The addition of chemotherapy with procarbazine, lomustine, and vincristine to radiotherapy significantly prolonged overall survival in patients with low-grade glioma, according to the final results of the phase III RTOG 9802 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Buckner et al. A...
Wide variability exists in radiation treatment decisions following neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery for breast cancer, according to a review of the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z1071 trial. These findings were published by Haffty et al in the International Journal of...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Shaffer et al have developed a prognostic scoring system for patients undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for myelodysplastic syndrome. Study Details The study involved data from 2,133 patients with myelodysplastic syndrome in...
Use of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines should be rapidly expanded to protect thousands of young people in the United States—and millions worldwide—from life-threatening cancers, ASCO said April 11 in a policy statement. Published by Bailey et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,...
A National Cancer Database analysis reported by Ellis et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates a doubling in the use of chemoradiation only in patients with nonmetastatic rectal cancer over recent years. However, current evidence is insufficient to support such nonoperative management....
Pathologists would disagree about 8% of the time when interpreting a single breast biopsy slide, with more overinterpretation than underinterpretation in discordant cases, according to an analysis combining results from the B-Path (Breast Pathology) study with data on the prevalence of breast...
Aalders et al found relatively low rates of locoregional recurrence among young (< 35 years) Dutch women undergoing surgery for unilateral invasive breast cancer between 2003 and 2008. Recurrence rates varied somewhat by biologic subtype, according to these findings reported in the Journal of...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Solomon et al found that crizotinib (Xalkori) was associated with a significantly better disease control rate vs chemotherapy among patients with brain metastases in ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Crizotinib was also...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Isaacs et al found that use of primary breast-conserving surgery for early-stage breast cancer has declined somewhat in recent years in New York State, most steeply among younger women. In addition, 90-day reoperation rates have declined and are lower for...
A review of major studies and the current literature underscored the role of geriatric assessment in making treatment recommendations for patients aged 80 years and older with early and metastatic breast cancer. The review was published in the Journal of Oncology Practice. The corresponding author...
African American patients with esophageal cancer survive fewer months after diagnosis than white patients, but only if they also have low incomes, according to a study presented by Loretta Erhunmwunsee, MD, at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Dr. Erhunmwunsee led the study...
Addition of the antifolate receptor-α antibody farletuzumab to carboplatin/taxane did not improve progression-free survival in patients with ovarian cancer in first platinum-sensitive relapse, reported Vergote et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. However, benefit was observed in...
Vaccines for both secondary and primary prevention of breast cancer are showing potential in clinical trials, according to Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, PhD, who is leading much of the vaccine research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Vaccine platforms being explored...
Today’s medical oncologist is increasingly challenged to stay current with the latest developments in cancer treatment. I have been fortunate to speak with many oncologists over the past quarter-century on how professional life has evolved since the 1990s. These conversations have left me with a...
In 2012, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued a recommendation against routine screening for prostate cancer.1,2 The grade D recommendation was considered controversial at the time, and remains so now, because many stakeholders have weighed the same body of evidence and come to...
Treatment with adjuvant endocrine therapy and omission of chemotherapy on the basis of a 21-gene recurrence score ≤ 11 was associated with a high 3-year disease-free survival rate in women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, according to a trial reported in...
In an analysis of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) cohort reported in The Lancet Oncology, Patz et al found that participants who had a negative low-dose computed tomography (CT) prevalence screen had a low incidence of lung cancer detected at first annual screen and exhibited reduced...
A prospective study examining a trimodality treatment approach in localized bladder cancer cases using adaptive image-guided, intensity-modulated radiation therapy found that the bladder preservation rate at 3 years was 83%. These findings were published by Murthy et al in the International Journal ...
Hoster et al found that Ki67 index had greater prognostic value than cytology or growth pattern in mantle cell lymphoma, based on data from European Mantle Cell Lymphoma Network randomized trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. A modified combination of Ki67 index and Mantle Cell...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Harris et al, ASCO released a clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers in addition to estrogen receptor/progesterone receptor and HER2 status to guide decisions on adjuvant systemic therapy in women with early-stage invasive breast...
Treatment with low-dose metformin reduced the risk of metachronous colorectal adenomas and polyps over 12 months in nondiabetic patients who had undergone endoscopic polypectomy, according to a report by Higurashi et al in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details In the double-blind phase III trial,...
In a small trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Mogil et al found that low-magnitude, high-frequency mechanical stimulation improved the whole-body bone mineral density score in childhood cancer survivors with low bone mineral density. Study Details In the double-blind trial, 65 survivors of...
Biomedical engineering researchers at North Carolina State University (NC State) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC Chapel Hill) have developed a technique that uses a patch embedded with microneedles to deliver cancer immunotherapy treatment directly to the site of melanoma....
Many low- and middle-income countries do not have a defined medical specialty in surgical oncology, and lack an educational infrastructure to respond to the local burden of cancer, but a Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) fellowship is succeeding in addressing this problem by training...
Recently released data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) showed that the rate of mastectomies increased between 2005 and 2013, with much of that increase attributed to bilateral mastectomies among women with early-stage cancer in one breast opting for bilateral...
The increased rate of bilateral mastectomies, as shown in recently released data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), is “perplexing,” Ismail Jatoi, MD, PhD, told The ASCO Post. “We are seeing more and more women with unilateral breast cancer opt for bilateral mastectomy,...
Longevity is a common goal among humans. And like all things human, it is not distributed equally. According to world health data, Japan is number one on the longevity list; its 130 million citizens have a life expectancy of about 84.74 years. The sub-Saharan country of Chad is number 224, having ...
I was a third-year internal medicine resident, rotating through the oncology service, when I was asked to perform my first circumcision. My team was rounding on Tom, a 52-year-old gentleman currently receiving third-line treatment for metastatic esophageal cancer; we were discussing at length his...
PILOT Study Title: Feasibility of Assessing Blood Pressure Remotely in Childhood Cancer Survivors (Pilot Study-Survivor) Study Type: Interventional/randomized/parallel assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Purpose: To evaluate a high blood pressure...
The ASCO Post recently spoke with nationally recognized surgical oncologist Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, Jerald L & Carolynn J. Varner Professor of Surgical Oncology & Global Health; Vice Chair of Education; and Program Director, General Surgery Residency, University of Nebraska ...
“New!” “Improved!” “Throw out that old [fill in the blank] and go buy a new [fill in the blank]!” Sound familiar? The key to marketing is to convince customers that they need a product without which they had previously been quite happy. All too often, this strategy is accompanied by a caveat emptor ...
The benefits of rehabilitation in traumatic spinal injuries are well established. Recently, studies have shown similarly positive results in cancer-related spinal injuries, indicating that rehabilitation can play a complementary role in the care management of this patient population....
Although overall survival rates for patients with cancer continue to soar—with 14.5 million cancer survivors today1—most of that gain is among pediatric and older adult patients. For adolescents and young adults with cancer—defined by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as those in the 15- to...
Myeloma is a disease of aging, with a median age at diagnosis in the United States of 69 years.1 As the population ages, forecasts estimate that, within 20 years, 3 of every 4 people diagnosed with multiple myeloma in the United States will be between the ages of 64 and 84 years.2 In anticipation...
There are many different ways to treat cancer: surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and more, sometimes used alone and sometimes in combination. But, in certain circumstances, the best treatment option for a patient may not look much like treatment at all. Instead of attempting to eliminate...
Soon after effective therapies for some childhood malignancies were first identified, early leaders in our field had concerns about what would happen to surviving patients as they aged. In 1975, Giulio D’Angio, MD, one of the founders of modern pediatric radiation oncology, presciently called for...
Smokers whose oropharyngeal tumors are positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) might need more aggressive treatment for their disease, according to research presented by Jose Zevallos, MD, at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium in Scottsdale, Arizona.1 Over time,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved everolimus (Afinitor), an mTOR inhibitor, for the treatment of adult patients with progressive, well-differentiated nonfunctional neuroendocrine tumors of gastrointestinal (GI) or lung origin with unresectable, locally advanced, or metastatic ...
Venous thromboembolic events are more prevalent in patients with cancer than in persons without it. Cancer is associated with a high rate of venous thromboembolism recurrence, bleeding, requirement for long-term anticoagulation, and reduced quality of life. Moreover, thrombosis is the second most...
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Burger and colleagues recently reported findings of the RESONATE-2 trial of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) vs chlorambucil (Leukeran) as initial therapy for elderly patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).1 The study met its primary endpoint of...
In a long-term follow up of two large U.S. prospective cohorts reported in JAMA Oncology, Cao et al found that regular use of aspirin was associated with a reduced risk of gastrointestinal (GI) tract cancers. In 2015, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended the use of aspirin in...
In a phase III trial (ECOG-ACRIN E2805) reported in The Lancet by Haas et al, no benefit of adjuvant VEGFR (vascular endothelial growth factor receptor) inhibitor treatment with sunitinib or sorafenib (Nexavar) was observed vs placebo in patients with completely resected high-risk nonmetastatic...
Consuming a diet with a high glycemic index was independently associated with an increased risk of developing lung cancer in non-Hispanic whites, according to a new epidemiologic study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. This research, published by Melkonian et al in Cancer...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Garcia-Manero et al, the phase III ONTIME trial showed that treatment with the Ras mimetic rigosertib did not significantly improve overall survival vs best supportive care in patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes after failure of hypomethylating...
According to a study led by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) researchers, a majority of patients diagnosed with breast cancer go on to develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and in most of these cases, symptoms persist for at least a year. These findings were published by Voigt et ...
A majority of people with advanced cancer want to hear findings from DNA sequencing and to learn how those results may affect their health and treatment options, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists report. Their findings were reported by Gray et al in Genetics in Medicine. The discovery...
As reported by Shaw et al in The New England Journal of Medicine, a woman with metastatic ALK-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had received multiple prior therapies, including the first- and second-generation ALK inhibitors crizotinib (Xalkori) and ceritinib (Zykadia),...
In the UK phase III PICCOLO trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Seligmann et al found that high expression of either of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) ligands epiregulin or amphiregulin was associated with a progression-free survival benefit with panitumumab (Vectibix)/irinotecan vs...
A study in Cancer1 finding an increasing rate of colorectal cancer among patients under the age of 50 should serve to raise awareness about the need for testing among those with “red-flag” symptoms and earlier screening for those at high risk, the study’s corresponding author, Samantha Hendren, MD, ...
In clinical practice, Samantha Hendren, MD, MPH, has been “shocked by what a large proportion of patients we are seeing who are under 50 and presenting with colorectal cancer,” often with advanced disease due to delayed diagnosis. “And that is because patients and physicians don’t even think of...