A mid much debate about the potential for overly aggressive treatment of ductal carcinoma in situ comes a study that gives one pause. According to research presented at the 17th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons, more than half of all women with ductal carcinoma in situ that ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Liu et al found that Native American ancestry, older age, higher cumulative dose of asparaginase, and a rare variant of the CPA2 gene increased risk for pancreatitis in children/young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Study...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO is collaborating with Gateway for Cancer Research (Gateway) to fund a 2016 and 2017 Young Investigator Award through the Conquer Cancer Foundation Grants and Awards program. “Conquer Cancer Foundation is grateful for the generous support from Gateway and...
Cetuximab (Erbitux) exhibited little apparent activity in refractory metastatic colorectal cancer harboring the KRAS G13D mutation, according to the findings of the phase II Australasian Gastro-Intestinal Trials Group ICECREAM study, which were reported by Segelov et al in the Journal of Clinical...
Dual HER2 inhibition with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) was active in patients with refractory, KRAS codon 12/13 wild-type, HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer, according to an Italian phase II trial reported by Sartore-Bianchi et al in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details...
In a study reported in Modern Pathology, Cani et al used next-generation sequencing to identify actionable mutations in orbital and ocular adnexal lymphomas, finding frequent alterations in MYD88 and chromatin modifiers. Study Details The study involved next-generation sequencing of 36...
ASCO has adapted a Clinical Care Ontario (CCO) clinical practice guideline on the selection of optimal adjuvant chemotherapy for early breast cancer and adjuvant targeted therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer, as reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The adaptation was based on review by...
For many, the word “radiation” conjures up images of mushroom clouds and the nightmarish nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. It also brings to mind those pesky dental x-rays and lifesaving cancer treatments. However, to most people, radiation is a mysterious invisible power to be feared and embraced...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) and ASCO have issued a Breast Cancer Survivorship Care guideline, published jointly in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.1,2 The guideline recommendations were formulated by a multidisciplinary expert work group and are based...
The advent of targeted therapies along with complex personalized treatment regimens has added many effective tools to the oncology armamentarium. But progress has a price tag. Although the oncology community needs new drugs, there is growing concern that the price of many newer compounds is...
In a French phase III trial reported in The Lancet, Ribrag et al showed that adding rituximab (Rituxan) to dose-dense chemotherapy improved event-free survival among adults with Burkitt lymphoma. Study Details In the open-label trial, 260 patients were randomized between October 2004 and...
Neoadjuvant endocrine therapy in the management of breast cancer is woefully underutilized by U.S. clinicians, according to advocates of this approach who made their case at the 2016 Miami Breast Cancer Conference.1 In postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–rich tumors, neoadjuvant endocrine...
More than a third of metastatic melanoma patients (34%) who received the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immunotherapeutic nivolumab (Opdivo) in a phase I clinical trial are still alive 5 years after starting treatment, according to research presented by Hodi et al at the 2016...
The investigational drug LOXO-101, which selectively targets a family of proteins called neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptors (NTRKs), produced significant tumor regression in patients whose tumors had NTRK gene fusions, according to data from a phase I clinical trial presented by Hong et al at...
While stem cells have shown promise for treating brain regions damaged by cancer radiation treatments, University of California, Irvine (UCI) researchers have found that microscopic vesicles isolated from these cells provide similar benefits without some of the risks associated with stem cells....
Pathologists would disagree about 8% of the time when interpreting a single breast biopsy slide, with more overinterpretation than underinterpretation in discordant cases, according to an analysis combining results from the B-Path (Breast Pathology) study with data on the prevalence of breast...
In a UK noninferiority trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Mehanna et al found that positron-emission tomography–computed tomography (PET-CT) surveillance was associated with similar survival vs planned neck dissection in patients with stage N2 or N3 squamous cell carcinoma ...
Ultrasound was associated with improved incremental detection of breast cancer at screening compared with tomosynthesis in women with mammography-negative dense breasts, according to the interim findings of the Italian prospective ASTOUND study. Tagliafico et al reported these results in the...
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center of Keck Medicine of USC and Clalit National Israel Cancer Control Center have found that coffee consumption may be inversely associated with the risk of colorectal cancer. The findings by Schmit et...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Isaacs et al found that use of primary breast-conserving surgery for early-stage breast cancer has declined somewhat in recent years in New York State, most steeply among younger women. In addition, 90-day reoperation rates have declined and are lower for...
On March 11, 2016, crizotinib (Xalkori) was approved for treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ROS1 rearrangement–positive tumors.1,2 A U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved test for the detection of ROS1 rearrangements in NSCLC is not currently...
Recent data indicate that the rate of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening and the rate of diagnosis of early-stage prostate cancer have decreased since a 2012 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) statement (released in October 2011) gave a grade D recommendation against PSA...
The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) was passed in April 2015, introducing comprehensive changes to how Medicare pays physicians for services. As the policies passed in MACRA are rolled out over the coming years, they will profoundly impact reimbursement and care...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fang et al found that lower vitamin D levels were associated with poorer outcome in patients with melanoma independent of C-reactive protein (CRP) levels. Study Details The study involved data from 1,042 prospectively observed patients with ...
At this year’s ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Craig Earle, MD, MSc, of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, used Donabedian’s Triad—structure, process, and outcome—to set the stage for his presentation on the science of quality. “The theory behind Donabedian’s Triad is that structure...
Today’s medical oncologist is increasingly challenged to stay current with the latest developments in cancer treatment. I have been fortunate to speak with many oncologists over the past quarter-century on how professional life has evolved since the 1990s. These conversations have left me with a...
Glioblastoma multiforme resulting from germline biallelic mismatch repair deficiency was characterized by hypermutation and elevated neoantigen load—characteristics associated with response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in other settings—according to a study reported in the Journal of ...
In an analysis in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study cohort reported in The Lancet Oncology, Chow et al found that increasing doses of several alkylating agents reduced the likelihood of fathering a pregnancy among male survivors of childhood cancer, with fewer drug associations with pregnancy...
While absolute rates of biopsy and postbiopsy complications have decreased following several benchmark prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening publications, the relative risk for each patient continues to increase, according to a new study by Mayo Clinic researchers. The study is the largest to...
In an analysis of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) cohort reported in The Lancet Oncology, Patz et al found that participants who had a negative low-dose computed tomography (CT) prevalence screen had a low incidence of lung cancer detected at first annual screen and exhibited reduced...
Using the latest advances in endoscopic resection techniques, more than 75% of patients with complex colon polyps could avoid surgery for their polyp removal, according to new research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The findings, published by Raju et al in Gastrointestinal ...
Hoster et al found that Ki67 index had greater prognostic value than cytology or growth pattern in mantle cell lymphoma, based on data from European Mantle Cell Lymphoma Network randomized trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. A modified combination of Ki67 index and Mantle Cell...
Use of epoetin alfa (Epogen, Procrit) vs best standard of care to treat anemia did not achieve noninferiority for investigator-assessed progression-free survival in patients receiving chemotherapy for metastatic breast cancer, reported Leyland-Jones et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology....
In a single-center retrospective study reported in JAMA Oncology, McDonald et al found that adding digital breast tomosynthesis to digital mammography reduced recall rates, increased cancer detection, and was associated with a numeric reduction in interval cancers. Study Details The analysis...
Healy et al found that greater use of positron-emission tomography (PET) for detection of recurrence of lung and esophageal cancers was not associated with improved survival, suggesting potential overuse of the modality in this setting. They reported their results in the Journal of the National...
In a small trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Mogil et al found that low-magnitude, high-frequency mechanical stimulation improved the whole-body bone mineral density score in childhood cancer survivors with low bone mineral density. Study Details In the double-blind trial, 65 survivors of...
Two quality improvement projects described in the Journal of Oncology Practice resulted in reduced errors in prescribing intravenous (IV) and oral chemotherapy. A project at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston outpatient infusion centers first identified 15 different types of...
A retrospective review to evaluate the frequency of serum tumor marker testing “found a high rate of serum tumor marker testing overuse and extreme overuse in patients with advanced solid tumors,” Melissa K. Accordino, MD, of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York,...
Many low- and middle-income countries do not have a defined medical specialty in surgical oncology, and lack an educational infrastructure to respond to the local burden of cancer, but a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) fellowship is succeeding in addressing this problem by training...
As reported by Hodi et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, use of conventional Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) to assess response may have underestimated the benefit of treatment with the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in the...
The increased rate of bilateral mastectomies, as shown in recently released data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), is “perplexing,” Ismail Jatoi, MD, PhD, told The ASCO Post. “We are seeing more and more women with unilateral breast cancer opt for bilateral mastectomy,...
In the TOPARP-A phase II trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Joaquin Mateo, MD, of the Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden in London, and colleagues, found that the PARP inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) produced a high response rate in patients with previously treated ...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Adam Ivey, MSc, from Guy’s Hospital, London, and colleagues found that a leukemia-specific marker consisting of mutation in the gene encoding nucleophosmin (NPM1) can be used to identify minimal residual disease in peripheral blood in...
Increased travel distance to a cancer treatment facility negatively impacts the likelihood that patients with stage II/III rectal cancer will receive radiation therapy to treat their disease, according to a study analyzing 26,845 patient records from the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB) published...
Hypofractionated radiotherapy was not noninferior to conventionally fractionated radiotherapy in late genitourinary and gastrointestinal toxicity in patients with prostate cancer in the Dutch phase III HYPRO trial. These findings were reported by Aluwini et al in The Lancet Oncology. An earlier...
Soon after effective therapies for some childhood malignancies were first identified, early leaders in our field had concerns about what would happen to surviving patients as they aged. In 1975, Giulio D’Angio, MD, one of the founders of modern pediatric radiation oncology, presciently called for...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Gregory T. Armstrong, MD, MSCE, of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, and colleagues found that late mortality has decreased over time among 5-year survivors of childhood cancer in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study cohort.1...
Proton-beam radiation therapy may be an attractive option for reirradiation of recurrent head and neck cancer, with encouraging disease control and survival rates and improved toxicity rates compared to photon reirradiation, according to John Han-Chih Chang, MD. Most head and neck cancers present...
Smokers whose oropharyngeal tumors are positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) might need more aggressive treatment for their disease, according to research presented by Jose Zevallos, MD, at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Scottsdale, Arizona.1 Over time,...
Earlier this month, experts from four major institutions issued the annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer (1975–2012). This year’s report showed that death rates continued to decline for all cancers combined, as well as for most cancer sites for men and women of all major racial and...