Two phase III trials have shown that the strategy of adding MEK inhibitor therapy to BRAF inhibitor therapy significantly improves progression-free survival in previously untreated patients with advanced BRAF-mutant melanoma.1,2 Overall survival benefit is also suggested by interim analysis in both ...
Earlier planned joint analyses of outcomes in the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-31 trial and the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) N9831 trial showed that adding trastuzumab (Herceptin) to adjuvant chemotherapy improved disease-free survival and overall...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Antonio Palumbo, MD, Chief of the Myeloma Unit at the University of Turin, Italy, and colleagues found that high-dose melphalan plus autologous stem cell transplantation improved progression-free survival and overall survival...
In a report from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 Lee W. Jones, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues found that vigorous exercise reduces the risk of major cardiovascular events in adult survivors of childhood Hodgkin...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On October 10, 2014, oral fixed-combination netupitant and...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On October 9, 2014, bortezomib (Velcade) was granted approval for ...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Andreas du Bois, MD, PhD, Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at Kliniken Essen-Mitte in Essen, Germany, and colleagues found that maintenance therapy with the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) and platelet-derived...
In an observational cohort study reported in JAMA, Allison W. Kurian, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Medicine and of Health Research and Policy at Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues assessed use of and mortality after bilateral mastectomy, breast-conserving surgery plus...
In the phase III FIRST trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lotfi Benboubker, MD, Service d’Hématologie et Thérapie Cellulaire, Hôpital Bretonneau, Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire (CHRU), Tours, France, and colleagues found that continuous lenalidomide (Revlimid) plus...
In a subgroup analysis of the pooled results of the EINSTEIN-DVT and EINSTEIN-PE trials reported at the 2014 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress and published recently in The Lancet Haematology, Martin H. Prins, MD, of Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht,...
In a study reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Wang and colleagues found that adding an mTOR inhibitor to cetuximab (Erbitux) resulted in marked improvement in antitumor activity in squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck expressing PIK3CA and RAS oncogenes. Cetuximab...
In a study reported in Nature, Wang and colleagues developed a whole-genome and exome single-cell sequencing approach (nuc-seq) using G2/M nuclei and used the method to sequence single normal and tumor nuclei from an estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer and a triple-negative ductal carcinoma....
Removal of incorporated gemcitabine by DNA repair mechanisms may contribute to resistance to the agent in solid tumors. In a study reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Raoof and colleagues found that radiofrequency-induced hyperthermia blocked repair of gemcitabine-stalled...
PRC2 (polycomb repressive complex 2) has been shown to promote oncogenesis in many tumor types; however, loss of function mutations in PRC2 components has also been shown to occur in some hematopoietic malignancies, raising questions about the precise role of the complex in cancer. In a study...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Shin and colleagues synthesized a novel polyphenol conjugate (DPP-23) that exerted antitumor effects by targeting the unfolded protein response in the endoplasmic reticulum via production of reactive oxygen species in cancer cells but not in normal...
Targeting of oncogenes can produce tumor shrinkage, but the frequency of relapse indicates that a population of tumor cells survives oncogene inhibition. In a study in a KRAS-mutant pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma mouse model reported in Nature, Viale and colleagues found that a subpopulation of...
Species of Clostridium bacteria have been shown to kill tumor cells growing under hypoxic conditions. In a study reported in Science Translational Medicine, Roberts and colleagues showed that intratumoral injection of an attenuated strain of Clostridium novyi (C novyi-NT) produced a microscopically ...
In the phase III PANORAMA 1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jesus F. San-Miguel, MD, of Clinica Universidad de Navarra-CIMA, Pamplona, Spain, and colleagues found that adding the pan-deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat to bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone improved progression-free...
The ASCO Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee and the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) program in evidence-based care have released a clinical practice guideline on systemic therapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The guideline was published in the Journal of Clinical...
The Norwegian Colorectal Cancer Prevention (NORCCAP) trial comparing colorectal cancer screening with flexible sigmoidoscopy vs no screening showed no reduction in colorectal cancer incidence or mortality after 7 years of follow-up. As reported by Øyvind Holme, MD, of Sorlandet Hospital...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Noelle Frey, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues reported achieving sustained remissions in children and adults with...
Peptides containing tumor somatic mutations are potentially immunogenic if presented on major histocompatibility complex class I molecules (MHC-I), and it has been shown that such mutant peptides act as T-cell epitopes. In a study reported in Nature, Yadav and colleagues developed an approach...
Programmed cell death protein ligand 1 (PD-L1) interferes with anticancer immune response by binding programmed PD-1 and B7.1 (CD80), negative regulators of T-cell activation. In a study reported in Nature, Herbst and colleagues showed that treatment with an anti–PD-L1 antibody (MPDL3280A) produced ...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Karnak and colleagues found that WEE1 kinase inhibition increased the sensitivity of pancreas cancer to the radiosensitizing effects of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition. Treatment of human pancreatic cancer AsPC-1 and MiaPaCa-2 cells...
In a study reported in Nature, Gubin and colleagues showed that the effects of CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein-4) and PD-1 PD-1 (programmed cell death protein-1) inhibitors (checkpoint blockade) are achieved through targeting of tumor-specific mutant antigens. In the study,...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Rossmann and colleagues found that induction of oxidative stress via O3/O2 pneumoperitoneum treatment in the papillomavirus-associated rabbit auricular VX2 carcinoma model of head and neck cancer resulted in a tumoricidal immune response that could...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Groeneweg and colleagues found that dual HER2 targeting showed greater activity than a single agent in HER2-amplified uterine serious carcinoma. In the study, ARK1, ARK2, and SPEC2 cell lines were treated with trastuzumab (Herceptin) or lapatinib...
KRAS-mutant lung adenocarcinoma has not been successfully targeted therapeutically. In a study reported in Science Translational Medicine, Xia and colleagues found that the combination of lipophilic bisphosphonates and rapamycin exhibited promising activity in this setting. Lipophilic...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Moser and colleagues used RNA interference kinase viability screens to identify survival kinases (involved in G2-M cell-cycle checkpoint, SFK, PI3K, and FAK pathways) in p53-mutant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Selected kinase targets were...
Use of the granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) sargramostim (Leukine) together with the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy) prolonged overall survival but not progression-free survival in patients with metastatic melanoma,...
Crizotinib (Xalkori) produced a high response rate and durable responses in patients with ROS1-rearranged non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine.1 Lead authors Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center,...
Efforts at implementing survivorship care plans have met with limited success in oncology practice, in part due to the time required to complete them, the lack of role clarity, and the lack of reimbursement for time to complete the documents. In response, ASCO convened a Survivorship Care Planning...
The Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) Guidelines Working Group has recently released clinical practice guidelines on the use of integrative therapies as supportive care in patients receiving treatment for breast cancer. The guidelines, reported by Heather Greenlee, ND, PhD, MPH, of Mailman...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On December 19, 2014, olaparib (Lynparza) was granted accelerated...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On December 10, 2014, Gardasil 9 (human papillomavirus 9-valent...
In a phase III trial (Cancer and Leukemia Group B [CALGB] 40302/Alliance) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Harold J. Burstein, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues found that the addition of the dual EGFR-HER2 inhibitor lapatinib (Tykerb) to endocrine...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On December 16, 2014, lanreotide (Somatuline depot injection) was ...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Robert and colleagues found that the programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) immune-checkpoint–inhibitor antibody nivolumab (Opdivo) significantly increased overall survival, progression-free survival, and objective response rate...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On December 22, 2014, the anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death...
Artificial antigen-presenting cells have been shown to stimulate antigen-specific T-cell responses, but their effect in vivo may be compromised by rapid macrophage clearance. In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Bruns and colleagues added CD47 to classic two-signal artificial...
The oncoprotein and transcription factor MYB is overexpressed in colorectal cancer and critical to proliferation and tumor cell survival. In a study reported in Clinical & Translational Immunology, Cross and colleagues developed a DNA vaccine to generate an MYB-specific immune response on the...
The bisphosphonate zoledronic acid has been reported to produce antitumor effects, although the mechanisms of such effects remain unclear. In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Gonzalez-Villasana and colleagues found evidence that zoledronic acid inhibited ovarian cancer angiogenesis by...
Mechanisms of lung cancer metastasis remain largely undefined. In a study reported in Cell Death & Differentiation that used genome-wide transcriptional analysis in a metastasis model, Moon and colleagues found that the epithelial basement membrane protein laminin γ2 (LAMC2) was significantly...
In a study reported in Cancer Gene Therapy, Xu and colleagues found that the addition of pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) to radiation improved tumor response in a mouse model of lung cancer. Lewis lung cancer allografts in nude mice were treated with radiation, PEDF, and PEDF plus...
Resistance to castrating therapy and androgen deprivation therapy in prostate cancer is due in part to adaptive upregulation of androgen receptor levels by castration-resistant prostate cancer cells in the setting of prolonged exposure to a low-testosterone environment. In a study reported in...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. In December 12, 2014, ramucirumab (Cyramza) was approved for use in ...
As reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Anirban P. Mitra, MD, PhD, of the University of Southern California, and colleagues identified a novel genome-based signature that improves prediction of postcystectomy recurrence in patients with high-risk bladder cancer.1 Use of the...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On December 4, 2014, ruxolitinib (Jakafi) was approved for the...
In a phase III trial reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Joyce O’Shaughnessy, MD, of Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center, Dallas, and colleagues found that the addition of iniparib to gemcitabine and carboplatin did not improve overall survival or progression-free survival in patients...
A novel product created to help reduce medication non-adherence was recently recognized by the 2014 Pharma Choice Awards as the top innovative branded technology. The product, called “remind-a-cap” is a customizable and patented pill bottle cap with an ergonomic dial to set for next dosing. The cap ...