October 25, 2022 (View All Issues)
IPSOS Trial: Platinum-Ineligible Patients With NSCLC May Gain Survival Benefit From Atezolizumab Therapy
In platinum-ineligible patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), first-line treatment with the PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab improved overall survival by an absolute value of about 1 month but almost doubled the rate of 2-year overall survival compared with chemotherapy...
Why Are Young Adult Women Developing Later-Stage, More Aggressive Breast Cancer Than Older Women?
It has been well documented that breast cancer is the most common malignancy in adolescent and young adult (AYA) women aged 15 to 39 years, accounting for 30% of cancers among this population.1 In addition, 5.6% of all invasive breast cancers occur in AYA women.1 A presentation by Rebecca H....
A Call for Creativity: The Shades of Gray in Delivery of Goal-Concordant Care
I continue to be struck by the creativity of medical oncologists. The reimagining of dosing, duration, or regimen composition to respond to patient symptoms or preferences is like a master chef in the kitchen. Although standardization has, with good reason, become the paragon, delivering...
NICHE-2: ‘Unprecedented’ Waterfall Plot Achieved With Neoadjuvant Immunotherapy in dMMR Colon Cancer
Treatment with neoadjuvant immunotherapy in colon cancer resulted in major pathologic responses in 95% of patients, NICHE-2 investigators reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022.1 Additionally, after 4 weeks of nivolumab plus ipilimumab, 67% of patients with...
COSMIC-313: Triplet Therapy Is Active in Renal Cell Carcinoma, but Toxicities Pose a Challenge
The addition of cabozantinib to nivolumab plus ipilimumab prolonged progression-free survival in untreated intermediate-risk patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), according to the first results of the phase III COSMIC-313 trial. These findings were presented as a Presidential Symposium ...
Negative Phase III Trials May Dampen Enthusiasm for Immunotherapy in the Adjuvant Setting in Kidney Cancer
Three negative phase III trials presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 may dampen enthusiasm for immunotherapy as adjuvant therapy for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). None of the three trials—CheckMate 914, IMmotion010, and PROSPER—met its primary endpoint.1-3 The...
DeFi Trial: Novel Gamma Secretase Inhibitor Halts Progression of Desmoid Tumors
Patients with rare desmoid tumors may finally have an effective treatment. A first-in-class gamma secretase inhibitor, nirogacestat, led to an improvement in progression-free survival in the phase III DeFi trial. The results were presented during the Presidential Symposium at the European Society...
RADICALS-HD Trial: Duration of Androgen-Deprivation Therapy With Radiotherapy After Radical Prostatectomy
The addition of 24 months of androgen-deprivation therapy to postoperative radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy provided a metastasis-free survival benefit and improved the time to salvage therapy in patients with prostate cancer, according to the preliminary results from the RADICALS-HD trial...
Incarceration May Be Associated With Higher Cancer Mortality, Yale Study Shows
New research from Yale Cancer Center reveals a higher risk of cancer mortality in incarcerated adults, as well as among those diagnosed with cancer in the first year after release from prison. The findings were published in the journal PLoS One.1
“Cancer is the leading cause of death among people...
Richter Transformation Remains Challenging, but Better Treatments Are on the Horizon
Richter transformation, usually a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma developing in a person with CLL, remains a challenging entity, but novel regimens look promising, as described at the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference by Matthew S. Davids, MD, MMSc, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard...
High-Intensity Intervention Helps One-Third of Participants in Lung Cancer Screening Program Quit Smoking
Despite significant advancements in cancer therapy, a primary means to avoid lung cancer is prevention, and smoking cessation is the most basic intervention. Unfortunately, for long-term smokers, that intervention can sometimes be the most challenging.
According to data presented during the...
'Real-World' Experience With Durvalumab at the Mayo Clinic Mirrors PACIFIC Findings
Concurrent chemoradiation followed by durvalumab has become the standard of care in patients with unresectable, locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), based on the PACIFIC trial.1 But clinical trials have predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, and they evaluate selective...
For William L. Dahut, MD, a Career of Service in Oncology
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, Guest Editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with William L. Dahut, MD, who is currently serving as Chief Scientific Officer for the American Cancer Society (ACS). In this role, Dr. Dahut manages all pieces of the organization’s discovery work,...
SIO-ASCO Guideline Proposes Evidence-Based Approaches to Pain Management Incorporating Integrative Medicine Interventions
The Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) and ASCO have released a guideline that appraises the evidence to support incorporating integrative medicine approaches into managing pain in adults with cancer.1 The guideline builds upon existing ASCO guidelines on pain management, the growing body of...
Future Leaders Selected to Advance Gender Equality Through the Leadership Programme for Women in Oncology
The first 10 participants in the new Leadership Programme for Women in Oncology have been announced. The program, a joint endeavour from ASCO and City Cancer Challenge Foundation (C/Can), seeks to address the specific challenges and barriers faced by women leaders in oncology and strengthen the...
ASCO Applauds President Biden’s Leadership in Relaunching the Cancer Moonshot
September 12, 2022
“President John F. Kennedy’s historic speech that inspired our nation and an entire generation of Americans to achieve manned space exploration underscored the courage and commitment it would take to accomplish this then-audacious goal: ‘We choose to go to the moon in this...
Elacestrant Improves Progression-Free Survival vs Standard Endocrine Therapy in Previously Treated Estrogen Receptor–Positive, HER2-Negative Advanced Breast Cancer
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by François-Clément Bidard, MD, PhD, of the Institut Curie, Paris and Saint Cloud, and colleagues, the phase III EMERALD trial has shown prolonged progression-free survival with the oral selective estrogen receptor degrader elacestrant vs standard...
Novel Selective Estrogen Receptor Degraders in Advanced Breast Cancer: Use of Elacestrant in the Phase III EMERALD Trial
Endocrine therapy is the foundation of first-line therapy in most patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. Many of these patients respond to endocrine therapy but eventually become resistant to it through both intrinsic and acquired resistance mechanisms....
Providing a Tailored Approach to Prostate Cancer Care for Gay and Bisexual Men
It is estimated that one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in his lifetime. The disease is so prevalent, and other than skin cancer, it is the most common cancer diagnosed in American men. According to the American Cancer Society, this year, about 268,490 new cases of prostate...
YES Oklahoma Project Created to Improve Representation of Native Americans in Cancer Research
The National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded the University of Oklahoma (OU) an expected $2 million over 5 years to develop a program to improve representation of Oklahoma Native American students in biomedical and cancer research.
“American Indian...
Clinical and Translational Researcher Rossana Berardi, MD, Works to Overcome the Gender Gap in Oncology in Italy
In our continuing effort to connect and learn more about our international oncology colleagues, The ASCO Post recently spoke with Rossana Berardi, MD, Professor in Medical Oncology and Director of the Postgraduate School of Oncology at the Università Politecnica Marche, Ancona, Italy, where she is...
A Urologic Surgeon Shares His Insights on Robotic Radical Prostatectomy
In 2000, the da Vinci Surgical System broke new ground by becoming the first robotic surgery system approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for general laparoscopic surgery. In its early years, robot-assisted radical prostatectomy was characterized by some in the surgical community as an...
Selpercatinib Approved for Locally Advanced or Metastatic RET Fusion–Positive Solid Tumors
On September 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to selpercatinib (Retevmo) for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic solid tumors with a rearranged during transfection (RET) gene fusion and disease progression on or following prior systemic...
Cancer on the Global Stage: Incidence and Cancer-Related Mortality in Austria
The Republic of Austria is a high-income, landlocked country in south-central Europe and has been a member of the European Union since 1995.1 Vienna, the capital city of nearly 2 million people, is regularly ranked among the most livable cities in the world.2 The total population of Austria is more ...
FDA Approves Sodium Thiosulfate to Reduce the Risk of Ototoxicity Associated With Cisplatin
On September 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved sodium thiosulfate (Pedmark) to reduce the risk of ototoxicity associated with cisplatin in pediatric patients aged 1 month and older with localized (nonmetastatic) solid tumors.
Efficacy was evaluated in two multicenter,...
Leader in Genitourinary Oncology, Nicholas J. Vogelzang, MD, FACP, FASCO, Dies at 72
Nicholas J. Vogelzang, MD, FACP, FASCO, an expert in the treatment of patients with renal cell carcinoma, died on September 20, 2022. Dr. Vogelzang was 72 years old.
Son of a Preacher
Dr. Vogelzang was born on December 13, 1949, in Holland, Michigan, the oldest of seven children, in a close-knit...
