FDA Approves RCC Drug, Prostate Cancer and Smoking Link: April News Roundup

April 29, 2016

This slide show highlights some of the top stories of the month, including the approval of a new agent for RCC, a study that found declines in prostate cancer deaths have mirrored the declines in smoking rates, and more.

Decrease in Prostate Cancer Mortality Mirrors Declines in Cigarette Smoking:

Declines in the rates of cigarette smoking in several states mirrored declines in prostate cancer deaths between 1999 and 2010, according to a new epidemiologic analysis, suggesting prostate cancer mortality reduction is an added beneficial effect of reduced smoking rates. Smoking rates declined in each state studied. In Maryland, for example, smoking prevalence declined by 3% per year from 1999 through 2010 while prostate cancer mortality declined by 3.5% per year. Image Â© I love coffee / shutterstock.com.

Cancer Diagnosis Linked With Increased Risk of Mental Disorders:

Patients who are diagnosed with cancer have an increased risk of several common mental disorders, including depression, anxiety, and others, beginning 10 months prior to the cancer diagnosis, according to a large national cohort study conducted in Sweden. The overall relative incidence of those mental disorders peaked, unsurprisingly, during the week immediately following the cancer diagnosis. Image Â© prudkov / shutterstock.com.

Half of Women Qualify for Breast Screening at Age 40 Under New Guidelines:

A new study found that half of women age 40 to 44 evaluated at an academic practice qualified for annual mammography screening, even with new guidelines from the American Cancer Society (ACS) recommending that women with an average risk of developing breast cancer start screening at age 45. In a single institute database of 6,964 women (909 of whom were between 40 and 44), risk evaluation revealed that 352 women (39%) had an above-average risk of breast cancer by ACS criteria. Using additional criteria from the American Society of Breast Surgeons guidelines, another 11% would be eligible for screening at 40. Image Â© Guschenkova / shutterstock.com.

Liquid Biopsy Accurately Detects Mutations in Advanced NSCLC:

Droplet digital polymerase chain reactionâbased plasma genotyping-referred to as liquid biopsy-exhibited perfect specificity in identifying

EGFR

and

KRAS

mutations in patients with advanced nonâsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The liquid biopsy showed 100% positive predictive value for detecting

EGFR

19 deletion, L858R, and

KRAS

mutations. However, it had only a positive predictive value of 79% for T790M mutations. Image Â© science photo / shutterstock.com.

Maintaining High Physical Activity Improves Prostate Cancer Survival:

Prostate cancer patients who kept up a moderate to high level of physical activity had better survival prognoses compared with their more sedentary counterparts, according to results of a study presented at the 2016 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting. After a prostate cancer diagnosis, men who were the most physically active had a 34% lower risk of dying from prostate cancer compared with men who exercised the least. Men who either maintained or increased their exercise level also benefited. Image Â© Luc Ubaghs / shutterstock.com.

Coffee Intake Associated With Reduced Colorectal Cancer Risk:

Drinking coffee resulted in a more than 25% decreased risk for developing colorectal cancer, according to the results of a study published in

Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention

. Compared with those who had less than 1 serving of coffee a day, participants in the study who had more than 2.5 servings had a 54% reduction in the odds of developing colorectal cancer. Image Â© gresei / shutterstock.com.

Older Soft-Tissue Sarcoma Patients Derive More Benefit From Radiotherapy:

Older soft-tissue sarcoma (STS) patients undergoing surgery derive greater benefit from radiotherapy (RT) than younger patients, according to a surprising analysis of 15,380 STS patients in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. RT was associated with improved overall survival only in older patients and not in those below the age of 65. For example, in rhabdomyosarcoma patients the HR among younger patients was 0.72 (

= .21), and among those 65 or older the HR was 0.23 (

Cabozantinib Receives FDA Approval for Treating Advanced RCC:

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cabozantinib (Cabometyx) tablets for treating patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The phase III METEOR trial, which led to the approval, included 658 RCC patients who had become refractory to at least one prior vascular endothelial growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy and found that patients on cabozantinib had a median overall survival of 21.4 months compared with 16.5 months for everolimus. Image (left) Â© Sebastian Kaulitzki / shutterstock.com.

Study Calls for Reclassification of Thyroid Tumors as Non-Cancerous:

A new study is calling for a change in name for certain thyroid tumors. Patients diagnosed with what is currently known as noninvasive encapsulated follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma have a very low risk for recurrence and therefore, researchers have suggested renaming the condition noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features. Image Â© Sebastian Kaulitzki / shutterstock.com.

First-Line Osimertinib Yields Nearly 80% Response in Advanced Lung Cancer:

First-line osimertinib, a targeted therapy against

EGFR

mutations, was found to be effective in patients with advanced nonâsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), resulting in a 77% overall response rate, according to the results of recent study. In addition, the treatment-naive patients in the study achieved a median progression-free survival of 19.3 months. Image Â© molekuul_be / shutterstock.com.

ASCO Calls for Increased HPV Vaccination Efforts:

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) released a statement calling for the rapid expansion of use of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to help protect thousands of people from HPV-associated cancers. “With safe and effective vaccines readily available, no young person today should have to face the devastating diagnosis of a preventable cancer like cervical cancer. But unless we rapidly increase vaccination rates for boys and girls, many of them will,” said ASCO President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, in a press release. Image Â© Sherry Yates Young / shutterstock.com.

Vascular Events Remain a Problem for Ponatinib in CML:

The efficacy of ponatinib in patients with newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) compared with imatinib remains to be established, as a randomized phase III trial was terminated early due to concerns regarding arterial occlusive events with ponatinib. The termination came before sufficient patients reached 12 months of follow-up to show differences in efficacy. Image Â© molekuul_be / shutterstock.com.