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Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is making inroads into head and neck cancer, with encouraging results in heavily pre-treated patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, according to a report on the expansion-cohort KEYNOTE-012 study presented at the 2015 ASCO...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with oral cavity and oropharyngeal cancers. The trials are investigating combination therapies, treatment toxicity, specialized adjuvant therapies, and proton therapy. All of ...
Elective neck dissection of node-negative early-stage oral cancer at the time of primary surgery improves overall survival and disease-free survival compared with therapeutic neck dissection (ie, therapeutic neck dissection at the time of nodal relapse, or “watch and wait” approach), according to a ...
Osteonecrosis of the jaw associated with cancer treatment is frequently misunderstood, according to Cesar Augusto Migliorati, DDS, MS, PhD, who delivered an update on its proper recognition and management at the 2015 Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of...
Detectable oral HPV16 DNA in oral rinses post treatment for oropharyngeal cancer appears to be a harbinger of poor prognosis and can predict recurrence. Oral HPV16 DNA rinses are a potential tool for long-term tumor surveillance, according to a study selected for the Best of ASCO® 2015.1 “The goal ...
Are there patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck associated with human papillomavirus (HPV) for whom chemotherapy can be omitted? Experts debated this question at the 2015 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and Oncology Conference in Sea Island, Georgia,...
Head and neck cancer and its treatment can result in a variety of neuromuscular and musculoskeletal pain and functional sequelae. Commonly seen conditions in patients with the disease include neck pain and spasm, hemifacial spasm, trismus, dysphonia, dysarthria, neuropathic pain, and salivary...
A large study presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna found that patients with advanced oropharyngeal or hypopharyngeal cancer had improved survival if their primary treatment included surgery.1 The caveat is that these patients were treated in Taiwan, and the results may not be...
Novel strategies are being explored for difficult-to-treat and advanced head and neck cancer—the most heterogeneous group of malignancies that are generally associated with poor survival—and encouraging results have been presented in two trials at the first European Society for Medical...
Thyroid cancer survivors report poor quality of life after diagnosis and treatment compared with other patients who are diagnosed with more lethal cancers, according to new research from the University of Chicago Medicine. The findings, published by Aschebrook-Kilfoy et al in the journal Thyroid,...
Depression is a significant predictor of 5-year survival and recurrence in head and neck cancer patients, according to a new study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. These findings, published by Shinn et al in Psychosomatic Medicine, represent one of the largest reported...
For patients with kidney failure, poor kidney function and immunosuppressant medications may increase their risk of developing different types of cancer. The findings, which are published by Yanik et al in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, suggest the need for persistent cancer...
Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered a gene associated with Cowden syndrome, an inherited condition that carries high risks of thyroid, breast, and other cancers, and a subset of noninherited thyroid cancers. These findings were published by Yehia et al in the American Journal of Human...
For high-risk patients who receive chemoradiotherapy for head and neck cancer, frequent follow-up appointments conducted by advance practice nurses (APNs) in a clinical outpatient setting allowed for more intensive symptom management, resulting in fewer post-treatment emergency room visits and...
For some patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancer of the tonsils and tongue, reduced-intensity radiation therapy and chemotherapy may be as effective as standard-dose radiation and chemotherapy, and result in fewer acute side effects, according to research presented by Chera et al...
Disparities in outcomes for children with retinoblastoma suggest unequal access to primary care, researchers from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center reported in a study published by Truong et al in JAMA Pediatrics. Although virtually all the children in the study...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an anti–PD-1 therapy, may be effective as monotherapy in patients with advanced unresectable nasopharyngeal carcinoma whose tumors express programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). Data from a phase Ib study, KEYNOTE-028, showed an overall response rate of 22.2% in 27...
Patients with cancers of the mid and lower throat may have higher survival rates if their initial treatment includes surgery, according to new research (Abstract 2804) presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress in Vienna, Austria. Researchers explained that a nationwide study in Taiwan found...
A new marker already linked to other types of cancer was found to play a role in the most common childhood primary tumor inside the eye, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System have found. Their findings were published by Khan et al in Laboratory Investigation. Retinoblastoma is a...
In a prospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Rettig et al found that persistent human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 DNA in post-treatment oral rinses was associated with a poorer prognosis in patients with HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer. The study included 124 patients treated with...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Gara et al identified a germline HABP2 mutation as a susceptibility gene for familial nonmedullary thyroid cancer. Identification of HABP2 Variant In a kindred study, whole-exome sequencing was performed using peripheral blood DNA from affected...
In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug...
A study of long-term thyroid cancer outcomes shows, among other findings, that moderate suppression of thyroid-stimulating hormone, which drives the disease, may be as beneficial as more extreme hormone suppression. Extreme thyroid-stimulating hormone suppression is associated with increased side...
Despite findings of previous studies and published guidelines, nearly two-thirds of patients with T4a laryngeal cancer are not receiving a total laryngectomy—the recommended form of treatment—and, as a result, have significantly worse survival rates vs those treated with a total...
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...
While the use of antiangiogenesis drugs that block the growth of new blood vessels can improve the treatment of some cancers, clinical trials of their ability to prevent the development of new metastases have failed. Now a study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center may have...
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...
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 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 randomized phase III study resolves long-standing questions about the optimal timing of neck lymph node surgery for patients with early-stage oral cancer by showing that elective neck dissection both improves survival and lowers recurrence rates compared to therapeutic neck dissection performed...
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...
In an updated patient-level meta-analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Blanchard et al of the Meta-Analysis of Chemotherapy in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (MAC-NPC) collaborative group found that the addition of chemotherapy to radiotherapy improved overall survival in patients with nasopharyngeal ...
The new nine-valent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine (Gardasil 9) can potentially prevent 80% of cervical cancers in the United States, if given to all 11- or 12-year-old children before they are exposed to the virus. Additionally, the new vaccine, which includes seven cancer-causing...
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...
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...
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...
Public health programs that devote a portion of their funding to encourage more boys to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV)—rather than merely attempting to raise coverage among girls—may ultimately protect more people for the same price, a study from Duke University...
In patients with previously irradiated recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, the combination of stereotactic body radiation therapy plus cetuximab (Erbitux) appears to be safe and effective, according to a study by Vargo et al in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology...
Long-term analysis of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 9903 demonstrates that the addition of erythropoietin did not improve local-regional control for anemic patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who receive radiation therapy or chemoradiation, according to a study published...
Current smoking and heavy alcohol consumption appear to be risk factors for prolonged use of a gastrostomy tube in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy. The findings were published in a report by O’Shea et al in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck...
A prospective, multicenter, observational study involving 992 consecutive patients with one to four asymptomatic, sonographically or cytologically benign thyroid nodules found that “the majority of nodules exhibited no significant size change during 5 years of follow-up or they actually...
Breast cancer survivors are at increased risk of developing thyroid cancer, especially within 5 years of their breast cancer diagnosis, according to a new analysis of a large national database. The study results were presented at the Endocrine Society's 97th Annual Meeting. “Recognition of...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Huang et al showed that recursive portioning analysis (RPA) could be used to provide TNM stage grouping with improved prediction of survival in patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related nonmetastatic oropharyngeal carcinoma. ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted approval to lenvatinib (Lenvima) to treat patients with progressive, differentiated thyroid cancer whose disease progressed despite receiving radioactive iodine therapy. Lenvatinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that binds to multiple sites...
In a phase III study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the oral antiangiogenic therapy lenvatinib has shown dramatic improvement in progression-free survival in patients with advanced radioiodine-refractory thyroid cancer. Their findings are published by...
In the phase II CONCERT-2 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Giralt et al found that treatment with the EGFR inhibitor panitumumab (Vectibix) plus concurrent radiotherapy was associated with poorer local-regional control vs cisplatin chemoradiation in previously untreated patients with...
In the phase II CONCERT-1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Mesía et al found that adding the EGFR inhibitor panitumumab (Vectibix) to standard cisplatin chemoradiation provided no benefit in previously untreated patients with unresected stage III to IVB head and neck squamous cell...
In patients with iodine-refractory papillary thyroid cancer, the addition of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) therapy was shown to stimulate radioiodine uptake in thyroid cancer cells, according to a report by Rothenberg et al in Clinical Cancer Research. This approach has the potential advantage of requiring ...
Investigators with The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have discovered genomic differences—with potentially important clinical implications—in human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated head and neck cancers. These findings were reported in Nature. The researchers also uncovered ...
Data from 25 case-control studies and separate analyses show that head and neck cancers in young adults are more likely to occur as a result of inherited factors rather than lifestyle factors, such as smoking or drinking alcohol, according to a new study by Toporcov et al published in the...