In women with ovarian cancer that has come back after initial treatment, physicians recommend additional surgery in some cases to remove as much of the cancer as possible before starting chemotherapy treatment again. Yet rigorous evidence to support this practice has not been available. Now, results of a large NCI-sponsored clinical trial, GOG-0213, show that this secondary surgery does not improve how long patients with recurrent ovarian cancer live. Indeed, the findings suggest that women who have additional surgery may fare worse than those who do not. “These highly anticipated results call into question our standard practice,” said Yovanni Casablanca, M.D., a gynecologic…
Author: Brett Johnson
New findings from a clinical trial show that treatment with the immunotherapy drug blinatumomab is superior to standard chemotherapy for children and young adults with high- or intermediate-risk B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) that has relapsed. Those treated with blinatumomab had longer survival, experienced fewer severe side effects, had a higher rate of undetectable residual disease, and were more likely to proceed to a stem cell transplant. “Our study demonstrates that immunotherapy with blinatumomab is more effective and less toxic than chemotherapy as a bridge to curative bone marrow transplant for children and young adults with very aggressive relapse of…
In some people with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), treating a single tumor with a mix of cancer therapies can help to shrink, or eliminate, tumors in other parts of the body, findings from a small clinical trial suggest. The approach is called an in situ vaccine because it uses something in the body (in situ)—in this case, an individual tumor—to help create a body-wide immune response. It’s currently being tested in a small clinical trial of patients with slow-growing, or indolent, subtypes of NHL. Initial results from the trial showed that delivering the treatment directly to a single tumor in a patient could create an…
Some children with liver cancer may need less chemotherapy than is typically used to treat the disease, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial. The study, led by the NCI-supported Children’s Oncology Group, included children and infants with the most common type of childhood liver cancer, hepatoblastoma, whose tumors had been surgically removed when the disease was diagnosed. Such patients subsequently receive chemotherapy to kill any remaining cancer cells. Liver cancer is rare in children, and only about one-third of these patients have tumors that can be removed surgically at the time of diagnosis. Approximately 90% of children whose…
On October 16, 2019, an expert panel convened by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) released updated guidance and recommendations on the role of physical activity and exercise in cancer prevention and survivorship. The panel was co-chaired by Kathryn Schmitz, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Penn State College of Medicine, and Charles Matthews, Ph.D., of NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. The recommendations, as outlined in three related publications, are the products of the panel’s comprehensive review of the scientific evidence on physical activity and cancer. In this conversation, Dr. Schmitz, immediate past-president of…
A new test can help to improve the clinical management of women who screen positive for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in routine cervical cancer screening, an NCI-led study has shown. The test, called p16/Ki-67 dual stain, more accurately predicted whether an HPV-positive woman would go on to develop cervical precancer within 5 yearsExit Disclaimer, compared to a Pap test—the current standard for managing HPV-positive women. As HPV testing becomes more central to cervical cancer screening, “the challenge is how to best manage, or triage, HPV-positive women,” said senior investigator Nicolas Wentzensen, M.D., Ph.D., of NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG). Dual stain testing…
A new study has found that a test that measures genomic changes in tissue samples taken from the thyroid can help identify which patients likely need diagnostic surgery for thyroid cancer and which do not. When a suspicious small growth or lump (called a nodule) is found in the thyroid, doctors perform a fine-needle biopsy so that the cells can be examined by a pathologist. But up to one-third of the time, pathologists can’t determine from the appearance of the cells whether the nodule is cancerous (an indeterminate result), explained the study’s lead investigator, Yuri Nikiforov, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.…
The human body normally runs like a well-oiled machine. It is able to activate muscles and run repairs without a conscious thought. One of the truly fascinating components of the human body is the immune system. The immune system is able to identify potentially harmful foreign matter and destroy it. The immune system keeps the body healthy and safe. Because of this quiet but significant work, many researchers over the past thirty years have been asking how the immune system can work to combat cancer. What they have found has very recently come to epitomize what is often referred to…