A new surgical approach that removes the fallopian tubes—while sparing the ovaries—may provide premenopausal women at high risk for ovarian cancer, particularly those with BRCA1/2 mutations, with a surgical option that minimizes cancer risk while also reducing some of the negative...
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...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved ramucirumab (Cyramza) for use in combination with FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan) for the treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer whose disease has progressed on a first-line bevacizumab (Avastin)-, oxaliplatin-,...
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...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued its updated draft recommendation statement on mammography screening guidelines. The revised guidelines still recommend that women aged 50 to 74 get mammography screening for breast cancer every 2 years and now states that the decision to...
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...
Breast density, which is associated with breast cancer risk, was found to be higher in black women than white women when measured using novel quantitative methods, according to research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to 22 in Philadelphia (Abstract 2770). “Since...
Vaccination of women aged 18 to 25 with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine resulted in strong protection against future infection at three anatomic sites among women without prior HPV exposure and may still offer some protection in those with evidence of prior exposure. These findings were...
The total number of breast cancer cases in the United States is forecast to be 50% greater in 2030 than it was in 2011, when invasive and in situ or screening-detected cancers are counted together. This increase is predicted to be driven mostly by a marked increase in cases of estrogen...
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...
A large, diverse study of 16,827 adolescents and young adults with differentiated thyroid cancer has found that African Americans and Hispanics were six times and three times more likely, respectively, to die of their cancer than Caucasians. Residing in low-socioeconomic neighborhoods, insurance...
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 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....
Most patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who discontinued ibrutinib (Imbruvica) early “were difficult to treat and had poor outcomes,” according to a study of patients enrolled in four different clinical trials of ibrutinib, with or without rituximab...
According to a recent study by Perl et al published in the Journal of Oncology Practice, the administration of chemotherapy near death is recognized by patients, their families, and oncologists as “aggressive and poor-quality care.” Despite this, rates of end-of-life chemotherapy have...
Men who reported taking muscle-building supplements, such as pills and powders with creatine or androstenedione, reported a significantly higher likelihood of having developed testicular cancer than men who did not use such supplements, according to a study by Li et al in the British Journal of...
In the phase II PrECOG 0105 study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Telli et al found that neoadjuvant iniparib plus gemcitabine-carboplatin was active in early-stage triple-negative and BRCA1/2-mutant breast cancer. Higher score on a homologous recombination deficiency–loss of...
In a phase I cohort-expansion study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, McDermott et al found that nivolumab (Opdivo) produced durable responses in patients with previously treated advanced renal cell carcinoma. Responses continued after nivolumab discontinuation in some patients. Study...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ostronoff et al found that the presence of the NPM1-positive/FLT3-internal tandem duplication (ITD)–negative genotype—which is recognized as a marker of better prognosis in younger patients with acute myeloid leukemia—was...
A recent commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine discusses the paradoxical finding that most patients are at below-average risk of disease and can expect to experience less-than-average benefits from a treatment. Yet, argue Vickers et al, too many people are being screened, diagnosed,...
Women who have inherited mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 (BRCA1/2) have an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers. However, little has been known about how cancer risks differ by BRCA1/2 mutation type. In a study involving more than 31,000 women who are carriers of disease-associated mutations...
In the phase III AETHERA trial reported in The Lancet, Moskowitz et al found that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) consolidation therapy after autologous stem cell transplantation prolonged progression-free survival by 18 months vs placebo in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma at risk for relapse or...
Elevated nocturnal cortisol levels prior to surgery in patients with ovarian cancer were associated with shorter survival time, according to a study by Schrepf et al in Psychoneuroendocrinology. Thus, night-time cortisol levels may prove to be a noninvasive biomarker of ovarian cancer disease...
Very low mammographic breast density worsens the prognosis of breast cancer, according to a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland. Researchers published their findings in an article by Masarwah et al in European Radiology. The lower the breast tissue density, the less fibroglandular...
In the phase III CheckMate 037 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Weber et al found that treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) resulted in a significantly greater response rate vs chemotherapy as second- or later-line treatment in patients with advanced melanoma progressing after ...
In the ENABLE III study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bakitas et al found that early vs delayed initiation of a palliative care intervention did not result in improved patient-reported outcomes or resource use. Early initiation was associated with better 1-year survival. Study...
In the ENABLE III study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dionne-Odom et al found that early vs delayed use of a palliative care intervention for family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer reduced caregiver depression scores and caregiver stress burden. No differences in...
Girls who are overweight as young children and teens may face an increased risk for colorectal cancer decades later, regardless of what they weigh as adults, suggests a new study published by Zhang et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “Our study supports the growing...
Researchers investigating the prevalence of childhood cancer survivors and the population-level burden of morbidity in these survivors have found that although the number of childhood cancer survivors has increased by nearly 60,000 since 2005, the majority of those who have survived 5 or more years ...
In a study of Swedish men with prostate cancer reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, O’Farrell et al found that use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists and orchiectomy were associated with a significantly increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease. In patients...
In an analysis of Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) studies reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tewari et al found that intraperitoneal chemotherapy was associated with a survival advantage compared with intravenous chemotherapy in women with advanced ovarian cancer. Study Details The...
In a study of women with high-grade endometrial cancer, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found sentinel lymph node mapping accurately identified all women with node-positive, high-risk endometrial cancer, when prospectively compared to a complete pelvic and...
In an Italian 2×2 phase III trial reported in The Lancet, Del Mastro et al found that dose-dense adjuvant therapy with sequential epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, and paclitaxel (EC-P) with or without fluorouracil (5-FU) increased disease-free survival vs standard-interval therapy in early-stage ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rhodes et al found that only about half of screening-age women had awareness of breast density and adequate knowledge of its impact on breast cancer detection and risk. Breast density is an important factor contributing to false-negative...
In patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, the combination of panobinostat (Farydak) and carfilzomib (Kyprolis) appears to be safe and effective, according to a phase I/II study by Berdeja et al in Haematologica. Further evaluation of this combination treatment is warranted to establish ...
In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fassnacht et al found that linsitinib, an insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor (IGF-1R) and insulin receptor inhibitor, did not improve overall survival vs placebo in patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic...
A new study suggests that after radical prostatectomy for high-risk prostate cancer, both the age of the patient and the time survived since the operation have a significant impact on the cause of death. This means that, for young men with high-risk prostate cancer, doctors may have to reevaluate...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stone et al found that the combination of cytarabine and amonafide L-malate, a DNA intercalator and non–ATP-dependent topoisomerase II inhibitor, did not improve complete remission rate compared with cytarabine plus...
In a single-institution retrospective study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pundole et al found that patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation are at increased risk of bone fracture later in life, with risk being particularly elevated in women and men aged 45 to 64...
Patients with colorectal cancer experience significantly higher rates of numbness/tingling but comparable neuropathic pain relative to patients with other cancers, according to a study by Lewis et al in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. In addition, numbness/tingling was more likely to be ...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA, Wang et al found that the proportion of patients with lung cancer who would have met U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) criteria for low-dose computed tomography (CT) lung screening decreased significantly between the periods of 1984 to...
According to a prospective study led by researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, measuring the concentration of leukemia cells in patient bone marrow during the first 46 days of chemotherapy may help boost survival of young leukemia patients by better matching patients with the right...
In a retrospective study in the European EUROS1 cohort reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mazières found that crizotinib (Xalkori) treatment was associated with an 80% response rate in patients with stage IV lung adenocarcinoma with ROS1 rearrangement. Study Details The study...
In the phase III MAINSAIL trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Petrylak et al found that the addition of lenalidomide (Revlimid) to docetaxel-prednisone in chemotherapy-naive men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer was associated with significantly worse overall survival. The...
In the phase II CheckMate 063 study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Rizvi et al found that the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) produced durable responses in some patients with advanced, refractory squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had received at least two prior treatments....