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American Society of Clinical Oncology 2009
The 2009 ASCO Annual Meeting was a forum for cutting-edge scientific and educational developments in oncology with a focus on personalizing cancer care.

This Meeting was held in Orlando, Florida, an ideal event location with its modern convention center and ample hotel accommodations.
Day 4
Early chemotherapy for relapsed ovarian cancer based on serial monitoring of CA-125 levels failed to improve overall survival or quality of life compared with delayed therapy according to clinical signs and symptoms of relapse in a large European trial.
Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, believe the experimental drug neratinib may offer a new treatment option for women with HER2-positive breast cancer.
In what researchers from the University Hospital in Madrid, Spain, are calling a practice-changing study, sequential treatment with chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy more than doubled time-to-treatment failure in patients with unresectable locally advanced head and neck cancer.
Dr. Hussein Tawbi and colleagues decided to look for biomarkers that might predict response to alkylator-based chemotherapy used to treat metastatic melanoma. They identified eight genes that they believe may form a profile useful in distinguishing responders from nonresponders.
A new retrospective study shows that use of three widely prescribed selective serotinin reuptake inhibitors—Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft—more than double the risk of breast cancer recurrence in women treated with tamoxifen.
Previous studies have found oral human papillomavirus infection to be a strong risk factor for oropharyngeal cancer.
One of the common assumptions in oncology treatment is that earlier detection and treatment is better and leads to improved survival and outcomes for patients, but does this hold true in reality?
Listen to Ezra Cohen, MD, associate professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, and a study investigator, discuss the findings of the VeriStrat Test study and what they may mean for community-based oncologists.

Wellstat Therapeutics has developed vistonuridine, the first viable prodrug of uridine, which is an orally administered agent that delivers approximately 8-fold more uridine as it is converted to uridine in the body than administration of uridine itself.

Day 3
More than 1 million new cases of gastric cancer are diagnosed annually worldwide. The prognosis for patients with this disease is poor, and new treatments with the potential to offer even small improvements in survival can be practice-changing.
Approximately 15% of breast cancers are triple negative, with a higher incidence of this cancer subtype found in black and Hispanic women and those younger than 40 years. Triple-negative breast cancers are aggressive and difficult to treat, leading to higher rates of metastases and poorer survival than for other breast cancers.
A national survey found that oncologists do not address fertility issues as adequately as they should with discussions, provision of educational materials, and referrals to reproductive specialists despite 30% to 80% of all patients with cancer being at risk for infertility.
A customized vaccine using a patient’s own tumor cells called BiovaxID, prolonged disease-free survival in patients with follicular lymphoma who maintained complete remission after chemotherapy for one year and were then treated with the vaccine.

Nicholas J. Robert, MD, discusses the findings of the Phase II study that showed BSI-201, a potent PARP-1 inhibitor, to be promising for treating triple-negative breast cancer when administered in combination with standard chemotherapy.

Day 2
In the past several years, enough studies have identified negative consequences associated with hormonal therapy in postmenopausal women that what was once standard therapy is becoming ancient practice.

Last month the news that Roche�s drug bevacizumab (Avastin) failed to improve disease-free survival in a trial of patients with early stage colon cancer made a big media splash. Norman Wolmark, MD, Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, addressed the study�s full results in a press conference the day before a scheduled plenary presentation at ASCO.

Two important prostate cancer studies conducted at Fox Chase Cancer Center were released at ASCO: 1) a long-term study that showed low oxygen levels in prostate tumors can predict recurrence; and 2) the finding of a genetic marker that may predict early onset of prostate cancer.
Besides the emphasis on personalized medicine at this year's ASCO Meeting, there is also a focus on addressing the rising costs of administering cancer care, which are currently increasing at a rate of 15% annually.
Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center conducted a phase III trial that assessed the use of a peptide vaccine, known as gp100:209-217 (200M), in combination with Interleukin-2.
The American Cancer Society has just unveiled its Circle of Sharing social Web application, designed to help patients with cancer and their families and friends to better coordinate support and care information as they navigate cancer treatment.

A new study from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center indicates that the majority of patients who present with stage IV colorectal cancer do not require immediate surgery to remove their primary tumor.

Day 1

Although participants in clinical trials are not charged for the chemotherapy drugs to treat their cancers, they pay for the drugs used to counter treatment-related effects, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea, pain, and opioid-induced constipation.

In the largest study to date, ginger in combination with a 5-HT3 receptor antagonist antiemetic was found to significantly reduce CINV in patients with cancer.
In yet another example of the need to personalize cancer care, researchers from the Kinki University School of Medicine in Osaka, Japan, found that endothelial growth factor receptor mutations predicted treatment response in Asian patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
A team of investigators from University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center sought to determine whether adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia might have genetic biomarkers that predict treatment response.
Although the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was very contentious in Congress, Richard L. Schilsky, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Chicago in Illinois and president of ASCO; and John Niederhuber, MD, director of the National Cancer Institute, were in complete agreement that it was a boon to cancer research.
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