Trending News Today: Acute Myeloid Leukemia Drug Improves Overall Survival

Celgene Corporation announced the achievement of primary and secondary end points in a phase 3 study of an investigational therapy for maintenance of patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia, according to the Acute Journal of Managed Care. In the study, QUAZAR AML-001, the maintenance therapy CC-486 resulted in highly statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival compared with placebo. In addition, the study met the key secondary end point of relapse-free survival and also showed statistically significant improvement.

Men with faults in the BRCA2 gene have an increased risk of prostate cancer and could benefit from prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing to help detect the disease earlier, according to The Institute of Cancer Research. The study, which took place at 65 centers in 20 different countries, found that PSA tests were more likely to pick out more serious forms of prostate cancer in men who carry the BRCA2 gene fault than non-carriers. The study suggests that men with this gene mutation could benefit from regular PSA testing, according to the authors.

Mammograms are more effective at detecting breast cancer in high-risk men than in women who are at average risk of developing the disease, according to CNN. A new study, the largest review of its kind in the United States, examined men from ages 18 to 96 who had been screened for breast cancer between 2005 and 2017. The results showed that 18 cases of breast cancer were discovered for every 1000 male breast imaging exams, according to the article. In comparison, the detection rate in women was roughly 5 cases for every 1000 exams. The researchers told CNN that the study could provide potentially lifesaving early detection of male breast cancer.