Regular physical activity could play a role in helping women at high-risk of breast cancer delay the need for drastic preventive measures such as prophylactic mastectomy, according to new research led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Results of the WISER Sister...
In a UK-based phase III trial (AML17) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Burnett et al found that a chemotherapy-free regimen of arsenic trioxide plus all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) did not improve quality of life, the primary endpoint, vs ATRA plus idarubicin in patients with acute promyelocytic...
Immunotherapy combined with palliative radiation therapy for a subset of patients with metastatic melanoma reduces the growth and spread of the cancer, according to research presented by Hiniker et al (Abstract 215) on October 20, 2015 at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s...
A study led by Johns Hopkins researchers has linked the immunosuppressive drug mycophenolate mofetil to an increased risk of central nervous system lymphoma in solid organ transplant patients. But the same study also found that another class of immunosuppressive drugs, calcineurin inhibitors, given ...
Cancer is the result of normal cellular functions going wildly awry on a genetic level. That fact has been known for some time, but increasing evidence is showing that the human microbiome, the diverse population of microorganisms within every person, may play a key role in either setting the stage ...
As reported by Falini et al in a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, dactinomycin treatment resulted in morphologic and molecular complete remission ongoing at 14 months in a patient with NPM1-mutant acute myeloid leukemia (AML). NPM1-mutated AML may account for one-third of AML in...
In a Danish-Swedish population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, El-Galaly et al found that routine imaging for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in patients in first complete remission does not improve post-treatment survival. Study Details The study included 525 Danish and...
Bone marrow transplantation is a lifesaving therapy for many patients with blood cancers like leukemias and lymphomas. Currently, the gold standard blood-generating stem cells are obtained from a donor, most likely a sibling, with a perfect match to the patient in order to minimize the chance of...
For a malignant tumor to form, cancer cells must evade the immune system's attack. Numerous studies have already shown that cancer spreads particularly aggressively if there is an unfavorable balance between suppressing and active immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. “But we didn't...
Disparities in outcomes for children with retinoblastoma suggest unequal access to primary care, researchers from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center reported in a study published by Truong et al in JAMA Pediatrics. Although virtually all the children in the study...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has endorsed the current American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) guideline on treatment of small cell lung cancer, released in 2013. After review of evidence from an updated literature search covering 2011 to March 2015, an ASCO...
In a recent report of single-institution experience in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kasamon et al found that nonmyeloablative-related HLA-haploidentical blood or marrow transplantation (BMT) followed by high-dose cyclophosphamide produced good outcomes in patients aged 50 to 75 years...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an anti–PD-1 therapy, may be effective as monotherapy in patients with advanced unresectable nasopharyngeal carcinoma whose tumors express programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). Data from a phase Ib study, KEYNOTE-028, showed an overall response rate of 22.2% in 27...
Gastric cancer is typically associated with late-stage diagnosis, as well as high mortality. A study by Li et al in The American Journal of Pathology points to a pivotal role played by the biomarker microRNA (miR)-506 in gastric cancer. Patients whose primary gastric cancer lesions express high...
A small phase Ia clinical trial investigating whether depleting immune cells called Tregs, which can inhibit anticancer immune responses, with KW-0761, a humanized anti-CCR4 monoclonal antibody, in patients with lung or esophageal cancer has found that the therapy dramatically reduced the number of ...
A study published by Forero-Torres et al in Blood reported that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) is an effective and safe first course of treatment for older patients with Hodgkin lymphoma who are unfit for chemotherapy. Ineligibility for Chemotherapy Although standard chemotherapy can...
Comparisons of cancer patients’ survival and care in Europe up to 2007 showed that although more patients are surviving for at least 5 years after diagnosis, there are large variations among countries, which are particularly significant in cancers of the blood. Milena Sant, MD, from the...
A phase III Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) trial (E1A060) comparing melphalan, prednisone, and thalidomide (Thalomid) (MPT-T) with melphalan, prednisone, and lenalidomide (Revlimid) (mPR-R) in elderly patients with untreated multiple myeloma found that at the end of the induction period, ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved trifluridine/tipiracil (Lonsurf) for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have been previously treated with chemotherapy and biologic therapy and are no longer responding to treatment. The new agent is an oral combination of...
Voriconazole, commonly used to prevent and treat fungal infections in lung transplant recipients, significantly increases the risk for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma in this population, according to a new study by University of California San Francisco researchers. The team recommends physicians ...
Obesity increases the risk for overall and breast cancer mortality and comorbidity. As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Rock et al, the Exercise and Nutrition to Enhance Recovery and Good Health for You (ENERGY) study has shown that a group-based behavioral intervention can produce...
In the first trial of the University of Pennsylvania's personalized cellular therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), 8 of 14 patients responded to the therapy, with some complete remissions continuing past 4.5 years. These results, published by Porter et al in Science Translational...
Treating patients with metastatic melanoma with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) caused immune cells called CD8-positive T cells in the patient’s blood to express markers of reinvigoration, according to data being presented at the CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer...
An engineered high-affinity programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) small protein that can bind to PD-L1 (PD-1 ligand) on tumors was found to be a more effective anticancer immunotherapeutic than conventional anti–PD-L1 antibodies, and this small protein was more effective in synergizing with...
Among patients with metastatic melanoma treated with the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda), those whose cancer responded to the treatment had a higher frequency of T cells that were positive for the proteins CD8, PD-1, and Bim (CD8+PD-1+Bim+ T cells) in blood samples taken immediately...
A small phase I/IIa study of third-generation CD19 CAR (chimeric-antigen receptor) T-cell therapy combined with chemotherapy pretreatment has resulted in complete responses in 6 of the 11 patients with relapsed or refractory lymphoma and leukemia enrolled in the study. Although CAR T-cell...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Petersdorf et al found a greater risk of acute graft-vs-host disease among hematopoietic cell transplant recipients with the high-expression rs9277534G allele linked to mismatched HLA-DPB1 who received transplants from donors with the...
Assessing blood plasma levels of certain microRNAs (miRNAs) distinguished individuals with noninvasive pancreatic precancers from healthy individuals and discriminated between patients with high-risk and low-risk neoplasms, according to a preliminary, proof-of-principle study published by...
Recent evidence suggests that survivors of childhood cancer have a high risk of suffering a stroke at a surprisingly young age. A new study from the UC San Francisco Pediatric Brain Center shows that childhood cancer survivors suffering one stroke have double the risk of suffering a second stroke...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rolapitant (Varubi) to prevent delayed-phase chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. Rolapitant is approved in adults in combination with other antiemetic agents that prevent nausea and vomiting associated with initial and repeat courses of...
Scientists have developed a blood test for breast cancer that may be able to identify which patients will suffer a relapse after treatment, months before tumors are visible on hospital scans. The test may uncover small numbers of residual cancer cells that have resisted therapy by detecting cancer...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that are currently being tested to treat B-cell malignancies target a specific protein present on leukemia and lymphoma cells, but these immune cells cannot distinguish the cancer cells from healthy cells. However, the side effects from these CAR T cells...
A study by researchers at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet is reportedly the first to suggest that cells in the tumor blood vessels contribute to a local environment that protects the cancer cells from tumor-killing immune cells. The results, published by Hong et al in the Journal of the...
In preclinical and clinical studies reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Jeong et al found a lack of sprouting angiogenesis in the formation of lymph node metastases, suggesting a potential mechanism for resistance to antiangiogenic treatments in adjuvant settings. The study...
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers demonstrated a benefit in overall survival among patients with epithelial ovarian cancer receiving generic beta-blocker heart medications. Survival was shown to be greatest among those prescribed first-generation nonselective beta-blockers. According to...
A multi-institutional study has found a new set of genes that may indicate improved survival after surgery for patients with pancreatic cancer. The study also showed that detection of circulating tumor DNA in the blood could provide an early indication of tumor recurrence. In conjunction with the...
In an equatorial African region known as the “lymphoma belt,” children are ten times more likely than in other parts of the world to develop Burkitt lymphoma. This area is also plagued by high rates of malaria, and scientists have spent the past 50 years trying to understand how the two ...
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified a molecular partnership in pancreatic cancer cells that might help to explain how the disease metastasizes in some cases. Their findings reveal urgently needed new targets to treat pancreatic cancer and were published by Foley et...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Gara et al identified a germline HABP2 mutation as a susceptibility gene for familial nonmedullary thyroid cancer. Identification of HABP2 Variant In a kindred study, whole-exome sequencing was performed using peripheral blood DNA from affected...
Results of a phase I trial show that an investigational topical drug, resiquimod gel, causes regression of both treated and untreated tumor lesions and may completely remove cancerous cells from both sites in patients with early-stage cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Currently, there is no cure for...
Duke University researchers found that packaging the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel into nanoparticles more than doubled the drug’s effectiveness in destroying tumors in preclinical models. Their findings were published by Bhattacharyya et al in Nature Communications. Paclitaxel has been ...
Researchers investigating a risk index for colorectal cancer and advanced precancerous polyps among average-risk people have found that patients classified as low risk had fewer advanced adenomas than patients classified as high risk. Their findings suggest that those at low risk for colorectal...
A team of researchers at Barts Cancer Institute–Queen Mary University of London has discovered a combination of three proteins found at high levels in urine that can accurately detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. The discovery could lead to a noninvasive, inexpensive test to...
ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline update on the use of hematopoietic colony-stimulating factors, as reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Smith et al. This update to the ASCO 2006 guideline was based on a systematic review of randomized clinical trials, meta-analyses, and ...
Cancer therapy has evolved to a personalized approach, and important aspects of this method are pharmacogenomic studies that analyze associations between genetic variations and patient drug responses. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers published a study by Dressler et al in the Journal of the...
After decades of overtreatment for low-risk prostate cancer and inadequate management of its more aggressive forms, patients are now more likely to receive medical care matched to level of risk, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San...
A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, reveals a protein’s critical—and previously unknown—role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The finding offers a novel target for better treating AML, and...
In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug...
Researchers led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have developed new diagnostic criteria to enable clinicians to distinguish malignant cancerous chest cavity masses from those caused by fungal histoplasmosis infection. Their findings were published by Naeem et al in the...
Results from a clinical trial investigating a new T-cell receptor therapy demonstrated a clinical response in 80% of patients with multiple myeloma who had advanced disease after undergoing autologous stem cell transplants. Researchers at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center modified T cells to ...