On October 31, 2013, Ariad Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of ponatinib, agreed to an FDA request to suspend marketing and sales of the drug due to the risk of life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels. The FDA states that it will continue to evaluate ponatinib to further ...
Hopes are high that TAS-102, a novel oral nucleoside agent, will turn out to be an advance in the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer, said Howard Hochster, MD, of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Program at Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, speaking at the Chemotherapy Foundation...
The strategy of autologous stem cell transplantation as consolidation in high-intermediate– or high-risk diffuse aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) has not been specifically examined in the rituximab (Rituxan) era. In a phase III trial (Southwest Oncology Group 9704) reported in The New...
Novocure announced today that it has received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its NovoTAL (Transducer Array Layout) System through a Premarket Approval supplement. The NovoTAL System allows certified physicians to use the individual magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of...
The investigational anti–PD-1 immunotherapy MK-3475 showed promising objective response rates in patients with previously treated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The interim data were presented by Edward Garon, MD, Director of Thoracic Oncology at Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved obinutuzumab (Gazyva) for use in combination with chlorambucil (Leukeran) to treat patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Obinutuzumab is the first drug with Breakthrough Therapy designation to receive FDA...
Results from the Costa Rica HPV16/18 Vaccine Trial (CVT) has found that 4-year efficacy against 12-month HPV16/18 persistent infection was similarly high among women who received one, two, or the recommended three doses of the bivalent HPV16/18 L1 virus-like particle vaccine (Cervarix). The...
The inclusion of multiple hormones—rather than just adding one or two individually—in breast cancer risk prediction models may improve prediction of the disease and could help better identify women who would benefit from chemoprevention, according to a study by Shelley S. Tworoger, PhD, ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked the manufacturer of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ponatinib (Iclusig) to suspend marketing and sales of the drug because of the risk of life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels. Ariad Pharmaceuticals has agreed to...
Standardized criteria for initiating palliative care consultations can substantially improve the care of patients with advanced solid tumors, according to research from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, led by Kerin Adelson, MD, Coordinator for Ambulatory Oncology Quality for the Tisch...
A new educational tool for oncologists may enhance compliance with quality care standards and improve the value of cancer care, ultimately resulting in big cost savings for health-care systems, according to Karen Fields, MD, and colleagues from H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute,...
In a Canadian study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Kerry S. Courneya, PhD, of the University of Alberta, and colleagues assessed the impact of different levels of physical exercise on physical functioning in women receiving adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer....
In a phase I trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, and colleagues assessed the effects of nivolumab—a human immunoglobulin G4-blocking antibody against the T-cell programmed death 1 checkpoint ...
Patients with non–small cell lung cancer who have the ALK gene rearrangement usually respond to the drug crizotinib (Xalkori), with a median duration of response of approximately 10 months. In a study reported by Shirish Gadgeel, MD, of Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, and colleagues at...
Both pemetrexed (Alimta) and gefitinib (Iressa) are standard second-line treatments for advanced nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in East Asia. In a phase II trial (CTONG 0806) reported at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s 15th World Conference...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) today announced its second “Top Five” list of opportunities to improve the quality and value of cancer care. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO), ASCO’s second Top Five list was released as part of the Choosing...
The National Lung Screening Trial reported a 20% reduction in lung cancer mortality achieved through low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening of the at-risk population, compared to screening with chest x-ray. However, challenges with the clinical implication of CT screening for lung cancer...
Men with short-ended chromosomes in the immune cells in their blood were at increased risk for aggressive prostate cancer compared with men with long-ended chromosomes in blood immune cells, according to results presented at the 12th Annual AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Taxiarchis V. Kourelis, MD, and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic attempted to define a threshold of bone marrow plasma cell number that could serve to define light chain amyloidosis as light chain amyloidosis with multiple myeloma. They found that ...
According to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next 10 years, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will result in approximately 25 million newly insured individuals and 12 million more Medicaid beneficiaries through the the Medicaid expansion provision. While the law provides...
A newly discovered potential gene-diet interaction for colorectal cancer may shed light on the statistically significant increased risk of colorectal cancer that is associated with consumption of red and processed meat, according to a study reported yesterday at the American Society of Human...
Patient assistance programs can help patients with breast cancer meet a variety of needs that might otherwise interfere with getting recommended adjuvant therapies such as radiation, chemotherapy, and hormonal treatments, according to a study published recently in the online edition of...
New research ties preparative procedures and complications associated with blood or bone marrow transplant with diminished sexual health in both men and women who have undergone the procedure. Study data, published today in Blood, confirm chronic graft-vs-host disease as a potential source of...
In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, Ségolène Hescot, MD, of Université Paris Descartes, and colleagues reported evidence of irreversible pancreatic atrophy in two patients after long-term sorafenib treatment. Both patients received cumulative doses of sorafenib...
In patients with heavily pretreated advanced BRCA-related breast and ovarian cancers, the investigational poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor BMN673 produced an objective response rate of more than 40% and delayed disease progression by more than 6 months, according to a multicenter phase ...
Patients with pancreatic cancer may benefit from an investigational member of an emerging class of anticancer drugs called antibody-drug conjugates, according to preclinical results presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held October...
The nanopharmaceutical CRLX101, a novel inhibitor of topoisomerase-1 and hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1 alpha, may be capable of overcoming resistance of tumors to antiangiogenic agents, according to preclinical and early clinical studies that have evaluated CRLX101 in combination with...
Approximately 50% of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who develop resistance to inhibitors of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) have acquired a second mutation, T790M, which no current EGFR inhibitors target. This may change if the AstraZeneca investigational compound...
Although multiple studies have shown that high body mass index (BMI) is associated with an increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer, few studies have evaluated the impact of BMI on survival and none have used prospectively collected data on BMI. Now a large prospective study by Brian M....
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating an increasing frequency of reports of serious and life-threatening blood clots and severe narrowing of blood vessels of patients taking the antileukemia drug ponatinib (Iclusig). Ponatinib is indicated for the treatment of patients with...
A genetic analysis of 3,281 tumors from 12 cancer types, including breast, lung, endometrial, glioblastoma multiforme, ovarian, colon, and acute myeloid leukemia, has found 127 significantly mutated genes that appear to be involved in either cancer initiation or progression. Although the average...
An international research team led by scientists from Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center has discovered a genetic mutation linked to low-risk bladder cancer. The findings, published in Nature Genetics, identified STAG2 as one of the most commonly mutated genes in bladder cancer,...
An international consortium co-led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia has identified four genetic variants associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer and its precursor, Barrett’s esophagus. The...
A simple blood test that measures serum free fatty acids and their metabolites may detect early-stage lung cancer and its recurrence, according to a study from The Cleveland Clinic presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2013 Annual Meeting in San Francisco (Abstract A4267). The study was presented ...
A phase III trial (Radiation Therapy Oncology Group [RTOG] 0525; N = 833) comparing dose-dense vs standard-dose temozolomide maintenance in newly diagnosed glioblastoma showed no differences in overall survival or progression-free survival between treatments. A substudy of the trial, reported in...
Standard and reduced high-dose volume radiation therapy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer provide comparable tumor control and decreased late toxicity when compared to surgery, according to a study published in the October issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Ghada N. Farhat, PhD, of University of Balamand in Beirut, and colleagues found that women with lower pretreatment endogenous estrogen levels are at greatest risk of breast cancer during estrogen-plus-progestin therapy. Study...
Among patients with pancreatic cancer who had surgery for removal of the cancer, treatment with the drug gemcitabine for 6 months resulted in increased overall survival as well as disease-free survival, compared with observation alone, according to a study in published in the October 9 issue of...
The Program Chairs of the 2013 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, which will be held December 10–14, 2013, have highlighted what they consider to be the most important abstracts to be presented at the Symposium. In a telebriefing in advance of the December meeting, C. Kent...
Etirinotecan pegol is a topoisomerase-I inhibitor designed to provide prolonged tumor cell exposure to the active metabolite of irinotecan. In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ahmad Awada, MD, of Jules Bordet Institute, Université Libre de Bruxelles, and colleagues examined...
Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons....
ASCO and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) today issued a joint, updated guideline to improve the accuracy and reporting of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) testing in patients with invasive breast cancer. The six-recommendation guideline is based on a systematic review of...
Children of melanoma survivors were more likely to wear hats and reapply sunscreen after receiving a multimedia informational program designed specifically for them. These new findings were included in research published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. A team of researchers...
An investigational targeted drug that reduces blood flow to tumors prolonged the survival of patients with advanced stomach cancer after standard treatments failed, according to results of large multicenter clinical trial reported by Charles S. Fuchs, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and...
Short telomere length in peripheral blood mononuclear cells is associated with aging and such age-related diseases as cancer, stroke, vascular dementia, cardiovascular disease, obesity, osteoporosis, and diabetes. Telomere attrition is considered a potential mechanism in triggering the chromosomal...
New research shows that children with an inherited genetic defect in a critical anti-inflammatory pathway have a genetic predisposition to lymphoma. Results of the study, published online today in Blood, reveal an important association between the genetic defect, which causes chronic intestinal...
The anti-cytomegalovirus agent CMX001 is an oral lipid acyclic nucleoside phosphonate that is absorbed in the small intestine and transported throughout the body as a phospholipid. It is converted intracellularly to cidofovir diphosphate, but unlike cidofovir, is not a substrate of organic ion...
All nonessential government services were suspended at midnight after Congress failed to reach a budget compromise to keep the government funded before the start of the new fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2013. ASCO issued a statement today in response to the government shutdown and will be...
The 5-year results of the UK Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy (START) trials suggested that lower total doses of radiotherapy delivered in fewer, larger doses were at least as safe and effective as the historical standard regimen of 50 Gy in 25 fractions as adjuvant therapy for early breast...
Results of the phase III TH3RESA trial show that the antibody-conjugate ado-trastuzumab (Kadcyla, previously known as T-DM1) extends progression-free survival in women with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer that progressed on two or more previous HER2-directed therapies including trastuzumab...