From 12% to 15% of the approximately 45,000 patients diagnosed with pancreas adenocarcinoma undergo a potentially curative resection each year in North America, translating into roughly 5,000 to 7,000 patients who are candidates for adjuvant therapy. About 80% of these patients will relapse and...
More than 650 studies were presented at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, which attracted a multidisciplinary group of more than 3,500 medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists and gastroenterologists. The following briefs highlight a handful of noteworthy studies from the meeting....
I’ve been health conscious all my life. I have never smoked, I eat a healthy diet, and I have maintained a near-daily exercise routine since I was 20. I’m also steadfast about keeping yearly medical checkups and screenings. So when I felt a sharp, lightning-bolt of pain that went from the top of my ...
The ASCO Cancer Research Committee recently convened four disease-specific working groups—in pancreas, breast, lung, and colon cancers—to “consider the design of future clinical trials that would produce results that are clinically meaningful to patients.” An ASCO perspective statement, reported in ...
The information in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes details of actively recruiting clinical studies of patients with pancreatic cancer. All of the studies are listed on the National Institutes of Health website at ClinicalTrials.gov. The studies presented here are nonrandomized,...
Approximately 20% of all breast cancers are human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive. Prior to the era of HER2-targeted therapy, HER2-positive breast cancer was characterized by a poor prognosis.1,2 The development of the first HER2-targeted therapy, trastuzumab (Herceptin), led to...
Providence Health & Services has announced that Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, will serve as the health-care system’s new Global Director for Cancer Services and Bioinformatics. In this role, Dr. Soon-Shiong will work closely with oncology clinicians and researchers across the five-state Providence...
Triple-negative breast cancer is now recognized as a very complex subtype for which one treatment will not be applicable to all, according to Mohammad Jahanzeb, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Miami and Director of the UM Sylvester Deerfield Campus, who gave an update on...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for Halozyme Therapeutics’ program investigating pegylated recombinant human hyaluronidase (PEGPH20) in combination with gemcitabine and albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel [Abraxane]) for the treatment of patients...
During the discussion, Alan Venook, MD, of Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, raised the concern that nab-paclitaxel appears to be the platform of choice for clinical trials going forward. “I’m not sure if this is based on market or merit,” he...
The choice between FOLFIRINOX (fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, irinotecan, oxaliplatin) vs the combination of gemcitabine and nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) for first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer is not much of a contest, judging by a discussion of...
Commenting on the GeparSepto study presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, Lajos Pusztai, MD, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, said, “This study, along with a smaller SWOG study, establishes nab-paclitaxel as a legitimate treatment option for triple-negative ...
Nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) achieved superior results compared with conventional solvent-based paclitaxel in patients with early-stage high-risk breast cancer in the large phase III GeparSepto trial from the German Breast Group (GBG).1 The study, presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer...
The bisphosphonate zoledronic acid has been reported to produce antitumor effects, although the mechanisms of such effects remain unclear. In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Gonzalez-Villasana and colleagues found evidence that zoledronic acid inhibited ovarian cancer angiogenesis by...
A less intensive regimen of nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) plus gemcitabine appears to be as efficacious as the standard regimen in first-line treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer, but less toxic and far less expensive, according to a study that earned a Merit Award at the 2015 Gastrointestinal...
Investigators from Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, have reported an approach to pancreatic cancer that downstages some locally advanced patients to borderline resectable status and achieves a negative surgical margin rate exceeding 96%. The study earned a Merit Award at the 2015...
Geriatrics for the Oncologist is guest edited by Stuart Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO, and developed in collaboration with the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG). Visit SIOG.org for more on geriatric oncology. The Task Forces of the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) are ...
The ability to do genomic analysis of patients’ tumors holds great promise for revolutionizing cancer treatment, and genomics has already made some great strides. However, the Individualized Molecular Pancreatic Cancer Therapy (IMPaCT) trial is a cautionary tale about the hurdles involved in...
For 2 decades, the NCCN Guidelines® have been recognized as the standard of cancer care in the United States, combining evidence, experience, and choice, so that multidisciplinary cancer treatment teams—including patients—are empowered to make informed decisions about cancer care,” said Robert W....
An investigational immunotherapy called MPDL3280A showed encouraging and durable clinical activity in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, in an early study presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR).1 Responses...
The ability to interrogate cancer cells at the genomic, proteomic, immunologic, and metabolomic levels will transform oncology care from one that relies mainly on trial-and-error treatment strategies based on the anatomy of the tumor to one that is more precisely based on the tumor’s molecular...
Patients with stage IV pancreatic cancer who received a novel enzyme along with standard chemotherapy experienced a doubling in progression-free survival, compared to those given chemotherapy alone, in a study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Response rates and median duration of...
We have a responsibility to develop better treatment for inflammatory breast cancer,” Massimo Cristofanilli, MD, FACP, told participants at the 17th Annual Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium in Chicago. As recently appointed Associate Director of Translational Research and Precision Medicine at the ...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with pancreatic cancer. The trials are investigating preoperative rehabilitation; chimeric antigen receptors; T-cell transplants; combination chemotherapy; chemoradiotherapy; ...
Two studies evaluating the ability of myChoice HRD, a homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) test, to identify patients with breast cancer who are likely to respond to platinum-containing therapies have found that the test is effective in optimizing therapy selection for patients. The diagnostic ...
In the phase III BEACON trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Perez et al found that etirinotecan pegol was not associated with a significant increase in overall survival compared with physician’s choice of treatment in women with locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer previously...
Duke University researchers found that packaging the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel into nanoparticles more than doubled the drug’s effectiveness in destroying tumors in preclinical models. Their findings were published by Bhattacharyya et al in Nature Communications. Paclitaxel has been ...
In the phase III CALGB 40502/NCCTG N063H/Alliance trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rugo et al found that outcomes in first-line treatment for advanced breast cancer were better with weekly paclitaxel plus bevacizumab (Avastin) compared with weekly nanoparticle albumin-bound...
An early-phase study testing the anti–PD-L1 agent MPDL3280A in combination with standard chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has provided promising early results, prompting multiple phase III studies in lung cancer. The findings are being...
In a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analysis of randomized trials in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Blumenthal et al found a strong correlation between response rate and progression-free survival at the trial level and a...
The immunooncology company Vicus Therapeutics announced the presentation of two separate studies demonstrating a safety and survival benefit for VT-122, the company's lead compound, when combined with standard-of-care therapy in patients with advanced liver and pancreatic cancers. Results from both ...
A simple change to a two-drug therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer provides similar cancer control while significantly improving quality of life and reducing the cost of care, according to data reported by researchers at the The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug Designation to pegylated recombinant human hyaluronidase (PEGPH20) for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Halozyme Therapeutics is currently investigating PEGPH20 in a phase II study in combination with gemcitabine and...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, of Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, and colleagues assessed the addition of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) to gemcitabine in patients with previously untreated...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today expanded the approved uses of paclitaxel protein-bound particles for injectable suspension, albumin-bound (nab-paclitaxel, Abraxane) to treat patients with late-stage pancreatic cancer. “Patients with pancreatic cancer are often diagnosed...
In a phase II study evaluating three dosing regimens of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) given with bevacizumab (Avastin), weekly dosing of nab-paclitaxel resulted in the highest overall response rate and longest progression-free survival. The schedule of nab-paclitaxel given...
Celgene International Sàrl announced on Tuesday that its phase III clinical trial of paclitaxel protein-bound particles for injectable suspension, albumin-bound (nab-paclitaxel, Abaraxane) in combination with gemcitabine in treatment-naive patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer...