The second-generation immunomodulatory drug pomalidomide (Pomalyst) “has shown impressive results in patients with multiple myeloma who are refractory to lenalidomide and bortezomib,” according to a review of clinical data leading to the drug’s approval by the U.S. Food and Drug...
Researchers have discovered why multiple myeloma frequently recurs after an initially effective treatment that can keep the disease at bay for up to several years. The study, published in Cancer Cell, was a collaboration between researchers at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, Mayo Clinic in...
Researchers from University of Rochester Medical Center have shown scientifically what many women report anecdotally: that tamoxifen is toxic to cells of the brain and central nervous system (CNS), producing mental fogginess similar to “chemo brain.” In the study, published in the...
In an analysis reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Frank A. Sinicrope, MD, of the Mayo Clinic and North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG), and colleagues investigated the association of deficient DNA mismatch repair with prognosis in patients with stage III colon cancer treated with...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mathias Onrud, MD, of Norwegian Radium Hospital, Oslo University Hospital, and colleagues assessed outcomes in the follow-up of the Norwegian Radium Hospital trial to determine long-term effects of external beam radiation therapy in the adjuvant...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yuko Kitagawa, MD, FACS, of Keio University School of Medicine, and colleagues found that sentinel node mapping using a standardized dual tracer endoscopic injection technique was safe and accurate in patients with gastric cancer. Study Details ...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dawn L. Hershman, MD, MS, of Columbia University, and colleagues assessed the use of bevacizumab in older patients with metastatic breast, lung, or colon cancer. They found that bevacizumab (Avastin) was contraindicated in approximately one-third ...
A meta-analysis reported in The Lancet Oncologyby Wei-Chih Liao, MD, of National Taiwan University Hospital and colleagues indicates that fluorouracil (5-FU) or gemcitabine is optimal adjuvant therapy for pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Chemoradiation was associated with poorer survival and...
Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer that harbors KRAS mutations in exon 2 do not benefit from anti-EGFR therapy. However, other activating RAS mutations may predict poorer outcome with anti-EGFR therapy. In an analysis reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Jean-Yves Douillard,...
“With the unprecedented scientific opportunities now promising significant progress against cancer and other life-threatening diseases, it is a tragedy that we are even considering cuts to our nation's investment in biomedical research. Yet, such cuts are already happening because of the...
New research shows that microRNA-486 (miR-486) is a potent tumor-suppressor molecule in lung cancer, and that it helps regulate the proliferation and migration of lung cancer cells, as well as the induction of apoptosis in those cells. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of...
Young women with breast cancer may overestimate the risk that cancer will occur in their other healthy breast and decide to undergo contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, a survey conducted by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute investigators indicated. The survey also shows that many patients may opt for ...
According to new research at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute a gene encoding the enzyme phosphoinositide-dependent kinase-1 (PDK1) plays an essential role in the development and progression of melanoma. The finding, published online in Oncogene, may offer insight toward a new approach to ...
Elderly patients are often underrepresented in clinical trials of metastatic colorectal cancer. In a phase III study (AVEX trial) reported in The Lancet Oncology, David Cunningham, MD, of Royal Marsden Hospital in London and colleagues assessed the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to capecitabine...
Tremelimumab is an anticytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA4) monoclonal antibody, a class of inhibitor that has shown activity in multiple tumor types. Ipilimumab (Yervoy), another agent in this class, was found to significantly prolong overall survival in metastatic melanoma despite a...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the marketing of the UroLift system, a permanent implant to relieve low or blocked urine flow in men age 50 and older with benign prostatic hyperplasia. As men age, the prostate can become enlarged, also known as benign prostatic hyperplasia....
GlaxoSmithKline recently announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Priority Review designation to its supplemental New Drug Applications for the combined use of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist) for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic ...
Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc, has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to volasertib, an investigational inhibitor of polo-like kinase (Plk), which being evaluated for the treatment of patients aged 65 or older with...
In an exploratory analysis of long-term survival data from the GeparTrio trial reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gunter von Minckwitz, MD, of the German Breast Group in Neu-Isenburg, and colleagues found that response-guided neoadjuvant chemotherapy appears to improve disease-free survival...
In a phase II study (MCL-001, EMERGE) reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Andre Goy, MD, of Hackensack University Medical Center, and colleagues evaluated the use of single-agent lenalidomide (Revlimid) in bortezomib (Velcade)-treated patients who had relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma. ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) released its Cancer Progress Report 2013 today. And while there is much to celebrate in the significant progress made in cancer research—which has led to more effective therapies for the more than 200 types of cancer and increased...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first generic version of capecitabine (Xeloda), an oral chemotherapy agent used in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer and breast cancers. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA has gained FDA approval to market generic capecitabine in 150...
A new plasma biomarker, isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1), has been shown to be more sensitive in detecting non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) than currently used biomarkers, including CEA, Cyfra21-1, and CA125, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research. The study by Jie He,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for ofatumumab (Arzerra) in combination with chlorambucil (Leukeran) for the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who have not received prior treatment and are inappropriate for...
A comparison of three methods of predicting the risk of recurrence in women treated for estrogen-receptor–positive breast cancer found that only the breast cancer index (BCI)—a biomarker based on the expression levels of seven tumor-specific genes—accurately identified patients...
The level of expression of three genes associated with aging can be used to predict whether seemingly low-risk prostate cancer will remain slow-growing, according to researchers at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). Use of this three-gene...
Tivozanib is a selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1 (VEGFR1), -2, and -3. In a phase III trial reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology by Robert J. Motzer, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and colleagues, tivozanib was found to...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Annette McWilliams, MD, of Vancouver General Hospital, and colleagues analyzed data from subjects undergoing low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer to identify factors that might predict whether lung nodules found on...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) voted 13 to 0, with one abstention, in favor of recommending accelerated approval of a pertuzumab (Perjeta) regimen for neoadjuvant treatment in patients with high-risk, HER2-positive, early-stage breast...
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, the manufacturer of ipilimumab (Yervoy), released results from its phase III randomized double-blind study investigating the drug in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The study findings show that ipilimumab, a monoclonal antibody that blocks the ...
A study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital found that brachytherapy was associated with better cause-specific survival and overall survival in women with cervical cancer. The population-based analysis also revealed geographic disparities and decline in brachytherapy treatment in the...
Jane Carrie Weeks, MD, MSc, a prominent researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, internationally known for building the discipline of outcomes research in oncology and admired by colleagues as an outstanding mentor, died September 10 after a long illness. She was "one of the true intellectual...
Today, as many as 23 million children and teens are obese or overweight, and it is estimated that more than one-third of U.S. adults (more than 72 million people) are obese, according to a statement released by ASCO to help raise awareness of National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month....
A family of microRNAs (miR-200) blocks cancer progression and metastasis by stifling a tumor’s ability to weave new blood vessels to support itself, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported in Nature Communications. Patients with lung, ovarian, kidney, or...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gregory T. Armstrong, MD, of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, and colleagues assessed the frequency of major cardiac events and cardiovascular risk factors among adult survivors of childhood cancer and their siblings. They...
Available data suggest that docetaxel plus cyclophosphamide improves disease-free survival and overall survival compared with doxorubicin plus cyclophosphamide in early-stage breast cancer. Other findings suggest that amplification of TOP2A, the gene positioned next to HER2, is predictive of...
In a keynote lecture during the 2013 Breast Cancer Symposium breast cancer expert and ASCO Past President George Sledge, MD, offered five predictions for the future of the medical management of breast cancer. Dr. Sledge is now Chief of Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto,...
Results of the two rounds of annual incidence screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) vs radiography in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) were recently reported by Denise R. Aberle, MD, of University of California at Los Angeles, and colleagues in The New England Journal of...
Pomalidomide (Pomalyst) alone has shown limited efficacy in relapsed multiple myeloma, but synergistic effects have been noted when it is combined with dexamethasone. In a phase III trial (MM-003) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jesus San Miguel, MD, of Universidad de Salamanca, and colleagues...
Syndax Pharmaceuticals Inc today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has designated entinostat as a Breakthrough Therapy for the treatment of locally recurrent or metastatic estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer when added to exemestane in postmenopausal women whose...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today announced class-wide safety labeling changes and new postmarketing study requirements for all extended-release and long-acting opioid analgesics intended to treat pain. “The FDA is invoking its authority to require safety labeling changes and ...
For the first time, a genetic link specific to risk of childhood leukemia has been identified, according to a team of researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, University of Washington, and other institutions. The discovery was reported...
Internal tandem duplications (ITDs) in the FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) juxtamembrane region are observed in 20% to 30% of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and point mutations in the FLT3 activation loop are observed in 5% to 10%. FLT3-ITD mutations are associated with early relapse ...
Larry Norton, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, is the recipient of the 2013 Gianni Bonadonna Breast Cancer Award, which he received at the 2013 Breast Cancer Symposium. The Symposium is sponsored by ASCO, the American Society of Breast Surgeons, the American Society of Radiation...
A new analysis has found that most deaths from breast cancer occur in younger women who do not receive regular mammograms. Published early online in Cancer, the study indicates that regular screening before age 50 should be encouraged. The use of mammograms to prevent breast cancer deaths has been ...
Cabozantinib (Cometriq) is an inhibitor of hepatocyte growth factor receptor (MET), VEGFR2, and rearranged during transfection (RET) tyrosine kinases. In a phase III trial reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rosella Elisei, MD, of the University of Pisa, and colleagues found that cabozantinib ...
After neoadjuvant chemotherapy, 41% of early breast cancer patients experienced a change in status for the estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, or HER2 oncogene, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported at the 2013 Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco...
Researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have identified seven targets that could potentially be used to develop new immunotherapies for patients with metastatic melanoma. Their findings could increase the number of patients eligible for adoptive immunotherapy. The study was reported in ...
German investigators reported at the 2013 Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco that an abridged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocol can accurately detect cancers among women whose mammographic screenings were negative (Abstract 1). MRI, therefore, may reveal the type of tumor that...
Colin McCowan, PhD, of the University of Glasgow, and colleagues analyzed the prescription records of 1,263 women with breast cancer between 1993 and 2000 to determine how often they took their prescription of adjuvant tamoxifen following surgery and for how long. Women who filled less than 80% of...