As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Buske et al, the final analysis of the pivotal phase III iNNOVATE trial has shown a continued progression-free survival benefit with the addition of ibrutinib to rituximab in patients with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia after 50 months of...
A new report finds that more than 46,000 cancer cases annually in the United States could be prevented if Americans met the 5 hours per week of moderate-intensity activity recommended in the American Cancer Society’s physical activity guidelines. Recent findings published by Minihan et al in the...
The AACR Cancer Progress Report 2021 celebrates the gains made in cancer research since the National Cancer Act was signed into law on December 23, 1971. The report also recognizes the negative impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on cancer research and patient care, the disproportionate toll both...
Long-term analysis of the Short-HER trial showed that 9 weeks of adjuvant trastuzumab conveyed benefits comparable to a 1-year course in patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer deemed to be at low or intermediate risk for recurrence. High-risk patients, however, derived considerably more...
With three new HER2-targeted therapies approved over the past year or two alone, the treatment landscape for patients with metastatic breast cancer has become increasingly crowded. In the third-line setting and beyond, there are now at least eight HER2-targeted agents approved by the U.S. Food and...
C. Kent Osborne, MD, Founding Director of the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Dudley and Tina Sharp Chair for Cancer Research, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, said in a press briefing that the results of the study were clear, but the explanation for the findings is less so....
The past decade has seen an explosion of novel agents for breast cancer across subtypes. Although each new advance improves therapeutic options for patients, it also brings forth a challenging question: Who needs what treatment? Not all cancers are created equally, and similarly not all patients...
2021 marks the 20th year of collaboration between ASCO; Conquer Cancer®, the ASCO Foundation; and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation® (BCRF). BCRF’s pivotal support during the past 2 decades has been critical to both organizations’ shared achievements in funding breakthroughs in breast cancer...
In a UK trial (CAVA) reported in The Lancet, Jonathan G. Moss, MBChB, FRCR, of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences, University of Glasgow, and colleagues found that among central venous access devices, totally implanted ports (PORTs) were associated with significantly reduced rates ...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Marcia S. Brose, MD, Abramson Cancer Center, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues, the phase III COSMIC-311 trial has shown that cabozantinib produced a numerically higher objective response rate and significantly prolonged progression-free survival vs...
Adjuvant pembrolizumab reduced the risk of recurrence in adults and children older than age 12 with high-risk stage II (AJCC 8th edition, stage IIB/IIC) melanoma vs placebo, according to a late-breaking interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-716 trial, presented during the European Society for...
Black patients with prostate cancer who were treated with the androgen receptor inhibitor darolutamide had clinical outcomes similar to those observed in the overall clinical trial population, according to results from the phase III ARAMIS trial presented by Neal Shore, MD, at the 14th AACR...
Ensuring equitable cancer care for every patient, everywhere has been embedded into ASCO’s mission statement since the Society’s inception nearly 60 years ago. Nevertheless, events of the past year, including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionally impacted minority communities, ...
In a letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine, Jocelyn Keehner, MD, of the University of California San Diego Health (UCSDH), and colleagues describe a marked resurgence of COVID-19 infections among fully vaccinated workers in the UCSDH workforce in July 2021.1 The resurgence...
Study discussant Jyoti Patel, MD, Medical Director of Thoracic Oncology and Assistant Director for Clinical Research at the Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University, Chicago, called the research “important for many reasons.” Although the study analyzed data from both open and closed claims,...
Worldwide, cervical cancer is the fifth most commonly occurring cancer in women, mostly due to human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. In 2020, globally, an estimated 604,237 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer and about 341,843 died from the disease. In the United States, in 2021, it is...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Juan W. Valle, MD, and colleagues found that no progression-free survival benefit was achieved with the addition of either the VEGFR2 inhibitor ramucirumab or the MEK inhibitor merestinib to first-line cisplatin/gemcitabine chemotherapy in...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Burke et al found that dose-adjusted etoposide, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide with vincristine and prednisone plus rituximab (DA-EPOCH-R) did not improve event-free survival vs historical controls in children and adolescents with ...
In the phase III IMpower010 trial reported in The Lancet, Enriqueta Felip, MD, and colleagues found that the use of adjuvant atezolizumab after adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy significantly improved disease-free survival vs best supportive care in patients with resected stage II to IIIA...
Eleven years ago this month, the scans and exams that hold the most power to spot the early signs of cancer became available for free to many American adults through the passing of the Affordable Care Act. Now, two new studies show that when those screening tests reveal potentially troubling signs, ...
A new study published by Jingxuan Zhao, MPH, and colleagues in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention found racial/ethnic disparities in survival among newly diagnosed patients with childhood cancers in the United States, and that area-level socioeconomic status and health insurance...
In a single-center phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Kazandjian et al found that triplet therapy with carfilzomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (KRd), followed by lenalidomide maintenance, produced high rates of measurable residual disease (MRD)-negative complete response and freedom...
An international cross-sectional survey reported in The Lancet Oncology by Fundytus et al found that access to cancer medicines considered essential by oncologists is lacking across the spectrum of low- and lower middle–income to high-income countries. As stated by the investigators, “The World...
A new paper published by Geuzinge et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute indicates that adding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to mammography is cost-effective for detecting breast cancer in women with very dense breasts. About 10% of women have extremely dense breasts, and...
In a single-center phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Elamin et al found that the tyrosine kinase inhibitor poziotinib showed activity in previously treated patients with HER2 exon 20–mutant advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). As related by the investigators,...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Philippe Moreau, MD, and colleagues, an interim analysis of part 2 of the phase III CASSIOPEIA trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with maintenance daratumumab vs observation following induction and consolidation with or without...
A pilot program developed by researchers at Yale Cancer Center that offers patients next-day access for oncologic consultation showed reduced wait times for initial access to cancer care and increased patient satisfaction, according to a new report presented by Mougalian et al at the 2021 ASCO...
Breast cancer survivors who participated in Active Living After Cancer, an evidence-based 12-week group program, markedly increased their physical activity and ability to accomplish the basic pursuits of daily life, reported Tami-Maury et al in the journal Cancer. The results show the program could ...
On August 25, 2021, ivosidenib was approved for adults with previously treated, locally advanced or metastatic cholangiocarcinoma with an IDH1 mutation, as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test.1 The FDA simultaneously approved the Oncomine Dx Target Test as a...
With a population under half a million people, Brunei Darussalam is a small equatorial nation in Southeast Asia. Bordered by the South China Sea on the north, Brunei Darussalam is surrounded on all other sides by Malaysia, which separates the nation into two noncontiguous parts. Nearly two-thirds...
Katherine Van Loon, MD, MPH, was raised in Miami, until the age of 12, and then her family relocated to Atlanta, where she spent her junior and high school years. “If you ask my parents about my decision to become a doctor, they will say I first declared it at age 5. Nobody knew how that idea came...
On August 19, 2021, the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab was approved for adjuvant treatment of patients with urothelial carcinoma who are at high risk of recurrence after undergoing radical resection.1 This is the first approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for adjuvant treatment of patients...
On August 10, 2021, the combination of lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab was approved for first-line treatment of adults with advanced renal cell carcinoma.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings from the three-arm, open-label, phase III CLEAR trial (Study 307/KEYNOTE-581;...
“The Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) commends the Biden Administration for proposing to rescind the Most Favored Nation (MFN) model from consideration. ASCO has consistently opposed the ill-advised MFN model, as it would have had a devastating impact on people with cancer. “The proposed...
On September 10, 2021, Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) released the following statement: “I wanted to share an update about my health. In February of this year, doctors at Mayo Clinic found small white spots called calcifications during a routine mammogram. After this was discovered, I had a biopsy...
During the opening session of the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, Julio Frenk, MD, PhD, MPH, President of the University of Miami, gave a riveting presentation in which he described the devastating effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on patients with cancer as well as on fragile and fragmented...
On August 17, 2021, dostarlimab-gxly, aPD-1 blocking monoclonal antibody, was granted accelerated approval for adults with mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) recurrent or advanced solid tumors, as determined by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test, who have had disease progression...
As ASCO Annual Meeting attendees know by now, clinicians don’t have to be at McCormick Place to hear practice-changing findings and forward-looking advances in the field of oncology. Interesting content was no exception at the 2021 conference, so in addition to covering the biggest news from the...
The first randomized study in patients with malignant pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma has found that sunitinib prolongs progression-free survival by more than 5 months. The late-breaking results of the FIRSTMAPPP trial were presented by Eric Baudin, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the European...
Antibody-drug conjugates are improving outcomes of patients with lymphoma, often those who have exhausted treatment options after chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. Four available antibody-drug conjugates are in the clinic, with brentuximab vedotin moving into the front-line...
The phase II ANCHOR CRC study, the largest prospective study of BRAF inhibitor–based therapy as first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, has met its primary endpoint, with 47.8% of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer responding to first-line treatment with encorafenib,...
The randomized phase III controlled GETUG/AFU VESPER V05 trial was designed to compare the efficacy of two perioperative treatment regimens—gemcitabine/cisplatin or dose-dense methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin (dd-MVAC)—in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The...
In the phase II DESTINY-Lung01 trial, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2021 (Abstract LBA45) and concurrently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, and colleagues found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki produced durable...
In an analysis from a Blood or Marrow Transplant Survivor Study cohort reported in JAMA Oncology, Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that late mortality among patients undergoing allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation for hematologic malignancies has declined over the past 40 years,...
Adjuvant pembrolizumab reduced the risk of disease recurrence in adults and children aged 12 years and older with high-risk stage II melanoma vs placebo, according to a late-breaking interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-716 trial presented by Jason J. Luke, MD, and colleagues at the European...
In a simulation-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ward et al estimated that delay in diagnosis due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile will lead to an early surge of newly diagnosed cancers at later stages, resulting in excess mortality over the next 10 years. As stated by the...
Fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival vs trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) in second-line treatment for HER2-positive unresectable or metastatic breast cancer, according to results from the global phase III DESTINY-Breast03...
Bintrafusp alfa, a first-in-class bifunctional fusion protein composed of the extracellular domain of the TGF-βRII receptor fused to a human IgG1 monoclonal antibody blocking PD-L1, showed long-term efficacy and a manageable safety profile in patients with pretreated, immune checkpoint...
According to the investigators, the SENTOR trial suggests that sentinel lymph node biopsy should be considered for the surgical staging of apparent clinical stage I endometrial cancer with no evidence of extrauterine disease on imaging or intraoperative survey.1 “If [sentinel lymph node biopsy] is...
In advanced ovarian cancer, the duration of maintenance bevacizumab should remain 15 months, according to the European multicenter phase III ENGOT/GCIG trial. These results were presented during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting by Jacobus Pfisterer, MD, PhD, of the AGO Study Group and Gynecologic...