June 10, 2025 (View All Issues)
Overall Survival Benefit Achieved With Inavolisib Plus Palbociclib and Fulvestrant in Advanced Breast Cancer
“Inavolisib plus palbociclib and fulvestrant significantly improved overall survival compared with placebo plus palbociclib/fulvestrant…. This is the first time overall survival has been significantly improved by a PI3K pathway–targeted drug,” said Nicholas Turner, MD, PhD, FRCP,FMedSci, who...
Maintenance Therapy With Lurbinectedin Plus Atezolizumab Improves Survival Outcomes in Extensive-Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer
Maintenance treatment with the alkylating agent lurbinectedin plus the monoclonal antibody atezolizumab significantly improved both progression-free survival and overall survival compared with atezolizumab alone in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), according to data...
Mark Cuban Does It Again: Reshuffling the Deck of Front-Line CML Therapy
With the currently available BCR::ABL1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors, chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has transformed from an invariably fatal disorder (10-year overall survival < 10%) to an indolent one, associated with a near-normal life expectancy on optimal tyrosine kinase inhibitor...
Study Finds GLP-1RAs May Lower Risk of Obesity-Related Cancers vs DPP-4 Inhibitors in Adults With Diabetes and Obesity
Studies have shown that being overweight or having obesity increases the risk of developing more than a dozen cancers, including meningioma, multiple myeloma, esophageal, thyroid, breast, gallbladder, stomach, liver, pancreas, kidney, ovarian, uterus, and colorectal.1 The presence of excess body...
ASCO and Google Cloud Announce AI-Powered Tool That Provides Faster, Interactive Access to ASCO’s Evidence-Based Clinical Guidelines
ASCO and Google Cloud have announced a collaboration to launch an artificial intelligence (AI)-based ASCO Guidelines Assistant. Developed with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform and Gemini models, the tool is poised to transform how oncology professionals access and use critical clinical...
Structured Exercise Program Improves Survival Outcomes in Patients With Stage III or High-Risk Stage II Colon Cancer
A 3-year structured exercise program initiated soon after completion of adjuvant chemotherapy improved disease-free survival and overall survival, as well as patient-reported physical functioning and health-related fitness, in patients with stage III or high-risk stage II colon cancer. These...
Study Shows Potential Benefits of AI-Assisted Classification in HER2-Low and HER2-Ultralow Breast Cancer
With the approval of HER2-targeted antibody-drug conjugate options for treating patients with breast cancer across different HER2 expression levels, accurate assessment of HER2 expression has become more important than ever. And a recent study may provide a solution to the challenge of accurate...
Revisiting Margin Width Guidelines for Ductal Carcinoma In Situ and the Role of Routine Reexcision
For postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) treated with breast-conserving surgery, whole-breast irradiation, and adjuvant endocrine therapy, reexcision to achieve wider surgical margins (≥ 1 mm or ≥ 2 mm) may not be necessary, according to data presented ...
Pathology Machine-Learning Models and Diagnosis of Nonmelanoma Skin Cancers in Resource-Limited Settings
Artificial intelligence (AI) models, which were pretrained on vast data sets, outperformed a standard baseline model in identifying nonmelanoma skin cancers from digital images of tissue samples, based on a session presented during the 2025 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
Digital Histopathology and Automated Classification of Pediatric Sarcomas
With more than 50 different subtypes, pediatric soft-tissue sarcomas represent a broad category of disease. And given the rarity of these sarcomas, “it is difficult for pathologists to see a sufficient volume to gain expertise across all variants,” stated Adam Thiesen, BA, MD/PhD Candidate at UConn ...
Circulating Tumor DNA–Guided Risk Stratification in Colorectal Cancer: Evolving Evidence and Future Utility
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has emerged as a promising biomarker in colorectal cancer, offering dynamic insight into disease burden and recurrence risk. However, questions remain about its clinical utility and optimal application, as well as its equitable access across practice settings. At the...
Cellular Therapies Show Sustained Promise in Hematologic Malignancies, but Access Remains Uneven
Cellular therapies such as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy are transforming outcomes for patients with cancer, particularly in the relapsed or refractory setting. “We’re seeing outstanding response rates in patients with B-cell malignancies...
Improving the Alliance Between Oncologists and Primary Care Providers: A Call for Collaborative Action
Experts and patients alike would agree that navigating the current fragmented U.S. health-care system is not an easy task. One component of that disconnection may center on the relationship between oncology and primary care. The benefits of collaboration between oncologists and primary care...
Everolimus Plus Lanreotide vs Everolimus Alone in Aggressive Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors
In patients with aggressive gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, first-line treatment with the mTOR inhibitor everolimus and the somatostatin analog lanreotide more than doubled the median progression-free survival for patients vs everolimus alone, in the phase III JCOG1901 (STARTER-NET)...
Recent Advances in Treating Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma
The disease we now call diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) has gone by the names of reticulum cell sarcoma, diffuse histiocytic lymphoma, and diffuse large cell lymphoma, and included both lymphomas of B cells and T cells. We now know DLBCL is still heterogenous and some subtypes might benefit...
How the Elimination of Federal Gender-Related Grants and DEI Programs Is Impacting LGBTQ+ Health Research
Within hours of the start of his second administration, on January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order proclaiming that the country would now recognize only two sexes, male and female, essentially rejecting transgender identity, and directing all federal agencies to use the...
FDA Approves Therapy for NSCLC With High c-Met Protein Overexpression
On May 14, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to telisotuzumab vedotin-tllv (Emrelis), a c-Met–directed antibody and microtubule inhibitor conjugate, for adults with locally advanced or metastatic, nonsquamous, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with high c-Met ...
FDA Approves First Oral Therapy for Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma
On May 14, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the oral hypoxia-inducible factor-2 alpha (HIF-2α) inhibitor belzutifan (Welireg) for patients aged 12 years and older with locally advanced, unresectable, or metastatic pheochromocytoma or paraganglioma (PPGL). This represents the first FDA ...
Expanded Treatment Options for Metastatic CRPC: ASCO Guideline Addresses Somatic Genetic Testing, Radiopharmaceuticals
The management of metastatic (CRPC) has rapidly accelerated in the past decade, giving oncologists a wider range of tools to work with and patients new opportunities for improving survival and maintaining quality of life. These significant advancements have prompted ASCO to release a guideline...
Retifanlimab-dlwr Approved for Anal Cancer in Combination With Carboplatin Plus Paclitaxel and as a Single Agent
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved retifanlimab-dlwr (Zynyz), a PD-1–blocking monoclonal antibody, with carboplatin and paclitaxel for the first-line treatment of adults with inoperable locally recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal. The FDA also...
ASTRO Survey Data Illustrate Impact of Continued Medicare Cuts on Cancer Care
Recent national survey data from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) have shown that further cuts to Medicare reimbursement for radiation therapy would increase patient wait times for cancer treatment and force clinic downsizing. Nearly all (96%) of the 675 physicians responding to...
Why Black Women Have a Higher Risk of Dying of All Types of Breast Cancer Than White Women
The disparities in breast cancer incidence and mortality rates between Black and White women in the United States have been well documented. Studies over the past decade consistently show that although Black women have a 4% lower breast cancer incidence rate than White women, they are still between ...
Conundrums in Treating HER2-Positive Early Breast Cancer
Today’s oncologists are blessed with an abundance of therapies for HER2-positive early breast cancer, but this comes with the challenge of selecting among them. At the 2025 Miami Breast Cancer Conference, Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, FACP, offered insight on common clinical scenarios. Dr. Hurvitz is...
ESTRO 2025: Major Advances in Radiotherapy for Anal and Rectal Cancers
In May in Vienna, five studies presented at ESTRO (European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology) 2025 showcased how radiotherapy is reshaping the landscape for anal and rectal cancers. From reduced-dose treatments to cutting-edge combinations with immunotherapy and chemotherapy, these innovations ...
CRISPR-Cas9–Edited Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
In a first-in-human, single-institution phase I trial reported in The Lancet Oncology,1 Lou et al found that autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes genetically edited with CRISPR-Cas9 to target the intracellular immune checkpoint CISH were tolerable and showed evidence of activity in patients...
Castor Oil
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Yen Nien (Jason) Hou, PharmD, DiplOM, LAc, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus...
Use of Bispecific Antibody in Older Patients With Relapsed or Refractory Multiple Myeloma
Although treatment with the bispecific antibody teclistamab was approved for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, based on the MajesTEC-1 study results, only 15% of patients in the phase I/II trial were aged 75 or older. To learn more about the safety and efficacy of this agent in ...
Kindness, Mercy, Empathy, Compassion: Are They Relevant in the Era of Robotics and AI?
It’s a fast-paced world, no two ways about it. People move on from one event to another. We have to move on either for our own sake or the sake of someone near and dear. In the medical field, patients come and go, surgeries are performed, treatments are given, and everybody moves on.
Being kind to...
MD Anderson Names Jeffrey E. Lee, MD, Chief Medical Executive
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center announced that Jeffrey E. Lee, MD, an internationally regarded leader in the field of oncology, has been appointed Chief Medical Executive (CME). Prior to his appointment, Dr. Lee served as CME ad interim. Assuming the role of CME is the...
How Family Adventures, Precision Oncology, and Living Purposefully Bring Balance to the Life of Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, FASCO
At just 5 years old, Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, FASCO, already knew that she wanted to be a physician when she grew up, although she can’t explain where the idea came from. She just knows the desire to help others was ingrained in her from a very early age.
Growing up in New Delhi, India, where...
I Was an N-of-1 in a CAR T-Cell Therapy Trial for Ovarian Cancer
More than a decade after I was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer, a phase I clinical trial at Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, investigating a dose of a novel follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR)-targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy...
AACR Statement on Former President Joseph Biden’s Cancer Diagnosis
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has issued the following statement regarding former President Joseph R. Biden’s prostate cancer diagnosis:
“The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) offers heartfelt support and well wishes to former President Biden and his family as...
Cutting Cancer Research Funding Is A Costly Gamble With Millions of Lives
“The [National Cancer Institute (NCI)] is a national treasure. If funding is diminished, it will be catastrophic to millions of patients and families who will experience the devastation of cancer in the coming years,” Richard J. Boxer, MD, wrote in an editorial Viewpoint published in JAMA Oncology ...
FDA OCE Announces Project Interface Outreach Initiative
The Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched Project Interface to advance engagement and outreach to patients with cancer, advocacy organizations, and oncology experts.
Its mission is to protect, promote, and advance public health by...
Early-Onset Breast, Colorectal, Melanoma, Thyroid, Testicular, and Other Cancers Are on the Rise in the United States
A study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) investigating cancer incidence in the United States between 2010 and 2019 has found that breast, colorectal, endometrial, pancreatic, and kidney cancers are becoming more common among individuals younger than age 50. Although the study...
