The phase III open-label AXIS trial comparing axitinib (Inlyta) vs sorafenib (Nexavar) as second-line treatment for metastatic renal cell carcinoma has shown a significant difference in median progression-free survival (8.3 months in the axitinib group vs 5.7 months in the sorafenib group; hazard...
Investigators in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have uncovered a connection between how tumor cells use energy from metabolic processes and the aggressiveness of the most common form of kidney cancer, clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Their findings demonstrate that normal...
A Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database analysis reported by Ravi Shridhar, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Cancer indicates that patients receiving surgery and radiation therapy for metastatic gastric cancer have prolonged survival compared with those receiving either alone or...
The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network recently reported the results of an integrated analysis of the genomic features of 373 endometrial carcinomas.1 This report joins previously published results of similar analyses in ovarian, breast, and colorectal cancers, squamous cell carcinoma of...
As recently reported in Nature, investigators in The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network performed an integrated genomic, transcriptomic, and proteomic characterization of 373 endometrial carcinomas, including 307 endometrioid and 66 serous or mixed histology cases, using array- and...
A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looking at the prevalence of HPV infections in girls before and after the introduction of the HPV vaccine in 2006 found a significant reduction of 56% in infections among female teenagers aged 14 to 19. About 79 million Americans,...
A new government study investigating the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in females aged 14 to 59 before and after the introduction in 2006 of the HPV vaccine found that the rate of the HPV infection dropped by 56%, decreasing from 11.5% in 2006 to 5.1% in 2010 among female...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Indication On May 14, 2013, erlotinib (Tarceva) was approved for...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded the approved use of denosumab (Xgeva) to treat adults and some adolescents with giant cell tumor of the bone, a rare and usually noncancerous tumor. Denosumab, which was granted orphan product designation, was reviewed under the FDA’s...
Investigators from Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto and the University of California, Los Angeles, have submitted an Investigational New Drug (IND) application for CFI-400945, a novel drug candidate targeting the enzyme PLK4, which plays a crucial role in cell division. The news was...
We conducted this study to clarify a hypothesis that had been generated from preclinical work and small clinical datasets. One additional background point that should be made is that although not all previously reported small datasets had demonstrated a relationship between PTEN expression and...
PTEN is a negative regulator of PI3K/AKT signaling. PI3K/AKT signaling can be activated by HER2, and it has been hypothesized that alteration in this pathway may affect sensitivity to trastuzumab (Herceptin). Preclinical data and some of the limited available clinical data suggest that loss or...
ALK rearrangement has been demonstrated to be a potent oncogenic driver and a promising therapeutic target in non-small cell lung cancer. It defines a distinct molecular subset of NSCLC, in particular adenocarcinoma that can benefit by the treatment of ALK-inhibitors. Development of robust and...
An editorial by Marc Lippman, MD, Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, and C. Kent Osborne, MD, Breast Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston,1 accompanied the study by Dawson and colleagues. These authors commented that the study’s key findings—that variation in the...
Management of metastatic breast cancer requires monitoring of tumor burden to assess response to treatment, and there is a need for biomarkers that can measure tumor burden with high sensitivity and specificity. Assays measuring serum cancer antigen (CA) 15-3 and circulating tumor cells have been...
Dermatologic Events in Oncology is guest edited by Mario E. Lacouture, MD, an Associate Member in the Division of Dermatology, Department of Medicine, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. He is a board-certified dermatologist with a special interest in dermatologic conditions that...
The ASCO Answers guides to cancer are designed to help patients newly diagnosed with cancer understand their disease and treatment options. These comprehensive, patient-friendly booklets contain trusted information about diagnosis, treatment, side effects, and the psychosocial effects of cancer....
The Conquer Cancer Foundation and ASCO International have just launched a new research funding opportunity, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO International Innovation Grant, which directly supports research being conducted by investigators in low- and middle-income countries. Advancing Cancer...
ASCO has released a Progress Report on the gains made toward achieving goals set forth in its landmark 2011 report, Blueprint for Transforming Clinical and Translational Cancer Research. The ASCO Blueprint laid out an innovative roadmap for the clinical research system to capitalize on the new...
Building on ASCO’s longstanding commitment to drive quality, value, and accountability in cancer care, the Institute for Quality’s initiatives provide oncologists with resources to ensure that every patient receives the highest level of cancer care. Established in 2011, the Institute for Quality...
To provide a forum for key cancer stakeholders to join with business, finance, and legal thought leaders to explore the future course for oncology, ASCO is co-hosting the seventh annual Cancer Center Business Summit on October 24 and 25 in Chicago, Illinois. Designed as a resource for the business...
As a cancer care specialist, it can be easy to become hyperfocused on your area of expertise within your subspecialty. But that’s exactly what ASCO wants its members—in all specialties—to avoid. The theme of this year’s Breast Cancer Symposium—Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Clinical...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Indication On May 15, 2013, radium Ra 223 dichloride (Xofigo) was...
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clinically and molecularly heterogeneous disease.1 This concept has been supported by more than 4 decades of studies showing distinct outcomes of subsets of patients that differ in age, disease type (primary vs secondary vs therapy-related), and cytogenetic and...
In a study by the Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, genomes of 200 adult cases of de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML) were analyzed by whole-genome sequencing (n = 50) or whole-exome sequencing (n = 150) to identify mutations and relationships...
One-quarter of women who should take hormone-blocking therapies as part of their breast cancer treatment either do not start or do not complete the 5-year course, according to a new study led by University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers. For many women with hormone...
The close association between cancer and thrombosis has been recognized now for more than 150 years.1 Not only is it now known that patients with cancer are at substantially increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism, even prior to the diagnosis of cancer, but the association between...
Gary H. Lyman, MD, MPH, FRCP (Edin), Co-Chair, Duke University Medical Center Anna Falanga, MD, Co-Chair, Ospedali Riuiniti Bergamo, Italy Daniel Clarke-Pearson, MD, University of North Carolina Christopher Flowers, MD, MS, Winship Cancer Institute Charles W. Francis, MD, University of...
ASCO has released a new evidence-based clinical practice guideline for venous thromboembolism prophylaxis and treatment, updating the 2007 practice guideline.1 The update is based on a systematic review of literature published from December 2007 to December 2012. An Update Committee reviewed...
The FIRE-3 investigators did not report the use of salvage treatments, and this may be confounding the results, according to Richard Goldberg, MD, who discussed the paper at an ASCO press briefing. Dr. Goldberg is Professor of Medicine at The Ohio State University, Columbus. “The study shows a...
In patients with advanced colorectal cancer, it remains unclear which biologic agent added to standard chemotherapy is best, even after a head-to-head comparison of two commonly used agents. In the phase III FIRE-3 trial, conducted by the German AIO CRC Study Group, the addition of cetuximab...
Scott Tomlins, MD, PhD, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, was cautiously optimistic about this new test. “Whenever you introduce a new biomarker, you need to demonstrate its ability to impact clinical decision-making, and it needs to improve on what we currently have,” he...
“Prostate cancer is a heterogeneous disease and has not yet benefitted from personalized medicine discoveries. Anything that gets us closer to personalized medicine [for prostate cancer] is a plus,” said Michael J. Morris, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New...
At least 12 different genetic tests for prostate cancer are under development. The two tests currently available are Oncotype DX (Genomic Health, Redwood City, California) and Prolaris (Myriad Genetic Laboratories, Salt Lake City). Both tests can identify which low-risk patients are “truly” at low...
Priya Rastogi, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, discussed the findings at the session. She noted that previous studies have also shown higher pathologic complete response rates among HER2-enriched patients who were hormone receptor–negative, and...
As a neoadjuvant regimen for HER2-positive early breast cancer, the use of two HER2-directed agents was no more effective than trastuzumab (Herceptin) alone in producing pathologic complete responses, although one subset of patients did benefit from this approach, according to the results of the...
New treatments for melanoma and cervical cancer were cited as the most important subjects of new clinical information presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meerting, according to the second annual ASCO Impact Report released recently by Encuity Research. New treatments for melanoma, with an emphasis...
The results of the next-generation sequencing analysis of the BOLERO-2 samples showed that specific activating PIK3CA mutations are not in themselves predictive of clinical benefit from mTOR inhibitors, possibly because there are other ways to activate mTOR independently of PI3K. “It is probably...
The search for a biomarker of benefit from mTOR inhibitors in breast cancer fell flat in an exploratory genetic analysis of the BOLERO-2 trial, presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting by Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, MD, FACP, Professor of Breast Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson...
At the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, The ASCO Post caught up with new President Clifford A. Hudis, MD, Chief of the Breast Cancer Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, for a glimpse of his plans for ASCO in the coming year, and his thoughts on being elected ASCO...
“These three excellent, encouraging, tantalizing studies show that we really are making progress in the treatment of chronic CLL, whereas 10 to 12 years ago, we had no real progress to report,” stated Kanti R. Rai, MD, Chief, CLL Research Program, North Shore-LIJ Medical Center, New Hyde Park, NY. ...
A trio of presentations at the ASCO Annual Meeting focused on two promising investigational drugs for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). These two drugs—idelalisib and obinutuzumab—join a list of new approaches showing potential. Idelalisib Alone A phase I dose-ranging study of...
Commenting on the ganetespib study, Marjorie G. Zauderer, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said that this first-in-class study suggests efficacy and represents a potential advance in lung cancer treatment. “We haven’t had any advances in a long time....
The investigational heat shock protein (Hsp)90 inhibitor ganetespib plus docetaxel extended overall survival compared with docetaxel alone as second-line therapy in patients with advanced non–small cell adenocarcinoma of the lung that had progressed on first-line therapy in the randomized phase II...
“The definition of molecular subsets of lung cancer [in terms of] driver mutations has revolutionized the care of patients with non–small cell lung cancer [NSCLC],” said formal discussant Christine M. Lovly, MD, PhD, Instructor in Medicine at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville. ALK...
Encouraging results were seen in a preliminary study of a second-generation ALK inhibitor in advanced ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The drug—dubbed LDK378—achieved tumor shrinkage in almost all patients enrolled in the study, in all mutational subsets, in crizotinib...
At the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, Selma Schimmel conducted a series of interviews with prominent oncologists, to get their perspectives on palliative care. These discussions can be viewed via The Group Room website here: http://thegrouproom.tv/category/cancer-topics/palliative-care/ All Vital...
This is the first time I’m going public with the fact that I have advanced ovarian cancer. I thought I could avoid the fate of my mother and her mother, both of whom died of ovarian cancer in their 50s, and live well past my 60s and even 70s. But at 58, I’ve had to accept that that is not likely. I ...
On June 13, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that isolated human genes may not be patented. However, the creation of synthetic forms of DNA, known as complementary DNA (cDNA), is eligible for patent protection. The decision resolves the question brought before the Supreme Court justices in...
Given the results of the AVAglio trial, we feel that a more balanced discussion about the role of bevacizumab (Avastin) in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma is in order. The accompanying article in The ASCO Post suggests that bevacizumab has no benefit in newly diagnosed glioblastoma; data ...