On August 29, Daiichi Sankyo announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to DS-8201, an investigational HER2-targeting antibody-drug conjugate, for the treatment of patients with HER2-positive, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer...
On August 28, AVEO Oncology announced that the European Commission (EC) has approved tivozanib (Fotivda) for the treatment of adult patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma in the European Union plus Norway and Iceland. Tivozanib is indicated for the first-line treatment of adult patients with...
On August 24, positive topline results were announced from the phase III ALCYONE study of daratumumab (Darzalex) in combination with bortezomib (Velcade), melphalan, and prednisone (VMP) vs VMP alone as front-line treatment for newly diagnosed patients who are not considered candidates for...
On August 28, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) and granted Priority Review for obinutuzumab (Gazyva) in combination with chemotherapy followed by obinutuzumab alone for patients with previously untreated follicular lymphoma....
The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance (PSSCRA) will begin accepting applications for its 2018 Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators on October 2, 2017. At least six New York City area–based scientists will each be awarded $200,000 per year—for up...
On August 28, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved fulvestrant (Faslodex) at 500 mg as monotherapy for expanded use in women with hormone receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)–negative advanced breast cancer who have gone through menopause...
The rate of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination in the United States is increasing, but remains lower than ideal. A new study suggests that survivors of childhood cancer receive the HPV vaccine at an even lower rate than their peers without cancer—24% vs 40%, respectively. Nearly...
A new population-based study shows that palliative care substantially decreased health-care utilization among Medicare beneficiaries with advanced cancer, resulting in less intensive care being delivered at the end of life. This included lower rates of hospitalization, fewer invasive procedures,...
Female patients with locally advanced esophageal cancer treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy before surgery are more likely to have a favorable response to the treatment than male patients are, and women are less likely to experience cancer recurrence, according to a study published by...
Researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found a relationship between the genetics of tumors with germline BRCA1/2 mutations—and whether the tumor retains the normal copy of the BRCA1/2 gene—and risk for primary resistance to a common...
Over the past 30 years, squamous cell carcinoma of the anus has been one of the few cancers with a steadily rising incidence in the United States, with the most rapid increase seen in black men. To further investigate this trend, researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center...
On August 21, Clinical Genomics announced they have implemented QIAGEN’s PAXgene circulating cell-free DNA tube blood sample collection in its Colvera colorectal cancer recurrence assay. Colvera, an integrated liquid biopsy solution, is designed to enable easy and accurate...
IN A SINGLE-ARM multicenter trial reported by Bardia and colleagues1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, the use of sacituzumab govitecan (IMMU-132) showed a response rate of 30% and a clinical benefit rate of 46% in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic triple-negative breast...
Vitamin C may “tell” faulty stem cells in the bone marrow to mature and die normally, instead of multiplying to cause blood cancers. This is the finding of a study led by researchers from Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone Health, and published by Cimmino et al in Cell....
When to initiate screening for breast cancer, how often to screen, and how long to screen are questions that continue to spark emotional debates. A new study compares the number of deaths that might be prevented as a result of three of the most widely discussed recommendations for screening...
THE WISTAR INSTITUTE has announced the appointment of scientist, medical oncologist, and National Academy of Medicine member Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, as Professor. Dr. Dang, the Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in New York, shapes scientific strategy at Ludwig, as...
RECENTLY ANNOUNCED DATA from the phase III FLAURA trial showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful progression-free survival benefit with osimertinib (Tagrisso) compared to current first-line standard-of-care treatment (erlotinib [Tarceva] or gefitinib [Iressa]) in previously...
UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS (UH) has announced the appointment of Theodoros N. Teknos, MD, as the new President and Scientific Officer of UH Seidman Cancer Center, effective October 1. He will take over from current UH Seidman President Nathan Levitan, MD, who has been in the position since 2008 and...
Next-generation sequencing of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) identified distinct genomic profiles with potentially targetable alterations in 99.7% of patients with carcinoma of unknown primary (CUP) who have detectable alterations, according to results published by Kato et al in Cancer Research....
In a bid to detect cancers early and in a noninvasive way, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, Baltimore, reported they have developed a test that spots tiny amounts of cancer-specific DNA in blood, and have used it to accurately identify more than half of 138 people with...
CARLOS L. ARTEAGA, MD, has been named Director of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology Programs at The UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Roles and Research at Vanderbilt DR. ARTEAGA IS CURRENTLY Director of the Center for Cancer Targeted...
ON JULY 1, Patricia Ganz, MD, assumed editorial leadership of JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute. As Editor-in-Chief, she is also responsible for JNCI Monographs. Dr. Ganz is Director of Cancer Prevention & Control Research at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)’s...
BRACHYTHERAPY HAS a long track record in treating cancer, dating back to the first reported use of an implanted radioactive source in 1901, and brachytherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer dates back to 1914, when Pasteu and Degrais used a radium source inserted through a urethral catheter. ...
STAND UP TO CANCER (SU2C) and Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research are supporting a new translational research team to explore how chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy can be applied to pancreatic cancer. The approach uses specially modified immune cells to find and...
PRIMARY LIVER CANCER is the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Hepatocellular carcinoma accounts for 90% of liver cancer, with around 800,000 new cases diagnosed globally each year.1 In contrast to the stable or declining trends observed for most neoplasms, the incidence and...
AN UPDATE of the ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline covers new medicines for nausea and vomiting related to cancer treatment. The update, issued by Hesketh et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 provides new evidence-based information on the appropriate use of olanzapine, neurokinin 1 (NK1)...
ALEX’S LEMONADE STAND FOUNDATION (ALSF) has announced the opening of the first-of-its-kind Childhood Cancer Data Lab (CCDL) with the mission of accelerating cures. ALSF first announced the CCDL at the National Cancer Moonshot Summit in Washington, DC, hosted by former Vice President Joe Biden and...
On August 17, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to olaparib tablets (Lynparza) for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer, who are in a complete or partial response to...
On August 17, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa) for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). INO-VATE ALL The approval was based on data from INO-VATE ALL, a randomized (1:1), ...
Salk Institute for Biological Studies Professor Reuben Shaw, PhD, has received the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Outstanding Investigator Award, which encourages cancer research with breakthrough potential. Dr. Shaw, a member of Salk’s Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory and holder of the...
Practicing evidence-based medicine requires evidence, but the evidence for efficacy and safety of new and evolving cancer therapies in older adults is wanting due to their underrepresentation in oncology clinical trials. “It is difficult to practice evidence-based medicine in an older population...
Older adults continue to be proportionally underrepresented in oncology clinical trials, but the participation rate of adults aged 65 and older is increasing by “slow, incremental changes,” Stuart M. Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO, noted in an interview with The ASCO Post. Prompting those changes are...
The Pain & Palliative Care Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center is offering a new Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship in partnership with the Hospice of the Visiting Nurse Association of Greater Philadelphia and Temple University Hospital. The 1-year program is approved by the...
Angela H. Brodie, PhD, a pioneer in breast cancer research, passed away on June 7, 2017, from complications of Parkinson’s disease and pancreatic cancer. An obituary for Dr. Brodie was published previously in the June 25, 2017, issue of The ASCO Post. Here, Dr. Balkees Abderrahman shares a...
On August 15, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company announced topline results from the CheckMate-214 trial investigating nivolumab (Opdivo) in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) vs sunitinib (Sutent) in intermediate- and poor-risk patients with previously untreated advanced or metastatic renal cell...
On August 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) and granted Priority Review for brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in patients with cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). The sBLA and its acceptance is based on data from the phase III...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted approval, expanded approval, and breakthrough therapy designation to numerous treatments across a range of tumor types and malignancies. New Drug Approvals Daunorubicin-Cytarabine Combination (Vyxeos): On August 3, the FDA granted...
Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, an expert in immunotherapy and a specialist in head and neck cancer, has been named Director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center. His appointment was effective July 1. Dr. Ferris, a 15-year veteran of the UPMC Hillman Cancer...
Claire Verschraegen, MD, has been appointed Director of the Division of Medical Oncology and Associate Director of the Translational Research Program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center–Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC–James)....
This past fall, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle opened an all-encompassing 9,222-square foot outpatient cellular immunotherapy clinic, specifically designed to serve patients participating in the center’s novel immunotherapy clinical trials, which mainly focus on chimeric...
Triple-negative breast cancer has a reputation for being a particularly challenging malignancy, but breast cancer specialist Nancy Davidson, MD, Senior Vice President of the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, put this in perspective in a recent...
An update of the ASCO clinical practice guideline on the systemic treatment of patients with stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) clarifies the role of immunotherapy in this setting. The update, published by Hanna et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also provides new...
Patients newly diagnosed with cancer may have a substantially increased short-term risk of arterial thromboembolism, according to a study published by Navi et al in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Patients with cancer face an increased risk of medical complications. However, the ...
In a study of nearly 9,000 people treated for solid tumors, researchers found that radiation treatment and tobacco use were linked to higher rates of blood-based DNA mutations that could lead to a higher risk for blood cancers such as leukemia. The study, published by Coombs et al in...
With the advent of molecular targeted therapies and immunotherapy, eligibility criteria have increased in number and complexity for lung cancer clinical trials, according to an analysis published by Garcia et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. Despite calls to streamline cancer clinical trial...
One-third of insured people with cancer end up paying more out-of-pocket than they expected, despite having health insurance coverage, researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute have found. The data showed that costs such as copays and deductibles could lead to financial distress among insured...
Administering a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan and a blood test to patients with metastatic colorectal cancer may help to select those who would benefit from a targeted cancer treatment, a new study published by Khan et al in Gutreported. Researchers found that after only 2 weeks on the...
Through a 5-year observational study recently published by McElory et al in PLOS One, researchers at the University of Missouri (MU) found that women with increased levels of cadmium—a metal commonly found in foods such as kidney, liver, and shellfish, as well as tobacco—had an...
On August 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it would pursue a strategic, new public health education campaign aimed at discouraging the use of e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) by children. The agency plans to expand its “The Real...