For some patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer of the tonsils and tongue, reduced-intensity radiation therapy and chemotherapy may be as effective as standard-dose radiation and chemotherapy, and result in fewer acute side effects, according to research presented by Chera et al...
A study led by Johns Hopkins researchers has linked the immunosuppressive drug mycophenolate mofetil to an increased risk of central nervous system lymphoma in solid organ transplant patients. But the same study also found that another class of immunosuppressive drugs, calcineurin inhibitors, given ...
Among children with intermediate-risk rhabdomyosarcoma that is negative for a fusion gene, those who had a high score for expression of a specific gene signature called MG5 had poorer survival outcomes compared with those who had a low MG5 score, according to a study published by Hingorani et al in ...
As reported by Falini et al in a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, dactinomycin treatment resulted in morphologic and molecular complete remission ongoing at 14 months in a patient with NPM1-mutant acute myeloid leukemia (AML). NPM1-mutated AML may account for one-third of AML in...
A survey exploring the relationship between spiritual support and end-of-life care by evaluating clergy members’ opinions and experiences related to care provided to congregants at the end of their life has found that a majority of clergy endorse religious beliefs regarding their...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has endorsed the current American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) guideline on treatment of small cell lung cancer, released in 2013. After review of evidence from an updated literature search covering 2011 to March 2015, an ASCO...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an anti–PD-1 therapy, may be effective as monotherapy in patients with advanced unresectable nasopharyngeal carcinoma whose tumors express programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). Data from a phase Ib study, KEYNOTE-028, showed an overall response rate of 22.2% in 27...
On September 30, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo) in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of patients with BRAF V600 wild-type, unresectable, or metastatic melanoma. The FDA is scheduled to make a decision on ...
Millions of people are unable to receive necessary treatment worldwide because of a chronic underinvestment in radiotherapy resources, according to a major new Commission on access to radiotherapy, published in by Atun et al in The Lancet Oncology, and presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Landier et al found that education tailored to personal risk for therapy-related complications improved risk awareness in survivors of childhood cancer. The level of awareness appeared to reach a maximum after several educational sessions....
In the first trial of the University of Pennsylvania's personalized cellular therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), 8 of 14 patients responded to the therapy, with some complete remissions continuing past 4.5 years. These results, published by Porter et al in Science Translational...
A small phase I/IIa study of third-generation CD19 CAR (chimeric-antigen receptor) T-cell therapy combined with chemotherapy pretreatment has resulted in complete responses in 6 of the 11 patients with relapsed or refractory lymphoma and leukemia enrolled in the study. Although CAR T-cell...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2015 Cancer Progress Report highlighted the accelerated pace of the number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved targeted therapies over the past 5 years, which reached 52 this year; the dramatic increase in the 5-year survival rate...
The standard of care for malignant pleural mesothelioma may be poised for change, judging by results from a study (Abstract ORAL11.01) by the French Cooperative Thoracic Intergroup. The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) in the first-line setting to the current standard of care, pemetrexed...
In a phase II histology-independent basket study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Hyman et al found that the BRAF V600 kinase inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf) exhibited activity in some but not all nonmelanoma cancers with BRAF V600 mutations. Study Details In the study, 122...
The phase III NSABP B-40 (NRG Oncology) trial showed that the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to docetaxel-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy improved pathologic complete response rate, the primary endpoint, in patients with early HER2-negative breast cancer. In a report of secondary outcomes in The...
In two phase III trials reported in The Lancet Oncology, Rapoport et al found that the addition of rolapitant to serotonin (5-HT3) receptor antagonist and dexamethasone treatment significantly improved complete response rates in prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients...
In a phase III study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Schwartzberg et al found that the addition of rolapitant to serotonin (5-HT3) receptor antagonist and dexamethasone treatment significantly improved complete response rates in prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients...
In a French phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ray-Coquard et al found no apparent benefit of paclitaxel plus bevacizumab (Avastin) compared with weekly paclitaxel in patients with inoperable locally advanced or metastatic angiosarcoma. Study Details In this...
Results of a phase I trial show that an investigational topical drug, resiquimod gel, causes regression of both treated and untreated tumor lesions and may completely remove cancerous cells from both sites in patients with early-stage cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Currently, there is no cure for...
In the phase III E3805 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Sweeney et al found that chemohormonal therapy with docetaxel plus androgen-deprivation therapy produced a significant 13.6-month increase in median overall survival vs androgen-deprivation therapy alone in men with...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yamoah et al identified a biomarker signature that may predict aggressive disease in African American men with prostate cancer. Study Details In the study, distribution of mRNA expression levels of 20 biomarkers associated with prostate cancer...
An observational study investigating the use and effectiveness of a combination regimen of intraperitoneal and intravenous chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced-stage ovarian cancer has found that although the dual approach substantially improved survival—81% of those treated with the...
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...
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...
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 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 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 ...
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....
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...
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...
In the randomized phase II KEYNOTE-002 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ribas et al found that treatment with the anti–PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda) prolonged progression-free survival vs investigator-choice chemotherapy in patients with advanced melanoma progressing on...
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,...
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...
A large population-based prospective analysis of the consumption of psoralen-rich citrus products and the risk of malignant melanoma has found that the melanoma risk was 36% higher in people who consumed citrus fruit or juice at least 1.6 times daily compared with those who consumed it less than...
Patients older than age 45 with thyroid cancer that has spread to neck lymph nodes have long been considered at higher risk of dying, but the same has not been true for younger patients. Now researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute and the Duke Clinical Research Institute have found that...
In a single-institution study reported in JAMA Surgery, Margonis et al found that particular KRAS codon 12 mutations were associated with significantly poorer overall survival among patients with colorectal liver metastases. Study Details This retrospective study included data from 331 patients...
Scientists at multiple institutions have found a new way of classifying brain cancers that could very well change how the illness is diagnosed and treated. The study, a project of The Cancer Genome Atlas, found striking molecular differences between various forms of gliomas by looking at the makeup ...
In a phase I trial, the investigational agent mirvetuximab soravtansine (IMGN853) was found to be active in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. ImmunoGen, Inc, announced the first clinical findings of this folate-receptor alpha (FRα)-targeting antibody-drug conjugate at the...
More than one-third of counties in the United States are located more than 50 miles from the nearest gynecologic oncologist, making access to specialty care for ovarian and other gynecologic cancers difficult for nearly 15 million women. Although most of these “low-access” counties are...
Phase III results of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 0537 indicate that acupuncture-like, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (ALTENS) may be equally effective as the prescription medication pilocarpine, the current standard of care, to treat radiation-induced xerostomia (dry...
In the phase III SQUIRE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Thatcher et al found that the addition of the second-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antibody necitumumab to first-line gemcitabine-cisplatin improved overall survival among patients with stage IV squamous...
In a phase III BEYOND trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Zhou et al found that the addition of bevacizumab to carboplatin-paclitaxel improved progression-free and overall survival in Chinese patients with locally advanced, metastatic, or recurrent advanced nonsquamous...
Although the overall rate of colorectal cancer is declining, colorectal cancer specifically among young patients is increasing. Previous studies have shown that colorectal cancer in patients younger than 50 years old tends to be more aggressive than in older patients. A University of Colorado (CU)...
In the UK phase III CHORUS trial reported in The Lancet, Kehoe et al found that a strategy of three cycles of platinum-based chemotherapy followed by delayed surgery and three additional cycles of chemotherapy was associated with overall survival noninferior to that achieved with surgery followed...
Patients with operable stage I non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) could achieve better overall survival rates if treated with stereotactic ablative radiotherapy rather than the invasive surgery, the current standard of care, according to research from a phase III randomized international...
In the Dutch PACES trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, van Waart et al found that both a moderate/high-intensity supervised exercise program and a low-intensity home-based program provided benefits vs usual care in women undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer. Benefits,...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Holter et al found that 4.6% of a large clinic population of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma harbored pathogenic germline BRCA mutations. The study involved analysis of 306 unselected, consecutive, incident patients with pancreatic...
In patients with recurrent/persistent uterine or ovarian/primary peritoneal/fallopian tube cancers, ixabepilone (Ixempra), especially with the addition of biweekly bevacizumab (Avastin), appears to be safe and effective, according to a study by Roque et al in Gynecologic Oncology. Further...
The UK-led STAMPEDE trial found that adding docetaxel chemotherapy to standard hormone therapy markedly improved survival for men with newly diagnosed advanced prostate cancer not previously treated with hormone therapy (hormone-naive). Men who received docetaxel plus standard therapy lived on...