As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Ghassan K. Abou‑Alfa, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues, the second interim analysis of the phase III CELESTIAL trial has shown a significant improvement in overall and progression-free survival with cabozantinib...
“Patients with follicular lymphoma who relapse early after treatment are a minority of patients, fortunately, but they are clearly patients with a different disease,” according to Jonathon B. Cohen, MD, of Emory University School of Medicine. At Emory’s 2018 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and...
The European Society for medical oncology (ESMO) has granted the 2018 ESMO Award to Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD, an international lung cancer expert and pioneer in the development of anticancer drugs. The award was founded in 1985 to acknowledge an ESMO member who has made contributions to the...
Next-generation sequencing is used with increasing frequency to provide essential information about a patient’s diagnosis and treatment. In recent months, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several new next-generation sequencing diagnostic tools, and the Centers for Medicare...
Treatment with the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor palbociclib (Ibrance) achieved a clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative advanced breast cancer that has relapsed or ...
A combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy improves survival in some patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, according to late-breaking results from the IMpassion130 trial reported by Schmid et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (Abstract...
A phase III trial presented by Jiang et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress showed activity of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor therapy in advanced hormone receptor–positive breast cancer (Abstract 283O_PR). Endocrine therapies are the foundation of...
Karl Lewis, MD, of the University of Colorado, discusses a phase II study of cemiplimab in patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma who experienced progression of disease on, or were intolerant of, prior hedgehog pathway inhibitor therapy.For more information about this ongoing trial, visit...
Ezra E.W. Cohen, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses the effectiveness of anti–PD-1 therapy in patients with recurrent head and neck cancer and the studies that might help predict who will benefit, how to combine agents, and ways to reduce long-term toxicity.
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has recognized Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), with the 2018 ESMO Women for Oncology Award. The award recognizes an ESMO member who has contributed to supporting the career development of women in oncology. The recipient must have actively worked to...
Novel agents such as ibrutinib (Imbruvica), idelalisib (Zydelig), and venetoclax (Venclexta) have transformed the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and are increasingly used to treat the disease. The optimal sequencing of these agents is not clear in relapsed or refractory disease,...
The addition of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to a standard platinum doublet as first-line therapy improved overall and progression-free survival in patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in the primary analysis of KEYNOTE-407.1,2 Furthermore, it did not seem to matter...
Formal discussant, Shengxiang Ren, MD, PhD, of Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, Tongji University, Shanghai, China, commented on the entrectinib study as well as two potent ROS1 inhibitors in development. “Both entrectinib and lorlatinib could be first-line agents for patients with brain metastases.”...
Results of the very large, randomized, population-based NELSON trial confirm the value of low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening in people at high risk for developing lung cancer. The protective value of screening was more pronounced in women than in men. These study findings were presented at ...
“PACIFIC is a positive trial, with a 32% improvement in survival, and maintenance durvalumab is a new standard of care,” stated formal discussant Everett Vokes, MD, Chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago and a pioneer in the concurrent use of chemotherapy and radiotherapy ...
Several lung cancer trials have shown prolonged progression-free survival with checkpoint inhibitor therapy. For the first time, the phase III PACIFIC trial has found an overall survival benefit for the selective programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) vs...
The global burden of cancer is huge and growing. In 2018, there will be > 18 million new cancer cases and 9.6 million deaths.1,2 Although several recent articles have reviewed cancer in developing countries, few have focused on the Palestinian territories. There are several reasons for that,...
Even before James P. Allison, PhD, made an appearance at the Fourth International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science Into Survival in New York City, the excitement among attendees was palpable. Earlier that day, October 1, 2018, Dr. Allison and Tasuku Honjo, MD, PhD, of Kyoto...
Formal discussant, Hossein Borghaei, MS, DO, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, was guardedly optimistic about the IMpower132 trial results. “The study met its primary endpoint, and investigator-assessed progression-free survival was superior in the investigational arm. Overall survival was not mature,...
Women with HER2-positive early breast cancer with small tumors have similar disease-free survival and lower risk of cardiac toxicity with a 9-week course of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) compared to those treated for 1 year, according to a subgroup analysis of the Short-HER trial reported by...
An emerging treatment known as adoptive T-cell therapy has proven effective in a phase II clinical trial for treating progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and often fatal brain infection sometimes observed in patients with cancer and other diseases in which the immune...
A pooled analysis of two large U.S. prospective cohort studies reported in JAMA Oncology by Simon et al indicates that regular use of aspirin is associated with a significant reduction in risk for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), with an apparent dose- and duration-dependent effect. Study Details...
In an analysis of two Nordic Lymphoma Group trials with long-term follow up reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lockmer and colleagues found evidence that many patients receiving rituximab (Rituxan) as initial treatment for advanced indolent lymphoma may not require the addition of...
On October 16, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved talazoparib (Talzenna), a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, for patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm), HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer....
Neoadjuvant combination checkpoint blockade showed activity among patients with high-risk stage III melanoma in a small study. However, a high incidence of side effects caused the trial to be closed early. These results were published by Amaria et al in Nature Medicine. The phase II...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Tuminello et al found that video-assisted thorascopic surgery (VATS) was less likely than open resection to be associated with long-term opioid use in patients undergoing surgery for early-stage lung cancer. Study Details The study...
As reported in the journal Blood by Flinn et al, the phase III DUO trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-δ,-γ inhibitor duvelisib (Copiktra) vs ofatumumab (Arzerra) in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic...
Twitter is a place where many patients with cancer go to share and discuss their experiences of the disease, according to a recent exploratory study to be presented by Sánchez-Bayona et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (360P_PR). The...
As reported by Mitchell et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the combination of the oral indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) enzyme inhibitor epacadostat and the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) therapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed activity in advanced solid tumors in the ...
In a Korean nationwide cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Choi et al found that hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) appeared to be more common with first-line entecavir vs tenofovir treatment for chronic hepatitis B. The study involved data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service...
Doximity has released a new study detailing a concerning trend that could potentially impact cancer care in the United States. Doximity researchers examined retirement trends, percentage of state-trained specialists, and prevalence of breast cancer on a city-by-city basis. The report is the...
The cancer burden in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory with a 99% Hispanic population, is substantially different from that of Hispanics in the continental United States, according to Cancer Statistics for Hispanics/Latinos, 2018. The report, published every 3 years, found that men in Puerto Rico...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Pigneux et al, a French phase III trial (LAM-SA 2007 FILO) has shown an overall survival benefit with the addition of lomustine to conventional chemotherapy in older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) without unfavorable cytogenetics....
In a study (Thinking and Living with Cancer) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mandelblatt et al found that poorer cognitive function in older survivors of breast cancer was associated with chemotherapy, hormone therapy, and ApoE genotype. The ApoE ε4 allele has been associated...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the 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, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
MOODY WHARAM, JR, MD, Professor Emeritus of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences and former Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, died on August 10 at the age of 77. Dr. Wharam specialized in the treatment of...
FREE ME FROM LUNG CANCER (FMFLC) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) have announced the first-ever winner of the FMFLC-IASLC Foundation Joint Fellowship Award for the Early Detection of Lung Cancer. The FMFLC-IASLC Joint Fellowship Award supports novel,...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Amit M. Oza, MD, of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, Toronto, and colleagues found that quality of life based on patient-reported outcomes was not worsened with niraparib (Zejula) maintenance vs placebo in the phase III...
In a prospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Melissa A. Merritt, PhD, of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center’s Epidemiology Program, and colleagues found evidence that recent use of aspirin or nonaspirin nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) after diagnosis appears to...
There is a lot of breast cancer in my family history. My mother was diagnosed with the disease at 44, and my paternal grandmother died of breast cancer when she was just 33, so I’ve always been diligent about performing breast self-exams— often weekly—to ensure that if I did get breast cancer, it...
Bernard Lown, MD, was born in Lithuania, the son of a rabbi. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 14, where his scientific precocity bloomed. After attaining his medical degree from John Hopkins University School of Medicine, he pursued his passion of raising international awareness of...
Only a few centuries ago, the major source of moral and scientific authority in Western culture was religion, which requires trusting one of numerous supernatural deities. However, the presumption that medicine is based on evidence-based and peer-reviewed science is what gives it authority in...
IN APRIL 2018, the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor rucaparib (Rubraca) was granted approval for maintenance treatment of patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy.1,2...
Breast cancer specialist Jennifer K. Litton, MD, was born and reared in Leominster, Massachusetts, a small city in the north central part of the state. “I went to parochial schools until seventh grade and then went on to high school in Worcester. Although I enjoyed science early on, I was...
Eight years ago, a survey of the preferences of Dutch patients with cancer for health care found that while gender was one aspect influencing how men and women approach cancer care, it was the most important, with men, generally, regarding most care aspects as less important than women. The study...
ON SEPTEMBER 27, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dacomitinib tablets (Vizimpro) for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletion or exon 21 L858R substitution...
THE NATIONAL Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has awarded a $4.7 million grant to the Cleveland Clinic to study the prevention of cancer-associated thrombosis. The 5-year grant supports the creation of a new risk assessment tool to better predict patients with cancer who have a higher probability...
THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has recognized Tony S. Mok, MD, FRCPC, FASCO, with the ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions in lung cancer. Dr. Mok, who is a Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation Endowed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Clinical Oncology at the ...
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) recently released the results of its first national public awareness report about risks, actions, and attitudes toward prostate cancer in the PCF 3P Report 2018: Public Perception of Prostate Cancer. Each year, even though more than three million men in...
In a study published by Preston et al in European Urology, researchers demonstrated that a baseline prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level obtained from black men between 40 and 60 years old may predict the future development of prostate cancer for years after testing. The study builds on ...