Oct 22nd, 2021 - The overall incidence of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) decreased from 2010 to 2017, with the incidence of stage IV disease falling, and stage I disease rising, researchers determined. A cross-sectional epidemiological analysis showed that NSCLC incidence per 100,000 population declined from 46.4 to 40.9 during the study period. While the incidence of stage II, IIIA, and IIIB disease was st...

Oct 22nd, 2021 - Patients with unresectable large-volume liver cancer lived significantly longer when treated with hepatic-artery infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) than with transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), a randomized trial from China showed. Median overall survival (OS) increased from 16.1 months with TACE to 23.1 months with FOLFOX (leucovorin, fluorouracil, and oxaliplatin)-HAIC. Progression-free surviva...

Oct 21st, 2021 - A 71-year-old man presented to hospital in November 2014 upon referral after reporting pain and evidence of blood on urination. Imaging and cystoscopy assessments identified a vegetative lesion of the bladder wall. The patient reported being a heavy smoker for the past 30 years. His medical history over the past 3 decades included high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and psoriasis. His su...

Oct 19th, 2021 - Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO: When I was initially training, and Bill can probably comment on this as well, patients used to get mouth sores all the time with doxorubicin cyclophosphamide. It was just a standard part of every 3-week AC [doxorubicin hydrochloride, cyclophosphamide]. We hardly see it at all anymore. It’s all about growth factors, and it was the same with transplants. Bill, do you w...

Oct 19th, 2021 - Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO: It’s important for us to understand when patients are at their greatest risk for CIN [cervical intraepithelial neoplasia], which is after they start chemotherapy. That’s something our patients also want to know, in terms of what their risk is if they’re going to travel or work. I don’t know that the guidelines address this and how it’s taken into our clinical decision-m...

Oct 19th, 2021 - Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO: It’s really important: the whole concept of why we worry about this and how we treat it and also prophylax. We’ll talk more about that later. Tiffany, there are clear risk factors, as Bill and Rita pointed out. Can you tell us a little more about the risk factors, how you monitor patients, and if the risk factors change either the chemotherapy you choose, the doses, or ...

Oct 19th, 2021 - Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO: Hello, and welcome to this OncLive® Peer Exchange titled Advances in the Management of Chemotherapy-Induced Neutropenia. I’m Dr Hope Rugo from the University of California San Francisco [Helen Diller] Comprehensive Cancer Center. Joining me in this discussion about chemotherapy-induced neutropenia, specifically in breast cancer, are my colleagues: William Gradishar from...

Oct 18th, 2021 - Colorectal cancer (CRC) metastases from right-sided primary tumors and CRC liver metastases had higher rates of local failure following stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR), a single-institution retrospective study found. Among 130 patients with oligometastatic CRC, lesions stemming from right-sided CRCs were more than twice as likely to recur locally following SABR, as compared with left-...

Oct 15th, 2021 - A case report describes the dramatic shrinkage of a tumor to a quarter of its original size in a patient with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had declined conventional treatment, continued smoking, and who later revealed that she was ingesting cannabidiol (CBD) oil. The patient was an 80-year-old woman. At diagnosis, the tumor measured 41 mm, and there was no evidence of local or further...

Oct 15th, 2021 - In Europe, two new cancer drugs have been recommended for approval, and one has had its marketing authorization withdrawn. The opinions were issued by the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) at its meeting this week. New Drug for TNBC The CHMP recommended the granting of a conditional marketing authorization for sacituzumab govitecan (Trodelvy...

Oct 15th, 2021 - The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new indication for the immunotherapy drug atezolizumab (Tecentriq) — the adjuvant treatment following resection and platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with stage II to IIIA non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have PD-L1 expression ≥ 1%. The agency also approved the Ventana PD-L1 (SP263) Assay (Ventana Medical Systems) as the co...

Oct 14th, 2021 - Untreated PD-L1 non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Patients with previously untreated, PD-L1-selected, locally advanced, unresectable, or metastatic NSCLC are sought for a phase 3 trial comparing pembrolizumab to the investigational immunotherapies ociperlimab (an anti-TIGIT antibody) and tislelizumab (an anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor). Participants will be treated until death or progression ...

Oct 14th, 2021 - The family of a man who died from a rare and feared complication of head and neck cancer has filed a $34 million lawsuit against the medical center where he was treated, alleging that his death would have been avoided had there been better communication between the surgical oncologist and the treatment team. The patient was a 49-year-old man who was experiencing chronic pain in his right ear. H...

Oct 14th, 2021 - In a perfect world, we would have phase 3 data to guide all of our clinical recommendations. But even if that were possible, phase 3 trials are not able to provide the full range of answers we need in a real-world setting. Do, for instance, the results from a trial of the most fit patients with great organ function apply to our older and somewhat frail patient with poor kidney function? In a wo...

Oct 13th, 2021 - The CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib (Verzenio) has been approved for use in early breast cancer for certain patients. One expert has described the drug as the first advance for this patient population in 20 years. Abemaciclib had already been approved for use in the treatment of HR+, HER2- advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Now it is also approved for use in HR+, HER2- early breast cancer for p...

Oct 13th, 2021 - Why are Black women dying of endometrial cancer at a much higher rate than White women? Although this survival gap exists across basically every cancer type — breast, prostate, colorectal, non–small cell lung cancer — the numbers for endometrial cancer are particularly alarming. Research shows that Black women have a 90% higher mortality rate than White women. Kemi Doll, MD, MSCR Kemi Doll, MD,...

Oct 13th, 2021 - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) alongside standard chemotherapy — with or without bevacizumab — as first-line therapy for patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic PD-L1-expressing cervical cancer. The first-line approval comes on the heels of the phase 3 results from the KEYNOTE-826 trial, presented last m...

Oct 11th, 2021 - Patients with locally advanced esophageal cancer who have residual disease following chemoradiotherapy (CRT) and surgery should be offered nivolumab (Opdivo), says a rapid update to American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guidance. This could transform the treatment of "about 75%" of patients with ongoing disease despite CRT and surgery, co-author of the guidelines update, Wayne L. Hofstet...

Oct 11th, 2021 - NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Long-term exposure to chronic social and environmental stress may contribute to poor outcomes in women with breast cancer, new research suggests. The study found that chronic physiologic "wear and tear" from lifelong exposure to stressors, known as allostatic load, was associated with a decreased likelihood of completing chemotherapy and a lower overall survival in w...

Oct 8th, 2021 - Kristy Hammam Kristy Hammam retired in June 2021 as senior vice president and editor-in-chief for WebMD, where she directed editorial strategy and content creation. She began her career as a writer and copy editor at CNN. She has degrees in English and art history from Emory University. It's July 2019. I'm lying in the middle of the desert in southern Jordan, gazing up at the night sky. Wadi Ru...