WOMEN WHO CONQUER CANCER (WWCC) is a groundbreaking program that is committed to supporting early-career female researchers by funding research grants through Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation. Since its inception 6 years ago, the program has raised over $4 million, funded 21 Young Investigator...
TWENTY PRACTICES in three countries elevated their standard of care and achieved Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) Certification in the second quarter of this year. ASCO commends these practices that have demonstrated their commitment to providing the highest-quality oncology care to...
ASCO Breakthrough: A Global Summit for Oncology Innovators was created, in part, to recognize our increasingly large and international community of members, to bring a meeting to their area, to go outside the United States, and shake up our own thinking. Why is now the time to organize a summit...
Registration is open for the ASCO Research Community Forum (RCF) 2019 Annual Meeting. The ASCO RCF Annual Meeting brings together physician-investigators and research staff from across the country for 2 days of learning and collaboration. The meeting offers colleagues from a variety of research...
THE NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE Cancer Network® (NCCN®) recently announced the publication of a new set of recommendations focused on cancers in the small intestine. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) for Small Bowel Adenocarcinoma are the first treatment guidelines in...
Black men suffer disproportionately from prostate cancer, both in terms of incidence and mortality, compared with their white counterparts. However, a newer study conducted by investigators at the University of California, San Francisco, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, found that black...
At the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting, and simultaneously in The New England Journal of Medicine, we heard the third paper reporting results from TAILORx.1,2 The first, in 2015,3 indicated that women with node-negative breast cancers with Oncotype DX recurrence scores less than 11 did extremely well...
THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY Comprehensive Cancer Center–Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC– James) announced the formation of the Pelotonia Institute for Immuno-Oncology (PIIO), a comprehensive bench-to-bedside research initiative focused on harnessing...
CARLA S. FISHER, MD, Medical Director of Breast Surgical Oncology and Associate Professor of Surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, commented on the study that sought to identify HER2- positive patients who do, and do not, need surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. “As...
There were numerous notable presentations at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, many of which were covered in The ASCO Post over the past few months. To add to our continued coverage of this meeting, here are some highlights from studies focusing on novel therapeutics in renal cell carcinoma ...
Breast cancer researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, are beginning to select patients with HER2-positive breast cancer who might forgo surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. While this fine-tuning is currently intended to inform clinical trials—in particular, to ...
Virtual reality can be used to improve functioning in patients with cancer, according to David Rhew, MD, Chief Medical Officer, Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Healthcare, Samsung Electronics America. Research has shown that this technology can decrease pain and improve vision, as...
Polypharmacy (ie, the concurrent use of eight or more medications) and potentially inappropriate medications may be associated with functional impairment in older adults with advanced cancer, according to research presented by Mostafa Mohamed, MBBCh, at the Multinational Association of Supportive...
ON AUGUST 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval to pexidartinib (Turalio) capsules for the treatment of adult patients with symptomatic tenosynovial giant cell tumor associated with severe morbidity or functional limitations and not responsive to improvement with surgery. ...
In the wake of the opioid crisis in the United States, patients with cancer pain are often undeservedly confronted with rigid barriers to receiving the opioids they need. To compound this problem, the research around opioids in cancer pain has been limited—placebo-controlled trials are lacking,...
ON AUGUST 7, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) finalized the decision to cover U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy among recipients of Medicare benefits. FDA-approved CAR T-cell therapies are approved to treat patients ...
Recent studies in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have shown benefit for combining checkpoint inhibitors with chemotherapy. Should combinations, therefore, be the first choice for treating patients with newly diagnosed stage IV disease? Two lung cancer experts debated this point at the 2019...
You don’t have to be a geriatrician to properly evaluate and manage older patients with cancer. The wave of older patients with cancer predicted over 30 years ago is now fully upon us. The oncology community finds itself ill-prepared to manage the increased number of older patients. It is not just...
Thomas Paul Slavin, Jr, MD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, where he is Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Medical Oncology, Division of Clinical Cancer Genomics, and a Program Member of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, commented on these substudy findings. The...
A cell-free DNA test based on the presence of DNA methylation has proven highly specific as a multicancer detection test and appears especially good at detecting high-risk malignancies. In most cases, it can also accurately pinpoint the tumor’s tissue of origin, researchers reported at the 2019...
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted new drug applications for enzalutamide in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer and zanubrutinib in relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma, and granted both applications Priority Review. Priority Review for Enzalutamide in ...
Researchers have developed the largest descriptive genomic analysis of patients with Merkel cell carcinoma to date. Their analysis, published by Knepper et al in Clinical Cancer Research, will provide important information to improve the care and treatment of patients with Merkel cell...
Immunotherapy as a treatment for advanced solid cancers has rapidly evolved over the past decade—often yielding remarkable results. However, its use has also given way to new adverse effects, including drug-induced gastrointestinal and liver toxicities. “Checkpoint inhibitors are a game changer...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Stephanie de Boer, MD, and colleagues, a post hoc updated survival analysis of the phase III PORTEC-3 trial has shown a significant overall survival benefit of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy vs radiotherapy alone in women with high-risk endometrial cancer. A...
In a post hoc 5-year follow-up of the KEYNOTE-006 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that pembrolizumab maintained overall and progression-free survival benefits over ipilimumab in patients with advanced melanoma. In the primary analysis from the...
The Cancer Research Institute (CRI), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the discovery and development of immunotherapies for all types of cancer, recently unveiled the inaugural cohort of scientists chosen for the CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR Program (Scientists Taking Risks). Each “STAR” will receive...
I found my cancer quite accidentally. In March 2018, as I was taking a shower, my hand casually brushed against my right mastoid bone, and I noticed the area sounded hollow. Around the same time, I realized I had developed a sense of fullness in that ear as well. I had been feeling tired, but that...
On August 2, the oral colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor inhibitor pexidartinib was approved for treatment of adult patients with symptomatic tenosynovial giant cell tumor associated with severe morbidity or functional limitations and not amenable to improvement with surgery.1,2 It is the first...
This week, we review the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendation against screening for pancreatic cancer in adults with no symptoms. We also talk about the discovery of a germline mutation that has been newly associated with pancreatic cancer. Lastly, we discuss a U.S. Food and...
GUEST EDITOR Integrative Oncology is guest edited by Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine and Chief of Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. The survival rates of adolescent and young adults with cancer have risen ...
BOOKMARK Title: Breast Fitness: An Optimal Exercise and Health Plan for Reducing Your Risk of Breast CancerAuthors: Anne McTiernan, MD, PhD; Julie Gralow, MD; and Lisa TalbottPublisher: St. Martin’s PressPublication Date: October 2000 (first edition)Price: $48.75, hardcover, 352 pages The...
The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) announced recently that it is launching the MMRF CureCloud, a centralized data hub that generates, aggregates, and visualizes data to accelerate the delivery of precision medicine to patients with multiple myeloma. The CureCloud is a critical part of...
The Companion of the Most Distinguished order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) is generally reserved for ambassadors and leaders of the United Kingdom’s defense and security services. Only 1, 750 appointees are permitted. This year, the Head of M16, the Secret Intelligence Service, was in the...
On July 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the programmed cell death protein 1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with recurrent locally advanced or metastatic esophageal cancer whose tumors express programmed cell death ligand 1...
In an extensive data mining analysis of British medical records, researchers found that taking even a single course of antibiotics might boost—albeit slightly—the risk of developing colon cancer, but not rectal cancer, a decade later. The findings, reported by Zhang et al in Gut,...
Immunotherapy as a treatment for advanced solid cancers has rapidly evolved over the past decade—often yielding remarkable results. However, its use has also given way to new adverse effects, including drug-induced gastrointestinal and liver toxicities. “Checkpoint inhibitors are a game changer...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, Guest Editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Gilberto de Lima...
In late 2018, atezolizumab was approved for use in combination with bevacizumab, paclitaxel, and carboplatin for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberration.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was ...
Hundreds of oncologists are working “side gigs” as expert witnesses in a wide range of medicolegal settings. With increasing conflict related to liability and insurance coverage, the demand continues to grow for objective physicians who are not involved in a specific case, have no personal...
Physicians should attempt to maintain full doses of chemotherapy, especially early in the course of treatment, for patients with intermediate- or high-risk breast cancer, according to research published by Veitch et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The...
In a first-in-human phase I/II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Doran et al found that autologous genetically engineered T cells expressing a T-cell receptor directed against the human papillomavirus (HPV)16 E6 oncoprotein were capable of inducing tumor regression in metastatic,...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded 53 grants to researchers in the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) to conduct multisite cancer clinical trials and cancer care delivery studies in their communities. In addition to seven research hubs, these NCI grants went to 32...
A new population-based study showed that novel oral androgen signaling–inhibitor therapies may be associated with an increased risk of death in patients with preexisting cardiovascular conditions. The research was published by Lu-Yao et al in European Urology. “Data from published ...
In an Italian prospective cohort study reported in JAMA Surgery, Maggino et al found that among patients receiving primary chemotherapy for newly diagnosed pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, conversion to surgical resection was achieved in 24% of those with borderline resectable disease and 9% of...
Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who engaged in moderate exercise while undergoing chemotherapy tended to have delayed progression of their disease and fewer severe side effects from treatment, according to the results of a new study published by Guercio et al in the Journal of Clinical...
Syapse and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) have signed a multiyear research collaboration agreement focused on the use of real-world evidence to support regulatory decision-making. Syapse and the OCE will work with stakeholders across the FDA to...
This week, we review a report on the combination of ibrutinib and rituximab vs standard chemoimmunotherapy in some patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL); a study on cancer statistics in adults aged 85 and older; and a decision from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to acalabrutinib in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), accepted a new drug application for avapritinib in some types of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), and granted 501(k) clearance to market the...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Garcia-Murillas et al found that detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) during follow-up after initial treatment for early breast cancer was associated with a high risk of relapse. Detection at diagnosis was also associated with poorer relapse-free...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to entrectinib (Rozlytrek) for adult and adolescent patients whose cancers have an NTRK (neurotrophic tyrosine receptor kinase) genetic fusion and for whom there are no effective treatments. Entrectinib was also...