorectal cancer mortality risk and those...
The UK phase III ProtecT trial is comparing the effectiveness of active monitoring, radical prostatectomy, and radiotherapy in men with localized prostate cancer. Lane et al have provided baseline results of the trial in an article in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details In the trial, men aged 50...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new indication for the use of enzalutamide (Xtandi) capsules to treat patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The new indication is for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have not received...
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 is reported by Basch et al in the Journal of...
Cytoreductive surgery with or without hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy extended survival over systemic therapy alone in well-selected candidates with peritoneal hepatocellular carcinoma, according to the results of a small retrospective trial reported by Tabrizian et al in the Journal of...
High mitotic rate in primary melanomas appears to be an independent predictor of poorer survival. In a single-institution study reported in JAMA Dermatology, Shen et al found that high mitotic rate primary melanoma is associated with male sex, older age, amelanosis, and several aggressive...
A new study reveals that the United States has experienced widespread adoption of robot-assisted prostatectomy to treat prostate cancer in recent years. The findings, reported by Chang et al in BJU International, also showed that although such surgeries are more expensive than traditional...
In a phase III Australian/New Zealand trial (TROG 03.04 RADAR) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Denham et al found no differences in prostate cancer–specific or all-cause mortality with intermediate-term androgen suppression and radiotherapy or short-term suppression plus radiotherapy with or ...
In a study reported in JAMA Dermatology, Youlden et al found that the incidence of Merkel cell carcinoma in Queensland, Australia, a known high-risk area, increased by 2.6% annually between 1993 and 2010. Five-year relative survival was 41%, with significantly better survival found in patients aged ...
Transrectal ultrasound guided biopsy is the standard for detecting prostate cancer, but international reports have suggested that the risks associated with the procedure are increasing. In a new nationwide population-based study reported in The Journal of Urology, Swedish researchers found that 6%...
The 1964 Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health started a culture change in the way Americans viewed tobacco and their health, and has saved countless million of lives. But the 1964 Report remained scientifically ambiguous on certain vital issues, such as the effect smoking had on the ...
Links between a number of common respiratory diseases and an increased risk of developing lung cancer have been found in a large pooled analysis of seven studies involving more than 25,000 individuals. The findings by Denholm et al were published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical...
The Norwegian Colorectal Cancer Prevention 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 Holme et al in JAMA, the 11-year follow-up shows significant...
The 13-year follow-up of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC), reported by Schröder et al in The Lancet, showed that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening in men aged 55 to 69 years is associated with a 21% reduction in risk of prostate cancer mortality...
Healthy men participating in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial who actively participate in all steps of the clinical trial are most likely to undergo a biopsy, according to a study by Gritz et al published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial, ...
The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network has recently reported its comprehensive molecular profiling of lung adenocarcinoma in Nature. Findings included a high rate of somatic mutations including alterations in tumor-suppressor genes, chromatin-modifying genes, and RNA-splicing genes and suggested...
In the phase III international AFFIRM trial, enzalutamide (Xtandi) was shown to improve overall survival vs placebo in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer after progression on docetaxel. In an analysis of secondary endpoints reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fizazi et al found...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Antoniou et al identified lifetime risk of breast cancer in families with germline loss-of-function mutations in PALB2. Estimated cumulative risk among female mutation carriers was 14% by 50 years of age and 35% by 70 years of age....
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Walker et al found that among nonelderly patients with the top 10 most lethal cancers, those with Medicaid or no insurance were more likely to present with advanced disease and less likely to receive cancer-directed surgery or radiation...
In a UK population-based cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cardwell et al found that statin use after diagnosis of colorectal cancer was associated with a 29% reduction in colorectal cancer–specific mortality and a 25% reduction in all-cause mortality. Improvements...
Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States. Active surveillance offers low-risk prostate cancer patients a means to avoid the potentially harmful side effects from treatment. In a recent article in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, a...
In a letter to the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Richter et al describe a potential tyrosine kinase inhibitor withdrawal syndrome characterized by musculoskeletal pain after stopping tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Onset After Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor...
A St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital study found that 73% of adult survivors of childhood cancer more than doubled their risk of developing metabolic syndrome and related health problems by failing to follow a heart-healthy lifestyle. The results were published online in the journal...
Statin use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of developing Barrett’s esophagus, according to a new study by Nguyen et al in Gastroenterology. Obese patients experienced the greatest level of risk reduction with statin use. While statins have been associated with a reduced risk...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Xing et al found that the combined presence of BRAF V600E and TERT C228T mutations was associated with increased risk of recurrence and poor disease-free survival in patients with papillary thyroid cancer. The retrospective study included 365...
Primary androgen-deprivation therapy has been widely used in localized prostate cancer, despite absence of definitive evidence of benefit in early-stage disease. In a large population-based cohort study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Lu-Yao et al found that primary androgen-deprivation therapy ...
In a population-based cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Prasad et al found that men with depressive disorder prior to prostate cancer diagnosis were significantly less likely to undergo definitive therapy and had worse overall survival across all risk strata compared with...
Noninvasive quantitative computed tomography–based texture analysis can accurately differentiate the presence of a KRAS mutation from pan–wild-type non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), based on the results of a study in PLOS ONE. Weiss et al reported that this tumor heterogeneity...
Most older men with low-risk prostate cancer receive upfront treatment, despite absence of clear survival benefit and potential for morbidity. In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Hoffman et al found that use of observation as management in this setting varied widely...
Robot-assisted surgery to remove cancerous prostate glands is effective in controlling the disease for 10 years, according to a new study led by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. The study by Diaz et al, published in European Urology, also suggested that traditional methods of measuring the...
ODM-201 is a novel androgen receptor inhibitor—structurally distinct from enzalutamide (Xtandi)—that acts via high-affinity binding to the androgen receptor and inhibition of receptor nuclear translocation. In the phase I/II ARADES trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fizazi et al...
An analysis of data from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study reported by Siddiqui et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates that vasectomy is associated with a modestly but significantly increased risk of high-grade and lethal prostate cancer. The study involved data from 49,405...
A new analysis has found that rates of testicular cancer have been rising dramatically in recent years among young Hispanic American men, but not among their non-Hispanic counterparts. Published early online in Cancer, the findings indicate that greater awareness is needed concerning the increasing ...
In a European phase III noninferiority trial (Euro-EWING99-R1) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Le Deley et al found that cyclophosphamide was noninferior in event-free survival vs ifosfamide in combination with vincristine/dactinomycin as consolidation therapy in patients with...
Higher intakes of calcium, vitamin D, and dairy product are associated with lower risk of colorectal cancer, but the effect of such intake on survival in colorectal cancer is unclear. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yang et al found that higher postdiagnosis intake of...
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is likely to improve insurance coverage for young adults. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Aizer et al examined the association between insurance status and cancer outcomes among young adults, finding that the uninsured...
Men and women who took low-dose aspirin regularly had a 48% reduction in their risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a new study. In addition, the longer a person started taking low-dose aspirin, the greater the benefit, ranging from 48% reduction in people who started 3 years before...
In what may be the first randomized trial of systemic therapy in this setting, Dutton and colleagues evaluated gefitinib (Iressa) vs placebo in patients with esophageal cancer progressing after chemotherapy. As reported in The Lancet Oncology, the COG trial showed no survival benefit with gefitinib ...
In a study of the association of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), thyroglobulin, and thyroid hormones with risk of differentiated thyroid cancer reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Rinaldi et al found that high thyroglobulin levels can precede thyroid cancer by many years and...
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited announced today that it has voluntarily decided to end the development program for orteronel (TAK-700), an investigational oral, nonsteroidal, selective inhibitor of 17,20-lyase, for prostate cancer. The decision follows the results of two phase III...
Women who begin menstruation at an older age have a significantly increased risk of developing a brain tumor, a Moffitt Cancer Center study shows. The results are part of a large multicenter study to determine potential risk factors associated with the development of glioma and meningioma. The...
Palliative resection of the primary tumor was associated with a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, according to the results of a study reported in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Gresham et al noted...
The androgen receptor inhibitor enzalutamide (Xtandi) has been shown to prolong survival in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with progressive disease after chemotherapy. In the phase III PREVAIL trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Beer et al found that...
Around a quarter of smokers who carry a mutation in the BRCA2 gene will develop lung cancer at some point in their lifetime, a large-scale, international study reveals. Scientists described a previously unknown link between lung cancer and a particular BRCA2 mutation, which occurs in around 2% of...
The addition of docetaxel to androgen-deprivation therapy extended survival for men with newly diagnosed hormone-sensitive prostate cancer by more than 13 months in the National Cancer Institute–led phase III E3805 study. The survival benefit was even greater for men with high-volume disease. ...
Men with prostate cancer generally have an excellent prognosis, but questions remain about the risk of second primary malignancies after initial therapy for localized disease. According to a new study presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago (Abstract 5034), although the overall risk of ...
Gemcitabine plus a platinum agent is standard treatment in advanced biliary cancer. In the phase II open-label noncomparative BINGO trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology, Malka et al found no apparent benefit of adding the EGFR inhibitor cetuximab (Erbitux) to gemcitabine/oxaliplatin in first-line ...