This week, we’ll discuss a study that compared two combination treatments for previously untreated patients with localized pancreatic cancer. Then, we’ll explore whether a longer-established diagnosis of cancer is associated with higher risk of severe COVID-19 infection or death from the virus....
On July 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib (Cotellic) and the selective BRAF kinase inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf) for the treatment of patients with advanced BRAF V600 mutation–positive...
Peripheral neuropathy is one of the most prominent chronic side effects of chemotherapy and can linger for years, causing discomfort as well as impaired functionality and quality of life. Yet oncologists have struggled to identify definitive treatment and prevention strategies. In an effort to help ...
In an interim analysis of a joint Children’s Oncology Group and NRG Oncology phase II trial (ARST1321) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Aaron R. Weiss, DO, and colleagues found that the addition of pazopanib to preoperative chemoradiotherapy significantly increased the rate of pathologic...
Xavier Llor, MD, PhD, of Yale University School of Medicine, discusses the steep rise of early-onset colorectal cancer over the past 15 years, which cannot be explained by genetic predisposition but may be prompted by environmental factors (Session ED35).
In a study of genome-wide somatic alterations in multiple myeloma reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Samur et al identified a subgroup of patients with superior outcomes who are not adequately identified by traditional risk markers. The study involved analysis of deep whole-genome...
Periodontal disease was associated with an increased risk of two precursors of colorectal cancer, according to results of a study published by Lo et al in Cancer Prevention Research. “Periodontal disease is prevalent among adults, with periodontitis affecting more than 40% of the U.S. population,”...
An updated cervical cancer screening guideline from the American Cancer Society released today has called for less—and more simplified—screening. The guideline was published by Fontham et al in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The updated guideline recommends that individuals with a cervix...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Kang et al, the Japanese-Korean phase III SOLAR trial showed that oral tegafur/gimeracil/oteracil, a combination known as S-1, plus leucovorin and oxaliplatin was associated with a modest but significant improvement in overall survival vs S-1 plus cisplatin in...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Grob et al, the first interim analysis of the phase II KEYNOTE-629 trial has shown that treatment with pembrolizumab resulted in durable responses in patients with recurrent or metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. The study supported the...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer took place from July 20 to 22, 2020, attracting top scientific minds from around the world to present preliminary research on the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic and its intersection with cancer care. In an...
Leonard B. Saltz, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses interventional pharmacoeconomics as an important tool that can offer patients with cancer more efficacious and cost-effective care. Pharmacoeconomics may help reduce the high costs of cancer therapy, with evidence-based...
Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, summarizes a special panel discussion on ways to eliminate cancer health disparities among racial and ethnic minorities. Increasing minority representation in clinical trials, thus ensuring...
Study results documenting parental hesitancy to begin and complete their child's human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine series were published by Sonawane et al in The Lancet Public Health. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a two-dose HPV vaccination regimen for children if the...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Daniel O. Persky, MD, and colleagues, the phase II Intergroup National Clinical Trials Network Study S1001 has shown good outcomes with positron-emission tomography (PET)-directed therapy in patients with limited-stage diffuse large B-cell lymphoma ...
In a population-based modeling study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Maringe et al estimated that delays in diagnosis due to the COVID-19 pandemic could result in 3,291 to 3,621 additional deaths from breast, colorectal, esophageal, and lung cancers within 5 years. As stated by the investigators,...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Matteo Lambertini, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that pregnancy after breast cancer in women harboring deleterious germline BRCA mutations did not appear to be associated with worsened maternal prognosis or fetal...
American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) President Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, of UCLA School of Medicine, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, commented on this study with statins and ovarian cancer: “This large study based on the records of more than 10,000 women over a 10-year...
Lipophilic statin use was associated with a reduced risk of dying of epithelial ovarian cancer in a large observational study. Compared with never users, women with epithelial ovarian cancer who were taking any type of statins had a reduced mortality of 40%, and those taking lipophilic statins had...
Alfonso Bencomo Álvarez, PhD, of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, discusses his retrospective study of the incidence and survival for patients with hematologic malignancies residing at the United States/Mexico border. The analysis showed that 10-year survival rates for Hispanic...
Study discussant Michele Teng, PhD, of QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia, commented: “Cancer immunotherapy is a new pillar of cancer treatment. The aim is to improve the overall survival of patients with cancer, but there is room for improvement, and various...
Tiragolumab, an anti-TIGIT antibody, plus the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab exhibited early clinical activity and was tolerated in patients with advanced solid tumors, including those with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that was PD-L1–positive and untreated with prior checkpoint...
Today, the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) Executive Committee announced that the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium will take place in 2020. However, in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic, the Executive Committee has made the decision—out of necessity to...
According to research published by Russell et al in Frontiers in Oncology, patients with a longer-established diagnosis of cancer are at increased risk for more severe infection with COVID-19, as well as death from the virus. Patients of Asian ethnicity or who were receiving palliative treatment...
As reported in The Lancet by Meletios Dimopoulos, MD, and colleagues, the phase III CANDOR trial has shown prolonged progression-free survival with carfilzomib, dexamethasone, and daratumumab (KdD) vs carfilzomib and dexamethasone (Kd) in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma....
In a retrospective cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chao et al found that survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer were at increased risk of numerous chronic comorbidities vs the general population. Study Details The study involved data from 6,778 ≥ 2-year...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Tamirisa et al found evidence that adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with improved survival among patients age ≥ 70 years with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative, node-positive breast cancer and multiple comorbidities. Study...
Hear from thoracic oncology experts Drs. Ramaglingam, Brahmer, and Wakelee about the current and emerging treatment landscape for mesothelioma. In this video, they discuss first-line treatment data from the DREAM, PrECOG, and CheckMate 743 trials, as well as second-line gemcitabine plus ramucirumab ...
In this video, Drs. Ramaglingam, Brahmer, and Wakelee discuss the latest in emerging data on the treatment of small cell lung cancer. They highlight several recent clinical trials, including IMpower133, CASPIAN, ECOG-ACRIN EA5161, and KEYNOTE-604 in the first-line setting, and phase II data on...
Drs. Ramalingam, Brahmer, and Wakelee review the role of KRAS G12C mutation in lung cancer, which is found is 13% of all non–small cell lung cancer. They highlight two investigational therapies, AMG 510 and MRTX 849, and discuss recently presented data.
Listen to three experts in the field of thoracic oncology—Drs. Ramalingam, Brahmer, and Wakelee—discuss the latest advances in the treatment of EGFR-mutant, early-stage non–small cell lung cancer, including recent data from the ADAURA and CTONG1104 trials, both presented during the ASCO20 Virtual...
In this video, Drs. Ramalingam, Brahmer, and Wakelee discuss the latest in emerging data on chemo/immunotherapy and immunotherapy-based combination approaches for the treatment of non–small cell lung cancer. They review recent data presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, including...
The study’s invited discussant, Philip A. Philip, MD, PhD, FRCP, Professor of Oncology, Pharmacology, and Medicine and the Kathryn Cramer Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, asked whether another triplet regimen was...
Stacey A. Fedewa, PhD, of the American Cancer Society, discusses the increasing incidence rates of colorectal, breast, kidney, thyroid, uterine corpus, and cervical disease in younger patients. Data show that colorectal cancer is increasing most rapidly, while breast cancer—the most common cancer...
In a small single-center randomized trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, David Hui, MD, MS, MSc, and colleagues found that increasing haloperidol dose, rotating to chlorpromazine, and combining haloperidol and chlorpromazine each appeared to improve refractory agitation in patients with terminal...
In patients with newly diagnosed locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma, treatment with liposomal irinotecan plus fluorouracil (5-FU), leucovorin, and oxaliplatin (NALIRIFOX) resulted in a median progression-free survival of 9.2 months and a median overall survival of 12.6 months, ...
Jonathan W. Friedberg, MD, MMSc, has been appointed as the next Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO), the flagship journal of ASCO. JCO publishes cutting-edge research on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with cancer and is one of the most highly cited oncology journals...
On July 24, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to brexucabtagene autoleucel (Tecartus), a CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T-cell immunotherapy, for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma. “Tremendous...
David Sallman, MD, Assistant Member of the Malignant Hematology Department at Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida, commented on these findings for The ASCO Post. “Although the hypomethylating agent azacitidine represents a standard of care for higher-risk myelodysplastic...
In higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a global phase II open-label study found that the combination of pevonedistat plus azacitidine was associated with a trend toward improved event-free survival and numerically longer overall survival, as compared with azacitidine alone, according to...
This week, we'll discuss phase II results on cabozantinib in patients with advanced bladder cancer. Then, we'll review a study on behaviors related to COVID-19 prevention among cancer survivors. Lastly, we'll hear a discussion about the keynote lecture presented at the First International Summit on ...
Marcella Nunez-Smith, MD, MHS, has been appointed Director of the Center for Community Engagement and Health Equity for Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital, as well as Chief Health Equity Officer and Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Smilow and Associate Cancer Center Director for Community ...
“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane because it often results in physical death. I see no alternative to direct action and creative nonviolence to raise the conscience of the nation.” —Martin Luther King, Jr, speaking before the Medical...
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,...
In hindsight, the symptoms I began experiencing in the winter of 2013, including pains in my chest and shoulders and a persistent cough, should have rung loud alarm bells. However, having undergone a pancreatectomy and splenectomy to cure a history of mucinous cystic neoplasms of the pancreas 5...
Markus Müschen, MD, PhD, has been appointed the inaugural Director of the Center of Molecular and Cellular Oncology at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital. “As an innovative and highly productive physician-scientist, Dr. Müschen’s leadership experience and mentorship will be a tremendous...
Carolyn J. Anderson, PhD, has been named the 2020 recipient of the Paul C. Aebersold Award. Dr. Anderson is a Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Radiology, Bioengineering, Chemistry, and Pharmacology and Chemical Biology at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. The award was...
LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr, MD, the Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC, died on May 25, 2019, at the age of 89. The ASCO Post paid tribute to Dr. Leffall in its July 10, 2019, issue. Here, as part of our 10-Year Anniversary Series, we...
As medical professionals increasingly turn to online learning opportunities in the midst of COVID-19 restrictions on travel and gatherings, ASCO eLearning delivers valuable, up-to-date clinical care courses for physicians, nurses, and advanced practitioners on a robust platform that can be easily...
ASCO’s CancerLinQ® has launched the SmartLinQ™ QOPI® Certification Pathway, an application that empowers oncology practices to automate quality measure tracking and reporting for participation in ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) Certification Program, a 3-year certification...