ASCO 2015 Highlights

Hollywood, FL—Driver mutations, most frequently KRAS and EGFR, account for approximately 50% of non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and this recognition is shifting the NSCLC treatment paradigm toward targeted therapy when possible, said Leora Horn, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Hematology/ Oncology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, at the 2014 National Comprehensive Cancer Network Conference.

Stockholm, Sweden—An inexpensive, noninvasive imaging modality is proving successful for verifying the presence of prostate cancer.

Hollywood, FL—The treatment options for patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) have increased over the past few years. Understanding the clinical disease states is essential when choosing therapy for this patient population, according to Celestia S. Higano, MD, Professor of Medicine and Urology, University of Washington, Seattle, who described the recent additions to the therapeutic armamentarium at the 2014 National Comprehensive Cancer Network Conference.

Hollywood, FL—Cancer survivorship guidelines have been expanded to include the management of neuropathic pain and cancer-associated cognitive dysfunction, said speakers at the 2014 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) meeting.

Cancer centers are ramping up their efforts to create survivorship care plans (SCPs) for all of their patients. However, according to a new survey conducted in 2013, they still have far to go before January 1, 2015, when the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC) accreditation requirement of creating SCPs for all patients comes into effect (Birken SA, et al. J Cancer Educ. 2014 April 6. Epub ahead of print)

San Francisco, CA—New cytotoxic combinations introduced over the past several years for the treatment of advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma now constitute the standard of care for the treatment of all stages of the disease. Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD, Gastrointestinal Medical Oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, reviewed emerging treatments at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Tampa, FL—Women with gynecologic cancers had significantly better survival when treated at high-volume centers, according to a review of 863,000 cases reported at the 2014 Society of Gynecologic Oncology meeting.

Tampa, FL—Prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy did not eliminate the risk for a rare but aggressive form of uterine cancer in women with BRCA1 mutations, according to a study reported at the 2014 Society of Gynecologic Oncology meeting.

According to a new systematic review of the risks and benefits of breast cancer screening, regular mammography is associated with a 19% reduction in breast cancer mortality, but it is also associated with a 61% cumulative risk of a false-positive result, and approximately 19% of the cases are, in fact, considered overdiagnoses (Pace LE, Keating NL. JAMA. 2014;311:1327-1335).

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has issued new guidelines for the use of sentinel node biopsy (SNB) in patients with early-stage breast cancer (Lyman GH, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2014;32:1365-1383. The newer version expands the use of SNB to a larger group of patients, based on evidence from 9 randomized trials and 13 cohort studies conducted since 2005, when the first SNB guidelines were published.