The Ontario Breast Screening Program expanded in July 2011 to include screening of high-risk women aged 30 to 69 years with annual magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and digital mammography. As reported by Chiarelli et al in Journal of Clinical Oncology, a study of the initial screen in the program...
Colorectal cancer screening rates are low among Latinos and people living in poverty. In a study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Baker et al found that a multifaceted intervention more than doubled adherence to screening with fecal occult blood testing in a largely Latino and uninsured...
In an updated analysis of the European phase II EXPERT-C trial reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Sclafani et al found that adding cetuximab (Erbitux) to neoadjuvant capecitabine plus oxaliplatin (CAPOX) followed by chemoradiotherapy, surgery, and adjuvant CAPOX produced no...
Hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and its receptor MET have been found to promote the proliferation, migration, and survival of tumor cells and to play a role in gastric cancer. In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Iveson et al found evidence of benefit from adding the anti-HGF...
Higher intakes of calcium, vitamin D, and dairy product are associated with lower risk of colorectal cancer, but the effect of such intake on survival in colorectal cancer is unclear. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yang et al found that higher postdiagnosis intake of...
Given the changes in treatment of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the risk of late effects in those treated with current protocols may be different from that in children treated decades ago. In a study of survivors of childhood standard-risk ALL reported in The Lancet Oncology,...
Obesity is associated with poorer outcome in women with operable breast cancer. In the LISA study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Goodwin et al found that a 24-month telephone-based intervention was effective in reducing body weight in postmenopausal breast cancer patients receiving...
Oncogenic mutations in GNAQ and GNA11, resulting in MAPK pathway activation, are observed in > 80% of uveal melanomas. In a phase II trial reported in JAMA, Carvajal et al found that treatment with the MEK1/MEK2 inhibitor selumetinib significantly prolonged progression-free survival vs...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Zhong et al assessed factors associated with use of immediate breast reconstruction after treatment or prophylaxis for breast cancer among women in the Canadian universal health-care system. Immediate breast reconstruction was more likely in...
In a UK phase III TeloVac trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Middleton et al found that the sequential or concurrent addition of the telomerase peptide vaccine GV1001 to gemcitabine/capecitabine did not improve survival in patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer. GV1001...
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is likely to improve insurance coverage for young adults. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Aizer et al examined the association between insurance status and cancer outcomes among young adults, finding that the uninsured...
Patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer have reduced risk of progression compared with those with HPV-negative disease, but the effect of HPV status on overall survival after progression has not been clear. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,...
In an interim analysis of the European phase III PETACC-8 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Taieb et al found no disease-free survival or overall survival benefit with the addition of cetuximab (Erbitux) to standard adjuvant FOLFOX4 (oxaliplatin, fluorouracil, leucovorin) therapy in patients...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Templeton et al found that high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, a marker of inflammation, is associated with significantly poorer overall survival in solid tumors overall and by individual category. High...
In a UK phase III trial (UKALL 2003) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Vora et al found that augmented postremission therapy provided an event-free survival benefit at the cost of increased toxicity in children and young adults with clinical standard- or intermediate-risk but minimal residual...
The oral fluoropyrimidine S-1 is standard treatment for locally advanced gastric cancer in Japan. In a Japanese phase III trial (SAMIT) in locally advanced disease reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tsuburaya et al found that sequential paclitaxel plus tegafur and uracil or S-1 did not improve...
In what may be the first randomized trial of systemic therapy in this setting, Dutton and colleagues evaluated gefitinib (Iressa) vs placebo in patients with esophageal cancer progressing after chemotherapy. As reported in The Lancet Oncology, the COG trial showed no survival benefit with gefitinib ...
In a Japanese study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fujimori et al found that an oncologist communication skills training program based on patient preferences in receiving bad news was of benefit to both oncologists and patients. Study Details In the study, 30 oncologists were...
Tumor microenvironment of metastasis (TMEM) consists of direct contact between a macrophage, an endothelial cell, and a tumor cell. In a case-control study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Rohan et al found that TMEM score was an independent predictor of distant metastasis...
Trebananib inhibits angiogenesis by blocking the binding of angiopoietins 1 and 2 to the Tie2 receptor expressed on endothelial cells, a mechanism that differs from VEGF inhibitors and that involves a different signaling pathway. In the phase III TRINOVA-1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology,...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Azambuja et al found low rates of trastuzumab (Herceptin)-related cardiac dysfunction over a median of 8 years of follow-up in the HERceptin Adjuvant (HERA) trial. The majority of patients with cardiac dysfunction achieved acute recovery. Study...
In a study of the association of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), thyroglobulin, and thyroid hormones with risk of differentiated thyroid cancer reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Rinaldi et al found that high thyroglobulin levels can precede thyroid cancer by many years and...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pollack et al found antigen-specific immune responses and evidence of clinical activity with glioma-associated antigen (GAA) peptide vaccination in children with newly diagnosed malignant brainstem and nonbrainstem gliomas. Study Details In ...
In a European study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Moreau et al developed and validated a combined index for prognosis in patients with multiple myeloma treated with front-line autologous stem cell transplantation. The index, consisting of high lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) level,...
A small study of 18 patients with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy has found a significant increase in cognitive complaints and significant correlations between these increases and decreases in multitasking-related brain activation. The study by Deprez et al is published in the Journal of...
A study reported in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery by VanderWalde and colleagues suggests that increasing use of positron emission tomography (PET) for diagnosis and staging of head and neck cancer has resulted in considerable stage migration characterized by dilution of higher stages...
Anorectal melanoma is a rare malignant neoplasm that has a variable natural history and nonspecific presentation. A review by Hicks et al of 18 patients treated at Johns Hopkins Hospital between October 1991 and August 2012, finds that the cancer tends to be diagnosed at stage II or later and is...
In a study of data from an integrated health-care delivery system reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fehrenbacher et al found that patients with T1b node-negative localized breast cancer have a higher risk of distant invasive recurrence than those with T1a disease. Risk was highest among ...
In a Danish cohort study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Rugbjerg and colleagues found that survivors of adolescent and young adult cancer are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease throughout life, with cardiovascular disease profiles differing according to cancer...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Eberth et al found that needle biopsy is underused in diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer, with a number of surgeon factors contributing to underuse. The study involved Medicare data from 89,712 patients with breast cancer seen between...
In the first phase III trial assessing the combination of an insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) inhibitor with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for advanced nonadenocarcinoma non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the addition of the fully human immunoglobulin G2 monoclonal...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Tammemägi et al assessed smoking cessation rates among participants undergoing chest x-ray or computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST). Among patients without a subsequent ...
Weekly paclitaxel is used as second-line treatment in advanced gastric cancer, including HER2-positive disease, in Asian countries. In the phase III TyTAN trial in Asian patients reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Satoh et al assessed the addition of the anti-HER2 agent lapatinib...
A study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by Stout et al suggests that the switch from film to digital mammography screening in the United States has produced a small health benefit at increased cost and with an increased false-positive rate. Biennial digital screening...
As reported in JAMA Ophthalmology, McCannel and colleagues identified three cases of subfoveal neurosensory retinal detachment among patients receiving MEK inhibitor therapy for metastatic cancer in clinical trials requiring ophthalmologic examination at their institution. In all cases, the toxic...
The androgen receptor inhibitor enzalutamide (Xtandi) has been shown to prolong survival in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with progressive disease after chemotherapy. In the phase III PREVAIL trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Beer et al found that...
A recently reported phase II trial indicated that maintenance therapy with the PARP inhibitor olaparib significantly improved progression-free survival vs placebo in patients with platinum-sensitive serous ovarian cancer. As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Ledermann et al, a preplanned...
The combination of lenalidomide (Revlimid) and rituximab (Rituxan) has shown synergistic activity in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) preclinical models. In a CLL Research Consortium phase II study of the combination in treatment-naive patients reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, James...
Elevated circulating tumor cells are associated with poor prognosis in metastatic breast cancer. In the phase III Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) S0500 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Smerage et al assessed whether changing chemotherapy after one cycle of first-line treatment in ...
In a Dutch population-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, de Glas et al found that the Adjuvant! Online prediction tool performed poorly in older patients with early-stage breast cancer, significantly overestimating or underestimating overall survival depending on comorbidity...
Ibrutinib is an irreversible inhibitor of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase that was recently approved for treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients who have received at least one prior therapy. A small proportion of CLL patients have been observed to relapse during ibrutinib treatment, ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mandelblatt and colleagues attempted to determine whether cognitive impairment is present in older patients with breast cancer prior to systemic therapy. They found that although there were no global differences in cognitive function between...
The availability of cross-sectional imaging has resulted in increased diagnosis of low-grade pancreatic neoplasms and use of central pancreatectomy as an alternative to standard resection for such lesions. In a French single-center experience reported in JAMA Surgery, Goudard et al found that...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by O’Connell et al, the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Trial R-04 is assessing four chemotherapy regimens given concurrently with preoperative radiotherapy in order to help identify optimal treatment in patients with ...
In the noninferiority COREAN trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jeong et al found that laparoscopic surgery was associated with disease-free survival similar to that with open surgery for mid- or low-rectal cancer. Study Details In this open-label trial, 340 patients with cT3N0–2M0...
In a study reported in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, Rocke et al compared hypothetical resource allocation by otolaryngology–head and neck surgery physicians and patients with that by advanced cancer patients or their caregivers. They found significant differences in...
Gemcitabine plus a platinum agent is standard treatment in advanced biliary cancer. In the phase II open-label noncomparative BINGO trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology, Malka et al found no apparent benefit of adding the EGFR inhibitor cetuximab (Erbitux) to gemcitabine/oxaliplatin in first-line ...
In an open-label phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Glass et al examined the strategy of adding rituximab (Rituxan) to standard prophylaxis for graft-vs-host disease after allogeneic stem cell transplantation in relapsed or refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Rituximab did not...
In a Japanese phase III trial (DELTA) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kawaguchi et al found that erlotinib (Tarceva) was associated with no progression-free survival or overall survival advantage as second- or third-line therapy in EGFR-unselected patients with non–small cell...
Although presence of circulating tumor cells has been shown to predict reduced survival in metastatic breast cancer, data on their predictive performance in earlier breast cancer are lacking. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Rack et al found that presence of...