In the German phase III CONKO-003 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oettle et al found that second-line oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and fluorouracil (5-FU) significantly increased overall survival and time to progression vs leucovorin/5-FU in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer...
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announced the appointment of James R. Downing, MD, as its new CEO, effective July 15, 2014. Dr. Downing most recently has served as the Deputy Director, Executive Vice President and Scientific Director of the hospital. He succeeds William E. Evans,...
In an online report in the journal Cancer, a team of University of Chicago cancer specialists have described the first tool—11 questions, assembled and refined from conversations with more than 150 patients with advanced cancer—to measure a patient’s risk for, and ability to...
A study by researchers from Danbury Hospital Biomedical Research Institute in Connecticut has found that patients with ovarian cancer who relapse shortly after neoadjuvant chemotherapy to shrink their tumor prior to surgery have high levels of expression of HGF and c-Met proteins. The...
As reported in JAMA Ophthalmology, McCannel and colleagues identified three cases of subfoveal neurosensory retinal detachment among patients receiving MEK inhibitor therapy for metastatic cancer in clinical trials requiring ophthalmologic examination at their institution. In all cases, the toxic...
According to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, selection of men for active surveillance for prostate cancer should be based not on conventional biopsy, but on a new, imaging-guided targeted prostate biopsy. The new biopsy method is now a routine part of the...
In a phase III trial (CA184-043) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kwon et al assessed the effects of adding ipilimumab (Yervoy) after radiotherapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer progressing after docetaxel chemotherapy. The investigators found no improvement...
A new method for using immunotherapy to specifically attack tumor cells that have mutations unique to a patient’s cancer has been developed by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers demonstrated that the human immune...
A surgical method combining two techniques for removing precancerous polyps during colonoscopies can substantially reduce the recovery time and the length of hospital stays, which may translate into significant cost savings, according to research presented this week at Digestive Disease Week in...
Obesity, rather than diet, causes changes in the colon that may lead to colorectal cancer, according to a study in mice by the National Institutes of Health. The finding bolsters the recommendation that calorie control and frequent exercise are not only key to a healthy lifestyle, but a strategy to ...
In a series of studies involving 140 American men and women with liver tumors, researchers at Johns Hopkins have used specialized three-dimensional (3D) MRI scans to precisely measure living and dying tumor tissue to quickly show whether highly toxic chemotherapy is working. The investigators said ...
Analysis of data from the UK NHS Breast Screening Programme has shown significant variations in the outcomes of treatment for women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) between UK hospitals. Dr. Jeremy Thomas, a consultant pathologist at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, told the 9th...
Extending national breast cancer screening programs to women over the age of 70 does not result in a decrease in the number of cancers detected at advanced stages, according to new research from The Netherlands. Instead, researchers told attendees at the 9th European Breast Cancer Conference that...
Genetic analyses of results from 1,125 postmenopausal women being treated for estrogen-responsive breast cancer have shown that some of them are more likely than others to have a late recurrence of their cancer and might benefit from 10 years of hormone therapy rather than 5 years. Women who had...
The members of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) have elected José Baselga, MD, PhD, Physician-in-Chief at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, as their President-Elect for 2014–2015. Dr. Baselga is an internationally recognized physician-scientist...
Computed tomography (CT) scans routinely taken to guide the treatment of pancreatic cancer may provide an important secondary benefit. According to new research published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation by Koay et al, the scans also reflect how well chemotherapy will penetrate the tumor,...
For women with breast cancer undergoing radiation therapy, yoga offers unique benefits beyond fighting fatigue, according to a study by Chandwani et al published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. While simple stretching activities counteracted fatigue, patients who participated in yoga exercises ...
A large population-based study by Landgren et al has found that African Americans are more likely to have a higher prevalence of monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS), a precursor to the development of multiple myeloma, compared with whites or Hispanics. The study is published...
For head and neck cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy, a reduction in the amount of radiation treatment volume to the submandibular (level IB) lymph nodes resulted in better patient-reported salivary function, according to research presented today at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Head and...
New research is showing that sparing the contralateral submandibular gland during radiation therapy in the treatment of locally advanced head and neck cancer is technically feasible and safe even in advanced-stage, node-positive disease and base-of-tongue lesions. Limiting radiation to these major...
Among patients with advanced melanoma, presence of higher levels of the protein vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in blood was associated with poor response to treatment with the immunotherapy ipilimumab (Yervoy), according to a study by Yuan et al published in Cancer Immunology Research....
When oncologists see a new patient, they should emphasize careful documentation of first- and second-degree cancer family history, according to new recommendations published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The recommendations are the first to focus on family history-taking...
The most common genetic subtype of lung cancer, which has long defied treatment with targeted therapies, has had its growth halted by a combination of two already-in-use drugs in laboratory and animal studies, setting the stage for clinical trials of the drugs in patients. The study, published in...
In laboratory experiments conducted on human cell lines at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, scientists have shown that people carrying certain mutations in two hereditary cancer genes, BRCA2 and PALB2, may have a higher than usual susceptibility to DNA damage caused by acetaldehyde, a ...
The drug metformin, which is approved for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, has been tested in clinical trials as a tumor suppressor in different cancers due to its role in activating the AMPK signaling pathway. However, a new study by Liu et al published in Proceedings of the National Academy of...
A detailed study of tissue samples from more than 200 patients with multiple myeloma has found that an individual patient’s tumor can harbor populations of cancer cells equipped with different mutations. The result could have therapeutic ramifications for future patients, according to study...
Treatment with the drug decitabine prior to administration of chemotherapy and a cancer vaccine yielded clinical benefit for women with recurrent ovarian cancer, suggesting that this combinatorial chemoimmunotherapy may provide a new treatment option for patients with the disease, according to a...
While acknowledging that the full potential of cancer immunotherapy remains unclear, the editors of the journal Science said that the approach of using the immune system to attack tumors marks a turning point in the treatment of cancer. The successes of cancer immunotherapy in clinical trials in...
The addition of carboplatin to a neoadjuvant regimen significantly increased the rate of pathologic complete response in patients with triple-negative breast cancer. The results from the CALGB/Alliance 40603 study were reported at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (Abstract S5-01)....
An investigational prostate cancer treatment slows the disease’s progression and may increase survival, especially among men whose cancer has spread to the bones, according an analysis led by the Duke Cancer Institute. The study, published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, adds...
Results of a Johns Hopkins study may explain why cyclophosphamide prevents graft-vs-host disease in people who receive bone marrow transplants. The experiments point to an immune system cell that evades the toxic effects of cyclophosphamide and protects patients from a lethal form of graft-vs-host...
Most patients with estrogen receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer who initially respond to endocrine treatments will eventually develop resistance to the therapies. A study by Ido Wolf, MD, Head of the Oncology Department at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel, and colleagues...
The longer a woman with breast cancer has to travel to reach a comprehensive cancer center, the more likely she is to have later-stage disease at diagnosis, and the more likely she is to have a mastectomy, according to study by medical student Krishan Jethwa and colleagues from the University of...
Patients with pancreatic cancer may benefit from an investigational member of an emerging class of anticancer drugs called antibody-drug conjugates, according to preclinical results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held October...
An international consortium co-led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia has identified four genetic variants associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer and its precursor, Barrett’s esophagus. The...
In patients with early breast cancer receiving anti-HER2 therapy in the NeoALTTO trial, mutations in PIK3CA were associated with lower rates of pathologic complete response, Jose Baselga, MD, reported at the European Cancer Congress 2013 (Abstract 1859) in Amsterdam. In patients treated with the...
Extending radiation to the lymph nodes behind the sternal wall and above the collarbone extends overall survival in patients with stage I to III breast cancer and does not increase toxicity compared to conventional locoregional radiation therapy, according to 10-year results of an international...
Cancers of unknown primary origin pose a treatment dilemma for oncologists and a great deal of anxiety for patients and their families. A study reported at the European Cancer Congress 2013 in Amsterdam (Abstract LBA39) shows that molecular profiling can identify targetable mutations in up to 80%...
Cancer cells are known to have short telomeres, but just how short they are from cancer cell to cancer cell may be a determining factor in a prostate cancer patient's prognosis, according to a study led by scientists at Johns Hopkins. "Doctors are looking for new ways to accurately predict...
In a keynote lecture during the 2013 Breast Cancer Symposium breast cancer expert and ASCO Past President George Sledge, MD, offered five predictions for the future of the medical management of breast cancer. Dr. Sledge is now Chief of Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto,...
For the first time, a genetic link specific to risk of childhood leukemia has been identified, according to a team of researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, University of Washington, and other institutions. The discovery was reported...
A new analysis has found that most deaths from breast cancer occur in younger women who do not receive regular mammograms. Published early online in Cancer, the study indicates that regular screening before age 50 should be encouraged. The use of mammograms to prevent breast cancer deaths has been ...
The investigational drug brivanib is a dual inhibitor of VEGF and fibroblast growth factor signaling, both implicated in hepatocellular carcinoma. In a noninferiority trial (BRISK-FL) reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Philip J. Johnson, MD, of the Institute of Translational Medicine,...
A study from the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery finds that advances in imaging technologies, including ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are fueling an epidemic in the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancers that are unlikely...
Despite a relatively high rate of depression among patients with head and neck cancer following radiation therapy, mental health services were severely underutilized in this group, concluded researchers who analyzed questionnaire results from 211 patients. The patients had been previously treated...
A new way of analyzing data acquired in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) appears to be able to identify whether or not tumors are responding to antiangiogenesis therapy, which may help physicians determine the most appropriate treatments for patients. In a report published online in Nature...
Scientists have long believed that healthy brain cells, once damaged by radiation designed to kill brain tumors, cannot regenerate. But new research in mice suggests that neural stem cells, the body's source of new brain cells, are resistant to radiation, and can be roused from a hibernation-like...
According to a new study published in the journal Cancer, the survival outcome of patients with Burkitt lymphoma has improved substantially over the past decade, with notable exceptions. To help doctors and researchers better understand who responds well to treatment and who does not, the study...
Researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center have identified four inherited genetic variants in patients with non–small cell lung cancer that can help predict survival and treatment response. Their findings, published in Carcinogenesis, could help lead to more personalized treatment options and...
Blocking dietary sugar and its activity in tumor cells may reduce cancer risk and progression, according to researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. The study, conducted in fruit flies and published in the August issue of Cell, provides insight as to why...