Although initiation of palliative care from the time of cancer diagnosis produces optimal outcomes for patients, this strategy is often not practiced. A recent Canadian study conducted in patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers examined the opinions of patients with advanced cancer and...
ASCO has released the “ASCO Principles for Patient-Centered Health-Care Reform,” seven recommendations designed to ensure access to high-quality cancer care amid the changing U.S. health-care delivery landscape. The principles aim to assist the new Congress and Administration, so, as they consider...
Telehealth is the delivery of health care remotely via telecommunication tools. Its aim is to increase access to care, especially for patients with chronic diseases such as cancer and for populations for whom care is not always available. With the growing availability of broadband and portable...
Currently, there is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved therapy for chronic graft-vs-host disease—a life-threatening consequence of stem cell or bone marrow transplant—that has not responded to corticosteroids, but this may be about to change. Ibrutinib (Imbruvica) achieved...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is pleased to announce that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded the organization a 5-year, $1.125 million grant to continue providing clinical fellow and junior faculty clinical researchers the opportunity to learn the essentials of...
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Assistant Professor Jie Deng, PhD, RN, has been awarded a $789,000 research scholar grant by the American Cancer Society to develop and test a self-care program for head and neck cancer survivors diagnosed with secondary lymphedema/fibrosis....
In a phase III trial (ENGOT-OV16/NOVA) reported at the 2016 ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology) Congress and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Mansoor R. Mirza, MD, of the Rigshospitalet–Copenhagen University Hospital, and colleagues, maintenance therapy with the PARP (poly...
Sir Donald Munger: “You have been on holiday, I understand. Relaxing, I hope?” James Bond: “Oh, hardly relaxing, but most satisfying.” (Diamonds Are Forever) As tyrosine kinase inhibitors became the mainstay of therapy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), our assumption has been that...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Gabriel Etienne, MD, PhD, of the Institut Bergonié, Bordeaux, and colleagues, long-term follow-up in the French Stop Imatinib (STIM1) study indicates that imatinib can be safely stopped in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) with...
In the phase III CheckMate 141 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that nivolumab (Opdivo) increased overall survival vs standard therapies in patients with...
As reported by Erik P. Sulman, MD, PhD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has endorsed the 2016 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) evidence-based guideline on radiation therapy for glioblastoma.1 The endorsement was based on review ...
Ensuring that people with cancer understand how cancer treatment could affect their fertility and what options are available for preserving fertility were widely recognized as top priorities by attendees of the 2016 Oncofertility Conference in Chicago. As detailed at the conference, means of...
High-risk patients with smoldering multiple myeloma responded to a regimen of elotuzumab (Empliciti), lenalidomide (Revlimid), and dexamethasone, in a multicenter phase II study led by Irene Ghobrial, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.1 “The high response rates among this patient...
Results of the ONO-4538-12 trial demonstrated that nivolumab (Opdivo) significantly reduced the risk of death by 37% (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.63; P < .0001) in patients with previously treated advanced gastric cancer refractory to or intolerant of standard therapy, a condition without current ...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Parada et al found that higher intake of grilled/barbecued and smoked meat may be associated with poorer overall survival in breast cancer survivors. Grilled/barbecued and smoked meat, a source of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon...
In a phase III trial (NETTER-1) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Strosberg et al found that the addition of the targeted radiotherapeutic agent lutetium Lu-177 dotatate to octreotide long-acting repeatable (LAR) (Sandostatin LAR) significantly improved progression-free...
As reported by Plimack et al in The Lancet Oncology, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has shown activity in patients in the locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma cohort included in the phase Ib KEYNOTE-012 trial. Study Details In the study, 33 patients with locally advanced or metastatic...
In an analysis from the Canadian Cancer Trials Group MAP.3 chemoprevention trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Meggetto et al found that worsening of overall menopause-specific quality of life was associated with early discontinuation of study treatment in high-risk postmenopausal...
Real-world data from a large observational study suggests that omitting surgery in strictly selected patients with a clinical complete response does not compromise outcomes in rectal cancer. The 3-year survival rate among patients who received “watch-and-wait” care after initial cancer...
Moore et al found that mirvetuximab soravtansine (also known as IMGN853)—an antibody-drug conjugate targeting folate receptor alpha (FRα)—is active in FRα-positive platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to a phase I expansion cohort study reported in the Journal of...
In an article published by Siegel et al in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, researchers assert that exposure to medical radiation does not increase a person’s risk of getting cancer. The long-held belief that even low doses of radiation, such as those received in diagnostic imaging, increase...
ASCO has released the “ASCO Principles for Patient-Centered Health-care Reform,” seven recommendations designed to ensure access to high-quality cancer care amid the changing U.S. health-care delivery landscape. The principles aim to assist the new Congress and Administration, so, as...
Out-of-pocket expenditures are thought to be a significant barrier to receiving cancer preventive services, especially for individuals of lower socioeconomic status. A new study published by Cooper et al in Cancer looked at how the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which eliminated such out-of-pocket...
In a brief report in The New England Journal of Medicine, Brown et al described regression of glioblastoma after chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. A 50-year-old patient with recurrent multifocal glioblastoma after tumor resection, radiation therapy, and temozolomide was treated with...
In a meta-analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jackson et al found that overall survival with sorafenib (Nexavar) in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma was significantly improved vs comparator treatments among patients who were both hepatitis B virus (HBV)-negative and hepatitis C...
Despite many successes in treating pediatric cancer, young children remain at high risk for developing severe, long-lasting impairments in their brain, heart, and other vital organs from chemotherapy and radiation treatments. In adults, however, these tissues are relatively spared. This disparity, ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Knight et al of the Children’s Oncology Group found that the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Ototoxicity (SIOP) scale may be more sensitive than other classification systems in detecting ototoxicity in children...
In a European phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Azzouzi et al found that padeliporfin vascular-targeted photodynamic therapy was associated with a reduced rate of disease progression vs active surveillance in men with low-risk prostate cancer. Study Details In the open-label trial, ...
A large population-based observational study by Xabier García-Albéniz, MD, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and colleagues evaluating the effectiveness and safety of screening colonoscopy for the prevention of colorectal cancer in people aged 70 to 74 and 75 to 79 has found...
An analysis of data from nearly 6 million screening mammograms found no evidence for a clear cutoff age to stop breast cancer screening. Screening mammography among women aged 75 years was associated with higher cancer detection and lower recall rates than among younger women in the study. These...
One of the featured “Big Debates” at the 2016 World Cancer Congress in Paris addressed this question: Are scarce resources best applied to prevention rather than treatment? Many experts do not see prevention vs treatment in such stark terms or even as a realistic scenario. It’s a false dichotomy,...
The following five abstracts were chosen as the best submitted studies presented at this year’s International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO). They represent a diverse group of integrative therapies and interventions in the care of patients with cancer, including an...
As neoadjuvant therapy, abemaciclib alone or in combination with anastrozole achieved strong signals of anticancer activity in postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer in the neoMONARCH phase II study.1 Abemaciclib alone or in combination with anastrozole...
The addition of everolimus (Afinitor) to fulvestrant (Faslodex) doubled progression-free survival in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer resistant to aromatase inhibitor therapy compared with fulvestrant plus placebo, according to the...
On December 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed marketing of a new tissue-expander system for soft-tissue expansion in two-stage breast reconstruction following mastectomy and in the treatment of underdeveloped breasts and soft-tissue deformities. A patient uses a dose...
The following essay by Jeremy K. Hon, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org. As physicians, ...
Despite the fact that 28 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to permit the use of cannabis and cannabinoid-based drugs to treat medical conditions, including cancer and symptoms from its treatment, federal law prohibits physicians from prescribing marijuana to their patients,...
On November 17, 2016, the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) issued an updated clinical practice statement for accelerated partial-breast irradiation for early-stage breast cancer. The updated guideline reflects recent evidence that greater numbers of patients may benefit from...
Women with hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer are witnessing an unprecedented time of success in the battle against their disease. Just in the past 12 months, a number of prospective, randomized, phase III studies were reported, with positive results indicating the value of...
In the phase III PALOMA-2 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Richard S. Finn, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues found that the addition of palbociclib (Ibrance) to letrozole significantly improved...
The results of every Presidential election offer both challenges and opportunities for ASCO’s advocacy efforts. ASCO’s mission is to help practices and patients with cancer thrive—in every setting and in every community. Through each administration and Congress, the Society works closely with...
Additional interventions following upfront autologous stem cell transplant in multiple myeloma did not further improve progression-free or overall survival over transplant alone in a multicenter study presented as a late-breaking abstract at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual...
There has been no better time than the present for women in the field of oncology: Women at all stages of their careers are finding more opportunities and avenues to excel. At the time of the last ASCO workforce survey, women made up 28.4% of the oncologist workforce, and that proportion is rising...
Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) considered at standard risk for relapse should continue to receive standard-intensity regimens, according to findings from the international randomized AIEOP-BFM ALL 2000 trial.1 A reduced-intensity treatment for children with ALL considered to have ...
The diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer have long been a source of controversy among the oncology community, the political sector, and patient advocacy groups. Most notably, the decision to biopsy a man’s prostate gland rests largely on his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test numbers, the...
Michael Gnant, MD, Professor of Surgery at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria and President of the Austrian Breast & Colorectal Cancer Study Group, was the invited discussant of the three studies of extended endocrine therapy. “The trials did not reach the necessary statistical levels ...
Extended endocrine therapy with an aromatase inhibitor did not improve disease-free survival in patients with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer enrolled in three studies presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The results stand in contrast to the phase III National Cancer...
A routine blood test may predict how long patients with cancer in palliative care will survive, researchers reported at the ESMO Asia 2016 Congress in Singapore. “Cancer patients in palliative care want honest and accurate prognostic information but this information needs to be shared...
In the phase III OAK trial reported in The Lancet by Rittmeyer et al, treatment with the anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody atezolizumab (Tecentriq) improved overall survival vs docetaxel in previously treated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results of the trial...
Regorafenib (Stivarga) improved overall survival vs placebo in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who had experienced disease progression on sorafenib (Nexavar) treatment, according to the phase III RESORCE trial reported by Bruix et al in The Lancet. Study Details In this double-blind trial, ...