Cologuard stool DNA testing for colorectal cancer was found to be an accurate noninvasive screening option for Alaska Native people, a population with one of the world's highest rates of colorectal cancer, concluded researchers from the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and Mayo Clinic. The...
Researchers investigating the role of exosomes, comprised of tumor-derived proteins, in the development of cancer metastasis have found that an “exosomal protein signature” could identify patients at risk for metastasis. The research also indicates that integrin expression profiles of...
In a multi-institutional phase II trial (ACOSOG Z6041) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Garcia-Aguilar et al found that neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and local excision was associated with an acceptable disease-free survival rate, albeit not so high as anticipated, in patients with clinical stage...
On October 21 in Washington, DC, the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) hosted a reception to honor Richard Pazdur, MD, and Ellen Goodman. Special guest Robert M. Califf, MD, Deputy Commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),...
In a German noninferiority phase III trial (AIO 0207) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Hegewisch-Becker et al found that maintenance treatment with bevacizumab (Avastin) was noninferior to a fluoropyrimidine plus bevacizumab in time to maintenance strategy failure following first-line treatment...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Allegra et al, ASCO has issued a provisional clinical opinion (PCO) update on extended RAS mutation testing in metastatic colorectal cancer to predict response to anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody treatment. The update revises a 2009 PCO and is based...
The potential risks and harms of low-dose computed tomography lung cancer screening in current 20 to 29 pack-year smokers needs to be assessed before recommending such screening to this group, according to a study published by Pinsky and Kramer in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute....
While most cancer survivors in the United States are motivated to seek information about food choices and dietary changes to improve their health, a new study comparing their dietary patterns to federal guidelines indicates that they often fall short. By Zhang et al in Cancer, the findings point to ...
For a malignant tumor to form, cancer cells must evade the immune system's attack. Numerous studies have already shown that cancer spreads particularly aggressively if there is an unfavorable balance between suppressing and active immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. “But we didn't...
In a study reported in The Lancet, Smyth et al found that alcohol consumption was associated with increased risk of cancer at sites known to be related to alcohol consumption, with evidence of increased risk being found in both higher- and lower-income countries. The study examined associations...
As time lapses, many patients who have undergone a colonoscopy become less and less likely to recall when and where they last had the procedure performed, who the doctor was who performed it, whether polyps were found, and, if so, the number and size of those polyps, according to new study results...
All relatives of individuals with colorectal cancer are at increased risk for this cancer, regardless of the age of diagnosis of the index patient in the family, according to a study published by Samadder et al in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. These findings may impact future guidelines ...
The effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy in the treatment of patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has prolonged lives and resulted in cancer becoming increasingly common in this population, with a higher burden than the general population due to impaired immune function, including...
Colorectal cancer is on the rise among younger patients. Although some of the younger-onset cases can be explained by hereditary factors, the majority arise spontaneously. Researchers have now found that tumors in younger patients with colorectal cancer may be molecularly distinct from those of...
Aspirin improved survival in patients with tumors situated throughout the gastrointestinal tract, results from a large study in the Netherlands showed. This is the first time that survival data from patients with tumors in different gastrointestinal locations have been analyzed at the same time;...
Comparisons of cancer patients’ survival and care in Europe up to 2007 showed that although more patients are surviving for at least 5 years after diagnosis, there are large variations among countries, which are particularly significant in cancers of the blood. Milena Sant, MD, from the...
In a phase I/II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Corcoran et al found that the combination of the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and the MEK inhibitor trametinib (Mekinist) produced responses in some patients with BRAF V600–mutant metastatic colorectal cancer. MAPK...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved trifluridine/tipiracil (Lonsurf) for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have been previously treated with chemotherapy and biologic therapy and are no longer responding to treatment. The new agent is an oral combination of...
There is strong evidence that the protein complex APC/C may function as a tumor suppressor in multiple cancers including lymphoma, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, and now, melanoma. A new study has revealed that a genetic mutation leading to repression of a specific protein, Cdh1, which interacts ...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Yoon et al found that among patients with stage III colon cancer in the Alliance N0147 trial, Asians had the lowest rate of BRAF/KRAS mutations and longer disease-free survival vs whites among patients with N2 disease and that...
About 20% of patients with colorectal cancer have cancers that have metastasized beyond the colon at the time of their diagnosis, with the liver being the most common site for these metastases. The approach to treating primary tumors within the colon and metastatic tumors in the liver continues to...
As reported by Schmoll et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the final results of the phase III NO16968 trial showed that adjuvant therapy with XELOX (capecitabine, oxaliplatin) improved overall survival vs fluorouracil (5-FU)/leucovorin in patients with resected stage III colon cancer....
In an updated analysis of the Italian phase III TRIBE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Cremolini et al found that FOLFOXIRI (fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, oxaliplatin, irinotecan) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) significantly prolonged overall survival in patients with unresectable metastatic...
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...
In an analysis of a randomized trial of aspirin in patients with Lynch syndrome reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Movahedi et al found that obesity was associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer, with the excess risk being restricted to those not receiving aspirin. ...
Research by a Veterans Affairs team has confirmed that longer-lasting colonoscopies are associated with lower cancer rates. Their findings were published by Shaukat et al in Gastroenterology, and were based on nearly 77,000 screening colonoscopies. Experts already know about the link between...
A large population-based control study of the use of low-dose aspirin or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and colorectal cancer risk has found that taking 75 mg to 150 mg of aspirin for 5 years or longer was associated with a 27% reduced risk of colorectal cancer. In addition, 5 or more...
A large observational study investigating the effect of coffee consumption on advanced-stage colon cancer and survival has found that patients who drank four or more cups of coffee a day were 42% less likely to experience a recurrence than non-coffee drinkers and were 33% less likely to die from...
Final results of the German phase III CAO/ARO/AIO-04 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology by Rödel et al showed that adding oxaliplatin to fluorouracil (5-FU)–based neoadjuvant chemoradiation and postoperative chemotherapy improved disease-free survival in patients with locally advanced ...
Researchers investigating a risk index for colorectal cancer and advanced precancerous polyps among average-risk people have found that patients classified as low risk had fewer advanced adenomas than patients classified as high risk. Their findings suggest that those at low risk for colorectal...
A large-scale genetic study of the links between telomere length and risk for five common cancers found that long telomeres are associated with an increased risk of lung adenocarcinoma. No significant associations between telomere length and other cancer types or subtypes were observed. The study,...
Lower levels of ERCC1 (excision repair cross-complementation group 1) and thymidylate synthase expression may be predictive of longer survival in patients with metastatic colon cancer, according to a study by Choueiri et al in PLOS One. It was shown that patients with low levels of ERCC1 and...
Cancer therapy has evolved to a personalized approach, and important aspects of this method are pharmacogenomic studies that analyze associations between genetic variations and patient drug responses. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers published a study by Dressler et al in the Journal of the...
Recent advances in the understanding of cancer have led to the development of more personalized therapies. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have contributed to these advances by developing the first test that analyzes the sensitivity of tumors to radiation therapy. Their findings were published by ...
In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Murphy et al found that disparity in the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in white vs black patients with stage III colon cancer may have recently reemerged after a trend of increasing use in both racial groups. Changes in Use Over...
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...
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...
In a Danish prospective observational study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Appelt et al found that high-dose chemoradiotherapy and watchful waiting may be an alternative to abdominoperineal resection in some patients with distal rectal cancer. Study Details In the study, 55 patients with...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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....
Although being overweight with a high body mass index (BMI) has long been associated with a higher risk for colorectal cancer, thinner patients might not fare as well as previously expected after treatment for advanced cancer, according to a new study from Duke Medicine. The study, which was...
While the use of antiangiogenesis drugs that block the growth of new blood vessels can improve the treatment of some cancers, clinical trials of their ability to prevent the development of new metastases have failed. Now a study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center may have...
Metastatic colorectal cancer patients have improved survival rates when they respond to the first line of chemotherapy their doctors recommend. To better predict how patients will respond to chemotherapeutic agents before they begin treatment, researchers at University of California (UC) San Diego...
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...