A multibasket phase Ib study evaluating the clinical activity, tolerability, and antitumor activity of the cytokine-based immunotherapy AM0010 alone or in combination with the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has found that in monotherapy, objective responses to AM0010 were ...
Howard M. Sandler, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, discusses prospective clinical trials as the gold standard of clinical decision-making and examines the infrastructure needed for future cancer research. (Abstract PS 3)
Douglas W. Arthur, MD, of Virginia Commonwealth University, discusses the 3-year efficacy report from a phase II study of repeat breast-preserving surgery and 3D conformal partial breast reirradiation for in-breast recurrence. (Abstract LBA-10)
As reported by Ascierto et al in The Lancet Oncology, longer-term follow-up in the pivotal phase III coBRIM trial confirmed the benefit of adding cobimetinib to vemurafenib (Zelboraf) in first-line treatment of BRAF V600–mutant unresectable stage IIIC or IV melanoma. Grant A. McArthur, FRACP, of...
According to a phase III trial reported by Navari et al in The New England Journal of Medicine, the addition of the antipsychotic agent olanzapine vs placebo to dexamethasone, aprepitant, or fosaprepitant, and a 5-hydroxytryptamine type 3–receptor antagonist reduced nausea and improved antiemetic...
Updated Outcomes, Impact of Age in Multiple Myeloma As reported by Hulin et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the updated findings in the phase III FIRST trial continue to show improved progression-free and overall survival with continuous lenalidomide (Revlimid) plus low-dose dexamethasone...
OCTOBER International Cancer Imaging Society Meeting and 16th Annual Teaching CourseOctober 3-5 • Glasgow, ScotlandFor more information:http://www.icimagingsociety.org.uk/index.cfm?task=meetings 9th International Workshop on Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia & Symposia on Multiple MyelomaOctober...
For over 2,500 years, bloodletting was the backbone of medical therapy. To date, it is the longest-running therapeutic tradition known. First practiced in ancient Egypt, its use spread throughout Western civilization. The therapy was still performed in Southern rural America until the 1910s. One...
Emily L. Sedgwick, MD, Associate Professor of Breast Imaging in the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, part of the National Cancer Institute–designated Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been named the 2016 recipient of the Ben and Margaret Love Foundation Bobby Alford Award for...
Even though I was just 3 years old when my symptoms first appeared, the memory is still fresh in my mind to this day, 71 years later. I had just come home from a friend’s birthday party and was sitting on the front patio steps immobilized by severe stomach pain. My parents said I was feeling ill...
Earlier this month, members of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative’s Blue Ribbon Panel submitted an ambitious list of 10 recommendations on the scientific approaches that are most likely to accelerate progress against cancer to the President’s National Cancer Advisory Board. The panel’s...
Studies show that adolescent and young adult cancer survivors experience distinct challenges and quality-of-life issues from those experienced by either younger or older adult cancer survivors and that those challenges and issues can persist long after the cancer diagnosis and the end of...
A new study1 showing that just 1 in 20 terminally ill patients with cancer has sufficient understanding about the prognosis or purpose of treatment is highlighting the need for improvements in both the way oncologists communicate prognosis with their patients and in the development of educational...
Music therapy, an established adjuvant to standard cancer care, is offered in a growing number of cancer centers throughout the United States and internationally. Defined by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) as “the evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individual...
A recent study1 published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (see “Breaking the ‘Conspiracy of Silence’” in this issue of The ASCO Post) found that just 1 in 20 patients with advanced, incurable cancer has sufficient understanding of his or her prognosis or life expectancy. Now, another new study ...
Cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates—perhaps more than any other chronic disease—shine a grim spotlight on global disparities of care. It is one of the most preventable of human malignancies, yet it is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women around the world. It kills 260,000 women...
With the expansion of our understanding of signaling pathways in normal cells and how they are co-opted or corrupted in malignancy, the number of potential antitumor agents to be tested has exploded, exposing the limitations of traditional antineoplastic drug development and challenging us to...
In the Canadian phase III PANCREOX trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gill et al found no benefit of modified FOLFOX6 (infusional fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, and oxaliplatin) vs infusional 5-FU/leucovorin as second-line treatment in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer who ...
Maintenance olaparib (Lynparza) appeared to be associated with an overall survival benefit vs placebo in women with platinum-sensitive serous ovarian cancer and BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, according to an updated analysis of a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology by Ledermann et al....
Earlier this month, ASCO, in collaboration with the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the Society for Surgical Oncology (SSO), jointly issued an update to a clinical practice guideline for physicians treating women with breast cancer who have undergone a mastectomy. The update...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for Priority Review the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for pembrolizumab (Keytruda), an anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) therapy, for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer...
Clinicians face a number of questions in evaluating and treating patients with stage IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). One expert in the field, Rafael Santana-Davila, MD, reviewed key issues in managing this disease in the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP). The ASCO Post asked Dr....
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently updated its guidelines for colorectal cancer screening1 from 2008 and has now included seven acceptable strategies, including direct-visualization modalities (ie, endoscopy and computed tomography...
As reported in JAMA, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued new recommendations for colorectal cancer screening.1 In brief, the USPSTF recommends colorectal cancer screening starting at age 50 years and continuing until age 75 years (grade A recommendation = “The USPSTF...
A collaborative Cleveland Clinic–Mayo Clinic team of researchers has shown for the first time that patients with advanced prostate cancer are more likely to die earlier of their disease if they carry a specific testosterone-related genetic abnormality. The findings, published by Hearn et al in The...
In an analysis of the phase III BOLERO-1 and -3 trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fabrice André, MD, of Institut Gustav-Roussy, Paris, France, and colleagues found that the addition of everolimus (Afinitor) to trastuzumab (Herceptin) and chemotherapy was associated with a...
Attendees at the 2016 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference held July 18–22 in Koloa, Hawaii, got a peek at early data for a number of novel agents in the treatment of various lymphoma subtypes. The ASCO Post captured these findings. Denintuzumab Mafodotin in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Denintuzumab...
There is no role for routine imaging as a means of following patients with large cell lymphoma, according to Bruce D. Cheson, MD, Deputy Chief of Hematology-Oncology and Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Hospital, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, DC. “Routine...
For several years now, the American health-care system has been undergoing a transformation. Innovative ideas are being explored, new systems continue to be created, and millions of lives have been impacted. As health-care providers and research engines, academic institutions have an opportunity...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, and colleagues have provided a summary of the groundwork of an initiative by ASCO and the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) to identify and reduce...
For the majority of patients who are diagnosed with advanced-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), platinum-based doublets have been the standard of care for over 30 years. Recently, the immune checkpoint inhibitors nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) demonstrated superior survival ...
Hodi et al found “encouraging survival outcomes” with the addition of nivolumab to ipilimumab in patients with previously untreated unresectable stage III or IV melanoma, according to 2-year overall survival data in the phase II CheckMate 069 trial. These results were reported in The...
The phase I CheckMate 012 study examined the effects of nivolumab (Opdivo) monotherapy and nivolumab combined with platinum-based doublets as first-line treatments in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Encouraging efficacy and safety findings were reported in the Journal...
As reported by Yao et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the final overall survival analysis from the phase III RADIANT-3 trial showed a median survival of 44.0 months among patients with advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors initially randomized to receive everolimus (Afinitor, Zortress)...
New findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the cancer death rate for children and adolescents aged 1 to 19 has been steadily declining since the mid-1970s and dropped by 20% from 1999 to 2014, the result of advances in therapy, especially for leukemia. During...
The combined use of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) identified non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with rare or novel anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene rearrangements, not otherwise identified by FISH alone, that showed response to...
On September 13, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) modified the dosage regimen for nivolumab (Opdivo) for the currently approved indications for renal cell carcinoma, metastatic melanoma, and non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The currently approved recommended dosage...
Among individuals with advanced cancer, frequent hospitalization is often at odds with patient preference and is increasingly viewed as a hallmark of poor quality care. Hospitalization contributes substantially to costs and regional spending variation in this population, but patterns and reasons...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stewart et al found that treatment with carfilzomib (Kyprolis), lenalidomide (Revlimid), and dexamethasone (KRd) was associated with improved health-related quality of life vs lenalidomide/dexamethasone (Rd) in relapsed multiple myeloma in the phase...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kaufman et al found that the anti–PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) monoclonal antibody avelumab produced durable responses in patients with stage IV Merkel cell carcinoma progressing after cytotoxic chemotherapy. Study Details In...
In a UK-based phase III noninferiority trial (QUARTZ) reported in The Lancet, Mulvenna et al found that use of whole-brain radiotherapy in addition to optimal supportive care including dexamethasone was associated with little additional benefit in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients...
Despite access to and use of antiretroviral therapy, HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection was associated with reduced survival in women with cervical cancer in Botswana, according to a study reported by Dryden-Peterson et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details The study...
In 1997, Oregon enacted a voter initiative allowing terminally ill residents to self-administer physician-prescribed medication to end their lives called the Oregon Death With Dignity Act (ORDWDA). Statute requires prescriptions written for lethal medications be reported; the state also collects...
During hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), patients sometimes experience physical and psychological symptoms that negatively impact their quality of life. Researchers led by Areej El-Jawahri, MD, Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant...
In a phase II Canadian Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium Study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lassaletta et al found that vinblastine monotherapy was associated with response or stable disease in most children with chemotherapy-naive low-grade glioma. Vinblastine monotherapy has shown ...
A large observational study examining the variation in breast density assessment among radiologists in clinical practice has found a wide variation—from 6.3% to 84.5%—in the percentage of mammograms rated as showing dense breasts, which persisted after adjusting for patient characteristics. The...
The multikinase inhibitor regorafenib (Stivarga) prolonged progression-free survival vs placebo in patients with previously treated advanced gastric carcinoma, in a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Nick Pavlakis, MBBS, PhD, of the University of Sydney, Australia, and...
Low-dose oral cyclophosphamide plus methotrexate maintenance therapy yielded no disease-free survival benefit in women with hormone receptor–negative early breast cancer, according to the phase III International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) 22-00 trial. Some evidence of benefit was observed in ...
Immunotherapy has received “a lot of attention, mainly because of the media coverage,” Anas Younes, MD, medical oncologist and Chief of the Lymphoma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said in an interview with The ASCO Post. “Many patients inquire, not about a specific...
In 2012, my husband, Robert, and I were looking forward to starting the next phase of our lives and were feeling excited about the future. Although only in our 50s, we had decided to retire early from our full-time careers, move to our cabin in Hayward, Wisconsin, and find less stressful part-time ...