Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have employed a novel DNA vaccine that indirectly kills cancer cells by targeting a protein found in the tumor vasculature. The vaccine also indirectly creates an immune response to the ...
A new study has found that loss of paid employment after a diagnosis of early-stage breast cancer may be common and potentially related to the type of treatment patients received. Published early online in Cancer, the findings by Jagsi et al support efforts to reduce the side effects and burden of...
Patients with radioactive iodine-refractory, locally advanced or metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer have a poor prognosis. In the double-blind phase III DECISION trial reported in The Lancet, Brose et al found that sorafenib (Nexavar) increased progression-free survival in this setting. The...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fokas et al found that prospectively evaluated tumor regression grading was a significant prognostic factor for distant metastasis and disease-free survival after 132 months of follow-up in patients with locally advanced rectal carcinoma...
Activating EGFR mutations are found in approximately 10% of Western patients and 50% of Asian patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors are recommended for use in first-line treatment in this setting. Both tyrosine kinase inhibitors and cytotoxic...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued a new guideline, “The Role of Postoperative Radiation Therapy for Endometrial Cancer: An ASTRO Evidence-Based Guideline,” that details the use of adjuvant radiation therapy in the treatment of endometrial cancer. The...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved the first human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA test that can be used as a primary cervical cancer screening test for women aged 25 years and older. The test also can provide information about the patient’s risk for developing cervical...
Women infected with HIV are disproportionally affected by human papillomavirus (HPV)-related anogenital disease, particularly with increased immunosuppression. In a clinical study of 319 HIV-infected women in the United States, Brazil, and South Africa, researchers assessed the immunogenicity and...
As part of its implementation of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act signed by the President in 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today proposed a new rule that would extend the agency’s tobacco authority to cover additional tobacco products. ...
In a phase III double-blind crossover trial (North Central Cancer Treatment Group [NCCTG] N09C6, Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology cooperative group) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Leenstra et al found that oral doxepin hydrochloride rinse significantly reduced...
In a phase IIa trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Miller et al assessed combined HER2-targeted therapy with the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla) and pertuzumab (Perjeta) in women with HER2-positive locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Pertuzumab...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved siltuximab (Sylvant injection) for the treatment of patients with multicentric Castleman’s disease who are human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative and human herpes virus-8 (HHV-8)-negative. Multicentric Castleman’s...
Nationwide data on mortality and morbidity from colorectal cancer resections in the aging population are lacking. In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Jafari et al found that there has been an overall decrease in numbers of resections and improved in-hospital mortality in older patients, although...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation to alvocidib, a potent cyclin-dependent kinase small-molecule inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The agent is being tested in patients with intermediate- or high-risk AML, who...
OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to the investigation of custirsen (OGX-011) when administered in combination with cabazitaxel (Jevtana Kit)/prednisone for the treatment of men with metastatic...
Disease progression in HER2-positive breast cancer treated with trastuzumab (Herceptin) may be associated with PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway activation, and use of an mTOR inhibitor might restore trastuzumab sensitivity. In the double-blind phase III BOLERO-3 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology,...
In female patients undergoing breast cancer lumpectomies, intraoperative frozen section margin assessment has been shown to decrease overall reoperation rates, according to the results of a study reported by Boughey et al in the journal Surgery. This finding may lead to lower health-care costs, a...
Most drugs used to treat lung, breast, and pancreatic cancers also promote drug resistance and ultimately spur tumor growth. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine have discovered a biomarker called CD61 on the surface of drug-resistant tumors that may be...
In a population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Eriksson et al found that Swedish men with cutaneous malignant melanoma have more advanced stage at diagnosis and worse disease-specific survival if they live alone. Women living alone did not have worse disease-specific...
Antibiotic monotherapy is considered standard in empiric therapy in febrile neutropenic cancer patients, but the approach may be insufficient given the increase in infections due to multidrug-resistant microorganisms. Tigecycline (Tygacil), the first in a new class of glycylcycline antibiotics, has ...
In a prospective cohort study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Li et al found that recent and ever use of sildenafil for erectile dysfunction was associated with increased risk of subsequent melanoma, but not squamous cell or basal cell carcinoma. The RAS/RAF/MAPK and ERK kinase/ERK cascade is...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ramucirumab (Cyramza) to treat patients with advanced or metastatic gastric cancer or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with disease progression on or after prior treatment with fluoropyrimidine- or platinum-containing chemotherapy....
A common genetic variant that affects one in three people appears to significantly increase the risk of colorectal cancer from the consumption of processed meat, according to a study published today in PLOS Genetics by Figueiredo et al. The study of over 18,000 people from the United States,...
Although doctors have long known that people with Down syndrome have a heightened risk of developing acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) during childhood, they haven’t been able to explain why. In a new study published online in Nature Genetics, Lane et al tracked the genetic chain of events...
In an analysis from the EPIC study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Sieri et al found that high dietary intake of total fat and saturated fat were associated with increased risk of estrogen receptor–positive/progesterone receptor–positive breast cancer and that...
Bevacizumab has exhibited limited activity in advanced melanoma. In an interim analysis of the open-label phase III AVAST-M trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Corrie et al found that adjuvant bevacizumab (Avastin) in patients with resected melanoma at high risk of recurrence has thus far...
As reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Riester et al have identified gene-expression signatures predictive of survival and debulking status in late-stage ovarian cancer. Study Details The study involved meta-analytic techniques using integrated data from 13 publicly...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tombal et al, a single-arm phase II trial of the androgen receptor inhibitor enzalutamide (Xtandi) has shown that the agent is active in suppressing disease and well tolerated in men with hormone-naive prostate cancer. In this ongoing trial, 67 men with...
In a safety communication notice issued yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discouraged the use of laparoscopic power morcellation for the removal of the uterus (hysterectomy) or uterine fibroids (myomectomy) in women because, based on an analysis of currently available data, it...
Pulmonary nodules are common and many more will be found with implementation of lung cancer screening. In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Wiener et al found that patients with pulmonary nodules were at high risk of both underevaluation and overevaluation for cancer, ...
In a study of health-care organization data reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Corley et al assessed the relationship between proportion of colonoscopies performed by a gastroenterologist that detect an adenoma and risk of subsequent interval colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer...
An analysis of prostate tissue biopsies collected from participants in the placebo arm of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) has found that those whose benign prostate tissue had chronic inflammation had 1.78 times higher odds of having prostate cancer, and 2.24 times higher odds of having ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved ofatumumab (Arzerra) injection in combination with chlorambucil (Leukeran) for the treatment of previously untreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), for whom fludarabine-based therapy is considered inappropriate. Trial...
The optimal extent of surgical resection is unclear in patients with parotid superficial lobe lymph node metastasis from cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma. In a single-institution retrospective review reported in JAMA Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery, Thom et al found...
In the open-label noninferiority phase III ASPECCT trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Price et al found that anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody treatment with panitumumab (Vectibix) produced a noninferior overall survival outcome vs cetuximab (Erbitux) in patients with chemotherapy-refractory...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug Designation to volasertib for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Volasertib is currently being evaluated in a phase III clinical trial for the treatment of patients aged 65 or older, with previously untreated AML, who are ineligible for ...
Cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the largest and most heterogeneous cytogenetic AML subgroup. As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pastore et al have developed a widely applicable prognostic model for cytogenetically normal AML that combines established patient and ...
HER3 links with HER2 in a reciprocal relationship including negative feedback signaling that can upregulate HER2-HER3 signaling to compensate for HER2 inhibition. This signal-buffering capacity protects HER2-HER3 against a nearly 2-log inhibition of HER2 catalytic activity. The anti-HER2 tyrosine...
Scientists have identified two unlikely partners found in macrophages that work together in response to cancer drugs to increase inflammation in a way that may alter tumor growth. The study by Lowe et al was published in Cancer Research. These partners are the p53 protein that suppresses tumors...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Park et al examined single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with other cancers for potential associations with lung cancer. They found that the breast cancer SNP LSP1 rs3817198 was associated with significant risk of...
The National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) Clinical Trials Group MAP.3 (Mammary Prevention 3) trial showed that daily exemestane treatment reduced invasive breast cancer risk by 65% among postmenopausal women. In a quality-of-life study in the MAP.3 population reported in the Journal of...
Noncompliance appears to be a major challenge for active surveillance, according to the results of long-term follow-up of patients with prostate cancer presented at the European Association of Urology 29th Annual Congress in Stockholm. Over a quarter of men dropped out of the active surveillance...
A recent study published in Cancer found that, contrary to treatment guidelines for high-risk bladder cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy is not commonly used in routine clinical practice. Utilization of adjuvant chemotherapy was found to be increasing over time and was associated with a substantial...
Researchers have developed a quantitative multiplexed methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction assay called cMethDNA for a panel of 10 breast cancer–specific genes. The blood-based assay was found to be highly sensitive in detecting advanced breast cancer and monitoring tumor burden and ...
A majority of cancer patients experience some level of fatigue during their course of treatment, and approximately 30% contend with persistent fatigue for years after treatment. Fatigue is among the most common and distressing long-term effects of cancer treatment and significantly affects patient...
ASCO has adapted the Pan-Canadian Practice Guideline on Screening, Assessment, and Care of Psychosocial Distress (Depression, Anxiety) in Adults With Cancer for use in the screening, assessment, and care of anxiety and depressive symptoms in adults with cancer. The adapted guideline, reported in...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology has released a clinical practice guideline on prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in adult cancer patients, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The overall incidence of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy ...
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified new mutations in pediatric high-grade gliomas. The findings by Wu et al were published in Nature Genetics and may lead to improved outcomes for children with these brain...
A quartet of proteins that play critical roles in cell replication, cell death, and DNA repair could lead to better targets for therapy against treatment-resistant head and neck squamous cell cancers. In a study presented this week at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
The activity of four transcription factors appears to distinguish the small proportion of glioblastoma cells responsible for the aggressiveness and treatment resistance of the deadly brain tumor. The findings by Suvà et al, published online in Cell, support the importance of epigenetics in...