In an updated patient-level meta-analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Blanchard et al of the Meta-Analysis of Chemotherapy in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (MAC-NPC) collaborative group found that the addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy improved overall survival in patients with nasopharyngeal ...
In the German CONKO-004 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pelzer et al found that prophylactic treatment with the low-molecular-weight heparin enoxaparin reduced the risk of symptomatic venous thromboembolic events in ambulatory patients receiving first-line chemotherapy for...
In the phase III ARTemis trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Earl et al found that the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard neoadjuvant therapy resulted in a higher pathologic complete response rate in women with HER2-negative early breast cancer. Study Details In this open-label...
In the Dutch PACES trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, van Waart et al found that both a moderate/high-intensity supervised exercise program and a low-intensity home-based program provided benefits vs usual care in women undergoing adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer. Benefits,...
In a population-based study reported in JAMA Oncology, Thomas and colleagues found significantly poorer disease-specific survival among melanoma patients with stage ≥ T2b tumors with NRAS or BRAF mutation. Study Details The study included data from 912 U.S. or Australian patients in the...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Holter et al found that 4.6% of a large clinic population of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma harbored pathogenic germline BRCA mutations. The study involved analysis of 306 unselected, consecutive, incident patients with pancreatic...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Hwang et al, ASCO has released a provisional clinical opinion update on screening of cancer patients for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection before cancer treatment to reduce the risk of HBV reactivation. The ASCO consensus panel providing the update ...
In a Dutch study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Heemskerk-Gerritsen et al in the Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer in the Netherlands (HEBON) study group found no apparent reduction in the risk for breast cancer with salpingo-oophorectomy in healthy BRCA1/2 mutation...
In a meta-analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lee et al found that increased progression-free survival benefit of EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment vs chemotherapy was exhibited in patients with exon 19 deletion, never-smokers, and women. Study Details The meta-analysis...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Wolfe et al, the Pediatric Quality of Life and Evaluation of Symptoms Technology (PediQUEST) study found a high prevalence of disease symptoms in children with advanced cancer, with most symptoms being associated with high distress level. Study...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Advani et al, a subset analysis of the phase III North American Intergroup E2496 trial showed no significant difference in failure-free or overall survival between ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine) plus radiotherapy vs the...
In a single-center study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Armenian et al found that childhood cancer survivors who had received potentially pulmonary toxic treatment were at a significantly increased risk of long-term pulmonary dysfunction compared with healthy controls. Study Details ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Araujo et al used targeted massively parallel sequencing to produce an in-depth molecular profile of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in African Americans. Comparison with findings in patients of European/white ancestry with NSCLC...
In a German study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brämswig et al found that women treated for Hodgkin lymphoma during childhood or adolescence had a good prognosis for achieving parenthood. Study Details This prospective longitudinal study included 467 female patients aged < 18 years at...
In the phase III ENESTg1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Blay et al found that nilotinib (Tasigna) was associated with poorer progression-free survival vs imatinib (Gleevec) as first-line treatment in patients with unresectable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). Trial...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bartlett et al found that the presence of duplication of chromosome 17 pericentromeric alpha satellite, measured by a centromere enumeration probe (CEP17), and TOP2A aberrations predicted benefit of anthracycline-based adjuvant therapy in...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rapp et al found that the neurotransmitter modulator donepezil may modestly improve some cognitive function domains in patients undergoing cranial irradiation for brain tumors. Improvements were greater in patients with greater...
In the phase III CAIRO3 trial reported in The Lancet, Simkens et al of the Dutch Colorectal Cancer Group found that maintenance capecitabine-bevacizumab (Avastin) prolonged the time to second progression vs observation in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. In this open-label trial, 558...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Coromilas et al found that axillary lymph node evaluation is frequently performed in women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), and a number of hospital or surgeon characteristics are associated with likelihood of evaluation. As noted by the authors, benefit...
In a phase I cohort expansion trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gettinger et al found that monotherapy with the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) checkpoint inhibitor antibody nivolumab (Opdivo) produced durable responses and promising survival rates in patients...
In a UK phase III RAPID trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Radford et al compared no further treatment vs involved-field radiotherapy in patients with early-stage Hodgkin lymphoma who had negative positron emission tomography (PET) findings after 3 cycles of doxorubicin,...
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...
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...
In the phase III KEYNOTE-006 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Robert et al found that the anti–PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda) increased progression-free and overall survival compared with ipilimumab in patients with advanced melanoma. Study Details In this...
The PREVAIL trial showed that enzalutamide (Xtandi) improved overall survival and progression-free survival vs placebo in asymptomatic/minimally symptomatic chemotherapy-naive patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. In analyses reported in The Lancet Oncology, Loriot et al...
In a phase I/II study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Sequist et al found that rociletinib—an EGFR inhibitor active in the presence and absence of the EGFR T790M mutation known to mediate resistance to available EGFR inhibitors—produced a high response rate in patients...
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...
In a phase II study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Postow et al found that dual checkpoint inhibitor therapy with the anti–CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab (Yervoy) and the anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody nivolumab (Opdivo) produced greater response rates and prolonged...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Spolverato et al derived 3-year conditional survival estimates for patients in a multi-institutional database who underwent liver resection for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Among all patients, actuarial overall survival was 16% at 8 years, whereas 3-year...
In an Italian randomized phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Pignata et al found that the addition of the antiangiogenic multikinase inhibitor pazopanib (Votrient) to weekly paclitaxel significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with platinum-resistant/refractory...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Roschewski et al found that interim monitoring of circulating tumor DNA in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma distinguished more and less rapid progression and that surveillance monitoring identified recurrence well before clinical evidence was...
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 randomized phase II trial (SWOG S0925) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yu et al found that the addition of cixutumumab to androgen-deprivation therapy did not significantly increase the rate of undetectable prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in patients with newly diagnosed...
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...
In the phase III RAISE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tabernero et al found that the addition of the antiangiogenic anti-VEGFR2 antibody ramucirumab (Cyramza) to second-line FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan) improved overall survival in patients with metastatic colorectal...
In a nested case-control study reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Martin et al found that higher HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein A1 (apoA1) levels and lower non-HDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B (apoB) levels were associated with increased risk of breast cancer in women...
In the phase III LUX-Head & Neck 1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Machiels et al found that afatinib (Gilotrif) improved progression-free survival vs methotrexate in patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck progressing after first-line platinum...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Ohri et al found that higher pretreatment metabolic tumor volume on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) was associated with poorer overall survival and an increased risk of locoregional failure in...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Yurgelun et al identified germline TP53 mutations in multiple patients with early-onset colorectal cancer from the Colon Cancer Family Registry who did not meet clinical criteria for Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Li-Fraumeni syndrome is associated with increased risk...
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...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Luo et al found that microscopic melanoma metastases in sentinel lymph nodes that were not the most radioactive (“hottest”) were still associated with an increased risk of progression and mortality. The study involved data from 475 consecutive...
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...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Kneuertz et al found that the more frequent stage-specific use of adjuvant chemotherapy in younger patients with colon cancer did not appear to produce commensurate benefit in survival compared with outcomes in older patients. Study Details The study was a...
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 the COLOR II study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bonjer et al found similar rates of locoregional recurrence and disease-free and overall survival with laparoscopic vs open resection of rectal cancer. Study Details In the trial, 1,044 patients from 30 sites in 8 countries in ...
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...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Scher et al found that circulating tumor cell count and LDH level served as an individual-level surrogate for survival among patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer receiving abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) plus...
In the phase III VANTAGE-014 study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Krug et al found that treatment with the histone deacetylase inhibitor vorinostat (Zolinza) did not improve overall survival vs placebo in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma who had progressed on previous chemotherapy....
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Makarov et al found that hospital referral regions marked by higher rates of inappropriate imaging in patients with low-risk breast cancer also had high rates of inappropriate prostate imaging in patients with low-risk prostate cancer. Inappropriate imaging...