According to a recent article published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, cancer care in the United States exceeded $208 billion in 2020 and is expected to surpass $240 billion by 2030.1 These estimates are driven largely by a growing and aging population. The expenditures...
The statistics are grim: Worldwide, pancreatic cancer is the 12th most common cancer and the seventh leading cause of cancer mortality.1 In the United States, the malignancy has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers. It is currently the third leading cause of cancer-related death after...
Formal discussant of the PCS5 trial, Sophia C. Kamran, MD, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Department of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard Medical School, said the goal of trials like this one is to optimize...
According to the results of the phase III randomized Prostate Cancer Study 5 (PCS5), a noninferior trial, 5 weeks of radiation therapy may be equivalent to 8 weeks for men with high-risk prostate cancer on androgen-deprivation therapy. These findings were presented at the 2022 American Society for...
In patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer—including patients with visceral crises—those treated with ribociclib plus endocrine therapy had fewer adverse events and significantly longer progression-free survival compared to those treated with combination...
The incidence of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) has surged in recent years—possibly because of the growing use of textured breast implants. Considering this trend, some patients with breast cancer who undergo mastectomy may wonder if the benefits of getting reconstructive implants are worth...
In a retrospective study reported in JAMA Oncology, Rakaee et al found that tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) levels ascertained via machine learning–based scoring on standard histologic images were associated with response in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for non–small...
Sumanta Pal, MD, of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses phase I results from the COBALT-RCC study, a first-in-human clinical trial exploring CD70 CAR T-cell therapy in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma. The agent appeared to show an excellent safety profile with no...
Residual tumors from Black patients with estrogen receptor–positive/HER2-negative primary breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy had a higher risk score associated with a biomarker of distant metastatic recurrence compared with tumors from White patients, according to new findings...
Among premenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, early-stage breast cancer enrolled in the SOFT trial, those with a high score on the Breast Cancer Index genomic assay had an increased risk of distant recurrence—and those with a low score on the Breast Cancer Index may have benefited...
Non-Hispanic Black patients with lymph node–positive, hormone receptor (HR)–positive/HER2-negative breast cancer experienced worse outcomes compared with the outcomes of non-Hispanic White, Asian, and Hispanic patients—despite similar 21-gene recurrence scores—according to new findings presented by ...
Taken together with the primary clinical results, a secondary analysis of the phase III SWOG S1404 randomized clinical trial demonstrated that pembrolizumab provides superior clinical and patient-reported quality-of-life outcomes compared to standard of care with adjuvant ipilimumab or high-dose...
On December 5, Novartis announced the pivotal phase III PSMAfore study of lutetium (Lu-177) vipivotide tetraxetan, a prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted radioligand therapy, met its primary endpoint. The therapy demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful...
In the phase Ib/II JAVELIN PARP Medley trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, and colleagues found that the combination of the anti–PD-L1 agent avelumab and the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor talazoparib produced objective response rates in patient subgroups with ...
In a retrospective analysis reported in JAMA Network Open, Magliocco et al found that among patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer receiving bladder-preserving trimodality therapy, those with a lower expression of the DNA repair protein MRE11 had significantly poorer disease-specific...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Laetsch et al, the 3-year update of the phase II ELIANA trial showed durable responses and a manageable safety profile with tisagenlecleucel for the treatment of pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute...
In a cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Chen et al found that postmenopausal breast cancer survivors with exercise patterns categorized as active or moderately active had significantly reduced risk for all-cause mortality compared to those with patterns categorized as insufficiently...
Roger Li, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses results from a phase II single-arm study of CG0070, a cancer-selective oncolytic adenovirus that creates mechanistic synergy with immune checkpoint blockade. In this trial, the virus was combined with pembrolizumab in patients with...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Zhang et al found that U.S. counties with greater deprivation as measured by residential racial and economic segregation using the Index of Concentration at the Extremes (ICE) had higher cancer mortality rates vs less deprived counties. Study Details The study...
In a Chinese study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Xu et al found that a test for epigenetic imprinted biomarkers was highly accurate in distinguishing malignant vs benign thyroid nodules. Study Details The multicenter study involved 550 consecutively enrolled patients with nodules...
In a U.S. cross-sectional study reported in JAMA Oncology, Oakes et al found that as of December 2021, breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening rates remained below pre–COVID-19 pandemic levels, despite initial rebounds in some rates. Reduced screening rates were accompanied by reduced...
On December 1, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved olutasidenib (Rezlidhia) capsules for adult patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a susceptible IDH1 mutation as detected by an FDA-approved test. The FDA also approved the Abbott RealTime IDH1...
New research has shed light on how skewed X chromosome inactivation may be linked to the development of cancer and cardiovascular disease, according to a novel study published by Roberts et al in eLife. Background Because the X chromosome has so many more genes than the Y chromosome, in every cell...
Patients older than 65 years may be undergoing unnecessary cervical cancer screenings, and more public health data may be needed on the utilization of cervical cancer screening–associated services among older patients to prevent potential harm and unnecessary costs, according to a new study...
Twenty percent of patients are likely to forgo additional testing after an abnormal finding on a screening mammogram if there is a deductible, according to new findings presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2022 Annual Meeting. Background As health-care costs and insurance...
Diagnosing early-stage lung cancer using low-dose computed tomography (CT) screenings may improve patients’ long-term survival rate, according to long-term findings from the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2022 Annual...
Research shows that all beverage types containing ethanol, including wine, beer, and hard liquor, increase cancer risk, and that the risk increases with higher alcohol consumption. Even light drinking—no more than one drink per day—increases the risk for some cancers, including esophageal and...
In an Australian phase IIb trial (MedCan1-CBD) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hardy et al found that use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil did not improve symptom distress vs placebo in adult patients with advanced cancer receiving palliative care. Study Details The double-blind multicenter...
In an externally controlled phase III trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Liau et al found that the addition of an autologous tumor lysate–loaded dendritic cell vaccine (DCVax-L) to standard of care improved survival in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma and recurrent glioblastoma compared...
In a study reported as a research letter in JAMA, Shahmoradi et al found that the incidence of cervical cancer decreased or remained stable in U.S. women between 2001 and 2019, except for an increase in the 30- to 34-year-old age group in more recent years. As stated by the investigators, “A recent ...
A novel artificial intelligence (AI) blood testing technology—known as DELFI (DNA evaluation of fragments for early interception)—may successfully detect more than 80% of hepatocellular carcinomas, according to a new study published by Foda et al in Cancer Discovery. The findings were also...
Preclinical research has shown that mantle cell lymphoma is so critically dependent on the FOXO1 protein that by blocking its activity with an experimental drug, the cancer’s growth may be slowed, according to a new study published by Jang et al in the Journal of Clinical Investigation....
More than 1.4 million patients were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020 globally, but the molecular characteristics of the disease remain unexplored for the majority of patients around the world. In the final days of the Movember campaign, which every year in November aims to raise awareness of...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mustafa Raoof, MD, MS, and colleagues found that California Medicare Advantage beneficiaries undergoing elective inpatient cancer surgery were less likely than traditional Medicare beneficiaries to have surgery at...
In a phase I dose-escalation and expansion study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Funda Meric-Bernstam, MD, and colleagues found that zanidatamab, a novel bispecific monoclonal antibody directed against two nonoverlapping domains of HER2, showed activity in locally advanced or metastatic...
In an analysis from the phase III CALGB (Alliance)/SWOG 80702 trial of adjuvant FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin) for patients with stage III colon cancer reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lee et al found that longer duration of oxaliplatin treatment was associated with ...
Michael B. Atkins, MD, of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, explores recent clinical trials in immuno-oncology in which the phase III trial produced markedly different results from the phase II trial. To help understand the potential value to patients of late-stage trials of...
Kishu Ranjan, PhD, of Yale University School of Medicine, discusses his study findings, which identified a deficiency in the biomarker TAP2 as a prominent immune evasion mechanism in patients whose non–small cell lung cancer has resisted immunotherapy (Abstract 148).
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Yamaguchi et al, an exploratory cohort analysis in a Japanese/South Korean phase II trial (DESTINY-Gastric01) indicated that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (TDX-d) showed activity in previously treated—but anti-HER2 treatment–naive—patients with...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Schram et al, the phase IIb tumor-agnostic JAVELIN BRCA/ATM trial has shown that the combination of avelumab and talazoparib did not meet the prespecified objective response rate goal among patients with advanced BRCA1/2-altered or ATM-altered solid tumors. The...
In an interim analysis of the phase III ALPINE trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Peter Hillmen, MBChB, PhD, and colleagues found that zanubrutinib produced a significantly higher objective response rate vs ibrutinib in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic...
November is Caregiver Awareness Month, and timely findings from a study published by Amonoo et al in the journal Blood Advances suggested that, among caregivers of patients undergoing a stem cell transplant, how someone approaches coping can influence the levels of anxiety, depression, and poor...
Survivors of pediatric cancer who consumed more total sugar, added sugar, and sugar-sweetened beverages had more aging-related health conditions than survivors who consumed less sugar, according to a new study presented by Lan et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special...
Patients with cancer who are living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection had an increased epigenetic age compared with patients with cancer living without the HIV infection, according to a new study presented by Coghill et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)...
Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer may be less likely to survive if their initial treatment fails to eradicate the tumor completely and they have high levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in their residual tumors, according to a new study published by Miglietta et al in the European...
Using intraoperative ultrasound to guide surgery for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ may yield better results than the standard technique of using a wire inserted into the breast, according to a new study published by Esgueva et al in the European Journal of Cancer. The findings were also...
In a secondary analysis of the Geriatric Assessment for Patients 70 Years and Older (GAP70+) trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Eva Culakova, PhD, MS, and colleagues found that providing geriatric assessment–based recommendations to community oncologists was associated with reduced ...
In an individual patient meta-analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Shankar Siva, PhD, and colleagues found that patients receiving stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) for primary localized renal cell carcinoma had long-term outcomes indicating that the treatment is safe and...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Bartels et al, 10-year outcomes from the phase III EORTC 10981-22023 AMAROS trial were similar with axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) vs axillary radiotherapy in patients with cT1–2, node-negative breast cancer and a positive sentinel node...
Lori Wilson, MD, FACS, was the first woman to hold the surgical oncology division chief position at Howard University Hospital and the first woman to be promoted to full professor in surgery at Howard University College of Medicine. Known as a fierce advocate for patients with cancer in underserved ...