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Showing 7701 - 7750Progress, Slow but Sure, Seen for Current Lung Cancer Therapies
This year, we have some abstracts that help move things forward in lung cancer, maybe at a little bit slower pace than in previous years. But there are important points that we can learn from some of these abstracts,” commented Karen L. Reckamp, MD, of the City of Hope, who presented findings on...
Successful Use of Cytoreduction and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy May Hinge on Prior Experience
A review of 60 consecutive patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis who underwent cytoreductive surgery plus hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC)—sometimes called “hot chemotherapy”—found 0% mortality and 33% morbidity, with “a significant reduction of grade III/IV morbidity,...
Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Breast Cancer Not Linked to Acute Myeloid Leukemia and Myelodysplastic Syndromes
Contradicting what some previous investigations have found, a study from The US Oncology Network found that adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer does not increase the risk of acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes (AML/MDS), at least within the first 3 years of treatment.1 The...
Novel Device May Eliminate Need for Re-excision after Lumpectomy
A novel device employed during breast surgery reduces the need for re-excision due to positive margins. This lessens patient anxiety, lowers treatment costs, and helps preserve the cosmetic appearance of the breast, according to a large prospective study reported at the 2012 Breast Cancer...
Anthracycline Use Steadily Declining in Early Breast Cancer Population
Anthracycline use in early-stage breast cancer has been steadily declining, especially for patients with stage I/II or HER2-positive disease, according to an analysis of patients treated at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine.1 Treatment Alternatives Lead author...
Noncolorectal GI Cancer Evidence Incorporated into Guidelines
The noncolorectal gastrointestinal cancer studies selected for this year’s Best of ASCO meetings include some whose results are being folded into practice guidelines or are good candidates for incorporation, according to Alexandria T. Phan, MD, Associate Professor at The University of Texas MD...
Viral Infection and Liver Cancer: A Global Health Crisis
It is estimated that at least 15% of all cancers worldwide can be attributed to infectious etiologies, mostly viral infections. At this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, an intriguing session on virally induced cancers provided critical clues that could be of real practical value in advancing our battle...
Developments in Hematologic Cancers Include New Considerations in Treating Challenging Leukemias and Multiple Myelomas
Speakers at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 7th Annual Congress on Hematologic Malignancies reviewed the current standard of care for various hematologic cancers and explored new concepts in treatment. Below are highlights from presentations on chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML),...
Despite Progress, Chemotherapy Drug Shortages Still Vex the Oncology Community
During the first week of November 2011, President Obama signed an Executive Order directing the FDA to take steps to help resolve the drug shortages that were affecting patient care across the country. The oncology community was hit especially hard; many of the drug shortfalls were generic...
Breast Cancer Symposium Features Surgical Data, Updated Results from BOLERO-2, and Other Important News
The annual Breast Cancer Symposium, held September 13 to 15 in San Francisco, is jointly sponsored by ASCO, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, the American Society of Breast Disease, the American Society of Breast Surgeons, the National Consortium of Breast Cancers, and the Society of...
Pathologic Nodal Status and Tumor Response Can Predict Risk of Locoregional Recurrence
Pathologic nodal status/breast tumor response following neoadjuvant chemotherapy can be used to predict locoregional recurrence in women with operable, palpable breast cancer (T1-3, N0-1, M0) previously treated with mastectomy or lumpectomy plus radiotherapy. These results from the combined...
Feminist Author Babette Rosmond Helped Propel the Adoption of Patients’ Rights to Choose Their Cancer Treatment
Then writer and editor Babette Rosmond was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1971, the second wave of the Women’s Liberation Movement that began in the mid-1960s was in its infancy. Still, when told by her doctor that she would need a radical mastectomy—a procedure developed by William Stewart...
Novel Drug Combinations Present New Hope for Effective Treatments in Multiple Myeloma
Developing early-phase clinical trials that incorporate combinations of novel agents targeting different pathways in the hematologic cancer multiple myeloma is a leading focus of the work of Sagar Lonial, MD, Professor of Hematology and Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs in the Department of Hematology ...
Fellowship Breathes ‘LIFe’ into the Careers of Young Oncologists in Developing Countries
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology supports one-on-one training and research grants for the brightest minds in cancer care around the world through the Long-term International Fellowship (LIFe) and other programs. Through this 1-year fellowship, early-career...
Karnofsky Award Winner Honors Mentors through Gift to Conquer Cancer Foundation
Kanti R. Rai, MD, and his wife Susan have been loyal donors to the Conquer Cancer Foundation for the past 9 years, but in 2012, a momentous occasion in his career inspired Dr. Rai to make a unique gift. A Moment of Reflection In the spring of 2012, Dr. Rai, an internationally recognized expert on ...
AACR’s Cancer Progress Report 2012 Highlights Advances, Challenges, Opportunities
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) recently released its Cancer Progress Report for 2012,1 providing a snapshot of the major advances in cancer research, and highlighting the great need for continued funding for the field. “It is a new day for cancer research and cancer patients,” ...
Role of Crizotinib in Previously Treated ALK-positive Advanced NSCLC
In yet another success story for personalized medicine, a targeted therapy extended survival in patients whose cancers expressed the target. Crizotinib (Xalkori), the first-in-class ALK inhibitor, extended progression-free survival and improved response rates compared with single-agent chemotherapy ...
Whole-blood RNA Expression Profiles as Prognostic Models for Castration-resistant Prostate Cancer
Survival among patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer is highly variable, and there is a scarcity of prognostic markers that could be used to stratify patients in clinical trials, improve treatment, and accelerate drug development. Two recent studies reported in Lancet Oncology have...
SIDEBAR: Dealing with the Toxicity of Everolimus/Exemestane
While packing a punch in terms of clinical benefit, everolimus plus exemestane can also be a tough pill to swallow for many patients. The management of the potential toxicities associated with this new regimen was addressed at the 2012 Breast Cancer Symposium by Matthew J. Ellis, MB, PhD, of...
Will mTOR Inhibitors Change the Treatment of Endocrine-sensitive HER2-negative Breast Cancer?
For the treatment of endocrine-sensitive metastatic breast cancer, the combination of an mTOR inhibitor and an endocrine agent represents a promising new option. At the 2012 Breast Cancer Symposium, the 18-month update of BOLERO-2, which tested therapy with everolimus (Afinitor) plus exemestane,...
SIDEBAR: Dacomitinib: Better in Whom? Better in What?
Drug development is a highly competitive business. A new drug must be proven to be better than the standard one before it can be registered for public use. Starting with preclinical data, there should be evidence of lower 50% inhibitory concentrations in selective cell lines or a broader spectrum...
Challenges Persist in Treatment of Elderly Patients with CLL, but Novel Agents Hold Promise for Future Strategies
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is mainly a disease of the elderly, and the lack of a standard regimen for elderly patients has been a major challenge. The myelosuppressive regimens used to treat younger patients are not well tolerated by the elderly. However, some newer approaches currently...
Expert Point of View: Sandra M. Swain, MD
Commenting on the PHARE trial and HERA update presented at ESMO, ASCO President Sandra M. Swain, MD, of Washington Hospital Center’s Washington Cancer Institute, said “Today we have seen that 12 months of trastuzumab is better than 6 months, and 12 months is the same as 2 years of treatment, so...
One Year of Trastuzumab Remains the Standard of Care in HER2-positive Breast Cancer
For HER2-positive early breast cancer, 1 year of treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin)—rather than 6 months or 2 years—remains the standard of care, based on two pivotal studies presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress. The optimal duration of anti-HER2 adjuvant ...
Ignoring Level 1 Evidence in Invasive Bladder Cancer: Is Ignorance Bliss?
I’ve been part of the uro-oncology community for more than 30 years and have been proud to be involved in a good number of well-powered, enthusiastically subscribed randomized clinical trials. These have dated back to a time before randomization was necessarily the fashion. I have had the pleasure...
Combination of BRAF and MEK Inhibitors Paves Way for Phase III Studies in BRAF-mutated Metastatic Melanoma
Two late-breaking studies presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress highlight the promising potential of combining dual BRAF and MEK inhibitors for the treatment of BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma. A phase II study showed that combining full doses of the BRAF...
Media Campaign with Real Smokers a Success
Real smokers sharing in graphic terms what it is like to live with disfiguring or disabling tobacco-related diseases were the featured spokespersons for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) national media campaign to encourage smokers to quit. Based on short-term response, the CDC...
Letter to the Editor: Origins of PSA Testing: The Conversation Continues
As Drs. James Mohler and Donald Trump noted in their September 15 letter to The ASCO Post (“More Thoughts on PSA,” 3[14]:2, 2012), Richard Ablin, PhD, discovered a “prostate-specific antigen” of unknown properties, but his PSA is not the antigen in the PSA test we know today. Since Dr. Ablin has...
Mutational Activation of PI3K-AKT Pathway and Change in HER2 Expression in Trastuzumab-resistant Breast Cancer
Insensitivity of HER2-amplified breast cancer to trastuzumab (Herceptin) has been associated with both changes in HER2 expression and activation of the PI3K-AKT pathway in laboratory studies. Chandarlapaty and colleagues from Memorial- Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Fox Chase Cancer...
Strong Association Increasingly Recognized Between Obesity and Cancer Incidence/Poor Prognosis
The rise in obesity in the United States coincides with greater recognition of the role of obesity in cancer and other diseases.1 While decades of research have indicated a strong association between obesity and cancer, “several forces have made that association increasingly recognized,” according...
Risk Reduction for Patients with Multiple Primary Cancers
The number of patients with multiple primary cancers is increasing so that second malignant neoplasms now represent approximately 16%, or 1 in 6 cancers reported to the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. While some second malignant neoplasms are treatment-related, others...
Delivering Affordable Cancer Care: Is It Possible and What Will It Entail?
Many experts agree that at 18% of gross domestic product, health care (to paraphrase Shakespeare) is eating the country out of house and home. “The average cost of treating the most common cancers has increased, and as more expensive targeted therapies and other new technologies become the...
Intermittent Androgen Suppression in Prostate Cancer Noninferior to Continuous Suppression, Associated with Some QOL Benefit
A recently reported National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) Clinical Trials Group study, reported by Crook and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine, showed that intermittent androgen suppression was associated with noninferior overall survival when compared with continuous...
Options Shifting for First-line Treatment of Renal Cell Carcinoma
Trials with pazopanib (Votrient) have “provided significant efficacy, toxicity, and tolerability data for pazopanib to be established as a first-line standard of care” for renal cell carcinoma,” Tim Eisen, PhD, of the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, stated at the 11th International Kidney...
Stereotactic Radiosurgery May Offer Therapeutic Option for Patients with Primary Renal Cancer, Early Study Indicates
Stereotactic radiosurgery may hold potential as a therapeutic option for patients with localized primary renal cancer who are considered poor surgical candidates and who do not have a prior history of pelvic or abdominal radiation, according to data from a safety and toxicity study recently...
Novel Agents for Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer Impressive in Early Trials
Several sessions at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Vienna focused on novel targeted therapies in various stages of development. Summarized here are data on two promising drugs for breast cancer and two for prostate cancer. E-3810 in Breast Cancer Two experimental...
Highlights From the Ninth International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology
The theme of this year’s International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) was “Honoring Diversity in Cancer Prevention and Control.” The conference was held October 8–10, 2012, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and examined such varied topics as health-care disparities, novel...
Contralateral Breast Cancer Risk Is Highly Overestimated
Breast cancer is highly unlikely to develop in the contralateral breast of women treated for primary breast cancer, yet many women continue to fear it and undergo prophylactic mastectomies. “Regardless, the perceived risk of developing and dying from a contralateral breast cancer is highly...
Trastuzumab Emtansine Improves Survival vs Capecitabine plus Lapatinib in Second-line HER2-positive Breast Cancer
Trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) is an antibody-drug conjugate composed of trastuzumab bound to the cytotoxic microtubule inhibitor emtansine (DM1, derivative of maytansine) by a stable linker. Trastuzumab targets the conjugate to HER2 receptors, and the linker releases the cytotoxic agent when the...
Who Should Receive First-line BEACOPP Therapy for Hodgkin Lymphoma?
At the Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference, held this year in Maui, Hawaii, Andreas Engert, MD, Chairman of the German Hodgkin Study Group, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany, led off the Hodgkin lymphoma section of the conference with a presentation on optimizing the use of BEACOPP (bleomycin,...
Seeking Solutions to the Dilemmas of Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment
Widespread use of screening technologies has markedly increased early detection rates of cancer, saving countless lives. However, while screening technologies have remarkable sensitivity, their inability to identify which tumors will progress and which will not has created the phenomenon of...
Updated Results from T-DM1 and Regorafenib Trials, plus Other Highlights from ESMO 2012
The 35th European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Vienna broke all records for attendance, with about 16,000 attendees from all over the world. Some sessions were standing room only, including the Presidential Symposia, the ESMO-ASCO Joint Symposium on genomics in breast cancer, and ...
Defining a Cure for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and Strategies to Achieve this Goal
In chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), continued long-term therapy that prevents both progression to accelerated-phase disease and the emergence of resistance may be thought of as an “operational” or “functional” cure. However, long-term disease control without the requirement for continuous treatment...
Managing Treatment Failure in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
As John Goldman, DM, FRCP, FRCPath, FMedSci, discussed earlier, a substantial minority of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) experience treatment failure. Jorge Cortes, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, introduced this session with two patient cases to illustrate...
Defining and Recognizing the Causes of Imatinib Resistance and the Importance of Adherence
Imatinib (Gleevec) is a highly effective therapy for the majority of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). In the IRIS study, only 30% of patients could be considered to have failed imatinib treatment after 6 years.1 However, these 30% of patients are a substantial minority. John Goldman,...
Beyond Molecular Monitoring: Cytogenetic Testing and Mutational Analysis in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia
Cytogenetic analysis remains an important component of patient monitoring until a complete cytogenetic response is achieved. In addition, the ability of conventional cytogenetics to identify additional chromosomal abnormalities not detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization is noteworthy. Jorge ...
Treatment Goals, Molecular Monitoring, and the Role and Use of Guideline Recommendations
The importance of achieving a certain level of response with imatinib (Gleevec) by 3 months in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) had previously been established in the IRIS (International Randomized Study of Interferon and STI571) trial.1 Analysis of data from this trial showed that...
Lower Risk of Recurrence in Patients with HBV-related Liver Cancer Receiving Nucleoside Analogs
Patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma who received nucleoside analogs after curative liver resection had an associated lower risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in a nationwide cohort study using data from the Taiwan National Health Research Data Base. The study was...
Small Increase in Cardiac Events for Trastuzumab plus Anthracycline in HER2-positive Disease
A 7-year follow-up of the phase III National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) protocol B-31 found that the cumulative difference in the rate of cardiac events was 3.1% between patients with HER2-positive, node-positive breast cancer who received trastuzumab (Herceptin) in addition ...
Early Surgical Treatment of Low-grade Glioma Improves Survival vs Watchful Waiting
In a comparison of surgical treatment strategies for low-grade gliomas, patients in Norway treated at a hospital that generally favored early surgical resection had better overall survival than patients treated at a hospital that favored diagnostic biopsy and watchful waiting, according to a study...
