Dave Levitan

The relative importance of common chemotherapy side effects has shifted substantially over the last few decades, according to a new study. In general, psychosocial effects have become more important while physical effects seem less significant to patients than in the past.

The combination of ramucirumab and docetaxel prolonged progression-free survival over chemotherapy alone in patients with platinum-refractory advanced urothelial carcinoma, the first time in this setting that a regimen has improved outcomes over chemotherapy.

Nearly one quarter of breast cancer patients with small, node-negative tumors have high-risk genomic characteristics and would likely benefit from chemotherapy, according to results of a new study presented at the 2017 ESMO Congress.

The advantage with pembrolizumab has continued to improve, offering significantly better overall survival than chemotherapy in patients with recurrent, advanced urothelial carcinoma, according to the mature results of a phase III trial.

A study comparing two options for follow-up protocol after complete lung cancer resection suggests that regular CT scans after resection may not be necessary, though there may be some benefits to these additional scans.

The first head-to-head comparison of docetaxel and abiraterone acetate for high-risk prostate cancer patients starting long-term hormone therapy found benefit with both treatments when added to ADT. Treatment decisions may come down to specific toxicities, which differ between the treatments.

A new study including two separate cohorts found that male gender is a significant risk factor for mortality in patients with essential thrombocythemia. Gender may play a bigger role than thrombosis history in determining risk.

Weekly dose-dense chemotherapy can be delivered successfully and with lower toxicity than standard 3-weekly regimens, but it does not improve progression-free survival among patients with epithelial ovarian cancer, according to a large new study presented at the ESMO.

An analysis that corrected for differences in implementation found that the two main trials of prostate cancer screening in Europe and the United States both show a reduction in prostate cancer mortality with screening.

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted Priority Review to obinutuzumab in combination with chemotherapy and followed by obinutuzumab alone for treatment-naïve follicular lymphoma.

The programmed death 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab offers promising antitumor activity and a safety profile consistent with earlier research in heavily pretreated patients with programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–expressing extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer, according to results of a phase I study.

Survivors of childhood cancer are less likely than the general population to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, according to a study.

A new study found little difference with regard to efficacy or toxicity between two chemotherapy regimens used in combination with trastuzumab in older women with HER2-positive breast cancer. One of the regimens, containing docetaxel, was associated with a higher likelihood of completing trastuzumab treatment.

The AKT inhibitor ipatasertib offered improved progression-free survival over placebo when combined with paclitaxel in women with triple-negative breast cancer.

So-called “narrow network” healthcare plans are more likely to exclude oncologists who are associated with NCI-designated or NCCN Cancer Centers, according to a new study.

A novel ErbB inhibitor called pyrotinib was well tolerated and showed promising activity in patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, according to results of a phase I trial.

The US Senate passed legislation that would support and help accelerate the development of promising drugs for children with cancer.

The FDA approved olaparib as maintenance therapy for adult patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. The agent is also now approved in tablet form.

Immediate treatment with androgen-deprivation therapy for men with asymptomatic non-curable prostate cancer did not have major effects on quality of life compared with delayed use, according to a phase III trial.

Results of a phase III trial suggest that the combination of the contemporary oral fluoropyrimidine S-1 and cisplatin offers similar efficacy to 5-flourouracil and cisplatin in patients with chemotherapy-naive diffuse type adenocarcinoma of the gastroesophageal junction or stomach.

A Florida doctor was sentenced to serve nearly 6 years in prison for a variety of charges relating to her use of fraudulent medications to treat cancer patients.

Low levels of cytotoxic stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes are predictive of benefit derived from antibody- vs small molecule–based drug approaches to HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

Patients with chronic myeloid leukemia in the blast phase pose a significant therapeutic challenge and have poor survival, even in the tyrosine kinase inhibitor era, according to a new study.

Olaparib tablet maintenance therapy provided a significant improvement in progression-free survival over placebo in patients with relapsed, platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer with a BRCA1/2 mutation.

Two different doses of cabazitaxel failed to show superiority with regard to overall survival over docetaxel as first-line treatment for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer could lead to increased rates of smoking cessation in a high-risk population, with this “teachable moment” extending even to those with negative scan results.

In patients with stage II to III urothelial carcinoma, bladder-preservation therapy was associated with poorer overall survival compared with radical cystectomy, according to a database study.

Breast cancer subtypes generally did not respond differently to radiotherapy following breast-conserving surgery, according to long-term follow-up of a randomized trial.

Certain histologic variants of urothelial bladder cancer benefit more from neoadjuvant chemotherapy, according to a new study.

Five-year results of a single-institution study show that proton beam radiotherapy given concurrently with chemotherapy offers promising clinical outcomes with good toxicity results compared with historical data.