Researchers have identified a gene in dendritic cells that disables an effective immune response against ovarian cancer tumors. In preclinical studies, the researchers found that silencing this gene, XBP1, in dendritic cells restores their function and enhances T-cell antitumor immunity. XBP1 is...
In the largest study of its kind, transplant physicians at Mayo Clinic in Florida have found that liver cancer patients have similar beneficial outcomes whether using organs donated by patients after cardiac death or brain death. The study was recently published by Croome et al in the American...
Interpace Diagnostics, a subsidiary of PDI, Inc, announced new data demonstrating the clinical value of BarreGen, a molecular diagnostic test that predicts the risk of progression from Barrett’s esophagus to esophageal cancer approximately 3 to 4 years before the cancer develops. These...
In a UK study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gale et al found that presence of DNMT3A mutations was associated with poorer prognosis in young adults with cytogenetic intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML) irrespective of the presence of NPM1 mutation. Poorer outcome was found ...
In a phase III PALOMA 3 trial reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Turner et al found that the cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 inhibitor palbociclib (Ibrance) significantly improved progression-free survival in women with advanced hormone...
More than half of all cancer patients experience pain, most often associated with the malignancy type, body location, and disease progression. Pain researchers participating in a symposium at the American Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting last month reported that the relationship between...
In a pooled analysis of the LUX-Lung 2, 3, and 6 trials reported in The Lancet Oncology, Yang et al found that the activity of afatinib (Gilotrif) differed according to uncommon EGFR mutations in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Most patients with EGFR-mutant NSCLC have deletion...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cole et al found that polymorphisms in genes related to oxidative stress or neuroinflammation were associated with poorer cognitive function in survivors treated for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Survivors of childhood ALL...
In an interim analysis of the phase III ELOQUENT-2 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lonial et al found that the addition of the investigational agent elotuzumab to lenalidomide (Revlimid)-dexamethasone significantly increased progression-free survival in patients with relapsed ...
New cases of virtually all types of cancer are rising in countries globally—regardless of income—but the death rates from cancer are falling in many countries, according to a new analysis of 28 cancer groups in 188 countries. These findings were published by Fitzmaurice et al in JAMA...
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 a Swedish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, He et al identified numerous predictors of discontinuation of adjuvant hormone therapy in patients with breast cancer. Study Details The study involved 3,395 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2008 in Stockholm who...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Menon et al, findings in the United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening indicate that the number of screen-detected ovarian cancers is doubled by using the risk of ovarian cancer algorithm (ROCA) with serial CA-125 measurements...
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...
A recent analysis of a large observational study has revealed that men with a history of asthma are less likely than those without it to develop lethal prostate cancer, researchers at Johns Hopkins reported. These findings were published by Platz et al in the International Journal of Cancer....
A University of Michigan survey of women with breast cancer found that nearly half considered having a double mastectomy—but of those who considered it, only 37% knew that the more aggressive procedure does not improve survival for women with breast cancer. Among women who received a double...
New findings from a phase III clinical trial suggest the IDH1 gene may be a prognostic marker for anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare form of brain cancer. The results of this study were presented on June 2 at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago (Abstract 2002). Patients in this study who had a...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Silvestri et al of the AEGIS study team found that use of a bronchial airway gene-expression classifier improved the diagnostic performance of bronchoscopy in patients being evaluated for suspected lung cancer. Study Details The study...
In the phase III AVAglio trial, the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to radiotherapy and temozolomide improved progression-free survival in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. As reported by Taphoorn et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, bevacizumab treatment did not worsen...
Although various drugs have improved outcomes for metastatic colon cancer patients, researchers continually strive to find new agents to improve treatment. Antibody-drug conjugates are a promising option, due to the fact that they can deliver chemotherapy directly into a targeted cell, destroy...
In an analysis of the NeoALTTO trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Salgado et al found that a higher level of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes was associated with improved pathologic compete response rate and event-free survival independent of neoadjuvant treatment received in patients with...
Squamous cell anal carcinomas are rare, representing only about 2% of gastrointestinal cancer diagnoses. These cancers, which are associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV), sometimes prove very difficult to treat, recurring or developing metastases following standard treatment. Seeking to...
ASCO’s wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary, CancerLinQ LLC, provided the first demonstration of its groundbreaking health information technology platform at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Beginning May 30, demonstrations of the CancerLinQ platform’s initial components were...
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...
Results from the phase III registration study PALOMA-3 show that adding the investigational targeted agent palbociclib (Ibrance) to the standard hormonal therapy fulvestrant (Faslodex) more than doubled the duration of disease control, delaying disease progression by roughly 5 months in women with...
A phase III trial comparing 5 years of tamoxifen vs 5 years of the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for postmenopausal women treated for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) found 10-year breast cancer–free interval rates were higher in the anastrozole group than in the tamoxifen group (93.5% vs...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Subbiah et al, the addition of number of brain metastases to the breast graded prognostic assessment (breast-GPA) tool improved the prediction of overall survival in breast cancer patients with brain metastases. The existing breast-GPA includes...
A collaborative team of researchers led by Alex A. Adjei, MD, PhD, FACP, of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, shared results from the first clinical study of the anticancer effects of the novel agent entolimod on May 30 at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago (Abstract 3063). Their findings confirm ...
A new study conducted by the American Cancer Society found that the economic burden of cancer extends beyond diagnosis and treatment, with cancer survivors facing thousands of dollars of excess medical expenses every year, as well as excess employment disability and loss of production at work. The...
Investigators for the nationwide trial NCI-MATCH: Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice announced at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago that the precision medicine trial will open to patient enrollment in July. The trial seeks to determine whether targeted therapies for people whose tumors...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Andtbacka et al found that talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) treatment improved the durable response rate vs granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in patients with unresectable stage IIIB to IV melanoma. T-VEC is...
Heavily pretreated patients with intermediate- or high-grade liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma had a 2-month increase in median overall survival when subsequently treated with eribulin (Halaven) rather than the standard drug dacarbazine. “For a disease where so few treatment options exist, a...
In a phase II Intergroup study (SWOG S0809) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ben-Josef et al found that adjuvant capecitabine and gemcitabine followed by concurrent radiotherapy and capecitabine produced good survival results in patients with extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma or...
The oral investigational anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor alectinib shrank tumors in almost half of patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease had progressed following crizotinib (Xalkori) treatment. Positive results from two clinical...
ASCO announced its first-ever clinical trial, which will offer patients with advanced cancer access to molecularly targeted cancer drugs and collect “real-world” data on clinical outcomes, to help learn the best uses of these drugs outside of indications approved by the U.S. Food and...
For patients with melanoma and micrometastases, as shown by positive sentinel lymph node biopsy, complete lymph node dissection did not improve survival, according to results of a randomized study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA9002). “This is the first study which...
A large, cooperative group study directed by the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology has confirmed previous evidence that the drug lenalidomide (Revlimid) delays time to disease progression for patients with multiple myeloma and is an important treatment option for patients with this rare but...
“For the first time, improvement in overall survival was observed with tolerable adjuvant chemotherapy for localized, high-risk prostate cancer,” Howard Sandler, MD, Professor of Radiation Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, announced at a press briefing at the...
As the practice of genetically profiling patient tumors for clinical treatment decision-making becomes more commonplace, a recent study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center suggests that profiling normal DNA also provides an important opportunity to identify inherited mutations...
A federally funded phase III trial found that adding whole-brain radiation therapy to radiosurgery did not significantly extend survival of patients with one to three small metastases of the brain, although it did help to control the growth of brain metastases, as evidenced by imaging studies....
A randomized phase III study resolves long-standing questions about the optimal timing of neck lymph node surgery for patients with early-stage oral cancer by showing that elective neck dissection both improves survival and lowers recurrence rates compared to therapeutic neck dissection performed...
Survivors of childhood cancer in recent eras have shown a significant reduction in late mortality, and “for the first time, we have been able to attribute that to fewer deaths from treatment-related causes or fewer deaths from late effects of the primary therapy,” Gregory T....
New findings by researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center show that informing parents about their child’s cancer prognosis—even when the prognosis is less than favorable—is much more likely to give parents peace of mind and hope, rather...
In a phase III head-to-head trial comparing the safety and efficacy of two EGFR-directed treatments, afatinib (Gilotrif) treatment resulted in a significant improvement in overall survival over erlotinib (Tarceva) in patients with previously treated advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the lung....
A randomized phase III trial among patients with previously untreated melanoma found that initial therapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) alone more than doubled the median progression-free survival compared with ipilimumab (Yervoy) alone (6.9 vs 2.9 months), and the benefit was even greater when the two...
Removing more tissue during a partial mastectomy could spare thousands of breast cancer patients a second surgery, according to a Yale Cancer Center study. The findings were presented May 30 at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 1012) in Chicago and simultaneously published by Chagpar ...
Significant clinical variations exist among patients with the most common type of liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, depending on the viral cause of the disease—hepatitis B virus (HBV) or hepatitis C virus (HCV). These differences suggest that hepatitis status should be considered when...
Findings from the PERSIST-1 study of patients with myelofibrosis show that the JAK inhibitor pacritinib is significantly more effective than best available therapy, which includes a range of off-label treatments, for easing the symptoms of myelofibrosis. At a landmark analysis at 24 weeks of...
“Daratumumab monotherapy produced unprecedented overall responses that deepened over time” in a phase II trial among patients with heavily treated multiple myeloma, study author Saad Zafar Usmani, MD, reported at a press conference at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting. Dr. Usmani, a...
First results from a randomized phase III study show that the combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) improves outcomes for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) that progressed despite prior therapy. At a median follow-up of 17 months,...