The addition of the monoclonal antibody VEGFR-2 antagonist ramucirumab (Cyramza) to paclitaxel led to a statistically significant improvement in median overall survival in patients with advanced gastric cancer or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma in a phase III trial, reported Wilke et al in ...
In a prospective cohort study in the population of the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial, Zhou et al found that frontal plus moderate vertex baldness at age 45 is associated with increased risk of aggressive prostate cancer. The findings were reported in the...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Palumbo et al found that consolidation therapy with high-dose melphalan plus autologous stem cell transplantation improved progression-free survival and overall survival compared with melphalan/prednisone/lenalidomide (Revlimid)...
In a Korean phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Hong et al found that adjuvant FOLFOX (oxaliplatin, fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin) prolonged progression-free survival and overall survival vs 5-FU/leucovorin in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer who had received neoadjuvant...
The UK phase III ProtecT trial is comparing the effectiveness of active monitoring, radical prostatectomy, and radiotherapy in men with localized prostate cancer. Lane et al have provided baseline results of the trial in an article in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details In the trial, men aged 50...
Radiation therapy alone is as effective in decreasing swallowing complications experienced by advanced esophageal cancer patients as radiation therapy combined with chemotherapy, thus allowing patients to forgo chemotherapy, according to research presented at the American Society for Radiation...
Patients with high-risk prostate cancer who received radiation therapy and an 18-month course of androgen-deprivation therapy recovered a normal testosterone level in a shorter amount of time compared to those who received a 36-month course of androgen-deprivation therapy. The shorter course of...
In the phase III ROSE/TRIO-12 trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mackey et al found no significant improvement in investigator-assessed progression-free survival by adding the antiangiogenic VEGFR-2 inhibitor ramucirumab (Cyramza) to first-line docetaxel in women with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new indication for the use of enzalutamide (Xtandi) capsules to treat patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The new indication is for men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have not received...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Morrow et al found that breast reconstruction after mastectomy for breast cancer largely reflects patient demand, with the majority of women being satisfied with the decision-making process. However, black women were significantly less likely to have...
Use of cisplatin or cetuximab (Erbitux) with radiotherapy improves overall survival in stage III or IV head and neck carcinoma, and adding cetuximab to platinum therapy improves overall survival in metastatic disease. In the phase III Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 0522 trial reported in...
Radiation therapy with concurrent paclitaxel chemotherapy following surgery is an effective treatment for high-risk endometrial cancer, according to a study reported by Cho et al in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics Endometrial...
The ASCO Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee and the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) program in evidence-based care have released a clinical practice guideline on systemic therapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The guideline is reported by Basch et al in the Journal of...
A phase Ib clinical trial of the tablet form of olaparib, a PARP inhibitor, in combination with paclitaxel and carboplatin chemotherapy in heavily pretreated patients with advanced-stage ovarian cancer finds the drug to be safe and effective, especially in those women with BRCA gene mutations. The...
Maintenance rituximab (Rituxan) has been shown to improve progression-free survival vs observation in low-tumor-burden follicular lymphoma. In the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) E4402 Trial (RESORT), reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kahl et al found no significant difference ...
An experimental regimen of once-weekly breast irradiation following lumpectomy provides more convenience to patients at a lower cost, results in better completion rates of prescribed radiation treatment, and produces cosmetic outcomes comparable to the current standard of daily radiation. These...
A new breast cancer vaccine candidate, GP2, provides further evidence of the potential of immunotherapy in preventing disease recurrence. This is especially the case for high-risk patients when it is combined with a powerful immunotherapy drug. These findings were presented at the 2014 Breast...
Results from a large population-based study of 189,734 women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer in California show the percentage opting for a bilateral mastectomy has increased substantially over the past decade even though the procedure was not associated with a lower risk of death than...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted and granted priority review to Ipsen’s supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for the somatostatin analog lanreotide (Somatuline Depot) 120 mg injection in the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. The FDA...
An analysis of data from 12 large clinical trials found that the cancer’s pathologic response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and tumor subtype are strong predictors of locoregional breast cancer recurrence. According to the researchers, the study showed that these two predictors may be more...
In the phase III CENTRIC EORTC 26071-22072 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Stupp et al found that adding the selective αvβ3 and αvβ5 integrin inhibitor cilengitide to standard temozolomide chemoradiotherapy produced no survival benefit in newly diagnosed glioblastoma...
A subset of patients with stage III colon cancer had improved survival rates when treated with irinotecan-based therapy, according to a new study in Gastroenterology. When added to the standard chemotherapy treatment—fluorouracil [5-FU] and leucovorin—adjuvant irinotecan therapy...
In the phase III REVEL trial reported in The Lancet, Garon et al found that the addition of the antiangiogenic VEGFR-2 inhibitor ramucirumab (Cyramza) to docetaxel produced a statistically significant improvement in overall survival as second-line treatment in patients with non–small...
Although chemoradiation has been increasingly used in advanced laryngeal cancer as part of an organ-preservation strategy, there is concern that this practice may have contributed to a decline in survival suggested by some data in this setting. In a population-based cohort study reported in JAMA...
In a phase I study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fanale et al found that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris)—a conjugate of antibody specific for CD30 and a microtubule-disrupting chemotherapy agent—exhibited high activity when combined sequentially with CHOP...
In a phase III Australian/New Zealand trial (TROG 03.04 RADAR) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Denham et al found no differences in prostate cancer–specific or all-cause mortality with intermediate-term androgen suppression and radiotherapy or short-term suppression plus radiotherapy with or ...
In a study reported in JAMA Dermatology, Youlden et al found that the incidence of Merkel cell carcinoma in Queensland, Australia, a known high-risk area, increased by 2.6% annually between 1993 and 2010. Five-year relative survival was 41%, with significantly better survival found in patients aged ...
Updated recommendations (the Lugano Classification) for initial evaluation, staging, and assessment of response in patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) have been presented in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Cheson et al. The recommendations are the result of two...
In an analysis reported in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, the International Consortium for Outcome Research (ICOR) in Head and Neck Cancer proposed modifying the current American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system for oral cancer to include depth of invasion. A model...
The phase III NeoALTTO trial showed a significantly improved pathologic complete response rate with lapatinib (Tykerb) plus trastuzumab (Herceptin) vs either alone in women with HER2-positive early breast cancer. As reported in The Lancet Oncology by de Azambuja et al, the combination was not...
The European Thoracic Oncology Platform Lungscape ALK project is investigating the prevalence and prognostic impact of ALK-positivity in resected lung adenocarcinoma in a primarily European population. As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Blackhall and colleagues, the project has...
In a European phase III FIRE-3 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Heinemann et al found no difference in response rate, the primary endpoint, between FOLFIRI (fluorouracil, leucovorin, and irinotecan) plus the anti-EGFR antibody cetuximab (Erbitux) vs FOLFIRI plus the anti-VEGF-A antibody...
In the phase III international AFFIRM trial, enzalutamide (Xtandi) was shown to improve overall survival vs placebo in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer after progression on docetaxel. In an analysis of secondary endpoints reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fizazi et al found...
In the phase II Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) 40603/Alliance trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sikov et al found that the addition of carboplatin or bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy significantly improved pathologic complete response rate in...
In a Children’s Oncology Group phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gamis et al found that the addition of gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg), an immunoconjugate targeting CD33, resulted in significantly prolonged event-free survival but not overall survival when added...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Fast Track designation to pacritinib for the treatment of intermediate- and high-risk myelofibrosis, including patients with disease-related thrombocytopenia on other JAK2 therapy or patients who are intolerant to or whose symptoms are suboptimally...
In a UK population-based cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cardwell et al found that statin use after diagnosis of colorectal cancer was associated with a 29% reduction in colorectal cancer–specific mortality and a 25% reduction in all-cause mortality. Improvements...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing and granted Priority Review to the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for ruxolitinib (Jakafi) as a potential treatment of patients with polycythemia vera who have had an inadequate response to or are intolerant of...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sabine et al found that PIK3CA mutation was not an independent predictor of distant relapse-free survival among postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer receiving endocrine therapy in the TEAM (Exemestane...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today expanded the approved use of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to treat patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who carry deletions of the short arm of chromosome 17, which are associated with poor responses to standard treatment for CLL. Ibrutinib...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cohen et al found that induction chemotherapy before chemoradiotherapy did not improve overall survival vs chemoradiotherapy alone in patients with N2 or N3 locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The study...
Bevacizumab (Avastin) is frequently used in patients with recurrent glioblastoma, although it is unclear whether responses observed with such treatment result in improved overall survival. In the phase II Dutch BELOB study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Taal et al found that overall survival...
In a Scottish study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Zgaga et al found strong associations between plasma levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) after a diagnosis of colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer–specific and all-cause mortality. Significant interactions of vitamin D...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Xing et al found that the combined presence of BRAF V600E and TERT C228T mutations was associated with increased risk of recurrence and poor disease-free survival in patients with papillary thyroid cancer. The retrospective study included 365...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted Genentech’s supplemental Biologics License Application and granted Priority Review for bevacizumab (Avastin) plus chemotherapy for the treatment of women with recurrent platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. “The majority of women...
In the open-label phase III AZURE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Coleman et al found that adjuvant zoledronic acid treatment in patients with high-risk early-stage breast cancer provided no overall disease-free survival benefit. A reduction in bone metastases was observed, and women who...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Waller et al found that higher marrow graft, but not peripheral blood graft, levels of plasmacytoid dendritic cells and naive CD4-positive and CD8-positive T cells in unrelated donors were associated with increased overall survival in...
In a retrospective analysis in the HF-ACTION trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jones et al found that a program of aerobic training did not reduce the rate of all-cause mortality or hospitalization in cancer patients with heart failure. Some evidence suggested that patients who...
In a phase II Intergroupe Francophone du Myélome (IFM) trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Roussel et al, induction and consolidation treatment with RVD (lenalidomide [Revlimid], bortezomib [Velcade], and dexamethasone) followed by lenalidomide maintenance was associated...
Although somatostatin analogs are commonly used to treat symptoms associated with hormone hypersecretion in neuroendocrine tumors, data on their antitumor effects are limited. In the phase III CLARINET trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Caplin et al found that somatostatin...