An analysis of data from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study reported by Siddiqui et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates that vasectomy is associated with a modestly but significantly increased risk of high-grade and lethal prostate cancer. The study involved data from 49,405...
The phase II Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) S0802 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Allen et al showed that adding ziv-aflibercept (Zaltrap) to topotecan improved 3-month progression-free survival, but increased toxicity and had no effect on overall survival, in patients...
In a retrospective SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results)/Medicare data analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lipitz-Snyderman et al found that long-term central venous catheter use was associated with a three- to sixfold increase in risk of infection in older...
In a UK phase III trial (NCRI Myeloma X Relapse [Intensive] Trial) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Cook et al found that high-dose melphalan plus salvage autologous stem cell transplantation significantly prolonged time to progression vs cyclophosphamide in patients with relapsed multiple myeloma...
Invasive breast cancers with skin involvement, regardless of size or lymph node involvement, are automatically classified as stage III locally advanced tumors, which suggests that they are a relatively serious form of cancer with poor survival. In a study published in the Journal of the American...
In a European phase III noninferiority trial (Euro-EWING99-R1) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Le Deley et al found that cyclophosphamide was noninferior in event-free survival vs ifosfamide in combination with vincristine/dactinomycin as consolidation therapy in patients with...
The effect of neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy in early-stage esophageal cancer is not clear. In the phase III FFCD 9901 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mariette et al found that neoadjuvant chemoradiation including fluorouracil (5-FU) and cisplatin did not improve R0...
A heparin derivative differentiated cancer cells and caused neuroblastomas to regress without causing severe bleeding, according to the findings of a preclinical study presented in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Knelson et al identified novel roles for heparan sulfate proteoglycans in...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sheppard et al found that frailty was a significant predictor of not starting adjuvant hormonal therapy in breast cancer patients aged ≥ 65 years, but was not predictive of discontinuation of treatment. Study Details The study was...
The multikinase inhibitor sorafenib (Nexavar) is the only effective systemic treatment available in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. In the phase III EVOLVE-1 trial reported in JAMA, Zhu et al found no survival benefit from treatment with the mTOR inhibitor everolimus (Afinitor) after sorafenib...
In the German phase III CONKO-003 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oettle et al found that second-line oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and fluorouracil (5-FU) significantly increased overall survival and time to progression vs leucovorin/5-FU in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer...
In light of nonrandomized studies suggesting benefit of video-assisted thoracoscopic partial pleurectomy (VAT-PP) in symptom control and survival, Rintoul et al performed a randomized trial (MesoVATS) of VAT-PP vs talc pleurodesis in malignant pleural mesothelioma. As reported in The Lancet, this...
Some data indicate an increased risk for cancer in patients receiving tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha antagonists (eg, infliximab [Remicade], adalimumab [Humira], certolizumab pegol [Cimzia]) for rheumatoid arthritis. Studies with follow-up of ≤ 1 year have not found increased risk in patients ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to belinostat (Beleodaq), a histone deacetylase inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma, a rare and fast-growing type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). “This is...
Recent retrospective, single-institution analyses have suggested that anatomic segmentectomy results in freedom from recurrence and survival rates similar to those achieved by lobectomy in lung cancer. In a large propensity-matched analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Landreneau...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Friebel et al attempted to identify factors that appear to modulate risk of breast and ovarian cancer in women who have inherited BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. Although the ability to perform...
In the phase III American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z4032/Alliance trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fernando et al found that adjuvant brachytherapy did not improve risk for local recurrence after sublobar resection in patients with high-risk stage I operable...
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...
HIV-infected people diagnosed with cancer are two to four times more likely to go untreated for their cancer compared to uninfected cancer patients, according to a large retrospective study from researchers in Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The ...
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,...
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...
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 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...
Men and women who took low-dose aspirin regularly had a 48% reduction in their risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a new study. In addition, the longer a person started taking low-dose aspirin, the greater the benefit, ranging from 48% reduction in people who started 3 years before...
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 ...
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,...
A new study found that an imaging technique called multiparametric 18fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography magnetic resonance imaging (18FDG PET-MRI), which combines four imaging approaches, can better distinguish malignant breast tumors from those that are benign, compared with imaging...
Extended colectomy in patients with sporadic colorectal cancer who were younger than age 50, in comparison with segmental resection, did not improve the risk of tumor recurrence or disease-free survival, according to the results of a retrospective study presented by Klos et al in the Journal of...
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...
A study by Black et al from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, found that the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy to stage early breast cancer increased in both black and white women from 2002 to 2007, but the rates remained lower in black than white patients, a disparity...
Used as a conditioning regimen for allogeneic transplantation in patients with acute leukemia, reduced-intensity total-body irradiation yielded similar overall and relapse-free survival rates to those seen with myeloablative total-body irradiation but with shorter hospital stays and fewer intensive ...
Prone accelerated intensity-modulated radiation therapy with a concomitant boost produced excellent local tumor control and cosmesis while sparing normal tissues in women with early-stage breast cancer, according to the 5-year study results reported by Osa et al in the International Journal of...
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...
Women who begin menstruation at an older age have a significantly increased risk of developing a brain tumor, a Moffitt Cancer Center study shows. The results are part of a large multicenter study to determine potential risk factors associated with the development of glioma and meningioma. The...
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...
Palliative resection of the primary tumor was associated with a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, according to the results of a study reported in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Gresham et al noted...
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...