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Showing 3401 - 3450Blinatumomab in Advanced Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Brighter Therapeutic Outlook
NEW DRUGS that will improve the outcome of adult patients who develop a deadly disease such as acute leukemia are badly needed; combinations of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic drugs may have reached an upper limit of utility. Agents that eradicate leukemia by alternative mechanisms would be of...
Improved Overall Survival With Blinatumomab vs Chemotherapy in Advanced Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
IN THE PHASE III TOWER TRIAL reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Hagop Kantarjian, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that blinatumomab (Blincyto) treatment improved overall survival vs chemotherapy in heavily pretreated patients with B-cell ...
Alectinib: A New Standard for First-Line Therapy of ALK-Rearranged NSCLC?
ANAPLASTIC LYMPHOMA KINASE (ALK) was first identified in anaplastic large cell lymphoma. The ALK gene itself is not oncogenic, but it can become oncogenic by at least three mechanisms: by forming a fusion gene with a number of other partner genes, by copy number gain, or by mutations in the gene....
Are Thyroid Cancer Incidence and Mortality Rates Truly Increasing in the United States?
THYROID CANCER diagnoses are increasing at a rate faster than any other malignancy in the United States. In 2017, there will be 56,870 new cases, accounting for 3.4% of all cancers, and 2,010 people will die of thyroid cancer.1 This represents a more than 200% increase in incidence since the...
Trastuzumab-Based Regimens in Older Women With Early Breast Cancer
A comparative analysis of outcomes with two different trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based adjuvant regimens in older women with early HER2-positive breast cancer found little difference in safety and efficacy between treatments. The study was reported by Reeder-Hayes et al in the Journal of Clinical...
Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium Receives $17 Million NCI Grant
INVESTIGATORS AT Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) have received a $17 million program project grant renewal from the National Cancer Institute to study the effectiveness of different breast cancer screening and surveillance strategies using digital mammography, digital breast...
One Size May Not Fit All: Thoughts on the New Adjuvant Bisphosphonate Guideline for Early-Stage Breast Cancer
The oncology community has now conducted several prospectively designed, hypothesis-driven randomized clinical trials among women with breast cancer to address this question: Do adjuvant bisphosphonates decrease the risk of breast cancer bone metastases and other recurrence? A meta-analysis1 by...
Cancer Care Ontario and ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline: Use of Adjuvant Bisphosphonates and Other Bone-Modifying Agents in Breast Cancer
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Sukhbinder Dhesy-Thind, MD, MSc, FRCPC, of Juravinski Cancer Centre, Hamilton Health Sciences, and colleagues, Cancer Care Ontario and ASCO have issued a clinical practice guideline on the use of adjuvant bisphosphonates and other bone-modifying...
Selected Abstracts on Novel Therapies for Hematologic Malignancies
THE 22ND CONGRESS of the European Hematology Association (EHA) was held in June in Madrid, drawing hematologists and allied professionals from every subspecialty of hematology from around the world. Among the extensive educational and scientific program, the EHA Congress provides a forum for...
More Support for FOLFOXIRI/Bevacizumab in Advanced Colorectal Cancer
A RANDOMIZED head-to-head comparison in patients with advanced colorectal cancer found that a regimen of FOLFOXIRI (fluorouracil/leucovorin, oxaliplatin, irinotecan) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) was more effective than a regimen of FOLFOX (fluorouracil/leucovorin, oxaliplatin) plus bevacizumab as...
FDA Actions Yield Extended Approvals of Novel Agents, Advisory Committee Votes Favorably on Two Biosimilars and Pediatric Indication for CAR T-Cell Therapy
DURING JULY, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) made a number of approvals and recommendations on a variety of oncology products. Neratinib ON JULY 1 7, the FDA approved neratinib (Nerlynx) for the extended adjuvant treatment of adult...
FDA Expands Ibrutinib Indications to Chronic Graft-vs-Host Disease
On August 2, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ibrutinib (Imbruvica) for the treatment of adult patients with chronic graft-vs-host disease after failure of one or more lines of systemic therapy. This is the first FDA-approved therapy for the treatment of chronic...
In Case You Missed It: Short Takes on Current Cancer Research
MOST ONCOLOGISTS are familiar with the findings of the plenary sessions featured at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, with topics ranging from the duration of adjuvant oxaliplatin-based therapy in stage III colon cancer to patient-reported outcomes for symptom monitoring during routine cancer...
FDA’s First Site-Agnostic Drug Approval Marks a Paradigm Shift in Regulatory Criteria
IN MAY, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with solid tumors that have the microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) biomarker, which disrupts the ability of cells to repair DNA. The...
A New Triumvirate in Estrogen Receptor–Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer
THE BODY OF EVIDENCE supporting the use of cell-cycle inhibitors in combination with endocrine therapy for estrogen receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer now has another agent in the spotlight. The phase III MONARCH 2 trial—reported at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting and by Sledge et al in the...
Two San Diego Nonprofits to Receive 2017 ASTRO Survivor Circle Grants
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) will award its annual Survivor Circle grants to two San Diego–based cancer support charities: Cancer Angels of San Diego and The Seany Foundation. Each organization will receive an $8,500 grant to support its programs for those who have been...
10-Year Follow-up on Adjuvant Tamoxifen and Exemestane in Postmenopausal Early Breast Cancer
The 10-year follow-up of the phase III TEAM trial has shown that exemestane alone and sequential tamoxifen/exemestane provide similar outcomes as adjuvant endocrine therapy in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer. The findings were reported in The Lancet...
FDA Approves Enasidenib in Relapsed or Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved enasidenib (Idhifa) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who have a specific genetic mutation. The drug is approved for use with a companion diagnostic, the RealTime IDH2 Assay, which ...
Surgery vs Observation in Localized Prostate Cancer: Long-Term Follow-up of PIVOT Trial
After 19.5 years of follow-up in the PIVOT trial, radical prostatectomy was not associated with significantly improved all-cause or prostate cancer mortality vs observation among men with localized prostate cancer. The long-term follow-up data were reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by ...
Poor Social Functioning in Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Survivors
A new study indicates many young adults who survived the disease struggle with “getting back to normal” as much as 2 years after their initial diagnosis. The longitudinal study, published by Husson et al in Cancer, is among the first seeking to understand the social functioning among...
Concurrent Chemotherapy, Proton Therapy May Improve Survival in Patients With Advanced Lung Cancer
For patients with advanced, inoperable stage III lung cancer, concurrent chemotherapy and proton-beam radiotherapy offers improved survival compared to historical data for standard of care, according to a new study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The research, published by...
Pembrolizumab Is Active in Platinum- and Cetuximab-Refractory Head and Neck Cancer
IN THE PHASE II KEYNOTE-055 trial, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to produce durable responses in patients with platinum- and cetuximab (Erbitux)-refractory head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.1 Results of the trial were reported by Joshua Bauml, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania,...
Understanding and Managing Radiation-Induced Bystander Effect
More than half of patients with cancer undergo radiotherapy. Due to a phenomenon known as radiation-induced bystander effect, in which irradiated cells leak chemical signals that can travel some distance to damage unexposed healthy cells, many suffer side effects such as hair loss, fatigue, and...
Analysis Reveals Genomic Alterations, Oncogenes Driving Medulloblastoma Subtypes
The most comprehensive analysis yet of medulloblastoma has identified genomic changes responsible for more than 75% of the brain tumors, including two new suspected cancer genes that were found exclusively in the least understood disease subgroups. The study from an international research...
Pembrolizumab Improves Overall Survival vs Chemotherapy in Second-Line Therapy for Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma
IN THE PHASE III KEYNOTE-045 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs investigator choice of chemotherapy as second-line treatment ...
NCCN Panelists Relay ‘What’s Hot’ in Their Fields
AT THE NATIONAL Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 22nd Annual Conference, experts from several fields met with journalists to highlight “what’s hot” in their specialties. The ASCO Post captured that conversation. Myeloproliferative Neoplasms Guidelines NCCN HAS LAUNCHED new NCCN Clinical...
Breast Cancer and Brain Metastases: Whole-Brain Radiotherapy May Not Be the Answer
FOR PATIENTS WITH BREAST CANCER who have metastases to the central nervous system (CNS), clinicians should think twice before administering whole-brain radiotherapy, according to Kimberly Blackwell, MD, Professor of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Duke University Medical...
Combination Strategies for Jump-Starting the Immune Response
CHECKPOINT INHIBITORS have dramatically changed the landscape of the treatment of melanoma, lung, bladder, and other cancers. Researchers are focusing on exploring ways to extend the use of checkpoint inhibitors to other disease states and to combine them with novel agents and improve outcomes. At ...
Pivotal CAR T-Cell Data Reported in Relapsed/Refractory B-Cell ALL
UPDATED RESULTS from the ELIANA clinical trial of CTL019 (tisagenlecleucel)—an investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy—found that remission rates are maintained at 6 months in relapsed/refractory pediatric and young adult patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia....
Drug Combinations Prove Effective Against Melanoma Brain Metastases
STUDIES PRESENTED at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting have shown that for melanoma that metastasizes to the brain, the combined use of checkpoint inhibitors and targeted agents can be effective. In COMBI-MB, 58% of patients responded intracranially to the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib (Tafinlar) plus the...
Nivolumab Plus Ipilimumab in Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma
The phase I CheckMate 016 trial has shown activity of the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) in metastatic renal cell carcinoma. These findings were reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Hammers et al. Study Details In the dose-escalation study, patients were...
Avelumab in Refractory Metastatic Urothelial Carcinoma
The programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio) has shown activity in patients with refractory metastatic urothelial cancer, according to findings in a phase Ib study reported by Andrea B. Apolo, MD, of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, Center for Cancer Research,...
Music Therapy: Relevance in Oncology
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, authors Karen Popkin, LCAT, MT-BC, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present the case ...
Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy for Poor Performance Status Patients With Pancreatic Cancer
There are few data to guide the management of nonmetastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in patients who are elderly or have a poor performance status. Although most such patients are offered supportive care or gemcitabine alone, the addition of stereotactic body radiotherapy may improve...
No Survival Benefit When Pravastatin Is Added to Standard Chemotherapy in Small Cell Lung Cancer
In a UK phase III study (LUNGSTAR) reported in the Journal of Clinical -Oncology, Michael J. Seckl, MD, PhD, of Imperial College London, and colleagues found that adding pravastatin to first-line standard chemotherapy did not improve overall survival in patients with small cell lung cancer...
CDK4/6 Inhibitors Have a Manageable Toxicity Profile, Are Generally Well Tolerated in Patients With Breast Cancer
A class of oral drugs for treating breast cancer known as cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitors are generally well-tolerated, with a manageable toxicity profile for most patients. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive review of toxicities and drug interactions related to this class of...
Neoadjuvant Radiation Reduces Risk of Secondary Tumors in Early-Stage Breast Cancer
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers conducted a first-of-its-kind study comparing the long-term benefits of radiation therapy in women with breast cancer in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant settings. Their study, published by Poleszczuk et al in Breast Cancer Research, found that patients who have...
The Immune System: Deciphering Recent Advances
Over the past decade, there has been renewed interest in developing immunologic therapies in cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several new biologic agents that target a patient’s immune system, some of which have produced profound clinical responses. However, the...
FDA Takes Action Against 14 Companies for Selling Illegal Cancer Treatments
On April 25, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) posted warning letters addressed to 14 U.S.-based companies illegally selling more than 65 products that fraudulently claim to prevent, diagnose, treat, or cure cancer. The products are marketed and sold without FDA approval, most commonly...
Impact of Health Insurance and Sociodemographic Status on Survival for AYAs With Cancer
According to the National Cancer Institute, cancer is the leading cause of disease-related death among adolescents and young adults (AYAs) between the ages of 15 and 39. And although cancer survival among this age group is more than 80%, AYAs have not experienced the same improvements in relative...
Narrow Network Insurance Plans More Likely to Exclude Doctors at NCI-Designated and NCCN Member Cancer Centers
Patients with cancer in the United States may be unable to access care at the nation’s top hospitals due to narrow insurance plan coverage—leaving patients to choose between lower premiums or access to higher-quality cancer care. A new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the...
FDA Approves Aminolevulinic Acid Hydrochloride as an Optical Imaging Agent Indicated in Gliomas
ON JUNE 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved aminolevulinic acid hydrochloride, known as ALA HCl (Gleolan), as an optical imaging agent indicated in patients with gliomas (suspected World Health Organization [WHO] grades III or IV) for preoperative imaging, as an adjunct for the...
Has a New Standard Really Been Established for the Adjuvant Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer?
THE PAST YEAR has undoubtedly been a disappointing one as far as clinical advances in pancreatic cancer go. No fewer than five high-profile randomized phase II or III trials in this setting reported negative results in 2016, ranging from next-generation cytotoxic agents1 to novel immunotherapeutic ...
Conquer Cancer Foundation Researcher Spotlight: Dr. Supriya Mohile
SUPRIYA MOHILE, MD, MS Associate Professor of Medicine, Director of the Geriatric Oncology Clinic University of Rochester Medical Center Rochester, New York Older adults are the population most affected by cancer: 60% of all cancer occurs in this group. Yet the field of oncology that focuses on...
Pembrolizumab Is Highly Active in Relapsed/Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma
AS REPORTED in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Robert Chen, MD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, and colleagues, the phase II KEYNOTE-087 trial has shown that the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is highly active in patients with relapsed/...
Retreatment With Checkpoint Inhibitors May Be Feasible for Some Patients With NSCLC
INCREASING NUMBERS of patients are being treated with checkpoint inhibitors, and about one-quarter to one-third will develop immune-related adverse events. One question on the minds of oncologists is can these patients be safely re-treated once their adverse events resolve? One of the first...
Ublituximab/Ibrutinib Beneficial in Patients With Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
The addition of ublituximab (a glycoengineered anti-CD20 antibody) to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) improved response rates, depth of response, and led to quicker resolution of ibrutinib-associated lymphocytosis in patients with high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the phase III GENUINE trial,...
CAR T-Cell Therapy in Multiple Myeloma Yields 100% Response Rate
Chinese investigators reported that 100% of patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma responded to autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, and 14 of 19 (74%) who were followed for a median of 4 months achieved a stringent complete response and have not recurred.1...
Pembrolizumab Moving Forward in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
In the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer, checkpoint inhibition is making inroads in both early- and late-stage disease, and the line of treatment and expression of the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) could be important in determining outcomes, according to studies reported at the...
First Comprehensive Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Initiative Launched in Africa
Through public-private partnerships with the governments of Botswana, Uganda, and Malawi, His Excellency the President Lieutenant General Dr. Seretse Khama Ian Khama, of the Republic of Botswana; the Honorable Minister Dorcas Makgato, of the Ministry of Health and Wellness; the Bristol-Myers Squibb ...
