A federally funded phase III trial provides additional information regarding a long-standing discussion about the impact of adjuvant whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) on cognitive function. Patients with 1-3 small brain metastases who received radiosurgery followed by WBRT were more likely to experience cognitive decline than those who received radiosurgery alone. Furthermore, WBRT did not significantly extend patient survival, though it did ...

Interview with Peter Paul Yu, ASCO President...

CHICAGO – Results from four pivotal clinical trials show that new targeted therapies could vastly improve treatment for people with chronic-lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), myelofibrosis, indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and multiple myeloma. These important, late-breaking studies were presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) 51st Annual Meeting.

The four clinical trials reveal new therapies that extend cancer ...

Interim analysis of a phase III study finds that adding the new anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab to standard bendamustine chemotherapy significantly delays progression of indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Among patients for whom rituximab therapy no longer provided benefit, the average duration of remission was 29.2 months after receiving the new combination vs. 14 months after bendamustine alone. The trial was stopped early based on...

A phase II trial suggests that anti-CD38 antibody daratumumab is effective as a standalone therapy for heavily treated multiple myeloma. In a group of 106 patients whose disease worsened after at least three prior treatments, nearly one in three responded to daratumumab, and disease progression was delayed by 3.7 months, on average. The estimated one-year overall survival rate was 65%....

An interim analysis of a large phase III study suggests that the combination of ibrutinib and bendamustine/rituximab (BR) improves outcomes for patients with chronic-lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) that worsened despite prior therapy....

Findings from the PERSIST-1 study of patients with myelofibrosis suggest that pacritinib is significantly more effective than best available therapy (BAT), which includes a range of off-label treatments. At 24 weeks of treatment, 19.1% of patients on the pacritinib arm experienced spleen shrinkage, compared to only 4.7% of patients on the BAT arm....

CHICAGO – Results from five late-breaking studies released today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) 51st Annual Meeting provide important new treatment options for patients with common and rare cancers. They include new or refined therapies for melanoma, prostate and breast cancers, which are together diagnosed in more than 500,000 Americans annually. Another study reveals a long-awaited new treatment for patients with ...

A federally funded phase III study found that adding docetaxel chemotherapy to standard hormone and radiation therapy reduces the risk of death for men with high-risk, localized prostate cancer. At an average follow-up of 5.5 years, four-year overall survival rates were 89% in the standard therapy group vs. 93% in the docetaxel group....

A randomized study finds that surgical removal of the lymph nodes surrounding a melanoma tumor after a positive lymph node biopsy (melanoma found in node) does not improve survival. The study will likely change practice and conclude a long-standing debate about the role of this approach, called complete lymph node dissection (CLND). More importantly, the new knowledge gained from this study will help spare thousands of patients with melanoma from...

Findings from a randomized phase III trial point to a promising new therapy for patients with advanced intermediate or high grade liposarcoma or leiomyosarcoma whose disease worsened after two or more lines of initial therapies. Patients treated with the chemotherapy drug eribulin had a two-month increase in median overall survival compared to those treated with the standard drug dacarbazine....

A federally funded phase III trial suggests that postmenopausal women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) may have an additional option for breast cancer prevention. The study compared the standard five-year treatment of tamoxifen to five years of the aromatase inhibitor anastrazole in more than 3,000 DCIS survivors. The 10-year breast cancer-free survival rates were higher in the anastrazole group than in the tamoxifen group (93.5% vs. 89.2%)....

The phase III registration study PALOMA-31 reports that adding the investigational targeted agent palbociclib to standard hormonal therapy (fulvestrant) more than doubled the duration of disease control, delaying disease progression by roughly five months in women with previously treated, hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 negative (HR+/HER2-) advanced breast cancer. This trial was stopped early based on efficacy ...

CHICAGO – Findings from four clinical trials released today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) 51^st Annual Meeting show a promising new role for immunotherapy in patients with a wide range of common, solid tumor cancers. The new study results demonstrate the effectiveness of immunotherapy drugs targeting the PD-1 protein in advanced liver, head and neck, lung, and colorectal cancers. Several of the studies also identified ...

A phase II study identified the first genomic marker – mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency – to predict response to the anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab. This marker predicted responses across a range of cancers....

Findings from a phase I/II study suggest that nivolumab is safe and effective in advanced liver cancer. Based on the results of the phase I part of the study, eight (19%) of the 42 evaluable patients responded to the anti-PD-1 antibody with tumor reduction beyond 30%. More importantly, the responses have been durable and surpassed 12 months in four patients. The overall survival rate at 12 months was 62%....

A 132-patient study indicates that pembrolizumab immunotherapy is effective for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer (HNC). The findings may fill a large unmet need for better treatments in this disease....

Findings from a randomized phase III study indicate that PD-1 immunotherapy is an effective treatment option for patients with non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Among patients with advanced disease that worsened after receiving platinum-based chemotherapy, those treated with nivolumab lived on average three months longer than those treated with docetaxel chemotherapy....

 Az onkológus szakma régi vágya válhat valóra azzal a rendeletmódosítással, amely szerint a daganatgyanús betegeknek 14 napon belül időpontot kell kapniuk a diagnosztikai vizsgálatokra. Arról, hogy ez hogyan valósulhat meg, adottak-e hozzá a feltételek, Kásler Miklós professzor urat, az Országos Onkológiai Intézet főigazgató főorvosát kérdeztük....