In a study reported in the Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing, Eileen Danaher Hacker, PhD, APN, AOCN, of the University of Illinois College of Nursing, and colleagues attempted to identify and quantify nocturnal care disruptions in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. They ...
The choice and timing of therapeutic interventions may significantly affect the quality of life of young breast cancer survivors in the short term, although other quality-of-life domains such as family relationships may not be negatively impacted after treatment. These findings were reported by...
In a study reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Jiemin Ma, PhD, MHS, and colleagues from the American Cancer Society investigated trends in pancreatic cancer death rates in the United States between 1970 and 2009. They found that death rates have been increasing in white men and...
In a study reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Mei-Yin C. Polley, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute, and colleagues assessed intralaboratory and interlaboratory variability in Ki67 scoring. They found high intralaboratory reproducibility but only moderate interlaboratory...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Carrie L. Williams, MB, BCh, of University College London, and colleagues analyzed risk for cancers among UK children born after assisted conception. They found no increased risk of cancer overall or for individual cancer types except...
In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Edward S. Kim, MD, of Levine Cancer Institute, Carolinas HealthCare System, and colleagues investigated whether the addition of cetuximab (Erbitux) to pemetrexed (Alimta) improved progression-free survival in patients with recurrent or...
In a study reported in JAMA Dermatology, Astrid Vredenborg, MD, of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues evaluated whether acquired melanocytic nevi in childhood are an indicator of melanoma risk in children from families with familial melanoma. They found that number...
In a study reported in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics, Emma C. Fields, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed the stage-specific management of male breast cancer with surgery and radiation therapy and related them to outcomes...
A single session of intraoperative radiotherapy with electrons permits delivery of a radiotherapy dose equivalent to that of conventional postoperative whole-breast irradiation. In the ELIOT trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Umberto Veronesi, MD, of the European Institute of Oncology, and...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Boris Böll, MD, of University Hospital Cologne, and colleagues analyzed second-line treatment and survival in older patients with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma in German Hodgkin Study Group first-line studies. Use of a...
Data suggest that Src kinase-mediated interactions between prostate cancer cells and osteoclasts might promote bone metastasis and that the Src kinase inhibitor dasatinib (Sprycel) might exhibit synergy with docetaxel in prostate cancer. In a phase III trial (READY) reported in The Lancet Oncology, ...
Results of a Johns Hopkins study may explain why cyclophosphamide prevents graft-vs-host disease in people who receive bone marrow transplants. The experiments point to an immune system cell that evades the toxic effects of cyclophosphamide and protects patients from a lethal form of graft-vs-host...
The use of assay-sensitive treatment significantly improved both progression-free survival and overall survival compared with nonsensitive treatment in women with recurrent ovarian cancer, according to the results of a prospective clinical trial reported in Gynecologic Oncology. Thomas Rutherford,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved ibrutinib (Imbruvica) for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma, an aggressive B-cell lymphoma that represents about 6% of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases in the United States. The drug, a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is ...
History of severe acne, which is a surrogate for high androgen activity, has been associated with increased risk of prostate cancer and recent data suggest that severe teenage acne is a risk factor for melanoma. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wen-Qing Li, PhD, of the...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kevin R. Krill, PhD, and colleagues from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital assessed neurocognitive function in adult survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). They found pervasive significant impairment across...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Vincent Q. Trinh, BSc, of the University of Montreal Health Centre, and colleagues assessed trends in incidence and mortality of venous thromboembolism after major cancer surgery in the United States between 1999 and 2009. They found that venous thromboembolism...
Researchers seeking to determine why breast cancers are more deadly in young women found that although only a minority of young women experience long delays between the time they detect a breast abnormality and the time they receive a diagnosis, delays in seeking care are more common in women with...
In a study reported in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, Okechukwu R. Linton, MD, MBA, of Indiana University School of Medicine, and colleagues assessed the prognostic significance of head and neck basaloid squamous cell carcinoma, which is considered a more aggressive form of squamous...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oriana Yu, MD, of Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, and colleagues assessed the association of statin use with prostate cancer mortality and all-cause mortality in men with nonmetastatic prostate cancer. They found that postdiagnostic ...
The Group for Research in Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (GRAALL) recently reported significantly better outcome in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) harboring NOTCH1 or FBXW7 (N/F) mutations, although relapse was still observed in one-third of patients with N/F-mutated T-cell ALL. In a ...
Available data suggest that risk of febrile neutropenia is greatest during the first two cycles of chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maureen J. Aarts of Maastricht University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and colleagues...
Use of a minimally invasive endoscopic procedure to remove superficial, early-stage esophageal cancer is as effective as surgery that takes out and rebuilds the esophagus, according to a study by researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida. The research, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and...
On October 31, 2013, Ariad Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of ponatinib, agreed to an FDA request to suspend marketing and sales of the drug due to the risk of life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels. The FDA states that it will continue to evaluate ponatinib to further ...
Several novel agents targeting the HER2, C-MET, and VEGF receptors have achieved encouraging results in gastric cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Charles Fuchs, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, reviewed these new approaches in a presentation at the...
Most patients with estrogen receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer who initially respond to endocrine treatments will eventually develop resistance to the therapies. A study by Ido Wolf, MD, Head of the Oncology Department at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel, and colleagues...
In a study reported in The Lancet, Guglielmo Ronco, MD, of the Center for Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, AO City of Health and Science, in Turin, Italy, and colleagues in the International HPV Screening Working Group performed a follow up of four randomized trials of human papillomavirus...
Hopes are high that TAS-102, a novel oral nucleoside agent, will turn out to be an advance in the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer, said Howard Hochster, MD, of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, speaking at the Chemotherapy Foundation...
Preliminary results of an ongoing clinical trial suggest that the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf)—indicated for the treatment of metastatic melanoma with BRAF V600E mutation—may have an important role in the treatment of hairy cell leukemia. The cornerstone of therapy for this...
Advanced imaging techniques may be able to distinguish which patients' tumors will respond to treatment with antiangiogenic drugs and which will not. In a report published online in PNAS, researchers studied patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma who were treated with the antiangiogenic agent...
Recommended treatment for most stage I rectal cancers is total mesorectal excision. However, local excision is considered an alternative for T1 tumors that are < 30% of the bowel circumference, < 3 cm in size, mobile, well to moderately differentiated, and lack lymphovascular invasion in...
The strategy of autologous stem cell transplantation as consolidation in high-intermediate– or high-risk diffuse aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) has not been specifically examined in the rituximab (Rituxan) era. In a phase III trial (Southwest Oncology Group 9704) reported in The New...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine, Zehra B. Omer, BA, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues assessed how the description of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) affected selection of treatment options. They found significant differences in treatment...
Novocure announced today that it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its NovoTAL (Transducer Array Layout) System through a Premarket Approval supplement. The NovoTAL System allows certified physicians to use the individual magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of...
Because statins exhibit immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects that may ameliorate graft-vs-host disease, they may be a safe strategy following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mehdi Hamadani, MD, and colleagues ...
Propofol is increasingly being used for sedation in screening colonoscopies in low-risk patients. In the United States, propofol can be administered only by an anesthesiologist, which can raise the cost of the procedure by $600 to $2,000. In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Internal...
A recent study by Darby and colleagues showed a significant linear increase in risk for major coronary events according to mean cardiac dose of radiation (7.4% per Gy) in patients receiving radiation therapy for breast cancer between 1958 and 2001. In an analysis reported in a research letter...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved obinutuzumab (Gazyva) for use in combination with chlorambucil (Leukeran) to treat patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Obinutuzumab is the first drug with Breakthrough Therapy designation to receive FDA...
Results from the Costa Rica HPV16/18 Vaccine Trial (CVT) has found that 4-year efficacy against 12-month HPV16/18 persistent infection was similarly high among women who received one, two, or the recommended three doses of the bivalent HPV16/18 L1 virus-like particle vaccine (Cervarix). The...
The inclusion of multiple hormones—rather than just adding one or two individually—in breast cancer risk prediction models may improve prediction of the disease and could help better identify women who would benefit from chemoprevention, according to a study by Shelley S. Tworoger, PhD, ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked the manufacturer of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ponatinib (Iclusig) to suspend marketing and sales of the drug because of the risk of life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels. Ariad Pharmaceuticals has agreed to...
Teenagers and young adults are at increased risk of suicide after being diagnosed with cancer, according to a study published today in Annals of Oncology. A study of nearly 8 million Swedes aged 15 and over found that among the 12,669 young people diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 15 and...
Standardized criteria for initiating palliative care consultations can substantially improve the care of patients with advanced solid tumors, according to research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, led by Kerin Adelson, MD, Coordinator for Ambulatory Oncology Quality for the Tisch...
A new educational tool for oncologists may enhance compliance with quality care standards and improve the value of cancer care, ultimately resulting in big cost savings for health-care systems, according to Karen Fields, MD, and colleagues from H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute,...
In a Canadian study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Kerry S. Courneya, PhD, of the University of Alberta, and colleagues assessed the impact of different levels of physical exercise on physical functioning in women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer....
In a phase I trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, and colleagues assessed the effects of nivolumab—a human immunoglobulin G4-blocking antibody against the T-cell programmed death 1 checkpoint ...
Patients with non–small cell lung cancer who have the ALK gene rearrangement usually respond to the drug crizotinib (Xalkori), with a median duration of response of approximately 10 months. In a study reported by Shirish Gadgeel, MD, of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, and colleagues at...
Both pemetrexed (Alimta) and gefitinib (Iressa) are standard second-line treatments for advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in East Asia. In a phase II trial (CTONG 0806) reported at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s 15th World Conference...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today announced its second “Top Five” list of opportunities to improve the quality and value of cancer care. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO), ASCO’s second Top Five list was released as part of the Choosing...
The National Lung Screening Trial reported a 20% reduction in lung cancer mortality achieved through low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening of the at-risk population, compared to screening with chest x-ray. However, challenges with the clinical implication of CT screening for lung cancer...