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Findings from a cohort of a phase II study reported by Stacchiotti et al in The Lancet Oncology indicated activity of the antiangiogenic agent pazopanib in advanced extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma. As noted by the investigators, this rare sarcoma has low sensitivity to cytotoxic chemotherapy,...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the inclusion of overall survival from the PACIFIC trial in the U.S. prescribing information for durvalumab and accepted applications for a new drug in the treatment of epithelioid sarcoma and two orphan drugs in the treatment of acute...
In the phase II/III Act.In.Sarc trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Bonvalot et al found that preoperative addition of the radioenhancer hafnium oxide nanoparticle NBTXR3 to radiotherapy may improve outcomes in patients with locally advanced soft-tissue sarcoma. The agent acts to increase...
In the phase II CASPS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Judson et al found evidence of activity of cediranib in alveolar soft-part sarcoma. In the double-blind trial, 48 patients from 12 sites in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Australia were randomly assigned 2:1 between July 2011 and July...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Breelyn Wilky, MD, and colleagues found evidence of activity of axitinib plus pembrolizumab in advanced sarcomas, including alveolar soft-part sarcoma. Study Details The study involved 33 patients with advanced or metastatic sarcomas, including...
In the phase II SARC024 trial in sarcoma subtypes reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Davis and colleagues found that regorafenib improved progression-free survival vs placebo in the cohort of patients with metastatic osteosarcoma. The double-blind study included 42 patients from 12 U.S. ...
William D. Tap, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses negative study findings on doxorubicin plus olaratumab vs doxorubicin plus placebo, which showed no difference in overall survival between the two treatments in patients with advanced soft-tissue sarcomas. The manufacturer is currently withdrawing olaratumab from the global market (Abstract LBA3).
In the European phase II VIT-091 trial, researchers examined the efficacy of the combination of vincristine and irinotecan with or without the addition of temozolomide in children and adults with relapsed or refractory rhabdomyosarcoma. Their results were presented by Defachelles et al at the 2019...
In 1996, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) published its first set of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®), covering eight tumor types. NCCN Guidelines are now published for more than 70 tumor types and topics. Some of the key updates for 2019 were presented...
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted designations in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, adenoid cystic carcinoma, and Kaposi sarcoma; and the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) held votes on treatments for tenosynovial giant cell tumor and acute...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Wilky et al found evidence of activity of axitinib plus pembrolizumab in advanced sarcomas, including alveolar soft-part sarcoma. Study Details The study involved 33 patients with advanced or metastatic sarcomas, including alveolar soft-part...
THE 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting was held March 29 to April 3 in Atlanta. In addition to our regular coverage of news stories from the meeting, here are some brief highlights of additional noteworthy studies. Stage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Surgery or No ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Davis et al, outcomes in the osteosarcoma cohort of the phase II SARC024 trial indicated a progression-free survival benefit with regorafenib vs placebo in previously treated metastatic osteosarcoma. Study Details The randomized...
On April 25, Eli Lilly and Company announced that the company has been working to facilitate the withdrawal of olaratumab from the market for the treatment of advanced soft-tissue sarcoma. Lilly's actions to withdraw olaratumab from the market follow completion of the international phase III...
A small phase I study by Navai et al investigated a combination of lymphodepletion chemotherapy and HER2-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for pediatric and adult patients with advanced HER2-positive sarcoma. The combination showed promising antitumor activity and was found to ...
Those dealing with sarcoma know that resources and support can be difficult to find. Members of the newly formed Sarcoma Coalition are working together to change that. The Sarcoma Coalition is a nonprofit collaboration of sarcoma advocacy organizations from around the country working toward a...
It is estimated that 20% to 33% of patients undergoing cancer treatment are concomitantly using a gastric acid suppressant, most commonly a proton pump inhibitor (including omeprazole and esomeprazole magnesium) or a histamine H2-receptor blocker (such as ranitidine). A study by Mir et al...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vaarwerk et al found that presence of indeterminate pulmonary nodules at diagnosis of pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma did not adversely affect treatment outcome in otherwise localized disease. The study involved 316 patients from the European...
The recently reported results of ANNOUNCE, the phase III study of olaratumab in combination with doxorubicin in patients with advanced or metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma, did not confirm the clinical benefit of olaratumab in combination with doxorubicin as compared to doxorubicin, a...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Villano et al found that regionalization of retroperitoneal sarcoma surgery—recognized as a complex cancer surgery—to high-volume hospitals has been slower than that observed for similarly complex pancreatic cancer surgery over...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Duffaud et al found evidence of activity of regorafenib (Stivarga) in a cohort of adult patients with previously treated metastatic osteosarcoma. This noncomparative, double-blind trial involves 4 cohorts of patients, consisting of those with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved levoleucovorin (Khapzory) injection, a folate analog, for three indications: rescue after high-dose methotrexate therapy in patients with osteosarcoma; diminishing the toxicity associated with overdosing on folic acid antagonists or...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Walterhouse et al found that age ≥ 10 years at diagnosis and tumor size > 5 cm are adverse prognostic features in localized paratesticular rhabdomyosarcoma. Study Details The study was a pooled analysis of data from North American and ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved levoleucovorin (Khapzory) injection, a folate analog, for three indications: rescue after high-dose methotrexate therapy in patients with osteosarcoma; diminishing the toxicity associated with overdosage of folic acid...
Angiosarcoma of the head, face, neck, or scalp is a rare cancer associated with high rates of local recurrence, distant metastasis, and poor prognosis. Because angiosarcoma is so rare, it is difficult to conduct large-scale research in the cancer. To address this issue, the Broad Institute of MIT...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Whelan et al, combined trials (EURO-EWING99 and Ewing-2008) have shown evidence of improved outcomes with high-dose therapy with busulfan and melphalan (BuMel) and autologous stem cell transplant (SCT) vs standard chemotherapy with vincristine,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Rare Pediatric Disease designation to CLR 131 for the treatment of osteosarcoma. CLR 131 has received Rare Pediatric Disease designation in four pediatric cancers: neuroblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, Ewing’s sarcoma, and now...
Widespread use of antiretroviral therapy in the treatment of patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has led to a decline in the incidence of HIV-related Kaposi sarcoma, an incurable malignancy associated with HIV. Nevertheless, about 15% of these patients will go on to...
In a phase III Children’s Oncology Group study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hawkins et al found that substituting vincristine and irinotecan (VI) for half of vincristine, dactinomycin, and cyclophosphamide (VAC) courses did not improve event-free survival in pediatric...
WARREN CHOW, MD, a sarcoma specialist at City of Hope, Duarte, California, said maintenance therapy has not traditionally been used in the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma; therefore, the findings represent “a paradigm shift.” Although the RMS2005 Maintenance study established a new standard of care ...
THE ADDITION OF 6 months of maintenance chemotherapy in the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma improved 5-year survival by 13%, in the European RMS2005 Maintenance study reported at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “At the end of this long, not-easy study, we concluded that maintenance is an effective and ...
As reported by Bisogno et al in The Lancet Oncology, a phase III trial (EpSSG RMS 2005) has shown no benefit of adding doxorubicin to standard IVA (ifosfamide, vincristine, dactinomycin) in 3-year event-free survival among patients with high-risk rhabdomyosarcoma. Study Details In the open-label...
Gianni Bisogno, MD, of the University Hospital of Padova, discusses study findings on maintenance low-dose chemotherapy in patients with high-risk rhabdomyosarcoma (Abstract LBA2).
A new chemotherapy strategy seems to improve cure rates for children with rhabdomyosarcoma who are at high risk for cancer recurrence. In a randomized phase III clinical trial, adding 6 months of low-dose maintenance chemotherapy after initial treatment increased the 5-year overall survival rate...
In a letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine, Gounder et al described the successful treatment of a patient with histiocytic sarcoma and an activating MAP2K1 (MEK1) mutation with the MAPK kinase 1 and 2 inhibitor trametinib (Mekinist). As noted by the authors, patients with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Orphan Products Development recently granted Orphan Drug designation to CLR 131 for the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare pediatric cancer. “Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common type of tissue sarcoma in children. While...
Among patients with inoperable, advanced, or metastatic ALK-positive inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor, 50% were confirmed to have partial or complete tumor shrinkage after treatment with the ALK-targeted anticancer therapeutic agent crizotinib (Xalkori), according to data from the phase II EORTC...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Issels et al, long-term follow-up of the phase III EORTC 62961-ESHO 95 trial has shown improved outcomes with the addition of regional hyperthermia to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with high-risk soft-tissue sarcoma. Study Details In the open-label trial,...
In the phase II Alliance A091401 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, D’Angelo et al found evidence of activity of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in advanced sarcoma. Study Details The study comprised two noncomparative randomized phase II trials in which a total of 85 eligible patients...
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have provided the first description of the structure of the herpes virus associated with Kaposi’s sarcoma. The findings, published by Dai et al in Nature, answer important questions about how the virus spreads and provide a...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has created a new resource for patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who develop acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related Kaposi sarcoma. This newly released NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has created a new resource for patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who develop acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related Kaposi sarcoma. This newly released NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN...
Alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS) is a cancer so rare that some oncologists have never heard of it. Brittany Sullivan, a 29-year-old anatomy teacher from Nashville, Tennessee, learned about it when she was 3 years old. She has been conquering it ever since. Since her childhood diagnosis, Ms....
The phase II SARC028 trial has shown activity of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in some subtypes of advanced sarcoma. These findings were reported by Tawbi et al in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details In the study, 84 patients with advanced soft-tissue sarcoma aged ≥ 18 years (n = 42) or bone sarcoma ...
THE BACKBONE treatment for soft-tissue sarcomas has long been anthracycline-based, but new approaches are coming. These novel strategies were discussed at the 2017 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and Oncology Conference in Sea Island, Georgia, by Melinda L. Yushak, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor ...
In the UK-Swiss phase III GeDDiS trial, the combination of gemcitabine and docetaxel did not significantly improve progression-free survival vs doxorubicin in first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma. Findings were reported in The Lancet Oncology by Seddon et al....
The subgroup analysis of outcomes among patients with advanced liposarcoma from a pivotal phase III trial comparing eribulin (Halaven) vs dacarbazine in previously treated liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma was reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Demetri et al. Overall, the phase III trial...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies focused on sarcomas. These studies are focusing on anticancer vaccines, T-cell therapy, combination chemotherapy, pathway inhibitors, preoperative radiotherapy, and more. All of the...
MOST ONCOLOGISTS are familiar with the findings of the plenary sessions featured at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, with topics ranging from the duration of adjuvant oxaliplatin-based therapy in stage III colon cancer to patient-reported outcomes for symptom monitoring during routine cancer...
A phase III trial (TH CR-406/SARC021) has shown no survival benefit of adding evofosfamide to doxorubicin in the first-line treatment of locally advanced unresectable or metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma. Trial results were reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tap et al. Evofosfamide is a...