In an analysis from the NRG Oncology/Gynecologic Oncology Group 210 trial reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Felix et al found that tubal ligation, which should impede transtubal passage of cells, was associated with lower stage of endometrial cancer at presentation and...
Organ transplant recipients are twice as likely to develop melanoma as people who do not undergo a transplant and three times more likely to die of the skin cancer, suggested new research by a multi-institutional team. The findings, reported by Robbins et al in the Journal of Investigative...
A large observational study investigating the effect of coffee consumption on advanced-stage colon cancer and survival has found that patients who drank four or more cups of coffee a day were 42% less likely to experience a recurrence than non-coffee drinkers and were 33% less likely to die from...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Howitt et al found that polymerase e (POLE)-mutant and microsatellite-unstable endometrial tumors may be candidates for anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) immunotherapy. Study Details In the study, neoantigen load was predicted on the basis of...
A novel combination therapy appears to be effective in treating patients with melanoma skin metastases, according to new research from the University of California (UC) Davis. Led by Emanual Maverakis, MD, of the UC Davis Department of Dermatology, the research found that interleukin-2...
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified a molecular partnership in pancreatic cancer cells that might help to explain how the disease metastasizes in some cases. Their findings reveal urgently needed new targets to treat pancreatic cancer and were published by Foley et...
Medulloblastoma, the most commonly occurring malignant brain tumor in children, can be classified into four subgroups, each with a different risk profile requiring subgroup-specific therapy. Currently, subgroup determination is done after surgical removal of the tumor. Investigators at...
Scientists have known for years that a mutation in the BRAF gene makes moles start to grow but until now have not understood why they sometimes do not become cancerous. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have identified a major genetic factor that...
Duke University researchers found that packaging the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel into nanoparticles more than doubled the drug’s effectiveness in destroying tumors in preclinical models. Their findings were published by Bhattacharyya et al in Nature Communications. Paclitaxel has been ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Van Poznak et al, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers to guide decisions on systemic therapy in women with metastatic breast cancer. The statement is based on an ASCO expert panel assessment of systematic reviews, ...
More than 80,000 people undergo resection of a pulmonary tumor each year, and currently the only method to determine whether the tumor is malignant is histologic analysis. A new study reported that a targeted molecular contrast agent can be used successfully to render lung adenocarcinomas...
An observational study investigating the use and effectiveness of a combination regimen of intraperitoneal and intravenous chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced-stage ovarian cancer has found that although the dual approach substantially improved survival—81% of those treated with the...
In a randomized phase II trial (NSABP FB9) reported in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, Abraham and colleagues found no improvement in pathologic complete response rate with neoadjuvant eribulin (Halavan) vs weekly paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide in women with locally...
The FDA has granted Orphan Drug designation to NanoSmart Pharmaceuticals’ novel formulation of dactinomycin for the treatment of Ewing sarcoma, a rare type of childhood bone cancer. The designation was granted on the basis of a plausible hypothesis that the novel formulation, which uses...
A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, reveals a protein’s critical—and previously unknown—role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The finding offers a novel target for better treating AML, and...
A large, population-based prospective cohort study of about 75,000 women has found that adolescent exercise is associated with reduced risk of death due to cancer, cardiovascular disease, and all causes among middle-aged and older women. After adjusting for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, the...
In a phase III noninferiority trial (SIOP WT 2001) reported in The Lancet, Pritchard-Jones et al in the SIOP (International Society of Paediatric Oncology) Renal Tumours Study Group found that omission of doxorubicin from postoperative chemotherapy for stage II to III histologic intermediate-risk...
In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug...
As part of a multi-institutional effort, researchers with Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah have found that patients with multiple myeloma with a genetic variation in the gene FOPNL die, on average, 1 to 3 years sooner than patients without it. The finding was identified with...
Lapatinib plus trastuzumab improves outcomes vs lapatinib in heavily pretreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. In the phase II TBCRC 003 study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lin et al found that earlier use of lapatinib plus trastuzumab was active in HER2-positive metastatic ...
Researchers led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have developed new diagnostic criteria to enable clinicians to distinguish malignant cancerous chest cavity masses from those caused by fungal histoplasmosis infection. Their findings were published by Naeem et al in the...
Results from a clinical trial investigating a new T-cell receptor therapy demonstrated a clinical response in 80% of patients with multiple myeloma who had advanced disease after undergoing autologous stem cell transplants. Researchers at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center modified T cells to ...
Scientists at Lawson Health Research Institute have uncovered an important new target for ovarian cancer therapy. Contrary to current research, this new study found that LKB1, a molecule that regulates the metabolism of many adult cells, is important in the cancer's promotion and survival. These...
Although palliative chemotherapy is used to improve quality of life for patients with end-stage cancer, a study evaluating its use found that palliative chemotherapy did not improve quality of life near death for patients with a moderate or poor performance status and that it worsened quality of...
A clinical trial has shown that patients with a specific molecular subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma are more likely to respond to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) than patients with another molecular subtype of the disease. The study was published by Wilson et al in Nature Medicine. In this phase II...
A “pill on a string” developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge could help doctors detect esophageal cancer at an early stage, helping them overcome the problem of wide variation between biopsies, suggests research published by Ross-Innes et al in Nature Genetics. The...
In a review of nearly 2,000 surveys with people whose loved ones died of cancer, researchers led by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine experts said they found a 40% increase over a 12-year period in the number of patients with cancer who participated in one form of advance care...
In a phase III IMPRESS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Soria et al found no progression-free survival benefit of adding gefitinib (Iressa) to platinum-based doublet chemotherapy in patients with advanced EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had acquired resistance to...
Delcath Systems, Inc, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Orphan Products Development has granted Orphan Drug designation to melphalan for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma. Cholangiocarcinoma is recognized by the FDA as an orphan disease,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation to Novogen Limited’s chemotherapy candidate drug Anisina for neuroblastoma. Anisina is a small molecule belonging to a family of compounds called anti-tropomyosins. It has been designed to inhibit Tpm3.1, a...
In the phase II BELIEF trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, O’Connor et al found that the pan–histone deacetylase inhibitor belinostat (Beleodaq) produced durable responses in patients with relapsed/refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma. The study supported the U.S. Food...
Women with cervical or endometrial cancer who require treatment to the para-aortic lymph nodes can safely receive extended-field intensity-modulated radiation therapy without increased risk of duodenal toxicity, according to a study by Xu et al in Practical Radiation Oncology. Extended-Field...
Despite findings of previous studies and published guidelines, nearly two-thirds of patients with T4a laryngeal cancer are not receiving a total laryngectomy—the recommended form of treatment—and, as a result, have significantly worse survival rates vs those treated with a total...
The enzyme phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) appears to be exploited in almost every type of human cancer, making it the focus of considerable interest as a therapeutic target, with many PI3K-inhibiting drugs currently in various stages of clinical development. However, PI3K inhibitors have only ...
In a study reported in JAMA by Meester et al, microsimulation modeling of data from a U.S. community-based health-care system showed that colorectal cancer incidence and mortality were reduced with increased adenoma detection rate in colonoscopy screening, with no increase in total costs. Study...
Clinicians testing the drug dasatinib (Sprycel), approved for several blood cancers, had hoped it would slow the aggressive growth of the deadly brain cancer glioblastoma; however, clinical trials to date have not found any benefit. Researchers at Mayo Clinic, who conducted one of those clinical...
On the hunt for better cancer screening tests, Johns Hopkins scientists led a proof-of-principle study that successfully identified tumor DNA shed in the blood and saliva of 93 patients with head and neck cancer. A report on the findings was published by Wang et al in Science Translational...
A review of medical records for almost 200 patients with breast cancer suggests that more selective use of biomarker testing for such patients has the potential to save millions of dollars in health-care spending without compromising care, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. Specifically,...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued an endorsement of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) clinical practice guideline on postoperative radiation therapy for women with endometrial (uterine) cancer. The endorsement was published by Meyer et al in the Journal of...
In a study in Swedish men reported in JAMA, Loeb et al found a statistically significant increase in risk of malignant melanoma in those using oral phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors for erectile dysfunction. However, risk was not significantly elevated in men filling multiple PDE5...
Researchers have a significantly better understanding of the genetic alterations found in cutaneous melanoma as part of a multi-institution, international effort of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The study, published in Cell, refined and revealed new molecular subgroups of patients who could...
Gains have been made in the overall reduction in the death rates of colorectal cancer in the United States. A new study by Siegel et al has identified three distinct geographic hot spots where colorectal cancer death rates remain elevated over other parts of the country. These hot spots were found...
Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer that are free of mutations in the KRAS, NRAS, BRAF, and PIK3CA genes showed a significant benefit from continuing antiepidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy beyond progression following first-line chemotherapy and an anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody. ...
In the phase III CALGB 40502/NCCTG N063H/Alliance trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rugo et al found that outcomes in first-line treatment for advanced breast cancer were better with weekly paclitaxel plus bevacizumab (Avastin) compared with weekly nanoparticle albumin-bound...
In a randomized phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oza et al found that the mTOR inhibitor ridaforolimus was active in previously treated advanced endometrial carcinoma. Study Details In the open-label study, 130 patients with progressive disease after one or two lines...
In a population-based cohort study reported in JAMA Surgery, Sagara et al found that the breast cancer–specific survival benefit associated with surgery for low-grade ductal carcinoma in situ is lower than that associated with surgery for intermediate- or high-grade ductal carcinoma in situ. ...
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that inhibiting the immune receptor protein TLR4 may not be a wise treatment strategy in all cancers, as research now shows TLR4 can either promote or inhibit breast cancer cell growth depending on mutations in...
In a phase II Intergroup trial (SWOG 1108) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Barr et al found that the aurora A kinase inhibitor alisertib produced responses in patients with relapsed/refractory peripheral T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Aurora A kinase is upregulated in highly...
The results of a nearly 10-year investigation that identified a key gene mutation that can trigger acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and several other types of cancer were recently published by Noetzli et al in Nature Genetics. The findings have, for the first time, pinpointed a mutation that...
Blood and marrow transplantation is a potentially curative treatment for patients with leukemia or other life-threating blood diseases. With a goal of increasing survival rates, a research team led by Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) investigators verified patient outcome data submitted by more ...