Earlier this month, ASCO issued a new global guideline on screening for cervical cancer.1 The guideline provides evidence-based recommendations for screening, follow-up of positive screening results, and treatment of women with cervical precancers in countries worldwide. ASCO’s guideline...
Pilot Study Title: Pilot Study of 18F-FLT-PET Imaging of the Brain in Patients With Metastatic Breast Cancer to the Brain Treated With Whole-Brain Radiation Therapy With or Without Sorafenib: Comparison With MR Imaging of the Brain Study Type: Pilot/interventional/parallel assignment Study Sponsor ...
Dexamethasone mouth rinse should be given prophylactically to prevent stomatitis associated with everolimus (Afinitor)/exemestane in metastatic breast cancer, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, principal investigator of the SWISH trial and Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education at...
Question 1: Which statement about donor selection for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant is correct? Correct Answer: C. If a donor is available, the genotypic identity between the patient and his brother should be established by typing the patient’s parents; if this is not possible, the...
Scientific Names: Sulfydryl proteolytic enzyme, cysteine proteinase Common Names: Ananase, Dayto Anase, Traumanase Overview Derived from the fruits and stems of pineapples, bromelain is a proteolytic enzyme that is used to treat burns and skin conditions, and as an anti-inflammatory agent....
Ever since the landmark studies of Griffiths and colleagues in the 1970s,1 primary cytoreductive surgery followed by chemotherapy with the objective of achieving minimal residual disease has been the standard approach for women with advanced-stage epithelial ovarian cancer. However, what is...
In the phase III S-TRAC trial reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Ravaud et al, adjuvant sunitinib (Sutent) significantly prolonged disease-free survival vs placebo in patients with high-risk renal cell carcinoma after...
The Avon Foundation for Women recently released a new study on the racial disparities in breast cancer mortality in the 50 largest cities in the United States between 2005 and 2014. Published in Cancer Epidemiology,1 the study was conducted by Sinai Urban Health Institute in collaboration with the...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to olaratumab (Lartruvo) in combination with doxorubicin to treat adults with certain types of soft-tissue sarcoma. Olaratumab is approved for use with the FDA-approved chemotherapy drug doxorubicin for the treatment of ...
In patients with advanced lung or thymus carcinoid receiving everolimus, pasireotide LAR, or the combination of the two drugs, statistically significant positive impact was seen on proportion of patients’ progression-free rate at 9 months (primary endpoint) in all three arms, more relevant in ...
Two separate randomized trials presented at the 58th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) affirmed the value of stereotactic radiosurgery as an option for postoperative treatment of the surgical cavity of resected brain metastases, potentially avoiding the cognitive...
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 Khalil et al in Clinical Cancer Research. IMD-20D7S is a...
Stereotactic body radiation therapy is becoming more widely adopted for the treatment of early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Along with its increasing uptake, survival has significantly increased over the past decade, according to two large retrospective studies presented at the 58th...
On October 18, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) modified the indication for erlotinib (Tarceva) in the treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to limit its use to patients whose tumors have specific epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. The labeling...
A clinical practice guideline on margins for breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation in ductal carcinoma in situ has been jointly developed by the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO), the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), and ASCO.1-3 The recommendations were...
A radiation boost to the local tumor bed following treatment with breast-conserving therapy (ie, local excision followed by whole-breast radiation therapy) improves local control for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ, according to a study of pooled data from 10 academic centers,1 presented at...
Clement et al found that 25% of survivors of childhood brain tumors were diagnosed with endocrine disorders over 6.6 years of follow-up, based on a Dutch nationwide study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study involved data from 718 survivors diagnosed at age ≤ 18 years with a...
Nivolumab (Opdivo) maintains function and reduces symptoms in treatment of relapsed metastatic head and neck cancer, according to results from the CheckMate 141 trial presented by Harrington et al at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark (Abstract...
Today in the Oval Office, Vice President Joe Biden delivered the Cancer Moonshot report to the President and the American public. The report summarizes the work of the Cancer Moonshot Task Force since its creation in January and lays out the Vice President’s strategic plan for transforming...
Severe cancer-related fatigue was associated with poorer clinical outcomes in patients receiving standard therapies for Hodgkin lymphoma and poorer social reintegration, according to an analysis of data from German Hodgkin Study Group trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Behringer ...
Today, the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) finalized a landmark new payment system for Medicare clinicians that will continue the Administration’s progress in reforming how the health-care system pays for care. The Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of ...
Fulvestrant (Faslodex) significantly increases progression-free survival in women with hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer, particularly those with less aggressive lower-volume disease, Ellis et al reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in ...
A phase III trial of sunitinib (Sutent) has met its primary endpoint of disease-free survival for adjuvant treatment of high-risk renal cell carcinoma after nephrectomy, reported Ravaud et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2016 Congress in Copenhagen (Abstract LBA11_PR)....
Alain Ravaud, MD, PhD, of Bordeaux University Hospital, discusses in French phase III findings on sunitinib vs placebo as adjuvant treatment for high-risk renal cell carcinoma after nephrectomy. (Abstract LBA11)
Alain Ravaud, MD, PhD, of Bordeaux University Hospital, discusses phase III findings on sunitinib vs placebo as adjuvant treatment for high-risk renal cell carcinoma after nephrectomy. (Abstract LBA11)
A partnership that added health navigation services to 2-1-1 call centers helped a significant number of underserved Texans receive cancer control measures such as Papanicolaou (Pap) tests and smoking cessation help, according to a study (PR12, C49) presented at the 9th Association for Cancer...
African American cancer survivors are more likely than whites to experience lasting debt or forgo necessary medical care as they struggle with the financial burden of cancer, while whites are somewhat more likely to use existing assets to pay for their cancer care, according to a study (C13)...
Implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in California may have led to a significant increase in the number of Hispanic breast cancer patients at a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center and an increase in the number of Hispanic women who consented to participate in a...
To make information about clinical trials widely available to the public, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule on September 19 that specifies requirements for registering certain clinical trials and submitting summary results information to ClinicalTrials.gov....
The release of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Safety Communication “alerting women about the risks associated with the use of tests being marketed as ovarian cancer screening tests”1 and recommending against using these tests comes not as a result of startling new studies, but from an...
On August 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) rule giving the agency the authority to regulate e-cigarettes, cigars, hookahs, and pipe tobacco took effect. In May, ASCO applauded the FDA for exercising its congressionally mandated authority to regulate e-cigarettes as a crucial step in ...
What are the factors that add up to the best outcomes for patients who have surgery to treat cancer? Looking for a better way to measure quality of care and share best practices in surgical oncology, a team from Roswell Park Cancer Institute developed a quality assessment tool and validated it in a ...
Ever since the immune checkpoint agents arrived, the pace of clinical investigation in oncology has continued to accelerate with an ever-increasing number of trials of single-agent and combination therapies with novel designs that are transforming our drug-development process. However, even in...
This past summer, Eric S. Lander, PhD, President of the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, raised a few eyebrows at the Aspen Ideas Festival when he...
On October 4, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted alectinib (Alecesna), an anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor, a second Breakthrough Therapy designation. This latest designation was granted for the treatment of adult patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small...
The third annual Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium, held on September 9–10, 2016, in San Francisco, California, brought together more than 650 attendees from multiple countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and China. It featured over 250 study...
Kerr et al found that adding adjuvant bevacizumab (Avastin) to capecitabine did not improve disease-free survival in unselected patients with stage III or high-risk stage II colorectal cancer. The results of the phase III QUASAR 2 trial were reported in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details In the...
In August 2016, the Healthcare Delivery Research Program of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences at the National Cancer Institute convened a group of experts in a variety of fields to identify a research agenda for optimizing employment outcomes among cancer survivors. A core...
O’Brien et al found further evidence of the benefit of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) with the 17p deletion, according to an extended analysis of the phase II RESONATE-17 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology. Ibrutinib currently is approved...
Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) for cancer patients who receive the treatment for brain metastases decreases the likelihood of local recurrence, but shows no positive difference in terms of overall survival or distant brain metastases rates when compared to observation alone following surgical...
High-dose stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for men newly-diagnosed with low- or intermediate-risk prostate cancer results in shorter treatment times, low severe toxicity, and excellent cancer control rates, according to research presented by Meier et al at the 58th Annual Meeting of the...
In the largest trial conducted for average-risk medulloblastoma, survival rates following reduced radiation therapy boost volumes were comparable to standard treatment volumes for the primary tumor site, but lower doses of craniospinal axis irradiation were associated with higher event rates and...
For patients who have cancer that has metastasized to the brain, stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) results in statistically comparable survival rates, reduced cognitive decline, and better quality of life, compared to whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT), according to research presented at the 58th Annual ...
In the largest study of its kind to date, researchers have identified and validated three distinct molecular subtypes of prostate cancer that correlate with distant metastasis-free survival and can assist in future research to determine how patients will respond to treatment, according to research...
A new analysis of records in the Veterans Affairs Central Cancer Registry demonstrates a clear positive impact of the increased use of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) to treat patients with stage I non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in recent years, according to research presented...
For men with intermediate-risk prostate cancer, radiation treatment with brachytherapy alone can result in similar cancer control with fewer long-term side effects, when compared to more aggressive treatment that combines brachytherapy with external beam therapy (EBT), according to research...
As reported by Recht et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a joint ASCO, American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), and Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) panel has developed a focused guideline update of the ASCO guideline on postmastectomy radiotherapy. A recent Cancer Care Ontario...
For men with early stage, low-risk prostate cancer, treatment with hypofractionated radiation therapy offers comparable health-related quality of life outcomes in one-third less treatment time than conventional radiation therapy, according to research presented by Watkins Bruner et al at the 58th...
Survival rates for elderly patients who received stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for early stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) rose from roughly 40% to 60% over the past decade, concurrent with the increasing adoption of SBRT, according to research presented by Dalwadi et al...
Although some patients with melanoma experience durable responses to treatment with the anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) therapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda), the majority of patients do not experience a durable clinical benefit from anti–PD-1 monotherapy, according to a study by ...