In a retrospective analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Metcalfe et al found that oophorectomy in patients with early-stage breast cancer was associated with significantly improved breast cancer survival in women harboring a BRCA1 mutation and in those with estrogen receptor–negative...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to AbbVie’s investigational agent venetoclax (ABT-199) for the treatment of relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in patients with the 17p deletion. Venetoclax is an investigational oral...
Depression in brain cancer patients is a common but often overlooked condition, and oncologists should regularly screen tumor patients for depression, according to an article by Pranckeviciene and Bunevicius in CNS Oncology. The authors, both of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences,...
In an analysis of Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trials reported in JAMA Oncology, Chlebowski et al found differing patterns of breast cancer risk among women receiving menopausal hormone therapy with estrogen plus progestin or estrogen alone. Women receiving estrogen plus progestin had...
A large population-based British study of newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer has found that those who had prolonged use of statins, especially simvastatin, had a 19% reduction in lung cancer deaths. Among all patients, those who used statins in the year before their lung cancer diagnosis had ...
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....
The number of surgeries performed on terminally ill cancer patients has not dropped in recent years, despite more attention to the importance of less invasive care for these patients to relieve symptoms and improve quality of life. But new research from the University of California, Davis, also...
Mastectomies that preserve the nipple and an envelope of breast skin are as safe as more radical breast cancer operations for qualifying patient populations, according to one of the largest meta-analyses of studies involving women treated with this increasingly popular approach. Speaking at the...
Annual screening mammography is significantly more cost-effective than bilateral prophylactic mastectomy in managing the care of most women at high risk for breast cancer. Women with a known BRCA gene mutation, which carries an exceptionally high risk, are a notable exception. These were the...
In a single-center study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ford et al found that autologous stem cell transplantation can be safely performed without hematopoietic support in Jehovah’s Witnesses with hematologic malignancies. Jehovah’s Witnesses traditionally refuse...
The American College of Physicians (ACP) released its clinical advice for cervical cancer screening in asymptomatic, average-risk women 21 years or older. Women at average risk are defined as those with no history of a precancerous lesion (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or a more severe ...
Today, more than 80% of childhood cancer patients survive because of advances in treatment and care. However, recent studies have shown that some of these more than 420,000 United States childhood cancer survivors face future health-related challenges as they become adults such as a second cancer...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing and review Bristol-Myers Squibb’s supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for nivolumab (Opdivo) for the treatment of previously untreated patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma. The FDA also granted...
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...
In the phase III COMPLEMENT 1 trial reported in The Lancet, Hillmen et al found that the addition of the anti-CD20 antibody ofatumumab (Arzerra) to chlorambucil (Leukeran) increased progression-free survival among patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who were not considered candidates...
In a retrospective single-center study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rozovski and colleagues found that chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients with disease progression after allogeneic stem cell transplantation had a relatively good prognosis, with apparent benefit of salvage...
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...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued its updated draft recommendation statement on mammography screening guidelines. The revised guidelines still recommend that women aged 50 to 74 get mammography screening for breast cancer every 2 years and now states that the decision to...
Long-term, regular aspirin use was associated with a modestly reduced overall risk for cancer, driven primarily by a reduction in the risk for colorectal cancers, according to research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to 22 in Philadelphia (Abstract 876). “Previous...
Combination treatment with the poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) and the investigational phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor BKM120 was safe and yielded evidence of clinical benefit for women with triple-negative breast cancer and for those with high-grade...
Men with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer who had mutations in genes linked to repair of damaged DNA were significantly more likely to respond to treatment with olaparib (Lynparza) compared with patients who had the disease without these mutations. These findings from the first...
Combining the immunostimulatory anti-CD40 monoclonal antibody CP-870,893 with the immune checkpoint inhibitor tremelimumab was found to be safe, with clinical evidence of response in patients with advanced melanoma, according to phase I clinical trial data presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, ...
The total number of breast cancer cases in the United States is forecast to be 50% greater in 2030 than it was in 2011, when invasive and in situ or screening-detected cancers are counted together. This increase is predicted to be driven mostly by a marked increase in cases of estrogen...
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...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Matasar et al found that Hodgkin lymphoma patients treated during adulthood were at increased risk of all-cause and second primary malignancy mortality compared with SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and...
The immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to be safe and yielded durable responses in patients with advanced, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Those with high levels of the protein PD-L1 in their tumors had better clinical outcomes, according to phase I KEYNOTE-001 clinical...
More than 60% of patients with Epstein-Barr virus–associated lymphoproliferative disorder (EBV-LPD) that was nonresponsive to standard rituximab (Rituxan) treatment responded to a new type of immunotherapy called Epstein-Barr virus–specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (EBV-CTL) therapy....
In the randomized phase II EMERGE study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yardley et al found that the anti–glycoprotein NMB (gpNMB) antibody-drug conjugate glembatumumab vedotin may improve response rate over alternative chemotherapy in patients with advanced refractory breast...
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...
Almost one in four patients (24%) with advanced lung cancer in Europe, Asia, and the United States are not receiving EGFR test results before being started on treatment, researchers reported at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) in Geneva (Abstract LBA2_PR). This lack of test results may...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, McGlynn et al found that statin use was associated with a reduced risk of primary liver cancer in a setting of low liver cancer prevalence. Other studies have shown a preventive benefit of statin therapy in regions of the world...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Treon et al found that ibrutinib (Imbruvica) was highly active and produced durable responses in patients with previously treated Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia. Response rates were highest in patients with MYD88 mutation and...
In a statement, the American Society of Clinical Oncology praised the U.S. Senate’s 92-to-8 approval of legislation to repeal the Sustainable Growth Rate formula. ASCO President Peter Paul Yu, MD, FACP, FASCO, said, “Today's courageous vote by the U.S. Senate to finally end the...
In a Children’s Oncology Group study (COG-AALL03N1) reported in JAMA Oncology, Bhatia et al found that < 95% adherence to mercaptopurine treatment was associated with a nearly threefold increase in the risk of relapse in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Among adherent...
According to a recent study by Perl et al published in the Journal of Oncology Practice, the administration of chemotherapy near death is recognized by patients, their families, and oncologists as “aggressive and poor-quality care.” Despite this, rates of end-of-life chemotherapy have...
In the phase II TBCRC009 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Isakoff et al found that platinum monotherapy was active in treatment of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, particularly in cases with BRCA1/2 mutation, and that an assay of genomic instability characteristic of...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stevanovíc et al observed complete regression of metastatic cervical tumors in two patients following a single infusion of human papillomavirus (HPV)-targeted tumor-infiltrating T cells. In the protocol, nine patients with metastatic cervical ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to Clovis Oncology’s investigational agent rucaparib as monotherapy treatment of advanced ovarian cancer in patients who have received at least two lines of prior platinum-containing therapy, with...
In a phase I/II study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ahmed et al found that infusion of T cells expressing HER2-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) with a CD28.ζ signaling domain (HER2-CAR T cells) could produce persistent CAR T cell levels for ≥ 6 weeks in patients with...
Long-term analysis of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 9903 demonstrates that the addition of erythropoietin did not improve local-regional control for anemic patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who receive radiation therapy or chemoradiation, according to a study published...
In the phase III AETHERA trial reported in The Lancet, Moskowitz et al found that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) consolidation therapy after autologous stem cell transplantation prolonged progression-free survival by 18 months vs placebo in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma at risk for relapse or...
In a survey study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Wang et al found that a minority of responding radiation oncologists and urologists used decision aids for localized prostate cancer in clinical practice. Study Details In the study, a survey regarding use of and attitudes toward decision aids ...
In the phase III CheckMate 037 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Weber et al found that treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) resulted in a significantly greater response rate vs chemotherapy as second- or later-line treatment in patients with advanced melanoma progressing after ...
Girls who are overweight as young children and teens may face an increased risk for colorectal cancer decades later, regardless of what they weigh as adults, suggests a new study published by Zhang et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “Our study supports the growing...
In a study of Swedish men with prostate cancer reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, O’Farrell et al found that use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists and orchiectomy were associated with a significantly increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease. In patients...
According to a phase II study presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer, an experimental immunotherapy is in the works that can target an individual woman’s ovarian tumor and extend the time period between initial treatment and the cancer’s...
In a study of women with high-grade endometrial cancer, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found sentinel lymph node mapping accurately identified all women with node-positive, high-risk endometrial cancer, when prospectively compared to a complete pelvic and...
In a phase III study of women with ovarian cancer, researchers found that the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard chemotherapy extended median overall survival by 5 months compared to standard chemotherapy alone. The bevacizumab combination was also associated with a significant...
The American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP), the College of American Pathologists (CAP), the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today released a draft of a clinical practice guideline on the use of molecular marker testing for...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted Amgen’s supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for carfilzomib (Kyprolis) injection for the treatment of patients with relapsed multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior therapy. The sNDA is designed to support the...