In a correspondence published in The Lancet Oncology, Rishi S. Kotecha, MB, ChB, of the Government of Western Australia Department of Health, identified challenges in protecting children with cancer from COVID-19 infection and stressed that some measures proposed to protect adults with cancer may...
In a study published by Grace Lu-Yao, PhD, and colleagues in the Journal of Geriatric Oncology, researchers found hospitalization rates can increase by as much as 114% in patients with breast, prostate, and lung cancers when those patients have taken 15 or more medications prior to chemotherapy...
The coronavirus-related pandemic has affected nearly every corner of the globe. What originated in one country is on course to likely affect every country in the world. In a few countries, the disease has peaked and is on the downward trend. In some, including the United States, the disease is on...
The parker institute for cancer immunotherapy (PICI) recently announced awards for six early-career researchers through the Parker Scholars, Parker Bridge Fellows, and Parker Senior Fellows programs. They are receiving a total of up to $2.75 million in funding to advance their research in profound...
Nearly a decade ago, my mother tested positive for the BRCA1 mutation; soon after, my twin sister and I were tested for the inherited defective gene, and I learned I, too, have the BRCA1 mutation. My sister is not a carrier of the mutation. Although there is a long history of both breast and...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays, historical...
As has often been written, “Cancer is the greatest equalizer.” It tends to strike its victims regardless of their financial status. In low- and middle-income countries, however, the impact of poverty on the treatment of cancer is strikingly conspicuous. It is the major catalyst for delay in seeking ...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is dramatically affecting health-care systems. This is the first in a series of interviews The ASCO Post will conduct with oncologists, to learn what they and their cancer centers are doing to deal with the crisis. In this article, we talk with John Cole, MD, a...
The analysis by Chao et al “highlights how well patients with MSI-H tumors do, compared to microsatellite-stable patients, and how much better they do in a randomized setting, being exposed to immunotherapy as compared to standard-of-care chemotherapy…The data also show that this is a...
Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of ASCO, called the 74% response rate to cisplatin/gemcitabine “remarkable.” “What’s impressive to me is the high response rate, as well as the progression-free and overall survival data—these data are...
On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) took the step it had been avoiding for weeks and declared that the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the virus that causes it, now identified as SARS-CoV-2, had reached global pandemic levels, the first pandemic sparked by a...
THE ANNUAL INCIDENCE of male breast cancer in the United States is dwarfed by the rate among women. Yet, for the estimated 2,670 men who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, life-extending and life-enhancing treatments are crucial.1 To help reduce knowledge gaps and improve mortality and ...
Now in its seventh year, the Haploidentical Transplant Symposium (HAPLO) continues to explore advances in haploidentical and other novel cellular therapies. The most recent of these meetings—HAPLO2019—met in Orlando, Florida, 2 days before the start of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD, of the University of Chicago Medical Center and Biological Sciences, emphasized the value of the patient having microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) status as a biomarker for immunotherapy. The analysis by Chao et al “highlights how well patients with MSI-H tumors do,...
ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) Round 1 of reporting is open for data abstraction. Round 1 will close on June 5, 2020, and final reports will be available approximately 4 weeks later. To get started, go to the registration portal at myqopi.asco.org/registration/login.aspx and...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Sandra M. Swain, MD, FACP, FASCO, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Research Development at Georgetown University Medical Center, and Vice President of MedStar Genetic Medicine at Medstar...
With the availability of a number of effective targeted agents for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the question arises whether chemotherapy still has a role in treating this malignancy. At the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, CLL...
In an interview with The ASCO Post, Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, expounded on the results of the COSMIC-021 trial. Dr. Drake is Division Director for GU Oncology, Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Program, and Co-Leader of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment Program at the Herbert Irving...
By way of tradition, our current system of oncology training exposes fellows to vast amounts of suffering in their first year. As fellows, we see dying patients with cancer in the hospital; we see the third-opinion, last-ditch referrals; we see most newly presenting patients; and we spend the hours ...
Formal discussant of this trial of MK-6482, Daniel Geynisman, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, was enthusiastic about this presentation. “The response rates were fabulous in this group of heavily pretreated patients,” he stated. “A total of 69% had some tumor shrinkage, 24% had an...
A study published in JAMA Oncology found that 31 genome-targeted anticancer agents were in use as of January 2018.1 To shed light on the current state of precision oncology, The ASCO Post recently spoke with David M. Cutler, PhD, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of ...
Scott Gottlieb, MD, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), had some advice for attendees of the 37th Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference in his keynote address at the meeting. While his formal presentation pertained to innovations in oncology drug development and...
Steven J. Isakoff, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, commented on the results of the DESTINY-Breast01 trial. “These data are extraordinarily encouraging, suggesting we will have another new option for patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. The...
“With longer follow-up, the addition of pertuzumab to chemotherapy and trastuzumab appears to show benefit in hormone receptor–positive patients as well. In practice, we offer this regimen to node-positive patients and we are encouraged that hormone receptor-positive and -negative patients have a...
Formal discussant Peter Albers, MD, of University Hospital, Düsseldorf, Germany, praised the design and goal of the study. “This type of cancer occurs in otherwise healthy, young people in whom a risk-stratified approach to reduce long-term toxicity is our goal,” he said. “From these results, we...
As the number of solid organ transplants in the United States rises, cancer in this patient population is a growing concern. In fact, solid organ transplant recipients have an up to 50 times greater risk than the general population of developing skin cancers, and for kidney transplant recipients,...
ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) Round 1 of reporting is open for data abstraction. Round 1 will close on June 5, 2020, and final reports will be available approximately 4 weeks later. To get started, go to the registration portal at myqopi.asco.org/registration/login.aspx and...
The Nebraska Oncology Society (NOS) is now the fourth ASCO state affiliate committed to supporting Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, by funding a Young Investigator Award (YIA). “There’s a great need for oncologists in clinical practice, in general,” said NOS President Ralph Hauke, MD, FACP....
AS A YOUNG CLINICIAN, I was interested in making a difference; it did not matter how much of a difference, as long as I could claim some patient benefit. And I really didn’t care what benefit: better survival, less local recurrence, shorter hospital stays, fewer narcotics—the specifics did not...
Studies have shown that all patients diagnosed with multiple myeloma had a preceding asymptomatic expansion of clonal plasma cells, clinically recognized as monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance or smoldering multiple myeloma. According to C. Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, Professor of...
Comprehensive profiling of tumor samples taken from patients with osteosarcoma showed that multiple factors contribute to the traditionally poor responses observed with immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in patients with this malignancy, according to new research published by Wu et al in Nature...
A new ASCO clinical practice guideline provides clinicians and other health-care professionals with evidence-based recommendations on genetic and tumor testing for women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer.1 “We wanted to go over the evidence and make strong statements and recommendations...
Using antioxidants and other dietary supplements before and during adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer may increase the risk of recurrence and “to a lesser extent, death,” according to an analysis of dietary and nutritional data from a phase III trial, published in the Journal of Clinical...
The only clue that I was harboring a life-threatening cancer came as I was driving to a golf lesson in the fall of 2006, and I casually rubbed the left side of neck and felt a tiny bump. Although I wasn’t alarmed at the time, I did point out the mass to my primary care physician when I met with...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
At the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, Nadine Tung, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, presented a multisite study called INFORM, run by the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium.1 It compared single-agent cisplatin with a “classic” combination of doxorubicin and...
Thierry Facon, MD, of Lille University Hospital in France, and Michael Jain, MD, PhD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, were interviewed by The ASCO Post on the second-generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell products for treating multiple myeloma. According to Dr. Facon, essentially...
Commenting on the Children’s Oncology Group AALL1331 study, Howard J. Weinstein, MD, Chief of Pediatric HematologyOncology at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children and Harvard Medical School in Boston, said: “These are very promising results for children, adolescents, and young adults who...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to chemotherapy with carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel failed to significantly improve pathologic complete response rates compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with early high-risk, locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer. According...
In a study published by Frankenfeld et al in Cancer Epidemiology, researchers found racial disparities in how the presence of cancer-related diagnostic and treatment technology is related to colorectal cancer patient outcomes in Georgia. The findings suggest that the hospital capacity and...
A personalized approach to selecting antibody therapy for patients with newly diagnosed stage IV gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma resulted in a 1-year overall survival rate of 66% and a median overall survival of 16.4 months in the PANGEA study (see Table 1).1 The study used a novel clinical...
“They’re all charlatans,” my professor assured me when, in medical school in the mid-1970s, I expressed an interest in oncology. The treatment of cancer with drugs, despite popular but inaccurate descriptions of its history, began in 1944 when Goodman and Gilman at Yale conducted contract research...
A 5-year follow-up study of more than 2,000 U.S. men who received prostate cancer treatment—radiation, surgery, or active surveillance—in patients of all ages and ethnicities is creating a road map for the future regarding long-term bowel, bladder, and sexual function in order to clarify...
Once considered highly experimental, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is now an established third-line treatment option for B-cell lymphomas and leukemias. CAR T-cell therapy has saved the lives of people who would otherwise have run out of treatment options. But the question is...
Survival outcomes for patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck have made significant gains in recent years, but new research published by Pike et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network has found some groups have not...
In October 2014, I noticed a small pea-sized lump on the left side of my cheek. It didn’t hurt, and I didn’t have any physical symptoms that could connect the lump with a rare and serious disease, but I was curious enough about what the lump could be to get it checked out by my primary care...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
In my 45 years of practicing hematology/oncology at a major urban academic medical center, I have observed a sea change in daily practice that contributes to physician burnout. Although the emotional stresses of caring for seriously ill people play a part in physician burnout, I find the daily...
Unlike ASCO’s Annual Meeting, symposia, and conferences, which highlight the current scientific advances in specific cancers and how they are improving cancer outcomes for the more than 18.1 million people worldwide diagnosed with cancer each year,1 ASCO Breakthrough: A Global Summit for Oncology...
In men, prostate cancer has the highest incidence of any neoplasm and is the second-leading cause of cancer-related mortality. A plethora of tissue-based biomarkers are available to inform the diagnosis and prognosis for men with newly diagnosed, clinically localized prostate cancer. However, to...