Although the data are preliminary, single-agent AG-221 therapy targeted to the IDH2 mutation holds great promise as a nonchemotherapy approach for the treatment of advanced hematologic malignancies, including relapsed/refractory acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and untreated AML. The findings were...
A phase II study investigating the potential of the drugs azacitidine and lenalidomide (Revlimid) demonstrated that the two therapies in combination may be an effective frontline treatment regimen for patients with higher-risk forms of myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The...
As more experience is gained with the use of genetically engineered chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the data continue to be highly encouraging. To date, 36 of 39 pediatric ALL patients (92%) treated with...
Results from a large prospective study suggest that children and young adults with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) may respond better to a chemotherapy regimen pioneered in pediatric patients. The findings were presented at the 56th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and...
Patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related relapsed/refractory lymphoma can safely undergo autologous hematopoietic cell transplant, according to results of a phase II multicenter trial. At many centers, patients with HIV-related lymphoma are currently excluded from this potentially...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved a new use for ruxolitinib (Jakafi) to treat patients with polycythemia vera, a chronic type of bone marrow disease. Ruxolitinib, a JAK inhibitor, is the first drug approved by the FDA for this condition. Polycythemia vera occurs when too...
In a phase Ib/II study of patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the addition of vosaroxin to cytarabine demonstrated antileukemic activity and an acceptable risk-benefit profile, according to a study by Lancet et al in Haematologica. Based on the findings from this...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Wagner et al found that use of two units vs one unit of umbilical cord blood in hematopoietic stem cell transplantation did not improve 1-year overall survival in children and adolescents with hematologic cancers. Use of...
New evidence that immune checkpoint inhibitors may work in glioblastoma and brain metastases was presented today at the ESMO Symposium on Immuno-Oncology 2014 in Geneva (Abstract 1O). The novel research shows that brain metastases of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, providing an immunoactive...
Results from the ARMOR2 of the anticancer drug galeterone shows that it is successful in lowering prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in men with a variant form castration-resistant prostate cancer. The findings, presented at the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer...
Researchers have found that patients with an advanced form of kidney cancer, for which there is no standard treatment and a very poor prognosis, respond well to a combination of two existing anticancer drugs. The combination of bevacizumab (Avastin) and erlotinib (Tarceva) produced excellent...
A phase I trial of the first drug designed to inhibit the cancer-causing activity of a mutated enzyme known as isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) 1, which is involved in cell metabolism, has shown clinical activity in patients with advanced acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with the IDH1 mutation. The...
Antibody-drug conjugates, checkpoint inhibitors, and single-dose intraoperative radiation therapy for breast cancer were included in the Cleveland Clinic's Ninth Annual Top 10 Medical Innovations List released earlier today. The list identifies those advances likely to have a major impact on...
Age-related loss of the Y chromosome from blood cells, a frequent occurrence among elderly men, is associated with elevated risk of various cancers and earlier death, according to research presented at the American Society of Human Genetics 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego (Abstract 295). This...
A new study shows that patients with stage I to III non–small cell lung cancer have different metabolite profiles in their blood than those of patients who are at risk but do not have lung cancer. The study abstract was released today in an online supplement to the journal CHESTand will be...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Maude et al reported achieving sustained remissions in children and adults with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using autologous CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells. Study Details In the...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sudo et al found that many patients undergoing definitive chemoradiotherapy (bimodality therapy) for esophageal cancer can derive substantial survival benefit from subsequent salvage surgery, supporting a practice of intensive...
Melphalan in combination with bortezomib (Velcade) should be maintained as one of the standards of care for the treatment of elderly patients with multiple myeloma, concluded Spanish trialists reporting updated results from the GEM2005 study comparing bortezomib/melphalan/prednisone with...
Prostate cancer survivors with higher levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides had an increased risk for disease recurrence, according to a study by Allott et al. The study findings, coupled with evidence that statin use is associated with reduced recurrence risk, suggest that lipid levels...
A study involving a patient with metastatic anaplastic thyroid cancer who achieved a near-complete response to everolimus (Afinitor) that lasted for 18 months, followed by progressive disease, has revealed a previously unknown mutation in the TSC2 gene and in the mTOR protein. The discovery...
Perineal powder use has been associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer in case-control studies and with increased risk of serous invasive ovarian cancer in a cohort study. In a large cohort study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Houghton et al found no significant...
Men with higher estradiol-to-testosterone ratios had a substantially reduced risk of aggressive prostate cancer, whereas men with higher ratios of 2-hydroxyestrone to 16α-hydroxyestrone had an increased risk of such cancer, according to the study findings presented by Black et al in Cancer...
For patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer, adding the experimental drug cediranib to standard chemotherapy improved tumor shrinkage and resulted in a modest improvement in progression-free survival, researchers reported at the ESMO 2014 Congress in Madrid (Abstract LBA25_PR). In...
In a recent study reported in Nature Medicine, scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard School of Public Health, among other institutions, investigated whether pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma produces metabolic changes that can be...
The availability of newer agents that have transformed treatment outcomes in multiple myeloma has naturally led to interest in studying these drugs earlier in precursor states, such as monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance and smoldering myeloma. Recent evidence suggests that this may...
Combining the molecular targeted drug ibrutinib (Imbruvica) with the investigational anticancer agent ABT-199 may improve outcomes for patients with mantle cell lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to preclinical data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research...
Using genomic profiling and next-generation sequencing of patients with BCR-ABL1-like B-progenitor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-cell ALL) and Philadelphia chromosome–like ALL, researchers recently identified alterations targeting 18 kinase or cytokine receptor genes. They then determined...
Serum levels of VEGF-A and TGF-β1 may be helpful in tailoring neoadjuvant treatment regimens for patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, according to research presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s (ASTRO) 56th Annual Meeting (Abstract 10). Results of...
Radiation therapy with concurrent paclitaxel chemotherapy following surgery is an effective treatment for high-risk endometrial cancer, according to a study reported by Cho et al in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics Endometrial...
A new analysis of 30-day post-surgery complications among more than 18,000 women with breast cancer undergoing bilateral and unilateral mastectomy with breast reconstruction found that complications were generally rare for either type of surgery, with an overall rate of complications of 5.3%....
Cytoreductive surgery with or without hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy extended survival over systemic therapy alone in well-selected candidates with peritoneal hepatocellular carcinoma, according to the results of a small retrospective trial reported by Tabrizian et al in the Journal of...
Circulating tumor cell clusters—clumps of from 2 to 50 tumor cells that break off a primary tumor and are carried through the bloodstream—appear to be much more likely to cause metastasis than are single circulating tumor cells, according to a study from investigators at the...
Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations found in the circulating-free tumor DNA from the plasma of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients correlates well with the EGFR mutations from patient-matched tumor tissue DNA, according to new data reported by Douillard et...
An international, multi-institutional research group led by scientists at the Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute (CBDI) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has identified a novel molecular pathway that causes an aggressive form of medulloblastoma, The study, reported by He et al ...
Despite advances in the treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (the most common subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma), including the introduction of rituximab (Rituxan), diffuse large B-cell lymphoma patients living in low-socioeconomic-status neighborhoods have a 34% greater risk of dying from...
The Norwegian Colorectal Cancer Prevention Trial comparing colorectal cancer screening with flexible sigmoidoscopy vs no screening showed no reduction in colorectal cancer incidence or mortality after 7 years of follow-up. As reported by Holme et al in JAMA, the 11-year follow-up shows significant...
In a single-center retrospective matched case-control study reported in JAMA Surgery, Franken et al found no significant differences in 30-day morbidity or mortality, positive margin status, major complications, hospital stay, or readmission rates for laparoscopic vs open partial hepatic resection...
Obesity is associated with a worse breast cancer prognosis and elevated levels of inflammation, including greater cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression and activity in adipose-infiltrating macrophages. Data from a new study finds that overweight and obese women who regularly used aspirin or other...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved Cologuard, the first stool-based colorectal screening test that detects the presence of red blood cells and DNA mutations that may indicate the presence of certain kinds of abnormal growths that may be cancers such as colon cancer or...
It is unclear whether somatic mutations that are strongly associated with phenotype and prognosis in myelodysplastic syndrome are also predictive of outcome after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bejar et al found that...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Fast Track designation to pacritinib for the treatment of intermediate- and high-risk myelofibrosis, including patients with disease-related thrombocytopenia on other JAK2 therapy or patients who are intolerant to or whose symptoms are suboptimally...
An analysis of the gut microbiome in patients from three clinical groups representing the multistage progression in colorectal cancer has found that the composition of the gut microbiome differentiates individuals with healthy colons from those with adenomas and carcinomas. Adding gut microbiome...
In a trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bochner et al found no difference in complication rates or length of hospital stay with robot-assisted laparoscopic radical cystectomy vs open surgery in patients with bladder cancer. Blood loss was greater and procedure time shorter with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing and granted Priority Review to the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for ruxolitinib (Jakafi) as a potential treatment of patients with polycythemia vera who have had an inadequate response to or are intolerant of...
Physicians at Johns Hopkins have developed blood and saliva tests that help accurately predict recurrences of HPV-linked oral cancers in a substantial number of patients. The tests screen for DNA fragments of the human papillomavirus (HPV) shed from cancer cells lingering in the mouth or other...
A study reported by Gragert et al in The New England Journal of Medicine indicates that most candidates for hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in the United States will have a suitable adult donor on the basis of HLA matching, although many will not have optimal donors. Few will have optimal...
A St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital study found that 73% of adult survivors of childhood cancer more than doubled their risk of developing metabolic syndrome and related health problems by failing to follow a heart-healthy lifestyle. The results were published online in the journal...
In a Scottish study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Zgaga et al found strong associations between plasma levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) after a diagnosis of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer–specific and all-cause mortality. Significant interactions of vitamin D...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved idelalisib (Zydelig) for the treatment of patients with three types of blood cancers. Idelalisib is being granted traditional approval to treat patients with relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Used in combination with rituximab...
Investigators of The Cancer Genome Atlas project have developed a molecular classification that divides gastric cancer into four major genomic subtypes, according to a study published in Nature. They include (1) tumors positive for the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) that display recurrent PIK3CA...