The primary analysis of the MINDACT trial confirms the value of genomic profiling for patients with early breast cancer with zero to three positive lymph nodes, according to MINDACT investigators and breast cancer specialists who heard the results at the 2016 American Association of Cancer Research ...
Deep knowledge of immunology, cancer biology, and disruptive technology in computational science and molecular profiling has positioned us to dethrone the emperor of all maladies. The cancer research community is prepared to fulfill President Barack Obama’s call for a national cancer moonshot aimed ...
John Farrow, a 67-year-old Vietnam veteran, had not been able to sleep for days. A week ago, his primary care doctor at his local outpatient Veterans Administration (VA) clinic told him that his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood level was rapidly increasing, and his prostate was abnormal on...
Researchers have identified a gene that may help to predict survival outcomes in patients with cancer of the mouth and tongue. Patients whose tumors express a gene called spectrin are 4.6 times more likely to die at any given time, according to a study by researchers at Loyola Medicine and Loyola...
A gene known as TJP1 (tight junction protein 1) could help determine which multiple myeloma patients would best benefit from proteasome inhibitors such as bortezomib, as well as combination approaches to enhance proteasome inhibitor sensitivity, according to a study led by researchers from The...
A new study by University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers published by Van Dyk et al in JAMA Oncology found that commonly used chemotherapy drugs showed no association with cognitive decline following treatment in women with breast cancer. The report addresses recent concerns that the ...
Long-term use of the cholesterol-lowering drugs statins does not appear to decrease a patient’s risk of colorectal cancer, suggests a new, large case-control study from Penn Medicine published by Mamtani et al in PLOS Medicine. The observational analysis of over 100,000 patients’...
Although laparoscopic radical cystectomy and robotic-assisted radical cystectomy continue to grow in popularity and are successful in the treatment of bladder cancer, they are still considered experimental approaches. Using data collected by the Section of Uro-Technology of the European Association ...
ASCO has adapted a Clinical Care Ontario (CCO) clinical practice guideline on the selection of optimal adjuvant chemotherapy for early breast cancer and adjuvant targeted therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer, as reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The adaptation was based on review by...
Three measures of aggressive end-of-life care “were associated with relatively large differences in family member–reported quality ratings for end-of-life care and a lower likelihood that patients with advanced-stage cancer received care congruent with their preferences,” according to a study in...
As reported in Scientific Reports, Gaul and colleagues used high-performance mass spectrometry to interrogate the serum metabolome of patients with early-stage ovarian cancer and healthy controls. They were able to define a linear support vector machine model of 16 metabolites that identified...
The Advanced Practitioner Society for Hematology and Oncology (APSHPO) has announced a series of workshops to be held in cities nationwide during 2016. APSHO, a nonprofit membership organization consisting of nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, clinical nurse specialists, and...
Funded by a $2.5 million grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, City of Hope has launched a 5-year initiative to reduce cancer risk in the Los Angeles area by promoting healthy eating and physical activity, particularly among school children. The long-range plan is to replicate the...
For many, the word “radiation” conjures up images of mushroom clouds and the nightmarish nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. It also brings to mind those pesky dental x-rays and lifesaving cancer treatments. However, to most people, radiation is a mysterious invisible power to be feared and embraced...
Immunotherapy is on its way. A few agents have already been approved: ipilimumab (Yervoy) in 2011 for melanoma; nivolumab (Opdivo) in 2015 for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and then later that year for renal cell carcinoma; and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for NSCLC. In addition, many clinical...
The median age of patients at the first diagnosis of cancer in the United States is 65 years, and the majority of patients with cancer are older adults.1 As we have learned from previous articles in this series, older patients with cancer require more complex care. Older adults are more likely to...
Use of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines should be rapidly expanded to protect thousands of young people in the United States—and millions worldwide—from life-threatening cancers, ASCO said April 11 in a policy statement. Published by Bailey et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 the...
The advent of targeted therapies along with complex personalized treatment regimens has added many effective tools to the oncology armamentarium. But progress has a price tag. Although the oncology community needs new drugs, there is growing concern that the price of many newer compounds is...
A noninvasive colorectal cancer-screening test detected the disease in patients who had previously avoided more invasive screening measures, according to research presented by Prince et al at the 2016 AACR Annual Meeting (Abstract LB-296). The study of nearly 400 patients revealed four patients...
Reeder-Hayes et al found that adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) may be underused in older women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer and reported their study results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Adjuvant trastuzumab also was used less often in black women than in white women. Rates...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. We chose Boswellia for this issue because of its increasing use by patients with cancer....
Studies presented at the 2015 ASH Annual Meeting bolstered support for elotuzumab (Empliciti) given in combination with lenalidomide (Revlimid) for the treatment of multiple myeloma. Elotuzumab is an immunostimulatory monoclonal antibody. It has a dual mechanism of action, directly activating...
Active surveillance has been increasingly adopted as a standard approach for men with Gleason score ≤ 6 localized prostate cancer, with major guidelines and consensus statements encouraging this approach,1 including a recently published guideline from Cancer Care Ontario (CCO),2 and endorsement of...
As reported by Ronald C. Chen, MD, MPH, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has endorsed, with qualifications, the 2015 Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) guideline on active surveillance for management of localized prostate cancer....
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Piero Dalerba, MD, of Columbia University, and colleagues found that absence of the transcription factor CDX2 was prognostic for poor outcome in patients with stage II and III colon cancer vs cancers with CDX2 expression.1 However,...
Neoadjuvant endocrine therapy in the management of breast cancer is woefully underutilized by U.S. clinicians, according to advocates of this approach who made their case at the 2016 Miami Breast Cancer Conference.1 In postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–rich tumors, neoadjuvant endocrine...
The relationship between margin width and risk of recurrence after breast-conserving surgery for ductal carcinoma in situ depends on the use of radiation, according to a surgical oncologist who sought to determine the optimal margin width in these patients.1 “Positive margins are associated with an ...
A new study has demonstrated for the first time that personalized circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) biomarkers in gynecologic cancers can detect the presence of residual tumor earlier than currently used serum and imaging studies.1,2 According to the data, undetectable levels of ctDNA at the completion ...
Kian Behbakht, MD, Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, said that the study underscored the surgical importance of getting to no visible residual disease in ovarian cancer. “Based on today’s data,” said Dr. Behbakht, “it seems as though it’s...
Three commercially available diagnostic tests were similarly effective in measuring programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein expression on non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumor samples, indicating that health-care providers may someday be able to use these tests interchangeably when...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Bailey et al, ASCO has released a statement on increasing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to prevent HPV-related cancers in the United States. In the United States, HPV is estimated to cause approximately 99.7% of cervical cancers, 60% of...
In a study exploring the effect of primary debulking surgery in women with bulky stage IIIC ovarian, fallopian tube, and primary peritoneal cancers, cytoreduction to no gross residual disease was associated with the best survival outcomes.1 Cytoreduction to 1 to 10 mm of residual disease was also...
Although high-dose chemotherapy plus autologous transplantation has been a standard of care in the treatment of younger patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, the advent of effective novel agents for the cancer over the past 15 years has raised the question of whether transplantation, with ...
Compelling hypotheses are emerging about the mechanisms driving triple-negative breast cancer, and they are driving drug development in this area, according to Joyce O’Shaughnessy, MD, Celebrating Women Chair of Breast Cancer Research at Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center. She is also Medical...
The molecularly targeted therapeutic palbociclib (Ibrance) was effective in slowing the multiplication of cancer cells in patients diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer who received no prior therapy, according to data from a phase II clinical trial presented by Arnedos et al at the 2016 AACR...
A roundtable convened by the Turning the Tide Against Cancer initiative, composed of a multidisciplinary group of stakeholders, put forth five policy considerations that are critical to ensuring the delivery of high-quality oncology care while supporting innovation. The report was published by...
Among patients with early-stage breast cancer who were considered at high risk for disease recurrence based on clinical and biologic criteria, the MammaPrint genetic test identified a large group of patients for whom 5-year distant metastasis–free survival was equally good whether or not they ...
The third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib (Tagrisso) is effective in the first-line treatment of EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a late-breaking abstract presented by Ramalingam et al (Abstract...
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA), which seeks to expand the use of nivolumab (Opdivo) to patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma after prior therapies. The application...
On April 13, The Parker Foundation announced a $250 million grant to launch the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, a collaboration between scientists, clinicians, and industry partners to lead an unprecedented cancer immunotherapy research effort. The gift is the largest single contribution ...
The 21-gene recurrence score (RS) assay score was strongly associated with recommendation for adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with early-stage breast cancer, reported Jasem et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Black women and patients treated in community facilities were more likely to...
Wide variability exists in radiation treatment decisions following neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery for breast cancer, according to a review of the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z1071 trial. These findings were published by Haffty et al in the International Journal of...
Use of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines should be rapidly expanded to protect thousands of young people in the United States—and millions worldwide—from life-threatening cancers, ASCO said April 11 in a policy statement. Published by Bailey et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,...
Ribi et al reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that addition of ovarian function suppression to tamoxifen resulted in greater endocrine and sexual function symptoms among premenopausal patients with early breast cancer in the Suppression of Ovarian Function Trial (SOFT). The SOFT study...
A National Cancer Database analysis reported by Ellis et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates a doubling in the use of chemoradiation only in patients with nonmetastatic rectal cancer over recent years. However, current evidence is insufficient to support such nonoperative management....
The use of combination therapy with estrogen plus progestin, previously shown to be associated with an increased incidence of estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer in postmenopausal women in studies based largely on white women, has been shown to increase this type of breast cancer...
Relatives of patients with carcinoma of unknown primary are at increased risk of developing it themselves as well as several other malignant neoplasms, including lung, pancreatic, and colon cancers; non-Hodgkin lymphoma; and myeloma, according to a study published in JAMA Oncology. “Some of...
Pathologists would disagree about 8% of the time when interpreting a single breast biopsy slide, with more overinterpretation than underinterpretation in discordant cases, according to an analysis combining results from the B-Path (Breast Pathology) study with data on the prevalence of breast...
Use of a custom next-generation sequencing assay may accurately predict mismatch repair deficiency on the basis of mutational load in colorectal cancer, according to a report by Stadler et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details The study involved data from 224 patients with...
International Myeloma Working Group recommendations for the diagnosis and management of myeloma-related renal impairment were recently reported by Dimopoulos et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Recommendations were based on review of published data through December 2015. Key recommendations...