In an analysis of the UK cohort of the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study (IBIS-I) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Smith et al found similar effects of predefined symptoms on nonadherence in both tamoxifen and placebo recipients. IBIS-I randomized women at high risk of...
THE PAST YEAR has undoubtedly been a disappointing one as far as clinical advances in pancreatic cancer go. No fewer than five high-profile randomized phase II or III trials in this setting reported negative results in 2016, ranging from next-generation cytotoxic agents1 to novel immunotherapeutic ...
IN THE EUROPEAN phase III ESPAC-4 trial reported in The Lancet, John P. Neoptolemos, MD, of the Liverpool Clinical and Cancer Research UK Trials Unit, University of Liverpool, and colleagues found that adding adjuvant capecitabine to gemcitabine significantly improved overall survival in patients...
AS REPORTED in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Robert Chen, MD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, and colleagues, the phase II KEYNOTE-087 trial has shown that the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is highly active in patients with relapsed/...
In the past decade, advances in surgical oncology have been echoed in the field of geriatric oncology. The current literature regarding older people with cancer includes mainly retrospective cohort studies, focusing on alternatives to radical surgery in comorbid patients. More recently, work has...
ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) Study continues to expand and now has more than 300 participants enrolled on study drugs, more than 100 sites in 20 states, new partnerships, and a -revised protocol to lower the age of eligibility. Recently, eight new centers in 36...
Second cancers in children and adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are far deadlier than they are in older adults and may partially account for the relatively poor outcomes of cancer patients between the ages of 15 and 39 overall, a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Ian E. Smith, MD, of The Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research, and colleagues, final results of the phase III FACE trial showed no difference in disease-free or overall survival for adjuvant letrozole vs anastrozole in...
HERE ARE SEVERAL ABSTRACTS selected from the proceedings of the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, highlighting clinical trials on autologous and allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation for various hematologic malignancies. Additional selected...
“PRECISION MEDICINE will lead to fundamental understanding of the complex interplay among genetics, epigenetics, nutrition, environment and clinical presentation, and direct effective, evidence-based prevention and treatment. We can’t measure all that all at once right now, but we are starting to...
The family and staff of Harborside Press mourn the loss of former colleague, and forever friend James F. McCarthy, who passed away after a brief illness on June 23, 2017. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 7, 1929, to John A. and Eda K. McCarthy, Jim was a graduate of Brooklyn Preparatory High ...
DACOMITINIB, a second-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor, outperformed gefitinib (Iressa) as first-line treatment for EGFR-positive advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the phase III ARCHER 1050 study.1 Dacomitinib improved...
The troubling results from a survey1 investigating the sexual harassment and discrimination experiences of academic medical faculty show that such incidents continue to happen with unexpected frequency despite increasing awareness of the problem. The study by Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, and...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, R. Coleman Lindsley, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that a number of mutations present in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) were associated with poorer clinical outcome after allogeneic...
An interim analysis of the SCALP trial, reported in JAMA by Julie Nangia, MD, of Baylor College of Medicine, and colleagues, showed that use of a scalp-cooling device significantly reduced hair loss in women receiving chemotherapy for stage I or II breast cancer compared with no scalp cooling.1 The ...
Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) has announced the launch of a 3-year research study that will investigate the link between new-onset diabetes and pancreatic cancer. The main goal of the study is to detect the often lethal cancer at a curable stage. The study was developed by a team of...
As reported by Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology, interim analysis of a phase III trial has shown the superiority of adding the phosphoinositide-3-kinase δ inhibitor idelalisib (Zydelig) to bendamustine/rituximab (Rituxan) in...
As reported by Stolley et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a community-based interventionist-guided weight loss program for African American breast cancer survivors (Moving Forward) proved successful in achieving weight loss goals compared with a self-guided weight loss program. African...
In a phase III trial (Cancer and Leukemia Group B 10603 [RATIFY]/Alliance) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Stone et al found that the addition of midostaurin (Rydapt) to standard chemotherapy improved overall survival in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia with...
A phase III trial has shown no significant difference in overall survival with first-line cetuximab (Erbitux) vs bevacizumab (Avastin) plus chemotherapy in patients with advanced or metastatic KRAS wild-type colorectal cancer. These study findings were reported by Venook et al in JAMA. The trial...
In a prospective cohort study reported in JAMA, Kuchenbaecker et al derived estimates of cumulative risks for breast, ovarian, and contralateral breast cancers among women carrying BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. Study Details The study involved data from 6,036 BRCA1 and 3,820 BRCA2 carriers recruited...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Brose et al, a prespecified analysis of the phase III double-blind SELECT trial of lenvatinib (Lenvima) vs placebo in radioiodine-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer showed progression-free survival benefits in both older and younger...
As reported by Carbone et al in The New England Journal of Medicine, the phase III CheckMate 026 trial has shown no progression-free survival benefit for first-line nivolumab (Opdivo) vs platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with recurrent or stage IV non–small cell lung cancer with...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about 28 million people younger than age 65 are uninsured, compared with more than 48 million in 2010, before the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. A review of current evidence concerning the relationship between health insurance...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), tobacco use and exposure accounts for about one-third of all cancer-related deaths in the United States. Moreover, exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke is attributable to more than 7,000 lung cancer–related deaths each year in ...
Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Director of Medical Oncology, Assistant Dean for Cancer Research, Emory University School of Medicine; Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research, Deputy Director, Winship Cancer Institute ASCO Member since ...
Findings from a retrospective study showed that women who became pregnant after an early breast cancer diagnosis, including those with estrogen receptor–positive tumors, did not have a higher chance of cancer recurrence and death than those who did not become pregnant.1 Matteo Lambertini, MD, of...
In the phase III NETTER-1 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Jonathan R. Strosberg, MD, of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, and colleagues found that the addition of the targeted radiotherapeutic agent lutetium Lu-177 dotatate to the long-acting repeatable (LAR)...
The joint American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), College of American Pathologists (CAP), Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), and ASCO guideline reported by Sepulveda et al, and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, represents a collaboration of three pathology societies and ASCO ...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is a hot area of research and development in hematologic malignancies and, more recently, some solid tumors. Results have been particularly good in acute lymphocytic leukemia, and one or more CAR T-cell products may be getting close to approval by the ...
“No man is an island entire of itself; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” —John Donne (1624) This statement is almost certainly true—and sadly in a negative way not just for the UK but for...
Nearly 1 in 2 Canadians is expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, according to a new report—Canadian Cancer Statistics 2017—released by the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada. For males, the...
Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN) has announced the launch of a 3-year research study that will investigate the link between new-onset diabetes and pancreatic cancer. The main goal is to detect the often lethal cancer at a curable stage. The study was developed by a team of physicians and...
When patients with metastatic cancer used a Web-based tool to self-report symptoms proactively during treatment, they lived 5 months longer than did patients assigned to usual care. In addition, they had improved quality of life and fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations compared with...
A draft recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advises that for men aged 55 to 69, the decision to be screened for prostate cancer should be an individual one, based on the man’s own values and priorities and discussions with a clinician about the potential benefits...
For a man aged 55 to 69 years, the decision to be screened for prostate cancer should be an individual one, based on the man’s own values and priorities and discussions with a clinician about the potential benefits and harms of screening, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advised in ...
In a Swedish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stacy Loeb, MD, of New York University, and colleagues found that use of testosterone replacement therapy was not associated with an increased risk of prostate cancer and was associated with a lower risk of aggressive cancer among...
Breast cancer surgeon Monica Morrow, MD, came from a town in the far northeast reaches of suburban Philadelphia. “I guess because there were only two girls in our family, I was the son my father never had, and he reared me that way. When we were playing catch, if I missed the ball and got hit in...
Three years ago, early results from the U.S. Intergroup C10403 trial,1 which evaluated the effectiveness of treating adolescent and young adults (AYAs) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using an intensive pediatric regimen, showed significant improvement in event-free and overall survival...
I recently saw a patient in our survivorship clinic. She was treated at age 15 years for Hodgkin lymphoma and is now in her early 50s. During the prior 2 decades, she had developed both bilateral breast cancer and thyroid cancer, as well as multiple basal cell carcinomas, all occurring within her...
In a retrospective multicenter cohort study reported in JAMA, Lucie M. Turcotte, MD, MPH, of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues found that the risk of subsequent neoplasms in 5-year survivors of childhood cancers decreased between those diagnosed in the 1970s vs the 1990s but ...
Three separate brief psychological interventions aimed at helping cancer patients cope with distress have shown improvements in quality of life and well-being across the continuum of cancer care. The interventions were studied—respectively—in newly diagnosed cancer patients, survivors after cancer...
An updated interim analysis from an ongoing phase I/II clinical trial evaluating brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) and nivolumab (Opdivo) in relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland (Abstract...
Clinical data from an ongoing phase I clinical trial evaluating ADCT-402 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the 14th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. ADCT-402 is a novel antibody-drug conjugate composed of a ...
Data was recently presented from the phase III GENUINE trial of ublituximab, a novel glycoengineered anti–CD20 monoclonal antibody, in combination with ibrutinib (Imbruvica), a Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, for the treatment of high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), at the...
According to a study by Olszewski and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Medicare Part D beneficiaries without a low-income subsidy may face daunting barriers in affording oral immunomodulatory drugs for myeloma. The low-income subsidy markedly reduces out-of-pocket costs for...
The phase III ASCEND-5 trial has shown a significant improvement in progression-free survival with ceritinib (Zykadia) vs chemotherapy in advanced ALK-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously treated with crizotinib (Xalkori) and chemotherapy. Trial results were reported in...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of daratumumab (Darzalex) in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies including lenalidomide (Revlimid) and a...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has published its first set of consensus screening recommendations for children with common cancer predisposition syndromes in Clinical Cancer Research. These recommendations emerged from the Childhood Cancer Predisposition Workshop held by the...
In the phase III MONARCH 2 trial reported at the recent ASCO Annual Meeting and in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Sledge et al, the addition of the selective cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor abemaciclib to fulvestrant (Faslodex) improved progression-free survival in hormone...