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Julien Edeline, MD, of the Centre Eugène Marquis, discusses in French study findings on gemcitabine and oxaliplatin vs surveillance following surgery for localized biliary tract cancer (Abstract 225).
Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses a range of topics, including tyrosine kinase inhibitors, immune therapies, targeted approaches, and DNA damage repair strategies.
Ignacio Melero, MD, PhD, of the University Clinic of Navarra, Centre of Applied Medical Research, discusses study findings on nivolumab dose escalation and expansion in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (Abstract 226).
Julien Edeline, MD, of the Centre Eugène Marquis, discusses study findings on gemcitabine and oxaliplatin vs surveillance following surgery for localized biliary tract cancer (Abstract 225).
In a meta-analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jackson et al found that overall survival with sorafenib (Nexavar) in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma was significantly improved vs comparator treatments among patients who were both hepatitis B virus (HBV)-negative and hepatitis C...
On January 4, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review status for the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for regorafenib (Stivarga) tablets for the second-line systemic treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States. “Liver cancer is ...
Regorafenib (Stivarga) improved overall survival vs placebo in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who had experienced disease progression on sorafenib (Nexavar) treatment, according to the phase III RESORCE trial reported by Bruix et al in The Lancet. Study Details In this double-blind trial, ...
Proactive outreach to cirrhosis patients in a safety net health system successfully doubled their screening rates for liver cancer, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers found in a study published by Singal et al in Gastroenterology. Cirrhosis patients are at high risk to develop liver...
In an exploratory analysis of the REACH trial in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma reported in JAMA Oncology, Zhu et al found a borderline survival benefit of second-line ramucirumab (Cyramza) vs placebo among patients with a Child-Pugh score of 5 and a significant benefit among patients with a...
Results from the phase III RESORCE trial show that regorafenib (Stivarga) tablets achieved a median overall survival improvement in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma that progressed after treatment with sorafenib (Nexavar) tablets. The study, presented by Jordi Bruix, MD, et al...
Results from the phase III RESORCE trial show that regorafenib (Stivarga) tablets achieved a median overall survival improvement in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) that progressed after treatment with sorafenib (Nexavar) tablets. The study, presented by Bruix et al during...
On June 28, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a fixed-dose combination of sofosbuvir, 400 mg, plus velpatasvir, 100 mg (Epclusa) to treat adult patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) either with or without cirrhosis. For patients with moderate to severe cirrhosis...
A strategy of matching molecular abnormalities in patients’ tumors to therapies targeted to those abnormalities is gaining ground, according to preliminary results of the phase IIb MyPathway study presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 These are still early days for this “matching” strategy,...
Pilot Study Title: Pilot Study of Hepatic Arterial Infusion Therapy in Patients With Unresectable or Borderline Resectable Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma Study Type: Interventional/nonrandomized/parallel assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Washington University School of Medicine Purpose: ...
A large prospective Swedish study reported by Larsson et al found a 2.2-fold increased risk of gallbladder cancer in people who consumed two or more servings of sweetened beverages a day compared with nonconsumers. The researchers also found a 1.8-fold increase in extrahepatic biliary tract cancer...
Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses findings of this phase III study of sorafenib plus doxorubicin versus sorafenib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (Abstract 4003).
Black patients diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common liver cancer, had a 33% increased risk of death compared to non-Hispanic whites. They also were far less likely to receive lifesaving liver transplants, according to a new study presented by Jones et al at Digestive Disease...
Combined hepatocellular carcinoma–cholangiocarcinoma is a histopathologically distinct tumor for which no formal treatment guidelines exist. It is also a malignancy that is being diagnosed more often, according to researchers from Mount Sinai Beth Israel Medical Center, New York, who reported...
Vincent Lo Re, MD, MSCE, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and Amy Justice, MD, PhD, Professor of General Medicine and Public Health at Yale School of Public Health, have been ...
Radiation is a commonly used therapeutic option to treat liver metastases, with the majority of tumors maintained under control after a year. However, some patients do not respond as well to radiation treatment, and the factors that predict patient outcomes are unclear. Moffitt Cancer Center...
Data from a new study show that patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) taking direct-acting antiviral treatments who have previously been diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma had a high rate of redeveloping their illness. The large retrospective cohort study (Abstract LBP506), presented by...
Anne Covey, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the role of ablation and arterial-directed therapy in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.
Daniel T. Chang, MD, of the Stanford Cancer Institute, discusses the role of radiation therapy in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma.
Earlier this month, experts from four major institutions issued the annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer (1975–2012). This year’s report showed that death rates continued to decline for all cancers combined, as well as for most cancer sites for men and women of all major racial and...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Brown et al found no apparent benefit of hepatic artery chemoembolization using doxorubicin-eluting microspheres vs embolization with microspheres alone in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Study Details In the trial, 101...
An experimental nanoparticle therapy that combines low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and fish oil preferentially kills primary liver cancer cells without harming healthy cells, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report. The study was published by Wen et al in Gastroenterology. “This...
High-dose hypofractionated proton beam therapy produced a high rate of local control in patients with localized unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma or intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, according to a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Hong et al. Study Details In the...
Joel E. Tepper, MD, of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, discusses the ways in which SBRT has changed radiotherapy, as demonstrated in key studies presented at this year's meeting on stereotactic body radiotherapy for liver metastases and hepatocellular carcinoma, and borderline resectable and unresectable pancreatic tumors (Abstracts 253, 255, 351, 357).
Richard S. Finn, MD, of the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, summarizes a session on treatments for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (Abstract 192).
Solid-organ transplant recipients have a higher rate of cancer mortality than what is expected in the general population, according to a Canadian study by Acuna et al published in JAMA Oncology. Cancer mortality among transplant recipients was significantly elevated compared with data for the...
Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and moderate liver dysfunction can derive benefit from, and be treated safely with, sorafenib (Nexavar), according to the second interim analysis of the GIDEON trial, presented at the 2011 ASCO Annual Meeting by Jorge A. Marrero, MD, of the University of...
Nearly 16,000 people from 16 countries attended this year’s European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress, held recently in Stockholm. The ASCO Post has featured several key reports from the meeting and will offer further coverage in upcoming issues. Additional noteworthy studies presented at the...
Laparoscopic resection of primary and metastatic liver cancers can be safe and oncologically efficient and reduce postoperative length of stay, a single-center study from the United Kingdom found.1 The investigators cautioned, however, that “adequate patient selection and extensive experience in...
Bone morphogenesis protein 4 (BMP4), which belongs to the transforming growth factor (TGF)-β family, is a multifunctional cytokine that is known to be involved in human carcinogenesis. The cytokine exerts its effects through pathways dependent on and independent of SMAD proteins, which are the...
Designer T cells are modified from normal T cells to express specific immune receptors that allow them, via antibody-directed recognition or other mechanisms, to kill malignant cells bearing particular antigens. The Surgical Immunotherapy Lab at the Roger Williams Medical Center, Providence, Rhode...
From the moment I had a partial hysterectomy in 2010, I started having unexplained bouts of nausea. My surgeon and even my primary care physician chalked it up to everything from the difficult 6-hour surgery I had just had to anxiety over a move I’d recently made from Connecticut to North Carolina. ...
Delcath Systems, Inc, announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA, seeking approval for its chemosaturation system (CHEMOSAT) for use with melphalan hydrochloride in the treatment of patients with unresectable metastatic melanoma in the liver. The system is designed to...
Patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related hepatocellular carcinoma who received nucleoside analogs after curative liver resection had an associated lower risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in a nationwide cohort study using data from the Taiwan National Health Research Data Base. The study was...
The 10th annual Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, held recently in San Francisco, was jointly sponsored by ASCO, the AGA (American Gastroenterological Association), ASTRO (American Society for Radiation Oncology), and the SSO (Society of Surgical Oncology). “We seek to present the newest...
Medical oncologists are apt to underestimate the resectability of liver metastases in patients with colorectal cancer and therefore often fail to refer potential surgical candidates for surgical consultation, according to a study presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive ...
For the treatment of metastases to the liver and the lung, interventional radiologists reported early success with two novel approaches at the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) 38th Annual Scientific Meeting, held recently in New Orleans. Cryoablation of Lung Tumors For patients with...
If sorafenib (Nexavar) and local ablation techniques are both effective in the treatment of metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma, could they deliver an even greater punch when combined? The concurrent use of interventional radiology approaches and sorafenib for metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma is ...
In patients with unresectable hepatic metastases from metastatic melanoma and neuroendocrine tumors, radioembolization led to good outcomes in studies from Emory University School of Medicine reported at the 38th Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting, held recently in New...
This issue of The ASCO Post summarizes the results of an important study recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine by Yong and colleagues. As outlined, investigators from the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine have identified re-expression of SALL4 as a ...
Hepatocellular carcinomas with characteristics of embryonic stem cell and progenitor cell gene expression are associated with particularly poor prognosis. SALL4 is an oncofetal protein that is expressed in the human fetal liver and normally silenced in the adult liver, but re-expressed in a...
Hepatocellular carcinoma is a devastating disease worldwide. Although advances in liver transplantation, surgery, and locoregional therapies have made tumor control or even cure possible for a minority of patients, the majority of patients diagnosed with hepatocellular carcinoma will develop...
The investigational drug brivanib is a dual inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor and fibroblast growth factor signaling, both implicated in hepatocellular carcinoma. The agent was recently evaluated in two phase III trials, one comparing first-line brivanib with sorafenib (Nexavar) in...
Promising efficacy in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma patients was reported for a novel transforming growth factor–beta receptor type 1 (TGF-β1) kinase inhibitor, LY2157299 monohydrate, at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco.1 In particular, patients with moderate to...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved ethiodized oil injection (Lipiodol) for selective hepatic intra-arterial use for imaging tumors in adults with known hepatocellular carcinoma. The agent received orphan drug designation for management of patients with known hepatocellular carcinoma ...
CASI Pharmaceuticals, Inc, announced that its investigational agent ENMD-2076 has received orphan drug designation from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. ENMD-2076 is an orally active Aurora A/angiogenic kinase inhibitor with a unique...