Latest Conference Articles

Investigators reported at the 2014 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium that two new combinations demonstrated activity in refractory or advanced, previously untreated urothelial carcinoma in phase II evaluations.

Survival, measured as either disease-specific survival or relative conditional survival, has not improved for patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma despite increasing use of second-line therapies with no formal indication in this setting.

A meta-analysis presented during the 10th Annual Genitourinary Cancers Symposium found that when used with other therapies for the treatment of mCRPC, prednisone does not raise the risk for severe toxicities, nor does it affect overall survival (OS).

William K. Oh, MD, professor of medicine, hematology and medical oncology, urology, The Mount Sinai Hospital, discusses a biomarker development trial of satraplatin in patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer.

Patients with bone metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) who received radium-223 dichloride (Xofigo) continued to have a low incidence of myelosuppression and no associated secondary malignancies at a 1.5-year follow-up of the pivotal phase III ALSYMPCA study that was presented at the 2014 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Matthew D. Galsky, MD, from The Mount Sinai Hospital, discusses an analysis of the distribution and geographic accessibility of prostate cancer clinical trials in the U.S.

Charles Ryan, MD, Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology), University of California, San Francisco, discusses the utility of abiraterone and enzalutamide for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Rana R. McKay, MD, a clinical oncology fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, discusses a trial that analyzed overall survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma who used angiotensin system inhibitors.

Improved outcomes continued to be demonstrated with the addition of radiotherapy to oral antiandrogen therapy in men with locally advanced prostate cancer, according to an updated analysis, conducted after 11 years of observation.

Enzalutamide (Xtandi) improves survival by nearly 30% in chemotherapy-naïve men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) and delays progression of their disease by more than 80%.

The use of angiotensin system inhibitors (ASIs) may significantly improve survival outcomes in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), according to a vast, pooled retrospective analysis.

The premature termination of clinical trials in the oncology setting is a problem that continues to vex researchers, and results of a new study that involved more than 7500 adult cancer clinical trials suggest that the concern is justified.

According to the results of a phase II study, the combination of two specific anti-cancer vaccines, rather than the administration of one as monotherapy, doubles the 1-year survival probability in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

RAS mutations beyond KRAS exon 2 are negative predictive biomarkers for the EGFR-inhibitor panitumumab in metastatic colorectal cancer, according to an analysis of phase III, second-line data, which are consistent with previously reported data in first-line mCRC.

Patients with carcinoid and pituitary NETs, who have been traditionally chemo-resistant, may obtain "extraordinary responses" with capecitabine and temozolomide (CAPTEM), according to data from an interim analysis of an ongoing phase II study.

According to findings from a four-arm phase III NSABP R-04 trial, single-agent neoadjuvant capecitabine combined with radiation therapy demonstrated similar outcomes as previously established standards of care for patients with stage II or stage III rectal cancer.

The combination of ramucirumab and paclitaxel resulted in a significant prolongation in survival and gains in quality of life when compared to paclitaxel alone for the second-line treatment of patients with metastatic gastric cancer.

Charles L. Shapiro, MD, discusses the IBIS II trial, which studied anastrozole in preventing breast cancer in postmenopausal women at increased risk of breast cancer.

Brian Leyland-Jones, MBBS, PhD, director of Edith Sanford Breast Cancer Research, discusses the results of the SWOG S0500 trial, which looked at circulating tumor cell (CTC) levels in patients with metastatic breast cancer.

According to results of the Phase III SWOG S0500 clinical trial, switching chemotherapy based on level of elevated CTCs after one cycle of chemotherapy did not improve OS or PFS in women with metastatic breast cancer.

Study investigators reported at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium that the addition of carboplatin to standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy increased pathologic complete response (pCR) rates in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

According to the results of a prospective, randomized, controlled trial, in women with metastatic breast cancer that responds to frontline chemotherapy, locoregional treatment (LRT) of the primary tumor and axillary nodes does not produce an increase in overall survival (OS).

Findings reported at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium showed that PIK3CA-mutated tumors in patients with HER2-positive (HER+) breast cancer (BC) are associated with a much lower rate of pathological complete response (pCR).

A new study reported at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium shows that a prescribed exercise program reduces joint pain in breast cancer survivors taking aromatase inhibitors (AIs), with pain reductions observed at all levels of exercise.

According to newly reported findings from the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study II (IBIS-II), anastrozole may be a new option for primary prevention of breast cancer in postmenopausal women at high risk for the disease.

In women with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer, the addition of dasatinib to standard aromatase inhibitor therapy with letrozole doubled progression-free survival (PFS) compared with letrozole alone.

A combination of rituximab (Rituxan) and the PI3K-delta inhibitor idelalisib was associated with a >70% improvement in overall survival (OS) in patients with high-risk relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

At the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), several trials of ibrutinib both alone and in combination with currently used therapies for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) were presented.

Results of a phase II trial showed that when treated with a reduced dose of the oral FLT3 receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor quizartinib, nearly half of patients with relapsed/refractory acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) had complete remissions.

If treated with hormonal therapy and considered to be at low risk for breast cancer recurrence, women aged 65 and older with hormone receptor-positive, axillary node-negative breast cancer may be able to forego radiation therapy (RT) after breast conserving surgery.