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Showing 6651 - 6700Anti–VEGFR-2 Antibody Ramucirumab Prolongs Survival in Previously Treated Advanced Gastric or Gastroesophageal Cancer
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)– and VEGF receptor-2 (VEGFR-2)–mediated signaling and angiogenesis seem to have an important role in the pathogenesis of gastric cancer. In the phase III REGARD trial reported in Lancet, Charles S. Fuchs, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston,...
Has a New Standard of Care for Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer Been Established?
For a number of years following the approval of gemcitabine for advanced pancreatic cancer, one phase III clinical trial after the next failed to demonstrate a survival benefit of combination chemotherapy compared to gemcitabine alone. Even the one positive study from the mid-2000s—the PA.3 trial...
Addition of Nab-Paclitaxel to Gemcitabine Improves Survival in Previously Untreated Metastatic Pancreas Cancer
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, of Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix, and colleagues assessed the addition of albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel [Abraxane]) to gemcitabine in patients with previously untreated...
Long-Term CONKO-001 Results: Adjuvant Therapy Improves Survival
From 12% to 15% of the approximately 45,000 patients diagnosed with pancreas adenocarcinoma undergo a potentially curative resection each year in North America, translating into roughly 5,000 to 7,000 patients who are candidates for adjuvant therapy. About 80% of these patients will relapse and...
Standardized Approach Improves Palliative Care Services and Outcomes
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...
Time to Think Beyond KRAS in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Leuven in Belgium, told attendees at the 2013 European Cancer Congress that in the management of metastatic colorectal cancer, it is time to expand KRAS testing to include more rare mutations. Until recently, KRAS status...
What Does ‘Myeloma’ Mean?
Over the centuries it has become clear that, as physicians, what we say and how we say it can have a major impact on those who seek our help. Our pronouncement that a patient is in remission or harbors a serious illness carries with it a large number of spoken and unspoken implications. So when we...
Innovative Payment Models Needed to Sustain Quality Cancer Care
Nationally regarded health-care expert Lee N. Newcomer, MD, MHA, began his presentation at this year’s ASCO Quality Care Symposium with a rhetorical question. “Why are we talking about money when we’re gathered in San Diego for 2 days to discuss some wonderful ways to impact the quality of cancer...
The ASCO Post Replies
We appreciate Dr. Herrmann’s concerns in regard to conflict of interest. The ASCO Post makes every effort to present news and data in an objective and fair manner. Often we invite an independent expert in a particular area to share his or her perspective to lend more insight to a report. We...
SIDEBAR: Expect Questions From Patients
Not discussing the costs of medical interventions could result in “financial toxicity” for patients who have trouble paying out-of-pocket costs, as well as problems adhering to expensive treatment regimens. “The problem is perhaps starkest in cancer care, but it applies to all complex illness,”...
Dr. Weisenthal Replies
Dr. Mason states that I implied that Dr. Telli supports the routine application of chemosensitivity assays. I have no knowledge regarding Dr. Telli’s views on this subject, nor did I in any way attempt to represent her views, much less imply that she was supportive of anything relating to...
Cancer Has Given Me a Greater Appreciation for Life
I’ve been blessed with good health for most of my life, and I was careful to keep it that way. I don’t smoke, I eat a healthy diet, and I maintain a healthy weight. I also was fortunate to be born with pretty good genes and have no family history of cancer. In fact, except for an occasional...
Ibrutinib in Previously Treated Mantle Cell Lymphoma
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. Indication On November 13, 2013, ibrutinib (Imbruvica) was granted...
The Quest to Optimize Personalized Therapies for Cancer
In the late 1980s, Brian J. Druker, MD, was investigating the BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase as a target for therapeutic intervention for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in a laboratory at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. By 1993, Dr. Druker had moved to Oregon Health & Science University in...
National Cancer Policy Summit: Setting Priorities for the Next 3 Years
Welcome to the meeting we hold every 3 years to choose our next projects,” said John Mendelsohn, MD, Chair of the National Cancer Policy Forum and Director of the Khalifa Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. “We have here a...
Patient-Reported Outcomes, a Central Component to Value and Rapid-Learning Systems
With the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010, value became the operative word in assessing the success of health care, from outcomes to cost. To drive more value, the Affordable Care Act seeks to implement initiatives such as comparative effectiveness research that...
Oncology Drug Dosing: Can an Optimal Dose Be Fine-Tuned for Each Patient?
ASCO Chief Medical Officer Richard L. Schilsky, MD, and other oncology drug experts presented a panel on drug dosing at a recent meeting, cosponsored by the Friends of Cancer Research and the Brookings Institution, in Washington, DC.1 The presentations made it clear that issues surrounding drug...
Expert Point of View: Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO
Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, the Stuart B. Padnos Professor of Breast Cancer Research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, wrote an accompanying editorial on the value of these newly developed omics-related criteria.1 Dr. Hayes pointed out that since the cloning of the human genome, there has...
NCI-Led Scientists Develop Criteria for 'Omics' Tests Used in Clinical Investigations
High-throughput “omics” technologies that generate molecular profiles on tumor specimens are increasingly being incorporated into clinical trials, but some of these assays have not been well validated, leading many in the research community to question their fitness for use in patient-care...
Valganciclovir in Glioblastoma, Selection Bias, and Flawed Conclusions
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Söderberg-Nauclér et al from the Karolinska Institute have written a provocative letter to The New England Journal of Medicine suggesting that long-term administration of valganciclovir (Valcyte), a drug that targets cytomegalovirus (CMV), improves...
Investigators Report Valganciclovir May Increase Survival in Glioblastoma
In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, MD, PhD, and colleagues from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, described experience with the anti-cytomegalovirus (CMV) agent valganciclovir (Valcyte) in the treatment of glioblastoma, citing dramatically improved...
No Apparent Benefit of Adjuvant Gefitinib in Resected NSCLC in Prematurely Closed Trial
As reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology by Glenwood D. Goss, MD, of the Ottawa Hospital Cancer Center, and colleagues, the prematurely closed NCIC CTG BR19 study showed no apparent survival benefit of adjuvant gefitinib (Iressa, withdrawn from U.S. market) vs placebo in patients with completely ...
Breast Cancer Vaccines for Primary Prevention Move Toward Clinical Use
The first candidate vaccine to prevent recurrence of breast cancer entered clinical trials about 8 years ago, and since then, the idea of a vaccine for secondary prevention has gained traction; more such vaccines are now in development. But this fall, it was vaccines for primary prevention that had ...
Erratum
In the November 15 issue of The ASCO Post, the article, “Strong Showing for Ado-Trastuzumab Emtansine in Advanced HER2-Positive Heavily Pretreated Breast Cancer,” contained the following errors in the reported outcomes data for the TH3RESA trial: The article incorrectly stated the median survival...
Radiotherapy Benefit in Young Women With Node-Positive Breast Cancer May Vary by Intrinsic Subtypes
Radiation therapy appears to significantly decrease local recurrence in premenopausal women with node-positive and luminal A tumors, based on an analysis of two small but independent randomized series reported at the 2013 European Cancer Congress in Amsterdam.1 “Though not definitive, our study...
Consent Is Informed and Shared, But Is It Compassionate?
A 72-year-old, obese male patient and a poor operative candidate is diagnosed with esophageal carcinoma. He has multiple comorbidities and a past history of colon carcinoma. His staging workup, which included a colonoscopy, revealed recurrent colon carcinoma. Thus, we have a patient who we...
Sharing Treatment Decision-Making With Patients: Where’s the Evidence of Value?
Though certainly not new to oncologists, “shared decision-making” between doctors and patients is receiving increased attention in the medical community today. While it’s an idea with merit, Steven J. Katz, MD, MPH, a specialist in quality care issues, maintains that expectations about the...
Role of Autologous Stem Cell Transplant in High-Risk NHL
As described in the December 15 issue of The ASCO Post, Stiff and colleagues treated patients with high-intermediate– or high-risk diffuse, aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma with five cycles of CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) or CHOP plus rituximab (Rituxan)....
Using Hyperthermia for Cancer Treatment: Proofs, Promises, and Uncertainties
With the headline, “Rare Cancer Treatments, Cleared by F.D.A. but Not Subject to Scrutiny,” a recent article in The New York Times reported that several medical centers were treating patients with cancer using a hyperthermia system that had received a Humanitarian Use Device approval from the U.S....
Assessing Patients for Palliative Care
In 2012, ASCO issued a provisional clinical opinion addressing the integration of palliative care services into standard oncology practice at the time a patient is diagnosed with metastatic or advanced cancer and for patients with uncontrolled symptoms.1 However, despite ASCO’s provisional clinical ...
Donor KIRDL1-R245 Allele Predicts Improved Survival and Reduced Progression in Pediatric Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant
Killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs) that regulate natural-killer cells are highly polymorphic, and some KIR2DL1 alleles (ie, KIR2DL1-R245) encode receptors characterized by stronger signaling function than others (ie, KIR2DL1-C245). In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical...
Cancer Is in My Soul
The threat of getting cancer began for me before I was born. In 1950, when my mother was pregnant with me, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and refused treatment until after she gave birth, so I have always felt that cancer was woven into my soul. For the first year of my life, I was raised by...
Activation of Innovative Lung Cancer Master Protocol Officially Announced, Enrollment to Begin in March
At a recent meeting in Washington, DC, Friends of Cancer Research and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution officially announced activation of the Lung Cancer Master Protocol, a new research strategy that has the potential to hurdle or bypass known clinical trial...
Diagnosing and Treating Chronic Mucocutaneous Graft-vs-Host Disease
Chronic graft-vs-host disease is a major cause of late, nonrelapse death following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In addition, chronic graft-vs-host disease results in significant functional impairment and decreased quality of life for long-term survivors of stem cell...
Sorafenib in Differentiated Thyroid Carcinoma
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. New Indication On November 22, 2013, sorafenib (Nexavar) was...
Inhibition of LAT Transporters and Leucine Uptake: A Step Forward for Therapeutic Strategies in Prostate Cancer
The seminal study by Wang and colleagues reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post suggests a potential new therapeutic option in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. The authors draw attention to the reliance of cancer cells on...
ASCO Resources for Transitioning to ICD-10
ASCO has developed resources to educate and assist oncology practices in transitioning to the 10th Edition of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) coding system. Practices are encouraged to prepare for the transition before the October 1,...
Cautious Comments on the TARGIT-A Trial
Numerous randomized trials have demonstrated that whole-breast irradiation plays an important role after breast-conserving surgery for invasive breast cancer. A recent meta-analysis of these trials indicated that whole-breast irradiation decreased the risk of total breast cancer relapse events and...
Targeted Intraoperative Radiotherapy Plus Lumpectomy Noninferior to External-Beam Radiotherapy in Preventing Breast Cancer Recurrence
In the randomized noninferiority TARGIT-A trial reported in The Lancet, Jayant S. Vaidya, PhD, FRCS, and Michael Baum, MD, FRCS, of University College London, and colleagues compared risk-adapted radiotherapy using single-dose targeted intraoperative radiotherapy vs fractionated external-beam...
Molecularly Targeted Therapy for Lung Cancer
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column offering insight into the FDA and its policies and procedures. This installment addresses a changing paradigm in the treatment of lung cancer, exemplified by concurrent approval of a companion diagnostic with each of several new targeted agents or new...
Overall Survival Improved by Adding Panitumumab to FOLFOX4 but Only in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Without RAS Mutation
Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer that harbors KRAS mutations in exon 2 and patients with other activating RAS mutations do not benefit from anti–epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy and may in fact be harmed by it. In an analysis reported in The New England Journal of Medicine ...
Study Explores Protective Effect of Aspirin Against Colorectal Cancer
It has been posited that aspirin treatment may reduce risk for colorectal cancer through inhibition of WNT/cadherin-associated protein β1 (CTNNB1, or β-catenin) signaling. In a study reported recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Nan et al investigated the potential role of the...
Tivozanib Improves Progression-Free but Not Overall Survival vs Sorafenib in Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma
The investigational agent tivozanib is a selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR)-1, -2, and -3. In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Robert J. Motzer, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), and...
Seven Studies at SABCS Make Dr. Jame Abraham's List of 'Practice-Changing' Talks
From December 10 to 14, the American Association for Cancer Research, the Cancer Therapy & Research Center at The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio, and Baylor College of Medicine once again hosted the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), presenting...
Novel BRAF Fusions Identified in 'Pan-Negative' Melanomas Subset May Be Sensitive to MEK Inhibition
A study by Sosman et al has identified two novel BRAF fusions in melanomas previously considered to be negative for molecular targets. In addition, these “pan-negative” melanomas were found to be sensitive to MEK inhibitors. According to the study, BRAF fusions define a new molecular subset of...
Evaluating and Screening Geriatric Patients for Treatment
One of the key questions in geriatric oncology is: How can we use all of the work geriatricians have done over the years in general geriatrics and apply that to the field of oncology? One-quarter to one-third of us are going to develop cancer throughout our lifetime, and half of the time it is...
Expert Point of View: Carlos L. Arteaga, MD and David Cameron, MD, MRCP
After the IBIS-II presentation at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, of Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, noted that women at high risk are afraid of developing breast cancer and that pharmacologic intervention may allay their anxiety. “Dr. Cuzick’s study...
Adjuvant Bisphosphonates in Early Breast Cancer: Practice-Changing Findings?
Adjuvant use of bisphosphonates reduced the risk of bone recurrence by 34% and the risk of breast cancer death by 17% in postmenopausal women with early breast cancer in a large meta-analysis conducted by the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG). The potentially...
ASCO's 50th Anniversary and the Road Ahead
As the American Society of Clinical Oncology celebrates its 50th anniversary, ASCO’s Chief Executive Officer Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, recently talked with The ASCO Post about the Society’s past, present, and future. Important Milestone What are your thoughts about ASCO’s origins and its 50th...
Risk-Based Breast Cancer Screening: Studies Suggest Alternatives to Age-Based Guidelines
Measuring certain hormone levels could help determine a woman’s risk for breast cancer and add a key factor to current risk-prediction models, according to investigators from Harvard Medical School. Their new study results were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual ...
