As reported in The Lancet by Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, and colleagues, results from the phase III IMpassion031 trial showed improved pathologic complete response rates with the addition of atezolizumab to sequential nab-paclitaxel and anthracycline-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by David S. Hong, MD, and colleagues, the phase I CodeBreaK100 trial showed activity of the oral KRAS G12C inhibitor sotorasib in heavily pretreated patients with KRAS p.G12C–mutant advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), colorectal cancer,...
Pembrolizumab monotherapy induced responses in patients with rare sarcomas that varied by histotype, according to findings presented by Jean-Yves Blay, MD, at the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 (Abstract 1619O). Methods Dr. Blay presented first results from a cohort of patients with rare sarcomas in...
In a quality-of-life analysis from the phase IV CARD trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Karim Fizazi, MD, and colleagues found that cabazitaxel was associated with improved pain response, time to pain progression, and time to symptomatic skeletal events vs abiraterone or enzalutamide in...
In the phase III VIALE-A trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Courtney D. DiNardo, MD, MSCE, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that venetoclax plus azacitidine significantly improved overall survival vs azacitidine alone in previously...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Daniel O. Persky, MD, of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, Tucson, and colleagues, the phase II Intergroup National Clinical Trials Network Study S1001 has shown good outcomes with positron-emission tomography (PET)-directed therapy in...
Most of the newer systemic treatments for breast cancer can be safely and effectively paired with radiation therapy—although there are some exceptions, according to Mylin A. Torres, MD, the Louisa and Rand Glenn Family Chair in Breast Cancer Research and Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at ...
She was elderly, slightly confused, and very, very worried. I was not quite sure why. It was a minor procedure—a routine angiogram, one of a dozen to be performed that morning. The risks were so small that the job of admitting her had been handed to me, then a final-year medical student, with a...
On July 24, 2020, brexucabtagene autoleucel, a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T-cell immunotherapy, was granted accelerated approval for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma.1,2 Brexucabtagene autoleucel is approved with a Risk Evaluation...
Outcomes in patients with triple-class–failure relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma who experience disease progression on immunomodulatory agents, proteasome inhibitors, and CD38 antibodies are dismal. Most recently, early results of three anti-B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) chimeric antigen...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On September 1, 2020, azacitidine tabletswere approved...
Immune therapy for advanced gastroesophageal cancer has taken a leap forward by showing its value in the first-line setting, according to two studies in which nivolumab and pembrolizumab, both given with chemotherapy, significantly improved overall survival vs chemotherapy alone. The studies,...
Access to cancer treatments is highly unequal across Europe, both for new drugs in development (due to disparities in access to clinical trials) and for currently approved drugs (due to disparities in health-care spending by different countries), according to results from two studies being...
In a phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that the addition of pembrolizumab to eribulin did not improve progression-free survival in women with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. As stated by the...
Higher viral loads may be associated with a greater risk of death among patients with cancer—and individuals without cancer—hospitalized with COVID-19, according to a report by Westblade et al in Cancer Cell. Among hospitalized patients infected with COVID-19, those with hematologic malignancies...
Clinicians who treat multiple myeloma can anticipate a host of new treatments: melflufen, cereblon E3 ligase (CEL) modulators, antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, Director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Nowak et al, the Australian phase II DREAM trial showed activity with the triplet of durvalumab plus cisplatin/pemetrexed in previously untreated patients with advanced malignant mesothelioma. Study Details In the multicenter trial, 54 evaluable patients with...
In the TRANSCEND NHL 001 study reported in The Lancet, Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, and colleagues found that the autologous CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell agent lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel) produced a high response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Panagiotis A. Konstantinopoulos, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues, a U.S. Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network phase II trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with the addition of the ATR (ataxia...
On August 5, 2020, the antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin-blmf was granted accelerated approval for treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least four prior therapies, including an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody, a proteasome inhibitor, ...
Global oncology refers to the application of the concepts of global health to cancer and implies an approach to the practice of oncology that acknowledges the reality of limited resources in parts of the world. The Global Oncology Young Investigator Award (YIA) from ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the...
On July 30, 2020, atezolizumab was granted approval for use in combination with cobimetinib and vemurafenib for patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings from the phase III, double-blind IMspire150 trial ...
In a phase III trial (PROfound) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Johann de Bono, MB, ChB, PhD, of the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital, London, and colleagues found that olaparib significantly improved progression-free survival vs hormonal therapy in patients...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer. They include narratives, topical essays, historical...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has selected 19 distinguished members to receive the ASTRO Fellow (FASTRO) designation. The 2020 class of Fellows will be recognized at a virtual awards ceremony on October 27 during ASTRO’s 62nd Annual Meeting. The ASTRO Fellows program...
Although most patients with breast cancer are considered to have an overall excellent prognosis, 600,000 people still die annually of the disease around the world. Even in HER2-positive breast cancer, a subtype that has seen a transformation of outcomes in the past 2 decades, there’s still room for ...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Hematology Expert Review, we take a closer look at the monoclonal antibody targeting CD38, daratumumab, in the treatment of amyloid light chain (AL) amyloidosis and resistant multiple myeloma as well as the antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin-blmf,...
With incredibly paced approvals and clinical advancements in the systemic therapy of cutaneous melanoma, the efficacy of immunotherapy in this disease is clear. However, many important questions remain regarding timing and dosing—in other words, which drug (or drugs) makes the most sense and in...
Immunotherapy is taking on yet another highly aggressive cancer and yielding strong results, according to data presented during the 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s World Conference on Lung Cancer Virtual Presidential Symposium.1 A prespecified interim analysis of the...
A new study published by Kichenadasse et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network concentrates on how immunotherapy-related adverse events may impact more than one organ in a single patient. This study provides new information on how frequently multiorgan side effects occur...
On September 4, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pralsetinib (Gavreto) for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic RET fusion–positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as detected by an FDA-approved test. The approval is based on data from the phase I/II ARROW...
Low-intensity smokers—individuals who smoke fewer than 10 cigarettes per day—are more than twice as likely to die of lung disease and more than eight times as likely to die of lung cancer than nonsmokers, according to research presented by Balte et al at the European Respiratory Society...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Paul K. Paik, MD, and colleagues, the phase II VISION trial has shown durable responses with the highly selective MET inhibitor tepotinib in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and MET exon 14–skipping mutation. As noted by the...
In an interim analysis of the German phase II IMMUNED trial reported in The Lancet, Lisa Zimmer, MD, of University Hospital Essen, and colleagues found that adjuvant nivolumab plus ipilimumab and nivolumab alone significantly prolonged recurrence-free survival vs placebo in patients with resected...
On September 1, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved oral azacitidine (Onureg; also known as CC-486) for the continued treatment of adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who achieved first complete remission or complete remission with incomplete blood count recovery...
After more than 20 years of failed strategies to improve survival rates for locally advanced lung cancers, checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized therapy, but prognoses still lag behind other tumor types. During the ASCO20 Virtual Education Program, Mark G. Kris, MD, FASCO, a thoracic medical...
Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a debilitating and enduring adverse effect of many antineoplastic agents, which negatively impacts the quality of life of patients with cancer and survivors. Current pharmacotherapy has limited efficacy and causes undesirable effects. In this...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jee et al found that the receipt of cytotoxic chemotherapy within 35 days of COVID-19 diagnosis in patients with cancer was not associated with increased risk of severe or critical COVID-19. The investigators also...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Gary Deng, MD, PhD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present updated information on ...
The Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors have been one of the most exciting advances in the tre atment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and have led to the development of chemotherapy-free treatments for both treatment-naive as well as relapsed or refractory CLL based on studies where...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Paolo Ghia, MD, PhD, of the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy, and colleagues, the phase III ASCEND trial showed significantly prolonged progression-free survival with acalabrutinib monotherapy vs the investigator’s choice of...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that occasionally quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib, Pemmaraju, and Medeiros highlight the clinically aggressive blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm. For each quiz...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On July 31, 2020, tafasitamab-cxix, a CD19-directed...
A vaccine for COVID-19 is currently the Holy Grail, but even if an effective vaccine were developed on a fast-track timetable, it may be effective in only a percentage of people, judging by existing flu vaccines, which show efficacy rates of approximately 45% and vary year by year. Until we have a...
Oncologists should consider screening all patients with cancer for the hepatitis B virus (HBV) prior to starting systemic anticancer therapy, with a focus on tests that use the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc), total Ig or IgG, and antihepatitis B surface...
In the time of COVID-19, there is much to learn about the intersection of coronavirus and cancer. One area of concern has been whether immunotherapies increase the risk of mortality in patients with cancer who also have COVID-19 infection. “To what extent immune checkpoint inhibition affects...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Abida and colleagues, the phase II TRITON2 trial has shown that rucaparib produces durable responses in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with deleterious BRCA1 or BRCA2 alterations. The trial supported the May 2020...
The results of an online questionnaire of 609 breast cancer survivors in the United States suggest that nearly half of patients experienced delays in care during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was published by Papautsky et al in the journal Breast Cancer Research and ...
“The distressing intersection of COVID-19 and cancer requires the use of large registries to acknowledge diversity,” stated Solange Peters, MD, PhD, President of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), in her keynote speech at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in JAMA Network Open, Yang et al found overall survival benefits with immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment vs non–immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment of advanced cancers irrespective of sex, age < 65 years vs ≥ 65 years, or Eastern Cooperative ...