Support for the oral immunomodulatory agent pomalidomide for multiple myeloma took a step forward when the phase III MM-003 trial showed a survival advantage in patients with advanced disease, in addition to a doubling in progression-free survival, when pomalidomide was given with low-dose...
Five key biologic pathways have become evident in triple-negative breast cancer tumors, and these pathways may be targetable with agents that are currently available or in development, results from an international genetic analysis revealed at the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Justin M. ...
The illness memoir’s appeal proves enduring in a very crowded genre, perhaps because illness is a tie that binds us all. As Susan Sontag wrote in her classic work, Illness as a Metaphor, “Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in...
The use of dietary supplements by cancer patients has risen significantly over the past 2 decades despite insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness. Finding reliable sources of information about dietary supplements can be daunting. Patients typically rely on family, friends, and the...
Subcutaneous administration of trastuzumab might offer improvements in patient convenience and resource use compared with conventional intravenous administration (Herceptin). A new subcutaneous trastuzumab formulation containing a fixed dose of 600 mg and recombinant human hyaluronidase PH-20...
From the initial discovery of the HER2 family of receptors in the mid-1980s to the present, a “wealth of riches” has been uncovered in terms of agents that can target pathways relevant to this aggressive breast cancer type, notes Hope S. Rugo, MD, Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials...
The 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium featured more than 2,500 abstracts and lectures, including timely research in the field and discussions for scientists and clinicians alike. In addition to nearly two dozen in-depth reports from the meeting, The ASCO Post brings readers the following...
The 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) featured about 5,000 abstracts, including oral sessions and posters, as well as named lectures and symposia. In addition to our regular news coverage from the meeting, below are capsule summaries of a few news highlights that we...
In the treatment of postmenopausal estrogen receptor–positive women with lobular carcinoma, letrozole appears to have a greater benefit than tamoxifen, according to an analysis of this subset of patients in the Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 trial reported at the 35th Annual San Antonio...
In a commentary accompanying reporting of the phase II study of the MEK inhibitor selumetinib by Dr. Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, and colleagues, Sarah B. Goldberg, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine, and colleagues at Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, noted that KRAS, a member of the...
The word “revival” signifies a renewed use or acceptance after a period of inactivity; similarly, the word “resurrection” refers to the concept of an entity coming back to life after death. In the past year, these terms have been used frequently by us (and others) in articles calling for the return ...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Indication On January 23, 2013, bevacizumab (Avastin) was approved...
The take-home message from this study is that in this large group of patients, we have found that beta-blocker intake during radiation therapy for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is associated with improved survival and reduced rates of tumor spread, even when controlling for a large number of...
At the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), held in Atlanta, nearly 5,000 abstracts were presented in oral sessions and posters. As part of our ongoing comprehensive coverage from the meeting, here are several more studies of note. New Targets in Acute Myeloid Leukemia...
Breast cancer patients who achieve a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant therapy have more favorable outcomes than those who do not, according to a meta-analysis of neoadjuvant trials presented at the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 Patients who achieved a pathologic complete...
Sandra Swain, MD, FACP, Medical Director of the Washington Cancer Institute, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, DC, moderated the San Antonio session where the dose-dense chemotherapy studies were presented, and commented on the findings of the two studies. iddETC Trial With regard...
In the final planned joint analysis of overall survival from the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-31 and North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) N9831 trials, the addition of trastuzumab (Herceptin) to paclitaxel following doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide (AC) reduced...
Despite the extremely difficult clinical challenges posed by brain tumors, mortality rates in this disease have decreased somewhat over the past several decades due, in part, to advances in surgical techniques and therapies. The ASCO Post recently discussed contemporary issues in neuro-oncology...
In patients with KRAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer, outcomes were comparable whether patients received the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor panitumumab (Vectibix) or the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor bevacizumab (Avastin). This was shown both in the...
Athough the majority of the more than 69,000 adolescents and young adults (AYAs) diagnosed with cancer each year will survive their disease, many of them will experience interruptions in their education and a derailment in their career tract, curtailing their lifetime earning potential and reducing ...
“Smokers lose at least one decade of life expectancy, as compared with those who have never smoked,” and the increased risk of death from cigarettes smoking “are now nearly identical for men and women,” according to two separate studies published online by TheNew England Journal of Medicine. One...
Patients ≥ 50 years old with leukemia/lymphoma are increasingly undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplants, raising questions about whether they might have better outcomes with transplants from younger allele-level 8/8 human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched unrelated donors than from...
After being diagnosed with stage II invasive ductal carcinoma in my right breast in 2004, I did an Internet search to learn more about my treatment options so I could be prepared when I met with my oncologist to discuss my treatment plan. I was especially interested in therapies that would be...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) reported with sadness the loss of Zora Brown, a trustee for the AACR Foundation for the Prevention and Cure of Cancer, a breast and ovarian cancer survivor, and a pioneering advocate for cancer research and breast cancer awareness among...
People are more optimistic today about their chances of surviving cancer, according to findings from a new international survey commissioned by Lilly Oncology. The phone survey of 4,341 individuals (including people in the general population, cancer survivors, and caregivers) in six countries (the...
Several studies have suggested that short-term overall survival for women with ovarian cancer and BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations is better than that in patients without such mutations. Indeed, a recent report by Kelly L. Bolton, PhD, and colleagues indicated that 5-year overall survival was 36% for...
“This study confirms previously published racial disparities in access to care, but factors that drive these disparities have not been elucidated,” stated Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, Department of Surgical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. The study was...
The combination of bendamustine (Treanda) and rituximab (Rituxan), or BR, was found to be noninferior to commonly used chemotherapy with R-CHOP (rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) or R-CVP (rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisone) in...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Indication On February 8, 2013, the immunomodulatory agent...
A phase III study from the United Kingdom has shown that second-line treatment with docetaxel improves overall survival of patients with advanced esophagogastric cancer.1 The strategy has already been widely adopted, but COUGAR-02 is the first study to provide definitive evidence of a survival...
Two recent studies in the Journal of Clinical Oncology focused on treatment strategies to preserve the larynx while increasing survival of patients with cancer of larynx. RTOG 91-11 Ten-year results from the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 91-11 trial found that both chemotherapy regimens...
The American Association for Cancer Research recently released its second Annual Report on Cancer Survivorship in the United States. The report shows that as of January 2012, there were approximately 13.7 million cancer survivors in the United States, a number that is expected to rise by 31% to 18...
Over the past few decades, radiation therapies have rapidly advanced, due, in large part, to an increasing technologic armamentarium. Among modern science’s most impressive machines, for example, 220-ton particle accelerators can generate near-light-speed beams of protons, with sniper-like...
Breast cancer deaths have declined over the past 2 decades, with approximately half of the decrease estimated to be due to advances in early detection and treatment. However, not all racial groups have benefited equally from these advances. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and...
As we all now know, the start of the sequestration prescribed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 was delayed until March 1, 2013, by the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. With Congress unable to strike a deal, the mandatory reductions in Federal spending were triggered on March 1. Those...
The parallel SIGGAR trials recently published in Lancet add to the growing body of literature regarding the utility of computed tomographic (CT) colonography in the detection of colorectal polyps and cancers. These papers reinforce the results seen in other large multicenter trials1-3 and echo the...
The companion UK Special Interest Group in Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology (SIGGAR) trials compared computed tomographic (CT) colonography with barium enema and colonoscopy in patients with symptoms suggestive of colon cancer. As recently reported by the SIGGAR investigators in The...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Indication On February 22, 2013, ado-trastuzumab emtansine...
About 48% of all patients with bladder cancer undergoing radical cystectomy have a discrepancy between their clinical stage and pathologic stage, according to the largest study to date to examine this issue. Upstaging after surgery is associated with reduced survival, while downstaging after...
Attendees at the 2013 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in Orlando, Florida, were brought up to date with the latest news on cancers of the prostate, testes, bladder, and kidney. Below are selected highlights from the meeting describing findings of noteworthy abstracts to extend our regular news...
Studies show virtually all cancer survivors will experience some form of sexual dysfunction following a cancer diagnosis and treatment. Yet few cancer survivors seek help for physical problems they may be experiencing, such as vaginal dryness, dyspareunia, chemically induced menopause, reduced...
First-line treatment with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) “provided a significant improvement” in progression-free survival when compared to trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus docetaxel in a randomized phase II study among patients with HER2-positive metastatic or recurrent locally advanced breast...
As reported recently in Lancet Oncology by Jaafar Bennouna, MD, of Institut de Cancérologie de l’Ouest, Nantes, France, and colleagues, the phase III ML18147 trial showed a survival benefit with continued bevacizumab (Avastin) treatment after first progression in metastatic colorectal cancer.1 The...
Is sentinel node biopsy in melanoma an essential component of care? Despite a large multinational trial and recently published or updated guidelines, the question is still a thorny one according to experts who debated the issue at the recent meeting of the Society of Surgical Oncology in...
In her editorial about the RESONATE trial (page 1), Dr. O’Brien raises the issue of equipoise in this phase III clinical trial that compares the efficacy of ibrutinib and ofatumumab (Arzerra) in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who are not appropriate...
Most women with ovarian cancer are not receiving adequate treatment, as specified in National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines,1 and as a result are being deprived of the survival benefits correlated with guideline-recommended treatment, according to a study presented at the Society...
Upregulation of BIM (BCL2L11), a proapoptotic member of the BCL2 protein family, is required for induction of apoptosis by EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors in EGFR-mutant forms of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). A BIM deletion polymorphism occurs naturally in approximately 13% of East Asian...
C-reactive protein is a biomarker of acute and chronic inflammation that is frequently elevated in patients with cancer. In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Secchiero and colleagues found that increased levels of C-reactive protein were associated with downregulation of TRAIL, a...
After a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, I became so worried it would happen to me, I decided to perform regular breast self-exams so I could familiarize myself with the normal feel of my breasts, and quickly spot any changes. My friend’s diagnosis scared me, and that fear probably saved my ...
Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon announced a “war on cancer.” Some of that war’s first battles were won in the field of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with two agents, cytarabine and daunorubicin, receiving U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval based on their ability to produce...