Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved nivolumab (Opdivo) plus low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients aged 12 years and older with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR)...
A. Oliver Sartor, MD, of Tulane University, speaks anecdotally about immunotherapy for prostate cancer and shares his experiences in speaking to patients with late-stage disease about the knowns, unknowns, risks, and toxicities of using a therapy outside the context of a clinical trial setting. The ...
Owen A. O'Connor, MD, PhD, of Columbia University Medical Center, shares his perspective on immunotherapy for patients with late-stage cancer in the context of a clinical trial setting and recent Right-to-Try legislation. The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of...
Andrew D. Seidman, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the benefits of decision support tools, especially for the oncologist who treats a variety of cancers in his or her practice. The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. ...
Allen S. Lichter, MD, Board Chair of the Value in Cancer Care Consortium, and Mark J. Ratain, MD, of the University of Chicago, discuss the benefits—and challenges—of lowering dosages in the face of market forces. The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with carboplatin/paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) as a first-line treatment for metastatic squamous non–small cell lung...
A large study of pancreatic cancer patients found that almost 10% harbored inherited genetic variations or mutations that may have increased their susceptibility to the disease. At the same time, some of these mutations were associated with more favorable responses to certain chemotherapy agents,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation to CPI-613 for the treatment of Burkitt lymphoma. Burkitt lymphoma is a highly aggressive hematologic B-cell malignancy classically characterized by the overexpression of c-Myc. Due to the rapid proliferation rate of...
ASCO HAS officially endorsed a statement by the 70 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers calling for increased human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and screening to eliminate HPV-related cancers. The full uptake of the vaccine and screening could prevent 12,000 cervical...
TREVOR ROYCE, MS, MD, MPH, and Sheetal Kircher, MD, are the 2018–2019 ASCO Health Policy Fellows. Now entering its third year, the fellowship program offers oncologists the opportunity to gain the knowledge, skills, and experience necessary to shape regulatory and legislative policies that directly ...
HELP YOUR patients understand the financial impact of a cancer diagnosis with the ASCO Answers Managing the Cost of Cancer Care booklet. This booklet provides information about key financial categories for cancer care; an easy-to-understand explanation of health insurance coverage; information...
PROMISING BREAKTHROUGHS in cancer care don’t just happen overnight; they result after years of hard work by the brightest minds in cancer research. Yet many are unaware of the vast resources necessary to fuel cutting-edge research projects. Increasing awareness around this issue is vital to...
In my area of research, lung cancer, precision medicine is indeed transforming the treatment of this disease and has important implications for other cancers and for the future of our patients with cancer. Today’s achievement of being able to systematically identify genomic changes that can be...
TESTICULAR CANCER is among the most common cancers in young men. The majority of patients are cured of their disease, but a newly published study shows many remain at risk for later complications from chemotherapy or other treatments. The study, published by Mohammad Abu Zaid, MD, Assistant...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed medical oncologist Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, FACP, Executive Director at the West Cancer Center, Memphis. Dr. Schwartzberg’s major research interests are new therapeutic approaches to breast cancer,...
MARIUSZ A. WASIK, MD, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Pathology at Fox Chase Cancer Center and Jeanes Hospital. He will also serve as Associate Director of the Cancer Center, a position he assumed on July 2, 2018. As Chair of Pathology and a key member of Fox Chase’s leadership...
THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION of New York named University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Professor Antoni Ribas, MD, an honoree as part of its Great Immigrants Initiative, a program honoring a selected group of naturalized citizens who have made notable contributions to the progress of American...
“THIS IS a wonderful presentation and a very exciting trial,” said formal discussant Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Despite the remarkable advances achieved with anti–programmed cell death protein 1 and ligand 1 (anti–PD-1/anti–PD-L1) treatment, “there...
COMBINING CMP-001, a Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist, plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) appears to overcome resistance to anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) therapy, according to a preliminary phase Ib study.1 Adding CMP-001 to pembrolizumab was well tolerated, with antitumor efficacy ...
FORMAL DISCUSSANT Parameswaran Hari, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, was impressed by many aspects of the bb2121 study, which represents the “largest and most mature” data set for the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell approach in myeloma, he noted. According to Dr. Hari,...
IN AN UPDATE of a phase I trial, a heavily pretreated population of patients with multiple myeloma continued to respond to the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy bb2121.1 The results presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting confirmed previous findings for bb2121 in the dose-escalation...
HAROLD BURSTEIN, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, where he is Associate Professor of Medicine, commented on the SANDPIPER trial during a press briefing at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. PIK3 mutations are probably the most common mutation in breast cancer, and...
IN PATIENTS with advanced breast cancer harboring a PIK3CA mutation, the addition of the PI3 kinase (PI3K) inhibitor taselisib to endocrine therapy with fulvestrant (Faslodex) significantly improved progression-free survival compared with fulvestrant alone, in the international phase III SANDPIPER...
ASCO EXPERT David Graham, MD, FASCO, Medical Director at the Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, was enthusiastic about this new technology. “This is an important first step showing there is an easier way to detect lung cancer at earlier stages. If the promise of this report...
IF THE INITIAL promise of research presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting bears fruit, we may one day have a simple blood test to screen for early-stage lung cancer and possibly other cancers. Although it is still very early days for this test, an initial report from the ongoing Circulating...
“TODAY WE HAVE good news, because IMpower 150 is another clear positive trial on the combination of chemotherapy with immunotherapy. This is true in terms of progression-free and overall survival, which are both statistically significant [for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus bevacizumab (Avastin)...
ATEZOLIZUMAB (TECENTRIQ) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) plus a platinum doublet (ABCP) improved overall survival by 22% compared with bevacizumab plus a platinum doublet (BCP) in patients with advanced wild-type (without an identified mutation) nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according...
BRUCE D. CHESON, MD, Director of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, DC, agreed that rituximab (Rituxan) plus lenalidomide (Revlimid; R2) is a reasonable first-line option, considering the findings of the RELEVANCE trial. “Dr. Fowler showed ...
IN PATIENTS with previously untreated advanced follicular lymphoma, the chemotherapy-free combination of rituximab (Rituxan) plus lenalidomide (Revlimid), the so-called R-squared (R2) regimen, yielded outcomes as good as those in patients who received standard rituximab-chemotherapy, in the interim ...
WARREN CHOW, MD, a sarcoma specialist at City of Hope, Duarte, California, said maintenance therapy has not traditionally been used in the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma; therefore, the findings represent “a paradigm shift.” Although the RMS2005 Maintenance study established a new standard of care ...
THE ADDITION OF 6 months of maintenance chemotherapy in the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma improved 5-year survival by 13%, in the European RMS2005 Maintenance study reported at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “At the end of this long, not-easy study, we concluded that maintenance is an effective and ...
SUSAN O’BRIEN, MD, Associate Director for Clinical Science, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California Irvine Health, told The ASCO Post that the pairing of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta) “is clearly a very powerful combination.” The next question, she...
A REGIMEN COMBINING ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta) in previously untreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) greatly reduced the risk of venetoclax-associated tumor-lysis syndrome and led to promising rates of undetectable minimal residual disease (MRD) in the phase ...
RESEARCH TO DATE has not been able to identify a subgroup of patients with estrogen receptor–positive HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer who do not derive benefit from the addition of inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases 4/6 (CDK4/6) to endocrine therapy, according to a study by the U.S. Food ...
“THIS TRIAL is a clear winner for the treatment of squamous non–small cell lung cancer [NSCLC],” stated formal discussant Charles Drake, MD, PhD, of Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. “The concept underlying the combination of checkpoint...
THE COMBINATION of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus platinum-based chemotherapy improved overall survival, response rates, and duration of response in patients with advanced squamous cell non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with chemotherapy alone irrespective of programmed cell death ligand 1 ...
Flight attendants showed an elevated incidence of several types of cancer compared with the general population, according to findings published by McNeely et al in Environmental Health. “Our findings of higher rates of several cancers among flight attendants is striking given the low rates...
A research team led by a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital epidemiologist has conducted the largest analysis to date of how adult survivors of childhood cancer view their health risk. The scientists found that a surprisingly high number of survivors showed a lack of concern for their...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Naren Ramakrishna, MD, of the University of Florida Health Cancer Center at Orlando Health, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline update on disease management for patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer and...
Tanya Dorff, MD, has joined City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center as Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Medical Oncology, heading the genitourinary cancers program. Dr. Dorff’s area of expertise is in prostate cancer, but she also has experience in other genitourinary tumor...
Benjamin Djulbegovic, MD, PhD, Professor and Director of Research in City of Hope’s Department of Supportive Care Medicine, has been named Director of Evidence-Based Medicine and Comparative Effectiveness Research (CEBR), a new program at City of Hope designed to improve patient outcomes by fully...
On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the combination of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib (Braftovi) and the MEK inhibitor binimetinib (Mektovi) in patients with advanced BRAF V600–mutant melanoma, as detected by an FDA-approved test.1 Dual targeting of the MAPK...
To dig a bit deeper into some of the issues touched upon in the new book, The Key to Prostate Cancer: 30 Experts Explain 15 Stages of Prostate Cancer, The ASCO Post recently spoke with the author, Mark Scholz, MD. Dr. Scholz is a medical oncologist who exclusively treats men with prostate cancer....
With the development of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test in the early 1990s, the urology community advocated for population screening of all men of a certain age, igniting a heated argument about the test’s clinical value vs potential harms that has not abated to this day. Moreover, from...
A new genetic test in bladder cancer could be key to reducing the cost of care while avoiding overtreatment in some patients, according to research published by Waldman et al in Clinical Cancer Research. Deciding whether to treat bladder cancer aggressively can be difficult—predictive...
Eight years ago, I was having a series of colds I couldn’t shake and pain that radiated throughout my back. Still, my symptoms weren’t concerning until, on Halloween morning in 2010, I stepped out of bed and fell to the floor in excruciating pain, unable to move. A visit to the emergency room and a ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently accepted a new drug application and granted Priority Review designation for glasdegib, an investigational oral smoothened inhibitor being evaluated for the treatment of adult patients with previously untreated acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in...
The 2018 Tang prize in Biopharmaceutical Science is being shared by three cancer researchers, including targeted cancer therapy researcher John Mendelsohn, MD, former President of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Tony Hunter, PhD, Professor of Biology at the Salk Institute; and ...
Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center announces the return of physician-scientist Marc E. Lippman, MD, MACP, FRCP, as Professor of Oncology and Medicine at the Georgetown University Medical Center. From 1988 to 2001, Dr. Lippman served as Director of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive...
City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Provost and Chief Scientific Officer, Steven T. Rosen, MD, has been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Dr. Rosen was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers in recognition of...