As reported in JAMA Oncology by Shoushtari et al, a single-center experience has shown a very high rate of clinically significant immune-related adverse events with nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) for advanced melanoma. Their findings suggest that the full course of four doses of...
The phase III ACT IV study has shown no survival benefit of adding rindopepimut, a vaccine targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) deletion mutation EGFRvIII, to temozolomide in patients with newly diagnosed EGFRvIII-positive glioblastoma. These findings were reported by Weller et al...
Fever therapy became firmly established as a significant therapeutic modality during the first decades of the 20th century. Physicians in this era believed the heat of a fever assisted in the control of numerous infections by killing the infective organism as it traveled through the bloodstream....
THE NCCN Foundation has granted its fifth Young Investigator Award for the 2017 cycle to Liqin Zhu, PhD, of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital/ University of Tennessee Health Science Center, for the study titled, “Patient-Derived Tumor Spheroids for High-Risk Hepatoblastoma Drug Discovery.”...
Many Type A personalities deal with problems by controlling all aspects of the problem. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it works for a while. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all. The health-care system—hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices—have policies (specific office hours and strict...
I always knew cancer was a real possibility for me. Both my mother and father died of the disease—my mother of lung cancer and my father of bone cancer—so when I started having chronic throat and chest infections, I was diligent about seeking immediate medical attention and felt relieved each time ...
THE INFORMATION contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies focused on patients with prostate cancer. These studies highlight noninvasive imaging, gene therapy, allogeneic bone marrow transplant, selective androgen receptor modulators, Vitamin D3...
It was 2:15 PM, and my afternoon clinic had not yet begun. The morning had been particularly trying as a result of disastrous clinical developments for two of my long-standing patients. Jessica had metastatic breast cancer, and I had been taking care of her for 7 years. Multiple lines of...
The literature has documented the stress and damage that intimacy problems cause among women undergoing cancer treatment and during survivorship. A new book, Sex and Cancer: Intimacy, Romance, and Love After Diagnosis and Treatment, by Saketh R. Guntupalli, MD, and Maryann Karinch tackles the...
CARING FOR sick children brings with it a set of emotional and physical challeneges that differ from those with the adult patient population. In a new book, Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories From the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine, Kurt Newman, MD, draws on more than 30 years of his...
The first hematopoietic stem cell transplant was pioneered by E. Donnall Thomas, MD, and published in The New England Journal of Medicine in September 12, 1957. Although the six patients on his trial all died by 100 days post transplantation, Dr. Thomas remained undaunted, continuing his...
Despite a significant rise in the incidence of thyroid cancer, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a panel of independent experts in primary care and screening, has given thyroid cancer screening a D recommendation, which is a recommendation against screening. To shed light on this...
ON AUGUST 30, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) for pediatric and young adult patients up to 25 years with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that is refractory to initial treatment or in second or later relapse. Tisagenlecleucel ...
ON JUNE 23, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved betrixaban (Bevyxxa) for the prophylaxis of venous thromboembolism in adult patients hospitalized for an acute medical illness who are at risk for thromboembolic complications due to moderate or severe restricted mobility and...
On March 14, 2017, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was granted accelerated approval for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma or those who have relapsed after three or more prior lines of therapy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data APPROVAL WAS BASED on...
On November 6, 2017, ASCO and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will hold a joint Geriatric Oncology Workshop aimed at improving the evidence base for treating the geriatric oncology population. While more than 60% of cancers in the United States occur in people aged 65 and older, the...
GLOBAL CANCER INSTITUTE (GCI), focused on survival and quality of underserved patients with cancer worldwide, has announced it is launching a new Patient Navigation Program in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The program went live in early August 2017 and is intended to help promote adherence to Brazil’s...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a new strategy to address tobacco-related disease and death. The agency seeks to develop a plan to reduce the nicotine levels in combustible cigarettes to nonaddictive levels. However, as part of the strategy, the FDA also announced it ...
Help your patients manage the financial impact of a cancer diagnosis with Cancer.Net’s Managing the Cost of Cancer Care booklet. This booklet provides information on key financial categories for cancer care, an easy-to-understand explanation of health insurance coverage, tips for organizing...
Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, began her term as ASCO President-Elect in June 2017; she will serve as 2018–2019 ASCO President. An active ASCO member since 1995, Dr. Bertagnolli is Chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s...
Although thyroid cancer is among the five most common carcinomas diagnosed in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) between the ages of 15 and 39—thyroid cancer is more common in young women than young men and is the most common cancer diagnosed in females between the ages of 15 and 29 and the second ...
By contributing a monthly gift to the Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF), you can make a dramatic difference as we work to build a world free from the fear of cancer. An automatic charge to your credit card each month is the easiest way to complete your monthly donation. Secure and convenient, a...
Institution: Postgraduate trainee and PhD candidate in medical oncology, Department of Clinical Oncology and Chemotherapy, Nagoya University Graduate School of MedicineMember since: 2014ASCO activities: Virtual Mentors, Journal of Global Oncology editorial fellow Of the many activities ASCO...
Most discussions about “financial toxicity” center on the cancer patient, but there is also a societal toxicity, which has far-reaching consequences. Coming up with answers to this growing problem has vexed health-care experts over the past decade. In an effort to gather opinions on this vital...
Rates of obesity have been steadily rising over the past 3 decades in both adults and children. Today, more than one-third of American adults and about 17% of children and adolescents, ages 6 to 19, have obesity.1 Cancer rates have risen in tandem with obesity rates, making obesity the second...
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch) is launching a new integrated research center to prevent and find cures for cancers caused by infectious agents. It will be led by Denise Galloway, PhD, a Fred Hutch microbiologist whose research paved the way for the human papillomavirus (HPV)...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On April 17, 2017, the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)...
The Prostate Cancer Foundation has announced its 2017 Young Investigator (YI) Awards, which support early-career scientists who are focused on accelerating the delivery of life-extending and life-saving therapies for patients living with prostate cancer. The YI Awards provide 3 years of funding—a...
Internationally recognized genitourinary oncologist Maha Hussain, MD, FACP, FASCO, was born and reared in Baghdad, Iraq. “I came from a family that stressed the value of higher education and especially medicine. I have three uncles who are physicians, and my father encouraged my three siblings and...
A public-private research collective was awarded up to $14.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to launch a data resource center for cancer researchers around the world to accelerate the discovery of novel treatments for childhood tumors. Contingent on available funds, 5 years of...
Staying up-to-date in the fast-paced world of oncology literature is a daunting task at best. To assist with that task, The ASCO Post has assembled an assortment of studies recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The topics range from therapy for stage IV non–small cell lung cancer...
After 19.5 years of follow-up in the PIVOT trial, radical prostatectomy was not associated with significantly improved all-cause or prostate cancer mortality vs observation among men with localized prostate cancer.1 The long-term follow-up was reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by...
With checkpoint inhibitors vitally important in the treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), clinicians must become familiar with the nuances of their use. At the 2017 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and Oncology Conference in Sea Island, Georgia, Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted approval to olaparib tablets (Lynparza) as a maintenance therapy for ovarian cancer and to inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa), for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)....
Novel targeted treatment strategies and new trial endpoints in recurrent, platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer were highlighted in a gynecologic cancer session at the Best of ASCO New Orleans. At the meeting, Karen McLean, MD, PhD, of the University of Michigan Medical Center, Ann Arbor, presented...
Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, and the global burden is on an inexorably upward trajectory. For the year 2012, there were 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths worldwide.1 It is predicted that by the year 2035, there will be 23.9 million new...
The updated results of the PIVOT1 study—reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Wilt et al and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—did not show a statistically significant difference between treatment and observation for the initial management approach to men with newly diagnosed...
New hematology research, presented at the Best of ASCO New Orleans meeting, may help to guide the use of stem cell transplant in hematologic malignancies. At the meeting, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and Tycel Phillips, MD, of the...
Researchers have demonstrated that women with a history of preeclampsia have as much as a 90% decrease in breast cancer risk if they carry a specific common gene variant. Further studies are now underway to determine the mechanism of this protection in an effort to develop new breast cancer...
As reported by Dotan et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the antibody-drug conjugate labetuzumab govitecan showed antitumor activity in a phase I/II trial in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic colorectal cancer who had received prior irinotecan therapy. The agent comprises...
In the aftermath of the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey throughout the state of Texas, which has resulted in more than 30,000 people being displaced from their homes, ASCO has published a list of resources and information for oncology providers and patients with cancer affected by the...
Updated results of a phase I/II study of durvalumab (Imfinzi) in locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma were reported by Powles et al in JAMA Oncology. Data from the ongoing study supported the recent approval of durvalumab as second-line treatment in this setting on the basis of...
As reported by Larsen et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a Danish retrospective study has shown reduced cancer-specific and all-cause mortality with postdiagnosis statin use in patients with prostate cancer. Study Details The study involved nationwide Danish registry data from 31,790...
The final overall survival analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-006 trial showed maintained superiority of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) vs ipilimumab (Yervoy) in advanced melanoma. The results were reported by Schachter et al in The Lancet. An interim analysis showed improved progression-free and overall...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued what it has called a “historic action,” making the first gene therapy available in the United States. The FDA approved tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) for certain pediatric and young adult patients with a form of acute lymphoblastic...
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...
In a single-center phase II study reported in JAMA Oncology, Feng et al found that individualized adaptive stereotactic body radiotherapy achieved high rates of local tumor control with low complication rates in patients with liver tumors and preexisting liver dysfunction. Study Details The study ...
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...
As reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice by Chang et al, for the first time for any type of malignancy, the American Urological Association (AUA), ASCO, American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), and Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO) have formulated an evidence-based guideline on...