As reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice by Fahrenbruch et al, the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (HOPA) has issued a position statement on dose rounding of biologic and cytotoxic anticancer agents. To formulate the position statement, the HOPA standards committee organized a work ...
Law and Ethics in Oncology explores the legal and ethical issues oncologists must be aware of in this era of precision medicine and changing health-care policy, both to protect patients’ rights and to safeguard against potential legal jeopardy. Increasingly, across the United States, hospitals are...
Christopher J. Recklitis, PhD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, summarizes two key papers on mental health: suicide risk among survivors of head and neck cancer vs other types of cancer; and the fear of cancer recurrence—its associations with mental health status and individual characteristics ...
Genevieve Chaput, MD, of McGill University Health Centre, discusses an accredited workshop that increased primary care providers’ confidence and knowledge about cancer survivorship, which is key to supporting their growing role in post-treatment care (Abstract 20).
When Yelak Biru was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1995, he and his physicians had one main posttreatment goal: to detect and treat any relapse early and to prolong survival as long as possible with the limited drugs available. Then, in the early 2000s, came newer treatments. Myeloma survival...
We have covered many of the important presentations from the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in the pages of The ASCO Post and in our online Evening News. Here are summaries of additional noteworthy studies presented at the meeting. We hope you will find them of interest. Predicting...
Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) has announced a “Convergence 2.0” research initiative that awards $11 million to 7 multidisciplinary research teams to investigate immune system response to cancer. The multi-institutional teams were announced at SU2C’s Scientific Summit. Each team comprises experts in...
The BBVA Foundation awarded its Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Biomedicine category to American immunologist James P. Allison, PhD, whose innovative research has almost single-handedly transformed cancer treatment. His seminal research in immunotherapy has paved the way for the development of ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Gregory P. Kalemkerian, MD, and colleagues, ASCO has endorsed the College of American Pathologists (CAP), International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) updated guideline on molecular...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Overman et al, findings in the nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) cohort of the CheckMate-142 study indicate a high response rate and durable responses with the combination in previously treated patients with DNA mismatch...
ASCO has released its review of leading oncology pathway vendors in the United States. “Oncology Clinical Pathways: Charting the Landscape of Pathway Providers,” published in the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP), examines the clinical pathways offered by six commercial vendors using...
Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors is the first of a new generation of immunotherapy treatments, revolutionizing treatment for many different types of cancer. By unleashing the body's immune system to attack cancer, these treatments can send even the most hard-to-treat cancers into...
Cancer care guidelines recommend that cancer survivors who experience sexual dysfunction after cancer treatment use therapeutic aids to help improve their sexual health. However, a new study of 25 leading cancer centers found that 87% of the centers reported having no sexual aids available on site...
New findings from a clinical trial of women with breast cancer suggest that guided exercise with a physical therapist after lymph node dissection helps women regain their range of arm motion more quickly. These findings will be presented by Paskett et al at the upcoming 2018 Cancer Survivorship...
A follow-up study to a randomized clinical trial reveals that exercising during adjuvant chemotherapy helps people engage in more physical activity years later. Four years later, people with breast or colon cancer who had participated in an 18-week exercise program while receiving chemotherapy...
Jeffrey M. Holzbeierlein, MD, of the University of Kansas Medical Center, summarizes key abstracts on long-term sexual function in germ cell tumor survivors, sentinel node biopsy in clinical stage I testicular cancer, the impact of Medicaid expansion on diagnosis and management of patients with...
Results from the phase III PROSPER trial in patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer were presented by Hussain et al at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (Abstract 3). The results show that the use of enzalutamide (Xtandi) plus androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT)...
AS REPORTED BY Catherine Van Poznak, MD, FASCO, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) have collaborated in providing a focused update for the ASCO clinical practice guideline on the role of bone-modifying...
TWO IMPORTANT STUDIES, both updates of earlier findings and presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, provided different findings as to the relative benefit of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane), vs solvent-based paclitaxel in breast cancer. “The two studies...
THE INVESTIGATIONAL agent BLU-285 (avapritinib) has shown significant activity in patients with advanced or aggressive forms of systemic mastocytosis, a rare blood disorder that originates in mast cells, according to the findings of a phase I trial reported at the 2017 American Society of...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Shadman et al, long-term follow-up of patients with previously untreated advanced-stage follicular lymphoma in the phase III SWOG-S0016 trial has shown continued good outcomes with both R-CHOP (rituximab [Rituxan] plus cyclophosphamide,...
In an article in The Lancet, Allemani et al reported findings from the CONCORD program for global surveillance of cancer survival trends updated through 2014 (CONCORD-3). Study Details CONCORD-3 includes data on 37.5 million patients diagnosed with cancer between 2000 and 2014 from...
IN PATIENTS undergoing treatment of multiple myeloma, the prophylactic use of levofloxacin significantly reduced febrile episodes and deaths, without increasing healthcare-associated infections or carriage of key nosocomial pathogens, in a large multicenter study from the United Kingdom.1 The...
Esophageal cancer is the eighth most common cancer worldwide, with an estimated 456,000 new cases in 2012, and the sixth most common cause of death from cancer with an estimated 400,000 deaths, according to data from GLOBOCAN, which provides statistics on the incidence and mortality of cancer...
A new analysis of the ongoing STAMPEDE clinical trial found that adding docetaxel to hormone therapy for advanced prostate cancer improves quality of life and lowers the need for subsequent therapy. Docetaxel was also found to be cost-effective. These findings will be presented by James et al at...
In a phase III clinical trial of patients with previously untreated metastatic renal cell cancer combining the immunotherapy atezolizumab (Tecentriq) with the targeted therapy bevacizumab (Avastin) delayed cancer growth by about 3 months longer than sunitinib, another targeted therapy. The benefit...
Researchers have developed a model to predict overall survival for people with advanced urothelial cancers treated with the immune checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq). The model, which is based on six clinical factors, may help inform treatment decisions for use of atezolizumab in these...
Findings from the phase III placebo-controlled SPARTAN trial suggest that apalutamide is an effective treatment for men with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who are at high risk for developing metastatic disease and for whom no approved treatments exist. Men who received...
AS REVIEWED in this issue of The ASCO Post, ASCO and Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) have issued an updated guideline on the role of bone-modifying agents in metastatic breast cancer.1 The updated guideline supports a change in clinical practice for our patients with breast cancer and bone metastasis....
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology Tumors & Treatment: A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The Antiseptic Era: 1876–1900.” The photograph...
Now that we have entered 2018, let’s take a moment to reflect on how far we have come and what lies ahead in integrative oncology care. Overview To cope with the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of cancer, and in search of relief from symptoms that their conventional treatments have not...
As part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) efforts to enhance transparency around its drug-approval decisions, the FDA is exploring new ways to build on its obligation to share information about product approvals, as announced by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD. The FDA is...
Mary L. Disis, MD, of the University of Washington, discusses innate and adaptive immune system cells, T cells as key to mediating antitumor immunity, and the mechanisms by which cancer evades the immune system.
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kenneth Anderson, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline update on the role of bone-modifying agents in multiple myeloma. The update was informed by an expert panel systematic literature...
ROBERT W. DAY, MD, the longest-serving President and Director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the leader who brought into being its campus overlooking Seattle’s South Lake Union, died in his Seattle home on January 6, 2018 of lung cancer. He was 87. “It is a tragic loss for all of...
While many patients with cancer can benefit from palliative care to ease symptoms from the disease or its treatment, for children with cancer, especially critically ill children, palliative care can provide an additional layer of medical and emotional support for both young patients and their...
Primary endpoint findings and updated results of secondary endpoints from the phase II LAPACT trial of nanoparticle albumin–bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) plus gemcitabine in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer were presented by Hammel et al at the 2018 Gastrointestinal (GI)...
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, a recent ASCO panel, chaired by Bryan Schneider, MD, and Brendon Stiles, MD, has provided an endorsement of a recently published guideline on the use of stereotactic body radiotherapy for non–small cell lung cancer.1 The original guideline,2 developed and ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Bryan J. Schneider, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues, ASCO has endorsed the recently released American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) evidence-based guideline on stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) in early...
Here is an update on five different studies featured at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. Topics center on possible newer treatment regimens in both Hodgkin and Burkitt lymphomas, relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and newly...
In patients with early breast cancer, the presence in the blood of circulating tumor cells 5 years after diagnosis increases the risk for recurrence nearly 20-fold, researchers reported at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “We found that a single positive circulating tumor cell assay...
The combination of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus trastuzumab (Herceptin) may turn out to be a good treatment option for patients with trastuzumab-resistant advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, according to the results of an early study presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium...
In relapsed or refractory triple-negative breast cancer, the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan (IMMU-132) demonstrated significant clinical activity in an open-label study presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “Metastatic triple-negative breast cancer is an...
The Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) 8th annual Trending Now in Cancer Care survey, conducted in partnership with Advisory Board’s Oncology Roundtable, has identified current and emerging trends across U.S. cancer programs. When asked to identify the top threats to future cancer ...
A new study has found that a test that identifies circulating tumor cells (CTCs) present in the bloodstream can detect colorectal cancer at an early stage, with accuracy ranging from 84% to 88%. Most prior studies using CTCs have been able to detect late-stage colorectal cancer, and this study is...
Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found that two estrogen-mimicking compounds found in many foods appear to potently reverse the effects of palbociclib/letrozole, a popular drug combination for treating breast cancer. The study, published by Warth et al in Cell Chemical...
On January 8, Merck and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) announced that the phase III EORTC1325/KEYNOTE-054 trial investigating pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as monotherapy for surgically resected high-risk melanoma met its primary endpoint of recurrence-free...
On December 22, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) and granted Priority Review designation to dabrafenib (Tafinlar) in combination with trametinib (Mekinist) for the adjuvant treatment of patients with stage III melanoma with BRAF V600E...
Suicidal ideation while receiving end-of-life cancer care is not unusual but can often be reversed by palliative and psychosocial oncology interventions. That said, there are patients who, even after intensive interventions, request medical assistance in dying. Physician-assisted death has been a...
Yoga therapy delivered to patients with lung cancer and their caregivers together appears to be a feasible and beneficial supportive care strategy. According to data presented at the 2017 Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium,1 the dyadic intervention resulted in a clinically and...