A Randomized, Double-blind, Phase II Trial of PSA-TRICOM (PROSTVAC) in Patients with Localized Prostate Cancer: The Immunotherapy to Prevent Progression on Active Surveillance Study.

The Immunotherapy to Prevent Progression on Active Surveillance Study is the first trial of immunotherapy for localized prostate cancer. We randomized active surveillance patients to PSA-TRICOM (PROSTVAC) or placebo for 5mo. Final results will be available in 2019.

International, evidence-based consensus treatment guidelines for idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease.

Castleman disease (CD) describes a group of heterogeneous hematologic disorders with characteristic histopathological features. CD can present with unicentric or multicentric (MCD) regions of lymph node enlargement. Some cases of MCD are caused by human herpesvirus-8 (HHV-8), whereas others are HHV-8-negative/idiopathic (iMCD).

Evidence-based Palliative Care Approaches to Non-pain Physical Symptom Management in Cancer Patients.

Objective: To review effective approaches for non-pain symptom management for cancer patients focusing on treatment of nausea and vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, anorexia/cachexia, fatigue, and dyspnea.

Data Sources: Peer-reviewed articles, clinical practice guidelines, professional organization position statements.

Conclusion: Oncology nurses are key advocates for optimal symptom management.

Integrated time course omics analysis distinguishes immediate therapeutic response from acquired resistance.

Background: Targeted therapies specifically act by blocking the activity of proteins that are encoded by genes critical for tumorigenesis. However, most cancers acquire resistance and long-term disease remission is rarely observed. Understanding the time course of molecular changes responsible for the development of acquired resistance could enable optimization of patients' treatment options.

Pain Syndromes and Management in Adult Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation.

Pain is a significant physical symptom that can be observed across the spectrum of hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) care. Pain assessment should include evaluation of the physical and functional components of pain. Management varies based on the type of HSCT-specific pain syndrome.

The American Society of Hematology (ASH) Medical Educators Institute: a Pilot Faculty Development Project for Hematology Educators.

Clinician educators at academic medical centers often lack the community, mentorship, and faculty development to support their missions around education scholarship and teaching. Inadequate support for clinician educators can lead to professional dissatisfaction and slowed academic advancement. In 2014, ASH conducted a needs assessment of medical school hematology course directors, hematology-oncology fellowship program directors, and other ASH members identified as educators to determine this community's desire for faculty development in medical education.

The preference to receive chemotherapy and cancer-related outcomes in older adults with breast cancer CALGB 49907 (Alliance).

Objective: Chemotherapy preference refers to a patient's interest in receiving chemotherapy. This study examined whether chemotherapy preference was associated with toxicity, efficacy, quality of life (QoL), and functional outcomes during and after completion of adjuvant chemotherapy in older women with breast cancer.

Materials And Methods: This study is a secondary analysis of CALGB 49907, a randomized trial that compared standard adjuvant chemotherapy versus capecitabine in patients age 65 years or older with breast cancer.

A Novel Fusion in Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor Guides Adjuvant Treatment Decision-Making During Pregnancy.

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) are rare in pregnancy, with only 11 reported cases. Adjuvant imatinib therapy, which targets the most common driver mutations in GIST ( and , is recommended for patients with high-risk GIST, but it has known teratogenicity in the first trimester. A 34-year-old G3P2 woman underwent exploratory laparotomy at 16 weeks' gestation for a presumed adnexal mass.

Challenging Standard-of-Care Paradigms in the Precision Oncology Era.

The pace of genomic and immunological breakthroughs in oncology is accelerating, making it likely that large randomized trials will increasingly become outdated before their completion. Traditional clinical research/practice paradigms must adapt to the reality unveiled by genomics, especially the need for customized drug combinations, rather than one-size-fits-all monotherapy. The raison-d'être of precision oncology is to offer 'the right drug for the right patient at the right time', a process enabled by transformative tissue and blood-based genomic technologies.

Transfusion practices at end of life for hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients.

Purpose: Limited data exist regarding transfusion practices at end of life (EOL) for hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) patients. The purpose of this study was to examine red blood cell (RBC) and platelet transfusion practices in HSCT patients who enrolled or did not enroll in hospice.

Methods: This was a single-center, retrospective chart review in deceased HSCT patients.

Standardised cigarette packaging may reduce the implied safety of Natural American Spirit cigarettes.

Background: Over two-thirds of Natural American Spirit (NAS) smokers believe their cigarettes might be 'less harmful', but toxicological evidence does not support this belief. We assessed whether standardised packaging could reduce the possibility of erroneous inferences of 'safety' drawn from NAS cigarette packaging.

Methods: US adult smokers (n=909) were recruited to a between-subject survey experiment (3 brands×3 packaging/labelling styles) through Amazon Mechanical Turk and rated their perception of whether a randomly assigned cigarette package conveyed that the brand was 'safer' on a three-item scale (Cronbach's α=0.

Prophylactic enoxaparin doses may be inadequate in patients undergoing abdominal cancer surgery.

Background: The incidence of venous thromboembolism has increased in patients following cancer surgery despite the increased use of prophylactic anticoagulants, suggesting standard doses may be inadequate. We sought to determine the adequacy of enoxaparin prophylaxis in patients undergoing abdominal cancer surgery.

Methods: Peak and trough anti-Xa levels were measured in patients receiving enoxaparin thromboprophylaxis (40 mg daily or 30 mg twice daily, at the surgeon's discretion) after undergoing open abdominal cancer surgery at a single institution.

Associations between polymorphisms in genes related to estrogen metabolism and function and prostate cancer risk: results from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial.

Substantial preclinical data suggest estrogen's carcinogenic role in prostate cancer development; however, epidemiological evidence based on circulating estrogen levels is largely null. Compared with circulating estrogen, the intraprostatic estrogen milieu may play a more important role in prostate carcinogenesis. Using a nested case-control design in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), we examined associations of genetic variants of genes that are involved in estrogen synthesis, metabolism and function with prostate cancer risk.

Promotion of Healthy Humor Cancer Education Messages for the Deaf Community.

The Deaf community members of this community-campus partnership identified the lack of health information in American Sign Language (ASL) as a significant barrier to increasing the Deaf community's health knowledge. Studies have shown that the delivery of health messages in ASL increased Deaf study participants' cancer knowledge. Once health messages are available on the Internet, strategies are needed to attract viewers to the website and to make repeat visits in order to promote widespread knowledge gains.

Orbital fat regeneration following hormonal treatment of metastatic breast carcinoma.

Enophthalmos in the setting of breast cancer metastatic to the orbit results primarily from the disease pathogenesis, or secondary to treatment effects. Orbital volume restoration and fat regeneration following endocrine treatment monotherapy has not been previously reported. A 76- year-old previously healthy female presented with progressive right enophthalmos secondary to metastatic lobular breast carcinoma.

Next-Generation Sequencing in the Clinical Setting Clarifies Patient Characteristics and Potential Actionability.

Enhancements in clinical-grade next-generation sequencing (NGS) have fueled the advancement of precision medicine in the clinical oncology field. Here, we survey the molecular profiles of 1,113 patients with diverse malignancies who successfully underwent clinical-grade NGS (236-404 genes) in an academic tertiary cancer center. Among the individual tumors examined, the majority showed at least one detectable alteration (97.

Dosing immunotherapy combinations: Analysis of 3,526 patients for toxicity and response patterns.

Immunotherapy combinations are used to improve outcomes in metastatic cancer, but evidence-based knowledge of appropriate starting doses for novel combinations is lacking. Phase I-III adult combination clinical trials (≥ 1 drug was immunotherapy; anti-PD-1, PD-L1, or CTLA-4) were reviewed (PubMed Jan 1, 2010 to Sep 1, 2016; ASCO 2014-2016, ASH/ESMO 2014-2015 abstracts). The safe dose for each drug used in each combination was divided by the single-agent recommended dose to calculate dose percentage.

Critical genomic regulation mediated by Enhancer of Polycomb.

Enhancer of Polycomb (EPC) was first identified for its contributions to development in Drosophila and was soon-thereafter purified as a subunit of the NuA4/TIP60 acetyltransferase complex. Since then, EPC has often been left in the shadows as an essential, yet non-catalytic subunit of NuA4/TIP60; however, its deep conservation and disease association make clear that it warrants additional attention. In fact, recent studies in yeast demonstrated that its Enhancer of Polycomb, Epl1, was just as important for gene expression and acetylation as is the catalytic subunit of NuA4.

Reliability and validity of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 in Hispanic Americans with English or Spanish language preference.

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 among 436 community-dwelling Hispanic Americans with English or Spanish language preference. Multigroup confirmatory factor analysis examined the factorial invariance of the Perceived Stress Scale-10 across language groups. Results supported a two-factor model (negative, positive) with equivalent response patterns and item intercepts but different factor covariances across languages.