Three years ago, early results from the U.S. Intergroup C10403 trial,1 which evaluated the effectiveness of treating adolescent and young adults (AYAs) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using an intensive pediatric regimen, showed significant improvement in event-free and overall survival...
IN AN EFFORT to find new strategies to personalize treatment for pediatric patients, Seattle Children’s Hospital has opened the first clinical trial applying next-generation T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing and single-cell gene expression analysis to better understand how the immune system drives...
THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) has awarded $24 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch) to continue operating the NCI’s primary public access point for cancer information in both English and Spanish. With the new contract, the Contact Center will emphasize clinical trial ...
I recently saw a patient in our survivorship clinic. She was treated at age 15 years for Hodgkin lymphoma and is now in her early 50s. During the prior 2 decades, she had developed both bilateral breast cancer and thyroid cancer, as well as multiple basal cell carcinomas, all occurring within her...
DREXEL UNIVERSITY has recognized the Chief Executive Officer of ASCO, Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, as a Drexel 100 member. Created in 1992 to celebrate Drexel’s centennial, inductees to the Drexel 100 are university alums celebrated for their significant contributions to their respective...
A NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI)-funded training program in distress screening is being offered at no cost for competitively selected trainees in September 2017 at City of Hope, Duarte, California. Oncologists and other health-care professionals who are interested in learning how to successfully...
Three separate brief psychological interventions aimed at helping cancer patients cope with distress have shown improvements in quality of life and well-being across the continuum of cancer care. The interventions were studied—respectively—in newly diagnosed cancer patients, survivors after cancer...
SIDNEY KIMMEL, leading cancer philanthropist, has been elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest societies and independent policy research centers. Mr. Kimmel is among 228 newly elected members of the Academy and 1 of 8 corporate and philanthropic...
Three-year follow-up data from the phase III RAY study in patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma were presented at the 14th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. These results demonstrated that the subset of patients treated with ibrutinib...
Data from the TRANSCEND trial of JCAR017 in relapsed and refractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) was presented at the 2017 International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. JCAR017 is Juno Therapeutics’ investigative chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) ...
An interim analysis of MAGNIFY, a phase IIIb, randomized, open-label, multicenter study of the R2 combination regimen (lenalidomide [Revlimid] plus rituximab [Rituxan]) in patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma, was presented at the International Conference on Malignant...
An updated interim analysis from an ongoing phase I/II clinical trial evaluating brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) and nivolumab (Opdivo) in relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland (Abstract...
Clinical data from an ongoing phase I clinical trial evaluating ADCT-402 for the treatment of relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma was presented at the 14th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) in Lugano, Switzerland. ADCT-402 is a novel antibody-drug conjugate composed of a ...
On June 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved aminolevulinic acid hydrochloride, known as ALA HCl (Gleolan), as an optical imaging agent indicated in patients with gliomas (suspected World Health Organization [WHO] Grades III or IV) for preoperative imaging, as an adjunct for the...
Data was recently presented from the phase III GENUINE trial of ublituximab, a novel glycoengineered anti–CD20 monoclonal antibody, in combination with ibrutinib (Imbruvica), a Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, for the treatment of high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), at the...
Data from the chemotherapy-free triple combination of umbralisib, an oral, next generation PI3K delta inhibitor; ublituximab, a novel glycoengineered anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody; and ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) and...
Positive interim efficacy data from an ongoing phase II clinical trial of tazemetostat, a first-in-class, oral enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) inhibitor, as a single-agent treatment for relapsed or refractory patients with follicular lymphoma or diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) grouped by...
Researchers presented a preclinical study at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) that demonstrated the efficacy and optimal dose for targeted photodynamic therapy (PDT) to treat prostate cancer before and during surgery (Abstract 7). Targeted...
Patients with neuroendocrine tumors may experience fewer symptoms and survive longer by undergoing peptide-receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) combined with a drug that makes tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy, said researchers at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear...
Simultaneous injections of the radiopharmaceuticals fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18 FDG) and fluorine-18 sodium fluoride (F-18 NaF) followed by quantitative scanning significantly improved image quality and detection of bone metastases at a lower dose, according to research presented at...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of daratumumab (Darzalex) in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies including lenalidomide (Revlimid) and a...
A first-in-human study presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) (Abstract 385) demonstrated the feasibility and safety of imaging with the novel human monoclonal antibody HuMab-5B1, to enable highly specific targeting for the cancer...
Neuroendocrine tumors are difficult to manage and unlikely to be cured, but researchers intend to slow progression of these tumors and aid survival by personalizing patient doses of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT), according to research presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the...
An estimated one in seven American men will be affected by prostate cancer in their lifetime. Prostate-specific molecular imaging can help to clinically manage the disease much more efficiently, especially if the cancer returns, according to research revealed at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the...
CancerCare has announced the establishment of the CancerCare Patient Values Initiative, a multipronged effort with an aim to reframe the national health-care policy dialogue so that it includes what is important to patients and their families. As the first step of this important project,...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued a new clinical guideline for the use of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in early-stage lung cancer. While SBRT is the current standard of care for peripherally located tumors in patients who cannot undergo surgery, the new...
Between the onslaught of bills and the endless stream of tests and appointments, managing cancer treatment can be overwhelming. There needs to be a good organizing system in place from the very first oncologist appointment. No one understood this better than the Founder of Vital Options ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has published its first set of consensus screening recommendations for children with common cancer predisposition syndromes in Clinical Cancer Research. These recommendations emerged from the Childhood Cancer Predisposition Workshop held by the...
Physicians gathered at the Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association (AMA) elected Barbara McAneny, MD, FASCO, MACP, an oncologist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, as the new President-Elect of the physicians' organization. Following a year-long term as President-Elect, Dr. McAneny will...
The first analysis of nearly 19,000 de-identified genomic records from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) international data-sharing initiative known as AACR Project Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange (GENIE) was recently published in Cancer Discovery. In addition to ...
For an investment of $125 for each year of life gained since the 1950s, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded SWOG clinical trials program has added 3.34 million years of life for patients with cancer in the United States because of successful therapies that were proved through its trials....
Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University (Winship) is mourning the loss of an esteemed colleague: H. Jean Khoury, MD, died on May 22 at the age of 50, after a year spent battling cancer. His many colleagues and friends remember him as an outstanding physician, researcher, and educator and a...
BOOKMARK Title: What Patients Say, What Doctors HearAuthor: Danielle Ofri, MDPublisher: Beacon PressPublication date: February 2017Price: $24.95, hardcover, 288 pages Despite our scientific and medical advances, the single most important diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which is ...
BOOKMARK Title: The Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New MedicinesAuthors: Donald R. Kirsch, PhD, and Ogi Ogas, PhDPublisher: Arcade PublishingPublication date: January 2017Price: $24.99, hardcover, 328 pages Only about 1 in 100 drug discovery projects initiated by the pharmaceutical ...
The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and its clinical partner, Nebraska Medicine, has officially dedicated the new Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha. Joe Biden, the former two-term Vice President who headed a national Cancer Moonshot Task Force, served as keynote speaker...
The recent report of results of RTOG 9601 by Shipley et al in The New England Journal of Medicine1—reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—strongly supports the variably used practice of adding “androgen blockade” to salvage radiation therapy in men with a rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA)...
Robert J. Cerfolio, MD, joined New York University (NYU) Langone on June 1 as Chief of Clinical Thoracic Surgery. He also will become the first Director of the Lung Cancer Center at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center. Dr. Cerfolio currently serves at the University of Alabama (UAB) Hospital in ...
The OAK study—recently reported by Rittmeyer and colleagues and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—is the first study to show patients with previously treated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with a humanized antibody (atezolizumab, Tecentriq) directed against the programmed cell...
Over the past 20 years, the Intergroupe Francophone du Myelome (IFM) and Dr. Michel Attal have pioneered the use of autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT) for multiple myeloma in a series of randomized studies. Notable studies include comparisons of planned upfront AHCT vs...
This year, the World Health Organization (WHO) will launch a pilot project for prequalifying biosimilar medicines, a step toward making some of the most expensive treatments for cancer more widely available in low- and middle-income countries. The decision comes after a 2-day meeting in Geneva...
Brian Marr, MD, has joined the Department of Ophthalmology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center as Director of the Division of Ophthalmic Oncology. He will also serve as Professor of Ophthalmology at Columbia University Medical Center. With Dr. Marr’s arrival,...
Brian Wolpin, MD, MPH, has been named the new Director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Wolpin is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and was appointed earlier this year as the Robert T. and Judith B. Hale Chair in Pancreatic Cancer...
Nearly 2,500 children in the United States are diagnosed with brain tumors each year, making these malignancies among the most common solid tumors in children and adolescents. Despite advances over the past few decades, the treatment of brain tumors remains one of the most challenging clinical...
Greta Stifel recounts her story about a misdiagnosed tumor and urges physicians to raise awareness of neuroendocrine disease.
David H. Henry, MD, of Pennsylvania Oncology Hematology Associates, outlines abstracts focusing on chemotherapy in locally advanced rectal cancer and immune-related toxicity, response to anti–PD-L1 blockade, and epacadostat plus pembrolizumab in lung cancer.
Lisa A. Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina, and Richard S. Finn, MD, of UCLA Medical Center, discuss phase II overall survival findings on palbociclib in combination with letrozole vs letrozole alone for front-line treatment of ER+/HER2– advanced breast cancer. (Abstract 1001)
On May 26, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to ceritinib (Zykadia), a kinase inhibitor for patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors are anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive as detected by an FDA-approved test. In April...
Arnaud Scherpereel, MD, PhD, of the University Hospital of Lille, discusses in French phase II study findings on second- or third-line nivolumab vs nivolumab plus ipilimumab in malignant pleural mesothelioma patients. (Abstract LBA8507)
Arnaud Scherpereel, MD, PhD, of the University Hospital of Lille, discusses phase II study findings on second- or third-line nivolumab vs nivolumab plus ipilimumab in malignant pleural mesothelioma patients. (Abstract LBA8507)
Rakesh Chopra, MD, of India’s Artemis Hospitals, discusses ASCO’s Role in global cancer care and the issues he finds most pressing.