Researchers at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) presented a molecular imaging technique that allows oncologists to set patients’ radiotherapy doses right at that critical limit of delivering the most powerful dosage to neuroendocrine...
Researchers at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) presented a means of evaluating an immunotherapy that fights off non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) by strengthening a patient’s own immune system (Scientific Paper 134). Due to...
Patients with cancer often experience significant fluctuations in weight and lean body mass. Neglecting to account for these changes can prevent clinicians from obtaining precise data from molecular imaging, but a new method of measuring lean body mass takes changes in individual body...
Although clinical trials have shown that lung cancer screening using low-dose computed tomography (CT) can detect lung cancers early and reduce lung cancer mortality, less than half of family physicians in a recent survey agreed that screening reduces lung cancer–related deaths. Most were...
The use of adjuvant chemotherapy in early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients improves overall survival and 5-year overall survival rates in patients with tumor sizes ranging from 3 to 7 cm. These findings were published by Morgensztern et al in the Journal of Thoracic...
A Norwegian population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Bains et al showed that use of aspirin after diagnosis of colorectal cancer was associated with improved colorectal cancer–specific survival. Study Details In the population-based retrospective cohort study,...
In the first-ever clinical trial for metastatic patients previously treated for the disease, research led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found that the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) shows promise for the majority of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Davendra P. Sohal, MD, MPH, of Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Recommendations are based on expert panel systematic review of the...
As reported by Edward P. Balaban, DO, of Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer. The recommendations are based on expert panel...
ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of potentially curable pancreatic cancer, as reported by Alok A. Khorana, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, and colleagues, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The recommendations are based on expert panel systematic review of the literature...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Netspot, the first kit for the preparation of Ga-68 dotatate injection, a radioactive diagnostic agent for positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging. This radioactive probe will help locate tumors in adult and pediatric patients with...
On May 31, 2016, ASCO published an updated framework for assessing the relative value of cancer therapies that have been compared in clinical trials. The framework, published by Schnipper et al,1 defines value as a combination of clinical benefit, side effects, and improvement in patient symptoms...
Dense breasts are not an automatic indication for additional imaging. Instead, breast density generally provides an opportunity for improved risk assessment, according to Kevin Hughes, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “More than 20 states have mandated that women be informed of...
There were once two patients with leukemia. Other than their diagnoses and their ages, these two men had nothing in common. Meet Michael Michael was an artist—a sculptor. He had large, sensitive, blue eyes and a quiet, pensive manner. His acute observational power led him to ponder deep questions...
An otherwise healthy, actively working, independent 60-year-old patient came to us with a several months’ history of abdominal pain. He had been seen by other physicians prior to coming to us for a second opinion. Our workup revealed a large cystic lesion emanating from the pancreas but involving ...
Pilot Study Title: Pilot Study of Hepatic Arterial Infusion Therapy in Patients With Unresectable or Borderline Resectable Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Study Type: Interventional/nonrandomized/parallel assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Washington University School of Medicine Purpose: ...
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. On May 13, 2016, lenvatinib (Lenvima) was approved for use in...
Diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer have been the source of heated debate for decades, most of which has centered on the clinical value of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test. In 2012, the U.S Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) gave the PSA test a D grade, which discourages many...
Most smokers and other tobacco users want to quit. ASCO’s patient booklet Stopping Tobacco Use After a Cancer Diagnosis offers people with cancer and their caregivers information on tobacco cessation. With information on treatments and resources available, this booklet gives patients the practical...
On Monday, May 2, ASCO submitted comments to the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) regarding the proposed Enhanced Oversight of the ONC Health Information Technology (HIT) Certification Program rule. The rule would increase ONC oversight of certified health IT, define a process for...
Immunotherapy marches on! One of the latest frontiers for checkpoint inhibitors is the treatment of Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare but aggressive type of cancer. First-line therapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda)—an anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) inhibitor—achieved an objective response...
It is more and more common for people to wait until their 30s or 40s to have children. Consequently, many young adults have not completed their desired childbearing when they are diagnosed with cancer. Cancer treatments can impair fertility directly (usually via gonadotoxicity from chemotherapy,...
The Society of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has announced that Richard J. O’Reilly, MD, has been named the inaugural recipient of The Society of Memorial Sloan Kettering Prize. Founded in 1946, The Society of MSK is a volunteer-led organization within MSK dedicated to promoting the ...
Low-grade gliomas account for 15% of all primary brain tumors and represent a heterogeneous group of glial neoplasms. Although these tumors have been termed low-grade, this is a misnomer, especially for some grade II gliomas, which may exhibit a more aggressive behavior and variable natural...
Oophorectomy was the first proposed form of endocrine therapy for women with breast cancer. Over 100 years ago, Thomas Nunn reported a relationship between menopause and regression of breast cancer.1 This incited interest in the induction of menopause as an anticancer therapy, and in 1986, a...
On May 17, 2016, nivolumab (Opdivo) was granted accelerated approval for treatment of patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma that has relapsed or progressed after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and post-transplantation brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris).1,2 Continued approval for ...
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.On May 18, 2016, the PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1)...
ASCO President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, issued the following statement in response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) move to regulate electronic cigarettes. “ASCO applauds the FDA for exercising its congressionally mandated authority to regulate cigars, hookah tobacco,...
On June 2, 2016, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf, MD, issued the following statement on the release of the final individual patient expanded access form. “Today, the FDA finalized its efforts to streamline the process used by physicians to request expanded...
Session moderator, Michael O. Koch, MD, Professor of Urology and Chairman of the Department of Urology at Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, described the drug as a “game-changer for metastatic disease.” “The last [development] that was even similar to this was when the MVAC...
Moderator of the session, Sam S. Chang, MD, MBA, Professor of Urologic Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, and American Urological Association spokesperson, said that due to these results he would definitely consider this treatment option for both high-risk and African...
In 2012–2013, members of the President’s Cancer Panel (prescancerpanel.cancer.gov) focused their efforts on accelerating widespread acceptance of and use of approved human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines to prevent cancer. The topic is important, because HPVs cause most cases of cervical cancer and...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Howard H. Bailey, MD, of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, and colleagues, ASCO has released a statement on increasing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to prevent HPV-related cancers in the United States.1 In the United...
Breast surgeon Deanna Attai, MD, is a virtual mighty mouse as a spokesperson for her professional organization, the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS). She is as big on ideas as she is petite in stature and for actively tweeting on medical topics (@DrAttai). Assistant Clinical Professor...
Last year, five organizations introduced new methods to compare cancer treatments. For more on ASCO’s Value Framework, see page 120. The NCCN Evidence Blocks™ use a simple graphic to show experts’ ratings of systemic therapies in five areas: efficacy, safety, quality and quantity of evidence,...
Value framework tools made a splash in 2015, with five different groups unveiling methods to help physicians and patients compare therapies based on efficacy, toxicity, and/or cost. Now these potential users are beginning to examine and debate the tools, including how and whether they will work in...
An adjuvant chemotherapy regimen improved overall survival in early-stage pancreatic cancer patients, in the large phase III European ESPAC-4 study reported at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 The combination of gemcitabine and capecitabine almost doubled the 5-year survival rate, compared to...
Five years of aromatase inhibitor as upfront therapy or after tamoxifen is the current standard of care for postmenopausal women with early hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. A new trial suggests that extending aromatase inhibitor therapy with letrozole for an additional 5 years may improve...
It can be easy to miss the forest for the trees in the interpretation of clinical trials. In particular, trials for the treatment of cancer are exceedingly complex, with long lists of inclusion and exclusion criteria, designs with hidden biases, drugs with unpronounceable names (if not cumbersome...
On June 27, 2016, Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, will begin his tenure as Chief Executive Officer of ASCO, succeeding Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, who presided over the Society and the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO since 2006. Dr. Hudis’ dedication to ASCO dates back more than 25 years...
As reported in The Lancet by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of Yale School of Medicine, and colleagues,1 the phase II/III KEYNOTE-010 trial showed that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs docetaxel in patients with previously treated programmed cell death ligand 1...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yu et al identified a four-biomarker panel that was predictive of chronic graft-vs-host disease after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. Discovery Cohort In the study, a quantitative proteomics approach was used to compare...
Costs associated with different breast cancer chemotherapy regimens can vary significantly, regardless of effectiveness, according to new research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Understanding cost differences should help guide informed discussions between patients and...
An experimental CDK inhibitor, abemaciclib, yielded encouraging and durable results against several different types of cancers, including breast cancer, lung cancer, glioblastoma, and melanoma, according to a report published by Patnaik et al in Cancer Discovery. The results of the trial supported ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Wolmark et al, higher 21-gene recurrence score (RS) was strongly predictive of late disease recurrence among patients with high quantitative estrogen-receptor expression (ESR1) receiving tamoxifen for 5 years in two NRG Oncology/NSABP (National...
An analysis of health claims data from 2007–2014 on more than 28,000 patients under the age of 65 found that a large proportion of patients with advanced solid tumors received at least one form of aggressive care within the last 30 days of life. The study was presented by Chen et al at...
A Web-mediated follow-up application (app; Moovcare™) improved advanced lung cancer survival, according to a French multicenter randomized phase III study. Researchers analyzed the association and evolution of self-reported clinical symptoms over time. The median overall survival of patients...
Historically, less than 50% of children with high-risk neuroblastoma live 5 or more years after diagnosis. A National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded phase III trial performed by the Children’s Oncology Group found that adding a second autologous stem-cell transplant to standard therapy...
A large-scale genomic analysis found that patterns of genetic changes detected in blood samples (liquid biopsy) closely mirror those identified in traditional tumor biopsy. With blood samples from more than 15,000 patients and 50 different tumor types, this is one of the largest cancer genomics...
For a more in-depth look at these data, please click here. Patients with anaplastic glioma without 1p/19q codeletion benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy, according to early results from a European phase III trial. The estimated 5-year survival rates were 56% with radiation therapy and...