In the phase III OPTIMIZE-2 trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that an every-12-week schedule of zoledronic acid was noninferior to an every-4-week schedule with regard to skeletal-related event...
Is there enough evidence to support the incorporation of weight management and physical activity interventions into an oncology practice? And if so, what is the best way to do it? The answer to the first question was a resounding yes from oncologists, patient advocates, dietitians, public health...
Research is still lacking to support a link between obesity and an increased risk of developing all types of cancer. Nevertheless, a review1 of more than 1,000 epidemiologic studies by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization, examining...
On March 30, 2017, osimertinib (Tagrisso) was granted regular approval for the treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M–mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test, who have progressed...
On March 31, 2017, palbociclib (Ibrance) was granted regular approval for treatment of hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer in combination with an aromatase inhibitor as initial endocrine-based therapy in postmenopausal women.1,2 Palbociclib received...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) recognized Mina J. Bissell, PhD, FAACR, with the 14th AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research during the 2017 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. The AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research was established in 2004 ...
On March 27, 2017, the oral poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor niraparib (Zejula) was approved 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...
Radiotherapy at a high enough dose may increase survival in early-stage pancreatic cancer, according to research presented at the European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology (ESTRO) 36 Conference.1 Previous research has suggested that radiotherapy may be of little help in this setting. The...
Here are several abstracts selected from the proceedings of the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, highlighting newer therapeutics in smoldering and relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma. For the full details of these study abstracts, visit...
Adding hydroxychloroquine, an inhibitor of autophagy, to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer increases its efficacy and alters the tumor’s molecular profile in a way that may render the tumor more susceptible to immune checkpoint inhibitors, according to interim data from a phase II...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) seeking approval for treatment of patients with recurrent or advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma who have already...
In a UK study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Allgood et al found that provision of a second timed appointment for breast cancer screening improved screening rates among women who did not attend a first offered appointment. Study Details In the study, women who were invited for breast screening...
As thyroid cancer rates rise, more patients are having surgery to remove all or part of their thyroid. A new study by Papaleontiou et al in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism suggests complications from these procedures are more common than previously believed. Overall, 6.5% of ...
As reported by Hyman et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a basket study has shown activity of an investigational ATP-competitive pan-AKT kinase inhibitor (AZD5363) in solid tumors with AKT1 E17K mutation. Study Details In the study, 52 patients with advanced estrogen...
Patients with colorectal cancer who survive at least 5 years are increasingly likely to die from causes that are common in the general population, highlighting the importance of screening and lifestyle modification, suggested a large cohort study conducted in California.1 The analysis of more than...
Attention is focused among the cancer community on identifying the optimal immunotherapy combinations, with more than 800 ongoing trials of combination therapy. Two studies presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) reported promising preliminary...
Updated results in 51 adults with relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York showed high complete response rates regardless of pre–CAR T disease burden.1 That said, pretreatment...
Platinum-based combination chemotherapy became a mainstay of first-line treatment for metastatic urothelial cancer in the 1980s. With combination platinum-based regimens, 40% to 50% of patients achieve an objective response to treatment. However, aside from approximately 5% to 10% of patients who...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues, the phase II CheckMate 275 trial has shown that nivolumab (Opdivo) produced durable responses in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer who had received at least one prior...
Commenting on the phase I study of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) presented at the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, Attending Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, said: “It is very encouraging to...
Lung cancer persistently remains the leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the United States. Only about 15% of lung cancers are diagnosed at the localized stage, when clinical intervention could markedly improve patient outcomes. For decades, lung cancer specialists and advocacy...
Triple-negative breast cancer is an aggressive disease with no approved targeted therapy, and it remains challenging to treat. Early data from a phase I study suggest that the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) can extend the lives of a subset of women who respond to this checkpoint...
On May 23, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for adult and pediatric patients with unresectable or metastatic, microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) solid tumors that have progressed ...
Puma Biotechnology presented interim results from the phase Ib/II FB-10 clinical trial of the oral pan-HER family irreversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor neratinib given in combination with the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (also known as T-DM1, Kadcyla) at the 2017 American...
In the single-arm phase II MONARCH 1 trial, the investigational cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor abemaciclib achieved an objective response in about 20% of heavily pretreated patients with metastatic hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer and a disease control rate of...
For patients with breast cancer starting on aromatase inhibitors, sexual dysfunction is commonly reported. Early intervention may lessen its impact—but it’s not an easy fix, says a specialist in this area, Leslie R. Schover, PhD. Dr. Schover is Founder of Will2Love, an online sexual health program ...
Cedars-Sinai investigators have identified a stem cell–regulating gene that affects tumor growth in patients with brain cancer and may strongly influence survival rates of patients. The findings, published by Edwards et al in Scientific Reports,1 may move physicians closer to their goal of better...
Spencer C. Hoover, a decorated U.S. Army veteran who joined Henry Ford Health System in 2015, was appointed Vice President and Executive Director of the health system’s Henry Ford Cancer Institute and cancer care services. Mr. Hoover had previously served as Vice President of Planning and Business ...
After phase I results of Seattle Children’s Pediatric Leukemia Adoptive Therapy (PLAT-02) trial, published by Gardner et al in Blood,1 showed T-cell immunotherapy to be effective in sending 93% of patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) into complete initial...
An increasing number of women with ductal carcinoma in situ are undergoing contralateral mastectomy, but the 5-year risk of cancer in the opposite breast is only about 3%, a study from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center recently found.1 Investigators hope these numbers will dissuade women from ...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, James R. Perry, MD, of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, and colleagues found that adding temozolomide to short-course radiotherapy improved overall survival in patients aged at least 65 years with newly diagnosed...
On April 28, 2017, the European Commission approved nivolumab (Opdivo) as monotherapy for the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) in adults with disease progression on or after platinum-based therapy. Nivolumab is the first and only immuno-oncology treatment that has...
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology featured an ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline on the management of small renal masses reported by Finelli and colleagues.1 This comprehensive guideline is written by a group of well-regarded and...
Contemporary triple-modality therapy achieves excellent locoregional tumor control of inflammatory breast cancer, with only 4 locoregional recurrences out of 114 patients treated at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. The investigators described their approach at the...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Landsburg et al found no significant benefit of consolidative autologous stem cell transplantation in patients with double-hit lymphoma after first complete remission. They also found evidence of poorer outcome with front-line R-CHOP...
In patients with stage III/IV melanoma, immunologically “cold” tumors were rendered immunologically active through intratumoral injections of plasmid interleukin-12 (IL-12) combined with pembrolizumab (Keytruda).1 Describing the approach at the 2017 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium,...
Denise A. Galloway, PhD, Associate Director, Human Biology Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, whose research focus is human papillomavirus (HPV), told The ASCO Post that these findings provide new data for the field. “I can’t think of a large study of oral HPV infection in...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Allison W. Kurian, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues, surveys in a population-based sample of patients recently diagnosed with breast cancer indicate that many undergo genetic risk testing without seeing a genetics...
Vaccination against the human papillomavirus (HPV) reduced the risk of acquiring oral HPV infections by 88%, in one of the first large studies to explore vaccination’s impact in the oropharynx. The study will be presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, and the findings were released in advance of ...
A prognostic model proved able to accurately predict long-term outcomes for patients with stage I to III renal cell carcinoma, the developers of the instrument reported at the 2017 National Comprehensive Cancer Network Annual Conference.1 The model was derived from molecular tissue analysis and...
Genetic testing for inherited cancer susceptibility is increasingly part of the care of cancer patients and their relatives. Early clinical guidelines recommended BRCA1/2 testing for women diagnosed with breast or ovarian cancer if they also have a significant family cancer history or Ashkenazi...
In a population-based study reported in a research letter in JAMA, Allison W. Kurian, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues found that genetic testing and genetic counseling are suboptimal among women with newly diagnosed breast cancer.1 Study Details The study involved...
Robert L. Comis, MD, FASCO, Co-Chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, succumbed to a sudden illness at his home and died on May 10, 2017, at the age of 71. A giant in national and international clinical research since 1977, Dr. Comis is known as a champion of patient access to cancer...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Signe Borgquist, MD, PhD, of Lund University, Sweden, and colleagues found that use of cholesterol-lowering medication during adjuvant endocrine therapy was associated with a reduced risk of breast cancer recurrence in hormone...
A Danish study reported in the European Journal of Cancer by Marco Donia, MD, PhD, of the Center for Cancer Immune Therapy, Herlev Hospital, Denmark, and colleagues indicates that more than half of patients with metastatic melanoma do not satisfy requirements for enrollment in phase III trials of...
June 27, 2017, marks the 1-year anniversary since Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, began his tenure as Chief Executive Officer of ASCO. With the launch of the national Cancer Moonshot and the changes in the White House and Congress, it has been a year of tremendous activity drawing on all of...
There is no standard adjuvant therapy for patients with resectable biliary tract cancer, but that may be about to change based on results of the phase III BILCAP trial.1 Adjuvant capecitabine significantly improved overall survival in the BILCAP trial, and this is the first study to show a benefit...
EACH YEAR, the ASCO President chooses a theme for his or her term, which is not a trivial pursuit. Trying to think up something novel and catchy, yet not schmaltzy, is quite a challenge. However, in my year as Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the 2010 ASCO Annual Meeting, then during...
The following essay by Paul A. Bunn, Jr, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org. I grew up in ...
Mark looked at me shyly through his oversized Elvis Costello–style glasses. Was he feeling embarrassed by his own reply or just waiting for my reaction? He was sitting between his mom and dad, wearing a t-shirt with a huge Minion print. His braces showed when he smiled, something he does often in...