In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Beltran et al found that whole-exome sequencing of metastatic and treatment-resistant cancers revealed biologically informative alterations in the majority of cases. Although treatment recommendations could be made in the majority of cases, treatment was guided ...
Women who were exposed to higher levels of the pesticide DDT in utero were nearly four times more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer as adults than women who were exposed to lower levels before birth, according to a study published by Cohn et al in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & ...
Houston Methodist Neurological Institute neurosurgeon David Baskin, MD, presented preliminary data from a phase II clinical trial that suggests gene therapy (AdV-Tk therapy), which uses a mediated herpes simplex virus, combined with a traditional treatment—surgical resection—could ...
In a study assessing factors in racial/ethnic survival disparities in breast cancer reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Warner et al found that black women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer were significantly more likely to die from the disease within the first 2 years of ...
As reported in JAMA Oncology, Shankar et al developed a rapid genotyping assay to detect single nucleotide variants in telomerase reverse transcriptase (TERT) promoter and isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) genes that may assist in intraoperative decisions to perform definitive neurosurgical...
Patients older than age 45 with thyroid cancer that has spread to neck lymph nodes have long been considered at higher risk of dying, but the same has not been true for younger patients. Now researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute and the Duke Clinical Research Institute have found that...
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...
A pooled analysis of four clinical trials of nivolumab (Opdivo) in advanced melanoma, reported by Larkin et al in JAMA Oncology, suggested similar response rates in patients with BRAF V600–mutant and BRAF wild-type disease. Study Details The retrospective analysis included data from adult...
In a single-institution study reported in JAMA Surgery, Margonis et al found that particular KRAS codon 12 mutations were associated with significantly poorer overall survival among patients with colorectal liver metastases. Study Details This retrospective study included data from 331 patients...
Scientists at multiple institutions have found a new way of classifying brain cancers that could very well change how the illness is diagnosed and treated. The study, a project of The Cancer Genome Atlas, found striking molecular differences between various forms of gliomas by looking at the makeup ...
It is estimated that one of every three Latina women will be diagnosed with cancer during her lifetime. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers, along with collaborators at the University of South Florida, recently published a study about the attitudes and cultural perspectives of Latinas undergoing...
A study led by the University at Buffalo (UB) and Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) has identified beliefs and personality traits associated with higher levels of distress in patients with newly diagnosed prostate cancer. The findings support the value of emotional and informational support for...
A study by Dahlstrom et al investigating the usefulness of serum antibodies to human papillomavirus (HPV)-16 DNA antigens as predictors of survival for patients with oropharyngeal carcinoma has found that E1, NE2, and E6 antibody positivity were all strongly associated with improved overall and...
A study investigating the process involved in metastatic breast cancer has found that patients with high levels of the protein activin-like receptor kinase (ALK) 1 in the blood vessels of their tumors were more likely to develop metastatic disease than patients without endothelial expression of...
In a phase III trial (ABCSG-18) reported in The Lancet, Gnant et al found that adjuvant denosumab (Xgeva) reduced the risk of clinical fracture in women with breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitor therapy. Study Details In the double-blind study, 3,420 women from Austria and Sweden with...
Screening for colorectal cancer increased in individuals with a lower socioeconomic status after 2008, perhaps reflecting the Affordable Care Act’s removal of financial barriers to screening, according to a new analysis. The study, by American Cancer Society investigators, was published by...
More than one-third of counties in the United States are located more than 50 miles from the nearest gynecologic oncologist, making access to specialty care for ovarian and other gynecologic cancers difficult for nearly 15 million women. Although most of these “low-access” counties are...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Meric-Bernstam and colleagues at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found that a small minority of patients with potentially actionable genes identified in large-scale testing were enrolled onto clinical trials targeting...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lichtenthal et al found that parents who have lost a child to cancer report wanting and frequently using mental health services, although barriers to seeking care exist and retention in care is suboptimal. Study Details The cross-sectional...
Pictures illustrating the dangers of cigarette smoking were more effective at strengthening people’s intentions to quit smoking than text warnings, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analysis of multiple research studies has found. These findings were published by Noar et al in...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Rini et al developed a 16-gene assay and recurrence score that predicted postsurgery outcome in patients with stage I to III clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Development Phase In the development phase, examination of the association between expression...
Researchers have identified a gene in dendritic cells that disables an effective immune response against ovarian cancer tumors. In preclinical studies, the researchers found that silencing this gene, XBP1, in dendritic cells restores their function and enhances T-cell antitumor immunity. XBP1 is...
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...
In a UK study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gale et al found that presence of DNMT3A mutations was associated with poorer prognosis in young adults with cytogenetic intermediate-risk acute myeloid leukemia (AML) irrespective of the presence of NPM1 mutation. Poorer outcome was found ...
More than half of all cancer patients experience pain, most often associated with the malignancy type, body location, and disease progression. Pain researchers participating in a symposium at the American Pain Society Annual Scientific Meeting last month reported that the relationship between...
In a pooled analysis of the LUX-Lung 2, 3, and 6 trials reported in The Lancet Oncology, Yang et al found that the activity of afatinib (Gilotrif) differed according to uncommon EGFR mutations in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Most patients with EGFR-mutant NSCLC have deletion...
Phase III results of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 0537 indicate that acupuncture-like, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (ALTENS) may be equally effective as the prescription medication pilocarpine, the current standard of care, to treat radiation-induced xerostomia (dry...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Menon et al, findings in the United Kingdom Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening indicate that the number of screen-detected ovarian cancers is doubled by using the risk of ovarian cancer algorithm (ROCA) with serial CA-125 measurements...
New findings from a phase III clinical trial suggest the IDH1 gene may be a prognostic marker for anaplastic astrocytoma, a rare form of brain cancer. The results of this study were presented on June 2 at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago (Abstract 2002). Patients in this study who had a...
In the phase III AVAglio trial, the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to radiotherapy and temozolomide improved progression-free survival in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. As reported by Taphoorn et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, bevacizumab treatment did not worsen...
In an analysis of the NeoALTTO trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Salgado et al found that a higher level of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes was associated with improved pathologic compete response rate and event-free survival independent of neoadjuvant treatment received in patients with...
Squamous cell anal carcinomas are rare, representing only about 2% of gastrointestinal cancer diagnoses. These cancers, which are associated with the human papillomavirus (HPV), sometimes prove very difficult to treat, recurring or developing metastases following standard treatment. Seeking to...
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...
As the practice of genetically profiling patient tumors for clinical treatment decision-making becomes more commonplace, a recent study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center suggests that profiling normal DNA also provides an important opportunity to identify inherited mutations...
Findings from the PERSIST-1 study of patients with myelofibrosis show that the JAK inhibitor pacritinib is significantly more effective than best available therapy, which includes a range of off-label treatments, for easing the symptoms of myelofibrosis. At a landmark analysis at 24 weeks of...
Although the overall rate of colorectal cancer is declining, colorectal cancer specifically among young patients is increasing. Previous studies have shown that colorectal cancer in patients younger than 50 years old tends to be more aggressive than in older patients. A University of Colorado (CU)...
Being very overweight in your teens may double the risk of developing bowel cancer by the time you are middle-aged, suggested research published by Kantor et al in the journal Gut. A high level of an indicator of systemic inflammation—erythrocyte sedimentation rate—at this age is...
Cancer patients with brain metastases who develop blood clots may safely receive blood thinners without increased risk of dangerous bleeding, according to a study published by Donato et al in Blood. Cancer increases a patient’s risk of developing blood clots, and an anticoagulant is often...
A large study evaluating the relationship of dietary patterns with prostate cancer–specific and all-cause mortality among men diagnosed with nonmetastatic prostate cancer has found that the men who ate a Western-style diet of foods rich in processed meats, red meats, and high-fat dairy...
Two studies from researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center add to preliminary evidence that high-dose radiation treatment, or stereotactic body radiotherapy, appears to be safe and as effective as standard radiation treatment for certain patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer....
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chavez-MacGregor et al found that the majority of older breast cancer patients receiving trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based chemotherapy do not receive adequate cardiac monitoring. Study Details The study involved 2,203 patients aged ≥...
African American patients have a disproportionately high rate of cancer and yet are less likely than Caucasian patients to participate in oncologic clinical trials that can significantly improve quality of life. Researchers from Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University explored the differences ...
Researchers at UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have discovered that for women with a relatively common inherited mutation, known as the KRAS-variant, abrupt lowering of estrogen may increase their breast cancer risk and impact breast cancer biology. Scientists also found that women with...
In a Polish prospective cohort analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Cybulski et al found that PALB2 mutation carriers had increased risk of breast cancer and that those with breast cancer had significantly reduced long-term survival. Study Details In the study, genotyping for two...
A new study finds that women who are diagnosed with breast cancer and have a family history of the disease face no worse a prognosis after treatment than other women with breast cancer. The study, which was published by Eccles et al in the British Journal of Surgery, offers a positive message for...
Nearly 20% of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma “wait more than 3 months from presentation to diagnosis, which can contribute to interval tumor growth,” Patel et al concluded in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. They based their conclusions on a review of...
Expanding on the Consolidated Payments for Oncology Care (CPOC) payment model circulated last year to improve the quality and affordability of care for patients with cancer, ASCO’s new Patient-Centered Oncology Payment: Payment Reform to Support Higher Quality, More Affordable Cancer Care...
In the SWOG S0927 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hershman et al found that both omega-3 fatty acids and placebo resulted in marked persistent reductions in aromatase inhibitor–related arthralgia among patients with early breast cancer, with no difference between...