My Patient Was Smart And Kind. He Was Also A Conspiracy Theorist — And It May Have Killed Him.
“The doctor rattled off a list of alternatives to screen for lung cancer: CT scan? X-ray? PET scan? Chet’s responses were ‘no,’ ‘no’ and ‘hell no.’” shapecharge via Getty Images Chet hunches forward rubbing his temples, as though trying to anesthetize the pain in his head. His 56th birthday is less than two months away, […]
Older People With Type 2 Diabetes See Growing Cancer Burden
Older people with type 2 diabetes faced a higher burden of cancer mortality in recent years, according to a U.K. study. In a cohort of over 137,000 individuals with type 2 diabetes, all-cause mortality rates dropped among all age groups from 1998-2018, reported Suping Ling, PhD, of the University of Leicester in England, and colleagues. […]
MRI-Guided RT Reduced Acute Toxic Effects in Men With Localized Prostate Cancer
Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) guided by MRI for localized prostate cancer resulted in fewer toxicities and an improvement in quality of life compared with CT guidance, according to the randomized phase III MIRAGE trial. At 3-month follow-up, incidence of acute grade 2 or higher genitourinary toxic effects was 24.4% with MRI-guided SBRT versus 43.4% with […]
Short-Course Apalutamide to Reduce Active Surveillance Attrition in Prostate Cancer
A majority of men in active surveillance (AS) for early prostate cancer had negative biopsies after a 90-day course of apalutamide (Erleada), a small phase II trial showed. Follow-up pathology showed no evidence of residual cancer in 13 of 22 evaluable patients following treatment with the androgen receptor inhibitor. The median time to a positive […]
For People With HIV, Early Anal Cancer Screening Tied to Better Outcomes
Screening HIV-positive individuals for early signs of anal cancer may lead to an earlier diagnosis and better survival, according to an observational Dutch cohort study. Among men who have sex with men (MSM) living with HIV, anal cancer-related mortality was 3.7% in those who had been screened in the Netherlands compared with 24.0% in those […]
Can Biomarkers Give Early Heads-Up on Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Myocarditis?
In the quest to catch myocarditis earlier during immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy for cancer, researchers have found a potential role for routinely measured biomarkers. Of 2,606 consecutive ICI recipients at Michigan Medicine, the 1% who developed myocarditis often or always had elevated high-sensitivity troponin T (hsTnT; 100%), alanine aminotransferase (ALT; 88.9%), aspartate aminotransferase (AST; […]
Opinion | ‘That’s a Big Deal, That’s Life and Death’: What We Heard This Week
“That’s a big deal, that’s life and death. That is the gold standard of all cancer research.” — Joshua Brody, MD, of the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, commenting on a study that showed that high-dose chemotherapy followed by transplant as consolidation treatment for primary central nervous system lymphoma prolonged survival. “No one that’s […]
OS Benefit Eludes Second-Line Niraparib Maintenance in Ovarian Cancer
For women with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer, maintenance therapy using an individualized starting dose of niraparib (Zejula) did not improve overall survival (OS) despite producing a statistically and clinically significant progression-free survival (PFS) benefit in the phase III NORA study. An interim analysis of the key secondary endpoint showed a median OS of 46.3 months […]
High Rates of pCR With Novel Neoadjuvant Combination for Breast Cancer
SAN ANTONIO — A novel neoadjuvant regimen for HER2-negative breast cancer doubled the pathologic complete response (pCR) rate as compared with standard chemotherapy, a small phase II study showed. Across various breast cancer receptor signatures, pCR rates ranged from 36% to 53% with the combination of paclitaxel, the PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab (Libtayo), and the investigational […]
Green tea extract may harm liver in people with certain genetic variations
Long-term use of high-dose green tea extract may provide some protection against cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity and type 2 diabetes, but it also may create liver damage in a small minority of the population. Who is at risk? Research from Rutgers, published in The Journal of Dietary Supplements, provides the first solid clue: two genetic […]