Tony Berberabe, MPH

The amount of vitamin D in a man's blood could be an effective biomarker to identify an aggressive form of prostate cancer, doubly so for men who are considering active surveillance.

Men whose prostate cancer is treated with radiotherapy had a higher risk of developing secondary malignancies in the bladder, colon, and rectum, as compared with men who were not exposed to radiotherapy.

The FDA has accepted a supplemental new drug application for a capsulated form of enzalutamide for review in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. This application includes findings from the head-to-head studies, TERRAIN and STRIVE.

A current estimation shows that roughly 25% of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancers (mCRPC) contain alterations in DNA repair genes. These would normally code for proteins to correct errors arising when cells duplicate their DNA before cell division.

Resistance to androgen receptor therapies in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) has historically posed a challenge to clinicians. Now, a new blood test that analyzes circulating tumor cells (CTCs) could help overcoming these hurdles.

The programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) and PD-1 ligand (PD-L1) inhibitors "are going to disrupt the current treatment paradigm and will likely be the backbone of combination therapy," said Hans J. Hammers, MD, PhD.

Recent studies suggest that RP may be a better initial treatment given many of these patients require multimodal therapy to manage their disease. The question about radiation versus surgery lies in the details, with treatment tailored to each patient.

Phase II findings have shown a substantial improvement in overall survival with the dendritic vaccine ICT-107 in a subgroup of patients with HLA-A2+ newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), warranting further exploration in a phase III study.

With novel treatments such as abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) and enzalutamide (Xtandi) emerging and financial challenges of diminished reimbursement faced by urology practices mounting, urology groups are beginning to offer in-office dispensing to their metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients.

Pro-inflammatory cytokines were elevated in patients with melanoma undergoing the combination treatment of radiation therapy and the systemic anti�CTLA-4 immunotherapy, ipilimumab.

Patients who received hypofractionated radiation therapy did not demonstrate statistically significant differences in long-term outcomes compared with patients who received conventional radiation therapy, according to a study .

In the first phase III trial to show a benefit for adjuvant therapy in prostate cancer, treatment with an adjuvant combination of docetaxel, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), and radiation therapy (RT) improved 4-year overall survival (OS) rates in patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer, when compared with ADT plus RT alone.

The role of androgen receptor variant-7 in patients with early stage prostate cancer is not well characterized but data presented at the 2015 American Urological Association Meeting by Tyler M. Bauman, BS, is bringing the discussion into focus.

PSA testing utilization decreased by 50% among primary care physicians at Oregon Health & Science University, following a recommendation against screening from the USPSTF.

Treatment with the PARP inhibitor olaparib demonstrated a durable ORR of 87.5% in a biomarker-defined subgroup of men with pretreated sporadic mCRPC in a phase II multi-step adaptive trial.

The continuing contentious debate about screening for prostate cancer remains top of mind among the public and lay press, but, Leonard G. Gomella, MD, says the decision to screen or not to screen boils down to “using common sense.”

Treatment with enzalutamide reduced the risk of progression by 76% compared with bicalutamide in men with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), according to results from the STRIVE study.

Although advances are being made in novel therapies for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), standard chemotherapy remains part of the treatment paradigm, but its role is undergoing a major shift.

One of the leading non-clinical attributes that affect how oncologists decide which therapeutic agent to prescribe over another is patient affordability.

In May 2014, ASCO issued guidelines recommending the administration of adjuvant tamoxifen for 10 years in women with stage I-III hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer, based on data from the collection of 5 clinical trials.

The combination of a FLT3L-primed in situ vaccine, low-dose radiotherapy, and a TLR 3 agonist has been shown to be feasible, safe, and immunologically and clinically effective in a phase I/II study for patients with low-grade lymphoma.

Bristol-Myers Squibb has filed a lawsuit over Merck’s newly approved immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab, contending that the much-heralded PD-1 inhibitor will infringe upon patents that Bristol-Myers holds on the groundbreaking technology.

Women who received signed letters from their family physician along with scheduled postcard reminders are more likely to return for mammography screening than women who only received a postcard.

Findings from the NSABP R-04 trial demonstrated that neoadjuvant capecitabine combined with radiation therapy had outcomes similar to previously established standards of care for stage II or III rectal cancer.