The global economic crisis beginning in 2008 was associated with substantial public health effects, especially with respect to mental health.1–3 Nevertheless, there is also evidence of a paradoxical association between recessions and reduced all-cause mortality, in part because of reductions in...
In 1995, Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, gathered with several other oncologists at a conference center in San Francisco to begin writing the first-ever ASCO guidelines on cancer treatment. He and his colleagues felt like pioneers scouting uncharted frontier. “I’ll never forget, that first hour or so, ...
Integrated care, a focus on prevention and screening, and acknowledgment of comorbidities on the impact of treatment all play a critical role in the cancer survivorship of older patients, according to Martine Extermann, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida....
Management of chemotherapy-induced vomiting has improved with the use of antiemetics, but chemotherapy-induced nausea remains a major clinical problem, according to Alex Molassiotis, RN, PhD, Professor and Head of the School of Nursing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. And, he added, the...
Prophylactic use of dexamethasone mouthwash significantly minimized the incidence of all grades of stomatitis in postmenopausal women receiving everolimus (Afinitor, Zortress) and exemestane for the treatment of hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer, according to data presented by...
More imaging after thyroid cancer treatment identifies recurrence, but it does not always improve survival, a new study published by Banerjee et al in The BMJ suggests. Researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center looked at 28,220 patients diagnosed with...
A cutting-edge method of extracting big data from positron-emission tomography (PET) images can provide additional information to quantify lung tumors caused by a genetic mutation. This information could help guide the most effective treatment, suggest findings of a study of nearly 350 patients...
Harmonized recommendations for surveillance of premature ovarian insufficiency in female survivors of childhood, adolescent, and young adult (CAYA) cancers have been published by van Dorp et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on behalf of the International Late Effects of Childhood Cancer...
In an analysis from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort Study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Bhakta et al found a high cumulative burden of cardiovascular morbidity among pediatric, adolescent, and young adult survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma. Study Details The study involved data from 670 survivors of...
The dismal accrual rates in cancer clinical trials are well known: Just 3% to 5% of adults with cancer enroll in clinical trials.1 The reasons patients are reluctant to participate in clinical trials are equally well known: fear of reduced quality of life, concern about receiving a placebo, and...
Women were less likely to have breast reconstruction surgery after mastectomy if they had Medicaid or Medicare rather than private insurance or if they lived 10 or more miles from a plastic surgeon’s office, a University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center study has ...
Treatment with the anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) produced response in two-thirds of patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma after failure of both autologous stem cell transplantation (SCT) and brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris),...
The Children’s Oncology Group found that chromosome 1q gain is associated with poorer event-free and overall survival in patients with favorable-histology Wilms tumor. Gratias et al reported these findings in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details The study involved analysis of...
Few patients with advanced cancer and a short life expectancy have an accurate understanding of their illness, according to a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Andrew S. Epstein, MD, of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues. The study involved 178...
A therapeutic modality of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture has been extensively investigated in Western medical settings. Its clinical use is increasingly common for the management of pain and other conditions. In the oncology setting, research demonstrates that acupuncture can...
The National Cancer Policy Forum of the National Academies of Sciences took up the issue of lung cancer screening at its mid-June workshop. Greta Massetti, PhD, Associate Director for Science, Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and chair of ...
As reported by Edward P. Balaban, DO, FASCO, of Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer.1 The recommendations are based on expert...
S. Vincent Rajkumar, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, and Sagar Lonial, MD, of the Emory University School of Medicine, discuss key issues in treating this disease, including monoclonal antibodies, plasmacytoma, and plasma cell leukemia.
The 5-year survival rate of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer remains stubbornly fixed around 5%. Even in the 20% of cases in which surgical resection is undertaken for curative intent, the 5-year survival rate after surgery is 20% to 30%. As we make progress in other cancers with decreasing...
As reported by Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on endocrine therapy for hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer.1 The...
The cumulative incidence of endocrinopathies steadily increased over time in aging survivors of childhood cancers, according to an analysis of data from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study reported by Mostoufi-Moab et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details The study included...
A large observational study examining the variation in breast density assessment among radiologists in clinical practice has found a wide variation—from 6.3% to 84.5%—in the percentage of mammograms rated as showing dense breasts, which persisted after adjusting for patient...
Sarah S. Donaldson, MD, FASCO, of Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, is the recipient of the Inaugural Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award. Throughout her decades-long career, Dr. Donaldson has mentored countless trainees and young oncologists,...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) has endorsed human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the principal source of guidance on U.S. immunization policy. The ACS's...
Sunil Verma, MD, Professor and Head of the Department of Oncology and Medical Director of the Tom Baker Cancer Centre of the University of Calgary in Canada, was the study’s formal discussant. He cited several limitations of the study: It was an open-label study, was initially a phase II study but ...
In the second-line metastatic breast cancer setting, the addition of pertuzumab (Perjeta) to trastuzumab (Herceptin)/capecitabine did not significantly improve progression-free survival, results of the phase III PHEREXA trial showed.1 This is the first randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of ...
The field of studies of combination immunotherapies is exploding, and “the future looks bright, with currently 71 trials of combination therapy in melanoma,” said formal discussant of these trials Marc S. Ernstoff, MD, of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York. “We now know that...
In February, after serving for a year as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Deputy Commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco, Robert M. Califf, MD, MACC, was named the agency’s Commissioner of Food and Drugs. Prior to his appointment at the FDA, Dr. Califf was the Donald F....
Day-to-day psychological stress and adverse life events are unlikely to increase a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, according to a new prospective study published by Schoemaker et al in Breast Cancer Research. Women with breast cancer often consider stress as a likely cause of their ...
Nivolumab, a checkpoint inhibitor approved for patients with squamous and nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in 2015, is not cost-effective when compared to treatment with docetaxel, chemotherapy medication. However, a Swiss analysis showed the cost-effectiveness of nivolumab is...
A receptor protein that is the target of the breast cancer drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) is needed for proper heart blood vessel development, reported researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. They published their findings this month in a paper ...
Juno Therapeutics, Inc, announced on July 12, 2016, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has removed the clinical hold on the phase II clinical trial of JCAR015 (known as the ROCKET trial) in adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Under the ...
Considered a visionary in cancer research, Alfred George Knudson, MD, PhD, was internationally recognized for his “two-hit theory” of cancer causation, which explained the relationship between hereditary and nonhereditary cancer types, predicting the existence of tumor-suppressor genes. ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gerbing et al found that prolonged posttreatment neutropenia was associated with shorter chromosomal telomere length in pediatric patients receiving chemotherapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Study Details The study included 53 patients ...
On July 7, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Roche cobas HPV Test as the first test for Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) that can be used with cervical cells obtained for a Papanicolau (Pap) test and collected in SurePath Preservative Fluid. The FDA approves HPV tests to be used...
In support of the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative, on July 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued two draft guidances that, when finalized, will provide a flexible and streamlined approach to the oversight of tests that detect medically important differences in a...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has released new consensus guidelines for the management of metastatic colorectal cancer that reflect an increasingly personalized approach to treatment. These guidelines were published by Van Cutsem et al in Annals of Oncology. “Management of ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Laird et al found that increased systemic inflammation was associated with poorer patient-reported quality of life independent of performance status. Study Details The study involved data from 2,520 adult patients in a biobank of patients...
A novel anti–interleukin-1 alpha antibody has shown a significant impact on symptoms and a high level of safety and tolerability in patients with advanced colorectal cancer, according to phase III data presented by Hickish et al at ESMO’s 18th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer...
Postoperative treatment intensification with chemoradiotherapy does not achieve better outcomes compared to postoperative chemotherapy in patients with gastric cancer who have already undergone preoperative chemotherapy, according to phase III data presented by Verheij et al at the ESMO 18th World...
Anti–PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) immunotherapy may achieve a response in patients with microsatellite-stable metastatic colorectal cancer if combined with a MEK inhibitor, according to phase I data presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 18th World Congress on ...
The incidence of mutations in DNA-repair genes was significantly higher among men with metastatic prostate cancer than among men with localized disease (11.8% vs 4.6%), according to a study by Pritchard et al reported in The New England Journal of Medicine. In addition, the frequency ...
Although most patients with advanced ovarian cancer initially respond to platinum-based chemotherapy, they usually relapse. According to a study by Frances R. Balkwill, PhD, Professor of Cancer Biology at Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom, and colleagues...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) are teaming up to raise awareness and provide education about the need for new treatments for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). AML is a complex group of approximately 20 different types of blood cancers with a very...
The University of Michigan (U-M) Board of Regents announced a $17.5 million commitment for cancer research from Madeline and Sidney Forbes of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This gift will create the Forbes Institute for Cancer Discovery within the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. In addition, the...
The incidence rate of human papillomavirus (HPV)-related anal cancer and its precursor lesion, anal intraepithelial neoplasia, is rising in the United States and globally. Although 5-year survival rates in localized disease are generally favorable, survival in metastatic disease remains poor,...
With an increased number of breast cancer survivors and patients with metastatic disease living longer, it is imperative for oncology care providers to manage issues of new and chronic upper extremity dysfunction as a result of the malignancy itself or its treatment. As one of my patients...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Alberto S. Tagliafico, MD, of the University of Genoa, and colleagues, interim findings in the Italian prospective ASTOUND study indicate that ultrasound is associated with improved incremental detection of breast cancer at screening compared with ...
Question 1: What is the next best step for this patient? Correct Answer: C. Determination of amyloid subtype. Expert Perspective Amyloidosis encompasses a heterogeneous group of diseases bound by the characteristic deposition of amyloid fibrils in soft tissues and bone marrow, and it could be...
Recent studies on a small number of patients with leukemia treated with bone marrow transplantation have suggested that the presence of the common cytomegalovirus (CMV) in patients or their donors may protect against relapse or even death after the transplant. A large international study published...