Because of their location, cancers on the pancreas often invade and wrap around nearby veins and arteries in the abdomen. When these vessels become involved, surgery to remove the cancer, which is typically the standard treatment, becomes significantly more difficult—sometimes impossible....
In a press conference today, ASCO detailed the contents of the initial version of a conceptual framework for assessing the value of new cancer treatment options based on the treatment’s clinical benefit, side effects, and cost. Other important measures, such as quality of life and...
A single dose of the recombinant human papillomavirus (HPV) bivalent (types 16 and 18) vaccine (Cervarix) appears to be as effective in preventing certain HPV infections as three doses, the currently recommended course of vaccination, concluded a study published by Kreimer et al in The Lancet...
ASCO’s wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary, CancerLinQ LLC, provided the first demonstration of its groundbreaking health information technology platform at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Beginning May 30, demonstrations of the CancerLinQ platform’s initial components were...
A phase III trial comparing 5 years of tamoxifen vs 5 years of the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for postmenopausal women treated for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) found 10-year breast cancer–free interval rates were higher in the anastrozole group than in the tamoxifen group (93.5% vs...
New findings by researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center show that informing parents about their child’s cancer prognosis—even when the prognosis is less than favorable—is much more likely to give parents peace of mind and hope, rather...
A randomized phase III trial among patients with previously untreated melanoma found that initial therapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) alone more than doubled the median progression-free survival compared with ipilimumab (Yervoy) alone (6.9 vs 2.9 months), and the benefit was even greater when the two...
Adding the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab (Gazyva) to standard bendamustine (Treanda) chemotherapy and then following that with single-agent obinutuzumab maintenance therapy “resulted in a statistically significant, but more importantly, a clinically meaningful increase in...
Immunotherapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) produced a clinically meaningful overall response rate in a study among 132 patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The overall objective response rate was 24.8%, and 57% of patients experienced some tumor...
African American patients have a disproportionately high rate of cancer and yet are less likely than Caucasian patients to participate in oncologic clinical trials that can significantly improve quality of life. Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University explored the differences ...
In a Dutch study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Heemskerk-Gerritsen et al in the Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer in the Netherlands (HEBON) study group found no apparent reduction in the risk for breast cancer with salpingo-oophorectomy in healthy BRCA1/2 mutation...
Using brain tumor samples collected from children in the United States and Europe, an international team of scientists found that the drug panobinostat (Farydak) and similar gene-regulating drugs may be effective at treating diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), an aggressive and lethal form of...
Some at-risk patients opted out of comprehensive cancer gene screening when presented with the opportunity to be tested for the presence of genes linked to various cancers, according to a recent study led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the...
For women with a family history of breast cancer, new multigene panel testing yields greater information about cancer risk while assessing deleterious BRCA1/2 mutations as accurately as BRCA testing alone, according to a study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting....
Collaboration between surgeons and medical oncologists specialists “is associated with lower mortality without increased cost among patients with stage III colon cancer,” according to a study by Hussain et al in the Journal of Oncology Practice. An increase from one to five in the...
A new study presented at The International Liver Congress 2015 in Vienna showed that using genomic analyses to understand how and when carcinogenic mutations occur in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma may make it possible to identify specific molecular profiles linked to tumor aggressiveness...
A new surgical approach that removes the fallopian tubes—while sparing the ovaries—may provide premenopausal women at high risk for ovarian cancer, particularly those with BRCA1/2 mutations, with a surgical option that minimizes cancer risk while also reducing some of the negative...
Research from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey shows genomic profiling identifies mutations in a gene associated with a rare subset of breast cancer—mutations that cannot otherwise be identified with standard clinical analysis of cells and tissue. The findings, presented at the AACR...
A disincentive for hospitals that have invested in expensive technology for robotic surgery may be jeopardizing prostate cancer patients who seek out the procedure, concluded a study published by Sammon et al in BJU International. The study compared complication rates in hospitals with low...
Vaccination of women aged 18 to 25 with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine resulted in strong protection against future infection at three anatomic sites among women without prior HPV exposure and may still offer some protection in those with evidence of prior exposure. These findings were...
Obesity in black men substantially increased the risk of low- and high-grade prostate cancer, whereas obesity in white men moderately reduced the risk of low-grade cancer and only slightly increased the risk of high-grade cancer, according to the first large, prospective study to examine how race...
A subset of lung cancer patients can derive important clinical benefits from drugs that are more commonly used to treat melanoma, the authors of a new academic clinical trial in Europe have reported at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) in Geneva (Abstract 21PD_PR). Oliver Gautschi, MD, a...
Cancer DNA circulating in the bloodstream of lung cancer patients can provide doctors with vital mutation information that can help optimize treatment when tumor tissue is not available, an international group of researchers has reported at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) in Geneva...
Three or more hours of walking per week can boost the vitality and health of prostate cancer survivors. Men and women who have survived colorectal cancer and are regular walkers also reported lower sensations of burning, numbness, tingling, or loss of reflexes that many often experience after...
Public health programs that devote a portion of their funding to encourage more boys to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV)—rather than merely attempting to raise coverage among girls—may ultimately protect more people for the same price, a study from Duke University...
A particular molecular pathway permits stem cells in pediatric bone cancers to grow rapidly and aggressively, according to researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center. These findings were published by Basu-Roy et al in Nature Communications. Study...
A substantial gap exists between patient expectations and current practices for providing information about medical imaging tests that use radiation, according to a new study published by Thornton et al in the journal Radiology. Researchers said the findings highlight a need for better...
Very low mammographic breast density worsens the prognosis of breast cancer, according to a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland. Researchers published their findings in an article by Masarwah et al in European Radiology. The lower the breast tissue density, the less fibroglandular...
Numerous studies have documented racial differences in deaths from cancer among non-Hispanic whites and African Americans, but little has been known about survival outcomes for Asian Americans who have been diagnosed with cancer. In a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer...
In a new study, UCLA researchers have developed a cognitive rehabilitation program to address post-treatment cognitive changes, sometimes known as “chemobrain,” which can affect up to 35% of post-treatment breast cancer patients. Their findings were reported by Erocli et al in...
According to researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), hepatic parenchymal preservation, in which a surgeon removes less than a lobe of the liver in a patient undergoing an operation for liver cancer, is associated with lower mortality and complication rates. Their study...
Scientists from the Broad Institute and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT used CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology to “knock out,” or turn off, all genes across the genome systematically in a mouse model of non–small cell lung cancer cells and then tested...
In a pooled analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Schadendorf et al found 3-year overall survival rates of 26% and 20% in treatment-naive and previously treated patients receiving ipilimumab (Yervoy)-based treatment for unresectable or metastatic melanoma. A survival curve plateau...
Scientists have developed a new test that predicts the survival chances of women with breast cancer by analyzing images of “hotspots” where there has been a fierce immune reaction to a tumor. Using statistical software previously used in criminology studies of crime hotspots,...
A prospective, multicenter, observational study involving 992 consecutive patients with one to four asymptomatic, sonographically or cytologically benign thyroid nodules found that “the majority of nodules exhibited no significant size change during 5 years of follow-up or they actually...
Patients with larger malignant tumors of the breast who undergo chemotherapy before a breast cancer operation are more likely to undergo a lumpectomy than a mastectomy, according to a study published by Killelea et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Study investigators from...
Immune cells engineered to seek out and attack a type of deadly brain cancer were found to be safe and effective at controlling tumor growth in mice that were treated with these modified cells, according a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and the Novartis...
Findings from a small prospective study suggest that androgen receptor V7 (or AR-V7) status does not significantly affect response to taxane chemotherapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Treatment outcomes were largely similar for the 17 patients with...
Cancer researchers at University College London (UCL) have found that a cancer false alarm could discourage patients from checking out cancer symptoms they develop in the future. More than 80% of patients with potential cancer symptoms are given the all-clear after investigations. But according to ...
Common surgical procedures used to diagnose and treat precancerous cervical lesions do not decrease women's chances of becoming pregnant, according to a study conducted by Kaiser Permanente Northwest, which followed nearly 100,000 women for up to 12 years. In fact, researchers found that women ...
A new, multidisciplinary approach to managing patients undergoing a colorectal operation results in shorter hospital stays, fewer complications, and lower medical costs, according a study published by Thiele et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Currently, patients undergoing...
In women who have undergone mastectomy, those who underwent delayed breast reconstruction experienced greater cancer-related distress over the long term compared with women who underwent mastectomy alone, according to a prospective study by Metcalfe et al in the Journal of Surgical Oncology. For...
Ten months after California legislators enacted a controversial law mandating that radiologists notify women if they have dense breast tissue, University of California (UC), Davis researchers have found that half of primary care physicians are still unfamiliar with the law, and many don't feel...
Researchers at University of North Carolina School of Medicine have created the first mouse model of the most aggressive form of ovarian cancer and found a potential route to better treatments and much-needed diagnostic screens. Led by Terry Magnuson, PhD, the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor and Chair ...
Chemotherapy resistance is one of the most formidable obstacles to treating acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common form of childhood cancer. Now researchers at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) have designed and developed a new protein-based therapy that may prove highly...
Taking a hormonal contraceptive for at least 5 years is associated with a possible increase in women’s risk of developing a glioma, according to a study by Andersen et al published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. Study Details While little is known about the causes of...
A somatic mutation in the ATRX gene has recently been identified as a potential molecular marker for gliomas, neuroblastomas, and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Now, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found that the same mutated gene may serve...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) announced today that it will use SAP HANA®, a data management and application platform, in the development of CancerLinQ, the Society’s health information technology platform that will harness Big Data to deliver high-quality care to...
Updated results from TRIBE, an Italian phase III study of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, indicate that FOLFOXIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil [5-FU], oxaliplatin, irinotecan) chemotherapy in combination with bevacizumab (Avastin) is superior to the standard FOLFIRI (leucovorin, 5-FU,...
A recent study on the use of minimally invasive surgery for colorectal cancer at National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) centers has found that although laparoscopic colectomy results in equivalent oncologic outcomes compared to open colectomy, its adoption nationally has been slow. An...