High-dose monotherapy with vincristine sulfate liposome injection (Marqibo) resulted in meaningful clinical outcomes, including durable responses and bridging to hematopoietic cell transplantation, in adult patients with advanced, relapsed, and refractory Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-negative acute ...
A phase III open-label trial of exemestane vs anastrozole in postmenopausal women with hormone-dependent early breast cancer found that both agents produced similar median rates of event-free survival—91% for exemestane and 91.2% for anastrozole—as well as similar distant disease-free and...
Most women with ovarian cancer are not receiving adequate treatment, as specified in National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines,1 and as a result are being deprived of the survival benefits correlated with guideline-recommended treatment, according to a study presented at the Society...
Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon announced a “war on cancer.” Some of that war’s first battles were won in the field of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with two agents, cytarabine and daunorubicin, receiving U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval based on their ability to produce...
As reported by Hideki Ueno, MD, PhD, of National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, and colleagues in Journal of Clinical Oncology, treatment with the oral fluoropyrimidine derivative S-1 was associated with noninferior overall survival and reduced hematologic toxicity compared with gemcitabine...
The current uncertainty regarding the relative frequencies of cancers of various anatomic sites in Lynch syndrome poses a difficulty in commenting on the syndrome’s overall cancer spectrum. It is even more vexing to address the order in which these cancers are prone to occur. What we do know is...
Lynch syndrome is an autosomal dominantly inherited disorder due to germline mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes. Mismatch repair mutation carriers are at increased risk of several cancers, with endometrial cancer being one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers in women with Lynch syndrome. In...
Men ages 55 to 69 who are considering prostate cancer screening should talk with their doctors about the benefits and harms of testing and proceed based on their personal values and preferences, according to a new clinical practice guideline released by the American Urological Association (AUA)....
For the first time at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference, scientific posters were included as part of the program. The ASCO Post captured some of the most interesting findings for our readers, including the following news briefs. The findings of these studies support ...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has issued new NCCN Guidelines for Patients, titled “Caring for Adolescents and Young Adults [AYA].” These guidelines fill an unmet need in oncology, as Peter F. Coccia, MD, Chair of the NCCN Guidelines Panel for Young Adult Oncology and a member of...
Interim results from a small neoadjuvant study of patients with triple-negative breast cancer has found high rates of pathologic complete response with the combination of nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane), carboplatin, and bevacizumab (Avastin).1 The study was presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the ...
The use of an automated computer-based telephone monitoring system to assess symptoms during outpatient chemotherapy—and provide intervention where appropriate by a nurse practitioner—substantially reduced the number of days with symptoms in a study reported at the 18th Annual Conference of the...
The results of a study reported by David H. Gustafson, PhD, Research Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and colleagues in Cancer suggest that informal caregiver (eg, family member) use of a specifically designed online system to support palliative care reduces symptom distress in...
Racial inequities were a daily observation for Edward E. Partridge, MD, growing up in Alabama during the civil rights era. When he became a physician, he saw that these disparities extended into his own field, gynecologic oncology. He decided to do something about it. Dr. Partridge recently...
Follow-up care for female patients treated for cancer as children, adolescents, or young adults should include assessment and management of the late effects that therapy may have on reproductive health, as detailed in updated guidelines from the Children’s Oncology Group. “It is important for...
Results from an ongoing phase II study reported at the recent Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) demonstrate impressive activity with the use of ibrutinib in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and 17p deletions, which are associated with a poor...
As reported by the Canadian Blood and Marrow Transplant Group in Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 patients with transformed follicular lymphoma receiving autologous transplantation have improved survival outcomes compared with patients receiving rituximab (Rituxan)-containing chemotherapy alone....
In the treatment of breast cancer, a wealth of data from prospective clinical trials and meta-analyses has documented the benefits of radiation to prevent local-regional recurrence and improve survival. Accordingly, important quality indicators in breast cancer care include: (1) receipt of...
A population-based case-control study reported by Sarah C. Darby, PhD, Professor of Medical Statistics in the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiologic Studies Unit at the University of Oxford, and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine indicates that incidental exposure of the heart ...
Several studies presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington, DC, focused on factors associated with breast cancer mortality. One study found that older women with longer intervals between mammograms had a higher likelihood of dying of breast cancer. ...
As recently reported by Gong Yang, MD, MPH, Research Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 higher prediagnosis consumption of soy food was associated with improved overall survival in Chinese women with lung...
At the 18th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), representatives of NCCN Guidelines panels presented two new sets of guidelines along with updates for several tumor types, summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post. New NCCN Guidelines for Survivorship “The...
As was recently reported in Science Translational Medicine, Renier J. Brentjens, MD, and colleagues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, found that profound molecular remission was rapidly induced in patients with relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using autologous T ...
Older patients and those with comorbid conditions are less likely to receive palliative radiotherapy, according to an analysis of data from 51,610 patients with stage IV breast, prostate, lung, or colorectal cancer. The study also found that black patients with prostate cancer were 20% less likely...
Analyses of data from 73,388 women in the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS-II) Nutrition Cohort and from a meta-analysis including 14 other studies “support the hypothesis that active smoking increases the risk of breast cancer, especially when smoking begins at an early...
Nearly one-quarter of women in a large prospective study of racially diverse patients with stage I to III breast cancer reported symptoms consistent with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with increased risk of PTSD among black, Asian, and younger women. “These potential risk factors can be...
Delays of more than 6 weeks from time of diagnosis until surgical treatment of breast cancer among young women significantly decreases survival times compared to those with a shorter treatment delay time, according to a study in JAMA Surgery. “This adverse impact on survival was more pronounced in...
Results from a multicenter phase II study of patients with locally advanced HER2-positive breast cancer who receive targeted therapy with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) “support the hypothesis that selected patients with HER2-positive tumors may not need chemotherapy,” investigators ...
Clinicians should engage in shared decision-making with women who are at increased risk of breast cancer about using medications, such as tamoxifen and raloxifene (Evista), to reduce risk, and should offer prescriptions to women considered at low risk for adverse effects from these medications,...
“My Dear Michael, Jim Watson and I have probably made a most important discovery. We have built a model for the structure of des-oxy-ribose-nucleic-acid, called DNA for short.… In other words we think we have found the basic copying mechanism by which life comes from life,” wrote Francis Crick,...
In a study testing the effectiveness of three strategies to improve oral chemotherapy adherence, tailored coaching was beneficial for some patients, reducing barriers to adherence, reported Susan M. Schneider, PhD, RN, AOCN, ACNS-BC, FAAN, Associate Professor and Director of Oncology Nursing...
The Mara Mogensen Flagherty Lecture at this year’s 38th Annual Congress of the Oncology Nursing Society in Washington, DC, focused on the importance of listening to and acknowledging the individual stories of patients with cancer and survivors. Once they are adept at listening, clinicians need to...
According to an analysis reported by Amanda Phipps, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Washington and Assistant Member at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, patients with stage III colon cancer who...
Results of the first of three planned annual screening examinations from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) were recently published and physicians may now have more information to share with their patients about the benefits and risks of low-dose computed tomography lung cancer screening.1...
The study discussant, Elisabeth Quoix, MD, of the University Hospitals of Strasbourg, France, said that this meta-analysis confirmed that platinum-based doublets remain the standard treatment in this setting. Benefit of platinum-based doublets over non–platinum-based chemotherapy is essentially due ...
Predicting toxicity in older patients receiving chemotherapy is an important clinical problem. It has been shown that standard oncology measures such as performance status are not adequate to predict outcomes in the elderly. Clinical measures that are important in geriatric oncology are not...
Elderly patients differ with respect to tolerance of therapy for colorectal cancer. In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Thomas Aparicio, MD, PhD, of the University of Paris, and colleagues analyzed geriatric factors for potential association with severe toxicity, dose-intensity...
How much does diet and body weight influence the effectiveness of cancer treatment and reduce the risk of cancer recurrence? What is the optimal diet for patients with cancer and survivors to follow? There are currently no hard and fast rules, but some dietary clues are starting to emerge. Search...
An analysis of a large pooled data set from the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer reported by Seungyoun Jung, ScD, Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues in Journal of the National Cancer...
Treating pediatric leukemia patients with a liposomal formulation of anthracycline-based chemotherapy at an intensified dose during initial treatment may result in high survival rates without causing any added heart toxicity, according to the results of a study published online in Blood.1 Acute...
Findings from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium Protocol 00-01, recently reported by Lynda M. Vrooman, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues in Journal of Clinical Oncology, indicate that postinduction dexamethasone and individualized dosing of Escherichia coli–derived...
On May 15, 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved radium Ra 223 dichloride (Xofigo) for the treatment of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer, symptomatic bone metastases, and no known visceral metastatic disease. Radium-223 dichloride is an alpha-particle–emitting...
Most relapses following treatment for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma are detected by abnormalities on physical exam, lab tests, and symptoms—not by routine imaging, according to a study presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.1 In fact, in a prospective study assessing post-treatment outcomes of...
Alexandra Levine, MD, MACP, the Chief Medical Officer of City of Hope National Medical Center, has traveled to 74 countries, seeking out adventures in some of the world’s most far-flung regions. Her illustrious oncology journey has also been an adventure, from the front lines of the AIDS pandemic...
Switzerland, a landlocked country with a population about that of New York City, has four geographic regions, each with its own official language. Internationally regarded lymphoma and breast cancer expert, Franco Cavalli, MD, FRCP, was born and raised in Locarno, a town in the Italian region of...
Clara D. Bloomfield, MD, grew up in a steadfastly academic environment that spurned typical children’s entertainment such as comic books or television. Born in New York City during World War II, she moved to Washington, DC, with her family while her father, an expert on labor and industrial...
ASCO President Clifford A. Hudis, MD, grew up in northeast Philadelphia in the 1960s, a robust period in U.S. history dominated by American industry and ingenuity. His early memories are of a hard-working blue-collar neighborhood of identical row and semidetached twin houses and of a time of...
The pages of medical history are dog-eared with breakthroughs that have transformed medicine and saved lives. One of those dog-eared pages belongs to Emil Frei III, MD, known to his colleagues and friends as Tom. In the dawn of oncology, Dr. Frei, along with his associate, Emil Freireich, MD, did...
The FDA has approved initiation of a multicenter trial of the DigniCap System, a scalp-cooling device for chemotherapy-related hair loss. The trial is the second and final phase of study for the DigniCap System. A pilot study previously conducted by researchers at the University of California San...
Even as a child, Janet D. Rowley, MD, found the intellectual order and logic of science appealing. Born on April 5, 1925, in New York, Dr. Rowley’s parents, Hurford and Ethel Ballantyne Davison, moved the family to Chicago 2 years later. Both educators, the Davisons encouraged their only child in...