Phase I clinical trial data published by Moulder-Thompson et al in Clinical Cancer Research reported that the investigational anticancer agent tucatinib (formerly ONT-380) showed 'notable activity' in the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer with . The 50 women treated had disease...
As reported by Plimack et al in The Lancet Oncology, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has shown activity in patients in the locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma cohort included in the phase Ib KEYNOTE-012 trial. Study Details In the study, 33 patients with locally advanced or metastatic...
In an article published by Siegel et al in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, researchers assert that exposure to medical radiation does not increase a person’s risk of getting cancer. The long-held belief that even low doses of radiation, such as those received in diagnostic imaging, increase...
As some national guidelines now recommend against routine prostate cancer screening, the overall rate of men receiving treatment for the disease declined 42% between 2007 and 2012, a new study published by Borza et al in Health Affairs found. The decline reflects efforts to decrease overdiagnosis...
On January 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved morphine sulfate extended-release tablets formulated with abuse-deterrent properties (Arymo ER) for the management of pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment and for which alternative...
Out-of-pocket expenditures are thought to be a significant barrier to receiving cancer preventive services, especially for individuals of lower socioeconomic status. A new study published by Cooper et al in Cancer looked at how the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which eliminated such out-of-pocket...
A new study published in JAMA reported that patients with bone metastases due to breast cancer, prostate cancer, or multiple myeloma who used zoledronic acid every 12 weeks compared with every 4 weeks did not have in an increased risk of skeletal events over 2 years. In this study, Andrew L....
In the phase III SWOG S0777 trial reported in The Lancet, Durie et al found that adding bortezomib (Velcade) to lenalidomide (Revlimid)/dexamethasone improved progression-free and overall survival in patients with newly diagnosed myeloma who were not planned for immediate autologous stem cell...
A steady decline over more than 2 decades has resulted in a 25% drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States. The drop equates to 2.1 million fewer cancer deaths between 1991 and 2014. The news comes from "Cancer Statistics, 2017," the American Cancer Society’s...
Mutations that have been linked to endometrial cancer can be found in the uterine lavage fluid of pre- and postmenopausal women both with and without detectable cancer, according to a study published by Nair et al in PLOS Medicine. “Today, there are no effective screening methods for...
Venous thromboembolism is a serious—and sometimes fatal—complication of cancer and chemotherapy treatment. Since breast cancer is one of the most common cancers, it accounts for a large number of cancer-related cases of venous thromboembolism. Routine thromboprophylaxis, however, is not recommended ...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Glenwood Goss, MD, of The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, University of Ottawa, and colleagues found that osimertinib produced a high response rate in EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor–pretreated EGFR Thr790Met (T790M)–positive advanced non–small...
One of the featured “Big Debates” at the 2016 World Cancer Congress in Paris addressed this question: Are scarce resources best applied to prevention rather than treatment? Many experts do not see prevention vs treatment in such stark terms or even as a realistic scenario. It’s a false dichotomy,...
As neoadjuvant therapy, abemaciclib alone or in combination with anastrozole achieved strong signals of anticancer activity in postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer in the neoMONARCH phase II study.1 Abemaciclib alone or in combination with anastrozole...
On Tuesday, December 13, President Obama signed into law the 21st Century Cures Act, landmark legislation designed to improve and accelerate the pace of biomedical research in the United States. ASCO Chief Executive Officer Clifford Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, attended the White House signing ceremony ...
Despite the fact that 28 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to permit the use of cannabis and cannabinoid-based drugs to treat medical conditions, including cancer and symptoms from its treatment, federal law prohibits physicians from prescribing marijuana to their patients,...
Long-awaited results of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB)/Alliance 50303 trial were a disappointment to many hematologists/oncologists at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The study failed to show that dose-adjusted EPOCH-R (etoposide,...
The diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer have long been a source of controversy among the oncology community, the political sector, and patient advocacy groups. Most notably, the decision to biopsy a man’s prostate gland rests largely on his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test numbers, the...
Although a cure for cancer remains elusive, there are many promising ideas to eradicate this disease, including the Cancer Moonshot Initiative and an ever-increasing body of cancer research that continually drives innovative treatments in an effort to improve survival and, ultimately, find a...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet, Balar et al found that first-line atezolizumab (Tecentriq) produced durable responses in cisplatin-ineligible patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma. In the study, 119 patients from 47 sites in North America and Europe who were ...
Patients who received first-line ceritinib experienced a 45% risk reduction for advanced anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)–positive on–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared to a control group that received chemotherapy, according to research presented at the IASLC 17th World...
The investigational immunotherapeutic IMC-20D7S was found to be well tolerated and somewhat active in patients with advanced melanoma, including one complete response, according to the results of a phase I/Ib trial reported by Danny N. Khalil, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Clinical Cancer Research....
Scientific Names: Valeriana officinalis, Valeriana radix Common Names: Garden valerian, Indian valerian, Pacific valerian, garden heliotrope Overview A perennial flowering plant prevalent in Europe, Asia, and North America, valerian has a long medicinal history as a relaxant. Its potential as a...
Tina’s Wish, a nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to funding scientific research for the early detection of ovarian cancer, recently announced its eight 2017–2018 individual grant recipients after soliciting proposals nationally for the first time. Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer...
On March 10, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to dinutuximab (formerly known as chimeric 14.18 antibody; Unituxin) for use in combination with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), interleukin-2 (IL-2), and 13-cis-retinoic acid...
Launching a new cancer journal is a risky and arduous endeavor, especially for a specialty publication in resource-challenged countries in the developing world. To succeed, a specialty journal must publish articles from established clinical researchers that quickly garner funding and captivate its...
GUEST EDITOR Physiatry in Oncology explores the benefits of cancer rehabilitation in oncology practice to screen survivors for physical and cognitive impairments along the care continuum to minimize survivors’ disability and maximize their quality of life. The column is guest edited by Sean Smith, ...
It is uniformly fatal and impossible to undo. When the chemotherapy drug vincristine is placed in a syringe and injected intrathecally—into the spinal fluid—the patient always dies. And despite safety guidelines and labels, deaths continue to occur. Now the National Comprehensive Cancer Network®...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) generic drug program has substantially increased the availability of affordable, high-quality drugs in the United States. It is arguably the only really effective health-care cost–containment program. The more than 10,000 generic drugs currently...
In an article in The Lancet Oncology, Y. Tony Yang, ScD, of George Mason University, Charles L. Bennett, MD, PhD, MPP, of the University of South Carolina and colleagues from the United States, Europe, and Japan examined clinical, policy, safety, and regulatory considerations for generic oncology...
In a statement released December 7, ASCO President Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FACP, FASCO, said, “ASCO applauds the U.S. Senate for their decisive vote today to pass the 21st Century Cures Act and authorize funding for the Beau Biden Cancer Moonshot and National Institutes of Health Innovation ...
In a phase III intergroup trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brigitta G. Baumert, MD, of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), Brussels, and colleagues found no progression-free survival difference between temozolomide chemotherapy and radiotherapy alone in...
With drug approvals for immunotherapy in the first- and second-line settings, breakthroughs in targeting epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations, and the rapid evolution of therapies that target anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) rearrangements, 2016 has been an extraordinary year for lung...
Although we’ve seen substantial progress in cancer treatment, screening, diagnosis, and prevention over the past decades, certain underserved populations have not reaped the benefits of many of these advances. Turning research into actionable programs in this area was highlighted by a presentation ...
Two studies presented at the 28th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Munich focused on the inhibition of mutations in the KIT and PDGFRα oncogenes. These genes encode receptor tyrosine kinases, and when they are mutated, cell signaling malfunctions, leading to...
Positive studies about brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in cutaneous T-cell lymphoma1 and rituximab (Rituxan) maintenance therapy in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL)2 were reported at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Hematology (ASH). “These abstracts each focus on approved agents and...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fischer et al found that men with clinical stage I seminoma who relapsed after adjuvant carboplatin could be successfully re-treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Study Details The analysis included data from 185 patients who...
Compared with standard therapy, pacritinib significantly reduces spleen size among people with myelofibrosis who have very low levels of platelets, according to a late-breaking study presented by Mascarenhas et al during the 58th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition...
In the UK phase III ERCC1 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lee et al found that presence of the excision repair cross complementing group 1 (ERCC1) biomarker did not predict better outcome with nonplatinum therapy in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Study...
The combined use of genetic markers and minimal residual disease assessment (MRD) has made it easier to identify chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients likely to have a poor outcome after receiving frontline chemoimmunotherapy. Interim results from the phase III German CLL M1 study presented...
In a small, early phase trial, a high percentage of patients who had exhausted most traditional treatments for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) saw their tumors shrink or even disappear after an infusion of a highly targeted, experimental chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy...
Patients who potentially could benefit most from participation in clinical trials due to poor prognoses often are not included based on eligibility criteria, such as existing medical illnesses. A novel study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center revealed some patients with acute...
Patients successfully treated for breast, colon, and other cancers can go on to develop an often-fatal form of leukemia, sometimes years after completion of treatment, due to a genetic mutation leading to secondary malignancies known as therapy-related myeloid neoplasms. A study conducted by...
Children and young adults with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who receive chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy targeting CD22, a protein found on the surface of leukemic cells, appear to mount a clinical response and, in some cases, achieve remission....
A new McGill University study published by Syrowatka et al in JNCCN – Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network found that most patients with breast cancer aged 65 and older use psychotropic and opioid medications during active treatment, often in the first year of...
Two studies at the 28th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Munich, Germany focused on the inhibition of mutations in the KIT and PDGFRα oncogenes. These genes provide instructions for making proteins that are part of a family of proteins called receptor...
Proactive outreach to cirrhosis patients in a safety net health system successfully doubled their screening rates for liver cancer, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers found in a study published by Singal et al in Gastroenterology. Cirrhosis patients are at high risk to develop liver...
In a retrospective analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Adra et al found that good survival outcomes were achieved with the use of high-dose chemotherapy and peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT) in second-, third-, or later-line treatment of patients with relapsed...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chen et al predicted that an increase in the number of patients living with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) due to improved treatment with oral targeted therapies will be accompanied by a markedly increased overall cost to patients and ...
In an analysis in the Nurses’ Health Study population reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Holmes et al found modest reductions in the risk for distant recurrence of breast cancer with greater protein intake. No associations with intake of essential amino acids, branched-chain amino...