For children with rare, aggressive, and advanced cancer, precision medicine may help doctors determine their best treatment options, a new study found. Using information from a patient's entire genome helped to suggest personalized treatment options for nearly half of children with cancer and...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) 2015 Cancer Progress Report highlighted the accelerated pace of the number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved targeted therapies over the past 5 years, which reached 52 this year; the dramatic increase in the 5-year survival rate...
A new statistical model may help predict which patients are most likely to receive life-extending benefits from surgical treatment for malignant pleural mesothelioma, according to a report published by Leuzzi et al in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. Malignant pleural mesothelioma is an aggressive...
Gianni Bonadonna, MD, was considered the “Father of Italian Oncology,” but his scientific contributions to the field and his generous collegial spirit extended far beyond the shores of his native land. Dr. Bonadonna was at the forefront in the battle to convince the surgical...
The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) issued a new statement on Tobacco Control and Smoking Cessation on September 7 at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Denver, Colorado. The statement calls for higher taxes on tobacco products; comprehensive...
Many clinical trials use genome sequencing to learn which genetic mutations are present in a patient’s tumor cells. The question is important, because targeting the right mutations with the right drugs can stop cancer in its tracks. But it can be difficult to determine which particular...
As reported by Madenci et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, an analysis from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study showed that childhood cancer survivors are at increased risk of intestinal obstruction requiring surgery at ≥ 5 years after cancer diagnosis and poorer overall survival. Study...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued an updated policy statement on genetic and genomic testing for cancer susceptibility. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the statement reviews the ways in which new technologies are transforming the assessment and identification of ...
More than a cause of a simple infection, viruses are often involved in the development of serious diseases. Such is the case with liver cancer, which often develops in an organ that has been weakened by hepatitis B or C virus. Researchers at Inserm, the Paris Public Hospitals (AP-HP), Paris...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that are currently being tested to treat B-cell malignancies target a specific protein present on leukemia and lymphoma cells, but these immune cells cannot distinguish the cancer cells from healthy cells. However, the side effects from these CAR T cells...
Concerns about fertility kept one-third of young women with breast cancer surveyed in a recent study from taking tamoxifen, despite its known benefit in reducing the risk of breast cancer recurrence. In addition, the study found fertility concerns led one-quarter of women who started...
In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers demonstrated a benefit in overall survival among patients with epithelial ovarian cancer receiving generic beta-blocker heart medications. Survival was shown to be greatest among those prescribed first-generation nonselective beta-blockers. According to...
In women with breast cancer, taxane-based chemotherapy—docetaxel and paclitaxel—did not appear to increase the incidence of lymphedema, according to a study by Swaroop et al in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. However, the investigators did note that adjuvant chemotherapy with...
A first-of-its-kind study published by Bradley Palmer et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that music therapy lessened anxiety for women undergoing surgical breast biopsies for cancer diagnosis and treatment. The 2-year study, conducted at University Hospitals (UH) Seidman Cancer Center, ...
Researchers have shown that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can detect the earliest signs of breast cancer recurrence and fast-growing tumors through detecting micrometastases, breakaway tumor cells with the potential to develop into dangerous secondary breast cancer tumors elsewhere in the body....
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Howitt et al found that polymerase e (POLE)-mutant and microsatellite-unstable endometrial tumors may be candidates for anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) immunotherapy. Study Details In the study, neoantigen load was predicted on the basis of...
In an equatorial African region known as the “lymphoma belt,” children are ten times more likely than in other parts of the world to develop Burkitt lymphoma. This area is also plagued by high rates of malaria, and scientists have spent the past 50 years trying to understand how the two ...
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified a molecular partnership in pancreatic cancer cells that might help to explain how the disease metastasizes in some cases. Their findings reveal urgently needed new targets to treat pancreatic cancer and were published by Foley et...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Palumbo et al, the International Myeloma Working Group recommends the use of a revised international staging system (R-ISS) for newly diagnosed multiple myeloma that incorporates chromosomal abnormalities detected by interphase fluorescent in situ...
Medulloblastoma, the most commonly occurring malignant brain tumor in children, can be classified into four subgroups, each with a different risk profile requiring subgroup-specific therapy. Currently, subgroup determination is done after surgical removal of the tumor. Investigators at...
Duke University researchers found that packaging the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel into nanoparticles more than doubled the drug’s effectiveness in destroying tumors in preclinical models. Their findings were published by Bhattacharyya et al in Nature Communications. Paclitaxel has been ...
Older persons are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population and account for the majority of cancer diagnoses and deaths and the majority of cancer survivors. However, since this population is underrepresented in clinical trials, the evidence base for treating older patients is poor. As...
A team of researchers at Barts Cancer Institute–Queen Mary University of London has discovered a combination of three proteins found at high levels in urine that can accurately detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. The discovery could lead to a noninvasive, inexpensive test to...
More than 80,000 people undergo resection of a pulmonary tumor each year, and currently the only method to determine whether the tumor is malignant is histologic analysis. A new study reported that a targeted molecular contrast agent can be used successfully to render lung adenocarcinomas...
After decades of overtreatment for low-risk prostate cancer and inadequate management of its more aggressive forms, patients are now more likely to receive medical care matched to level of risk, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San...
A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, reveals a protein’s critical—and previously unknown—role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The finding offers a novel target for better treating AML, and...
Scientists at Lawson Health Research Institute have uncovered an important new target for ovarian cancer therapy. Contrary to current research, this new study found that LKB1, a molecule that regulates the metabolism of many adult cells, is important in the cancer's promotion and survival. These...
Although palliative chemotherapy is used to improve quality of life for patients with end-stage cancer, a study evaluating its use found that palliative chemotherapy did not improve quality of life near death for patients with a moderate or poor performance status and that it worsened quality of...
A “pill on a string” developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge could help doctors detect esophageal cancer at an early stage, helping them overcome the problem of wide variation between biopsies, suggests research published by Ross-Innes et al in Nature Genetics. The...
Delcath Systems, Inc, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Orphan Products Development has granted Orphan Drug designation to melphalan for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma. Cholangiocarcinoma is recognized by the FDA as an orphan disease,...
By combining two modalities of imaging, investigators from Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth, led by Keith Paulsen, PhD, and collaborators from Xijing Hospital in Xian, China, demonstrated that a dual breast exam using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and near-infrared spectral tomography is ...
The enzyme phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) appears to be exploited in almost every type of human cancer, making it the focus of considerable interest as a therapeutic target, with many PI3K-inhibiting drugs currently in various stages of clinical development. However, PI3K inhibitors have only ...
On the hunt for better cancer screening tests, Johns Hopkins scientists led a proof-of-principle study that successfully identified tumor DNA shed in the blood and saliva of 93 patients with head and neck cancer. A report on the findings was published by Wang et al in Science Translational...
A protein encoded by the gene glypican-1 (GPC1) present on cancer exosomes may be used as part of a potential noninvasive diagnostic and screening tool to detect early pancreatic cancer, potentially at a stage amenable to surgical treatment, according to a study completed by University of Texas MD...
Janssen Biotech, Inc, announced the opening of a daratumumab expanded access program for eligible U.S. patients. Daratumumab is an investigational human anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody being evaluated in clinical trials as a treatment for patients with multiple myeloma. The multicenter, open-label...
Researchers have a significantly better understanding of the genetic alterations found in cutaneous melanoma as part of a multi-institution, international effort of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). The study, published in Cell, refined and revealed new molecular subgroups of patients who could...
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have discovered that inhibiting the immune receptor protein TLR4 may not be a wise treatment strategy in all cancers, as research now shows TLR4 can either promote or inhibit breast cancer cell growth depending on mutations in...
A large population-based prospective analysis of the consumption of psoralen-rich citrus products and the risk of malignant melanoma has found that the melanoma risk was 36% higher in people who consumed citrus fruit or juice at least 1.6 times daily compared with those who consumed it less than...
A large international prospective study investigating the safety and effectiveness of using annual low-dose computed tomography (CT) as a screening tool to monitor nonsolid lung nodules has found that CT was accurate in identifying nodules that were likely to become cancerous. The study also found...
New research published by Søgaard et al in Blood found that blood clots in the abdominal veins might be an indicator of undiagnosed cancer. The study also suggests that these clots predict poorer survival in patients with liver and pancreatic cancer. Clotting and Cancer Risk Compared to...
A single dose of the recombinant human papillomavirus (HPV) bivalent (types 16 and 18) vaccine (Cervarix) appears to be as effective in preventing certain HPV infections as three doses, the currently recommended course of vaccination, concluded a study published by Kreimer et al in The Lancet...
In the largest study of its kind, transplant physicians at Mayo Clinic in Florida have found that liver cancer patients have similar beneficial outcomes whether using organs donated by patients after cardiac death or brain death. The study was recently published by Croome et al in the American...
Interpace Diagnostics, a subsidiary of PDI, Inc, announced new data demonstrating the clinical value of BarreGen, a molecular diagnostic test that predicts the risk of progression from Barrett’s esophagus to esophageal cancer approximately 3 to 4 years before the cancer develops. These...
A recent analysis of a large observational study has revealed that men with a history of asthma are less likely than those without it to develop lethal prostate cancer, researchers at Johns Hopkins reported. These findings were published by Platz et al in the International Journal of Cancer....
ASCO’s wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary, CancerLinQ LLC, provided the first demonstration of its groundbreaking health information technology platform at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Beginning May 30, demonstrations of the CancerLinQ platform’s initial components were...
Investigators for the nationwide trial NCI-MATCH: Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice announced at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago that the precision medicine trial will open to patient enrollment in July. The trial seeks to determine whether targeted therapies for people whose tumors...
ASCO announced its first-ever clinical trial, which will offer patients with advanced cancer access to molecularly targeted cancer drugs and collect “real-world” data on clinical outcomes, to help learn the best uses of these drugs outside of indications approved by the U.S. Food and...
First results from a randomized phase III study show that the combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) improves outcomes for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) that progressed despite prior therapy. At a median follow-up of 17 months,...
Adding the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab (Gazyva) to standard bendamustine (Treanda) chemotherapy and then following that with single-agent obinutuzumab maintenance therapy “resulted in a statistically significant, but more importantly, a clinically meaningful increase in...
Immunotherapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) produced a clinically meaningful overall response rate in a study among 132 patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The overall objective response rate was 24.8%, and 57% of patients experienced some tumor...