In the single-institution phase II PROLUNG trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Oscar Arrieta, MD, and Christian Rolfo, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the addition of pembrolizumab to docetaxel improved objective response rates and progression-free survival in immunotherapy-naive patients with...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Isabelle Ray‑Coquard, MD, PhD, of the Centre Leon Berard, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Groupe d’Investigateurs Nationaux pour l’Etude des Cancers Ovariens (GINECO), Paris, and colleagues, the phase III PAOLA-1 trial has shown a...
As germline genetic testing becomes more widespread among patients with breast cancer, recommendations for the appropriate management of patients with hereditary breast cancer are needed. Until now, no ASCO guideline has addressed the management of hereditary breast cancer, even for carriers of...
For breast imaging, contrast-enhanced mammography, which uses the anatomic imaging of a mammogram in addition to imaging neovascularity, can offer the overall screening capability of standard mammography and the sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at a fraction of the cost of MRI,...
Timothy Chan, MD, PhD, has been appointed Director of the Center for Immunotherapy and Precision Immuno-Oncology at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Chan will lead the new center to bring together multidisciplinary experts from across the Cleveland Clinic enterprise to advance research and treatment related...
Can patients with breast cancer who achieve an “exceptional response” to neoadjuvant therapy safely forgo surgery? That is a question being seriously explored in multinational trials. “We’ve known for a long time that we can eliminate disease in many patients if they have chemosensitive tumors....
Immunotherapy is showing promise for patients with rare cancers, offering new treatment opportunities and clinical trials to those with previously limited options. At the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, presenters discussed the use of immunotherapy in three low-incidence cancers: ...
Omid Hamid, MD, Chief of Research/Immuno-Oncology, The Angeles Clinic & Research Institute, and Co-Director of the Cutaneous Malignancy Program at Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center, Los Angeles, commented on these two studies for The ASCO Post. According to Dr. Hamid, the findings for the tumor...
Several novel strategies for the treatment of patients with stage III or IV melanoma showed promise in studies presented at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.1,2 Vaccine for High-Risk Patients After Resection A tumor lysate, particle-loaded, dendritic cell (TLPLDC) vaccine was...
Systemic treatment of melanoma has changed rapidly since the introduction of ipilimumab in 2011. Newer therapies approved for melanoma since that time include immunotherapy, targeted therapy for mutation-bearing tumors, and injectional therapy for cutaneous or palpable lesions. ASCO has released...
Based on multiple phase III prospective trials, there is evidence that both PARP inhibitors and antiangiogenic therapies such as bevacizumab provide benefit when utilized in a maintenance strategy in the first-line treatment of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (GOG 218, ICON7, SOLO-1, PRIMA,...
Kimlin T. Ashing, PhD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, discusses analyses that showed neighborhoods with lower-income and minority populations had a greater number of tobacco and vape shops, increased use of electronic nicotine delivery systems, and lower-priced tobacco products. This...
Ryan J. Sullivan, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses early results on COM701, a first-in-class immune checkpoint inhibitor, which showed preliminary antitumor activity as a monotherapy and in combination with nivolumab in a variety of heavily pretreated patients with...
Grant A. McArthur, MBBS, PhD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses phase III results from a study of previously untreated patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive advanced melanoma. His team evaluated whether combining vemurafenib and cobimetinib with atezolizumab improved the...
Steven J. O’Day, MD, of the John Wayne Cancer Institute, discusses phase II results for the combination of pembrolizumab with a novel innate immune activator, Imprime PGG, as second-line treatment for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer ( Abstract CT073).
In anticipation of how the COVID-19 pandemic might impact oncology care as the coronavirus spread across New York City, radiation oncologists with expertise in the management of metastatic disease and inpatient oncologic emergencies at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) met in late winter ...
On May 8, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the indication of olaparib (Lynparza) to include its combination with bevacizumab for first-line maintenance treatment of adult patients with advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in...
In a special report published by Malcovati et al in the journal Blood, an international working group of experts in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) has proposed the recognition of a distinct subtype of MDS based on the presence of a nonheritable genetic mutation that causes the disease. The...
In an expansion of a Children’s Oncology Group trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mody et al found that the combination of irinotecan, temozolomide, the anti–disialoganglioside GD2 antibody dinutuximab, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (I/T/DIN/GM-CSF) showed...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ladas et al found that increased dietary intake of antioxidants was associated with reduced risk for bacterial infection and grade ≥ 3 mucositis during induction therapy in pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Study...
Alexandra Leary, MD, PhD, of the Gustave Roussy Institute of Oncology, Paris, underscored the controversy surrounding the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer, suggesting the discord may be “more cultural and emotional than scientific” to some degree. “Some countries, such as ...
The use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for advanced ovarian cancer may not have the negative impact on survival feared by many gynecologic oncologists. In fact, according to a pair of studies that were to have been presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2020 Annual Meeting on Women’s...
In a clinical trial in patients with recurrent uterine serous carcinoma, one-third of study participants responded to treatment with the Wee1 inhibitor adavosertib, according to data presented by Liu et al at a virtual session of the Society for Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women’s...
In a commentary published in The Lancet Oncology, Dinmohamed et al detailed a nationwide reduction in cancer diagnoses in the Netherlands in the several weeks following the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the country compared with the several weeks preceding the first documented case. This...
In a phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Kim et al found that nivolumab showed antitumor activity in patients with advanced refractory biliary tract cancer. As noted by the investigators, there currently is no established second-line systemic treatment for biliary tract cancer. Study Details...
For community oncologists treating patients with chronic myeloid leukemia or chronic lymphocytic leukemia during the COVID-19 pandemic, what resources and clinical pearls would you suggest? Recorded April 24, 2020.
At this time, would you consider pausing therapy—specifically signaling inhibitors and/or monoclonal antibodies—in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia? Recorded April 24, 2020.
Are you treating patients with advanced chronic myeloid leukemia (accelerated phase or blast crisis) any differently during the COVID-19 pandemic? Recorded April 24, 2020.
How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed your approach to the selection of tyrosine kinase inhibitors for the treatment of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia? Recorded April 24, 2020.
Are you proceeding with front-line autologous transplant in patients with mantle cell lymphoma or delaying it during the COVID-19 pandemic? Recorded April 21, 2020.
For community oncologists treating patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma during the COVID-19 pandemic, what resources and clinical pearls would you suggest? Recorded April 21, 2020.
How have the activities of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic? Recorded April 21, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, would you still recommend immediate upfront autologous transplant in patients with T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma? Recorded April 21, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when and why would you consider delaying autologous transplant for patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma in second complete remission? Recorded April 21, 2020.
Are you testing for COVID-19 before administering therapy on an outpatient basis for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma? Recorded April 21, 2020.
William Dale, MD, PhD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, discusses vulnerable populations—older adults and those with psychosocial or mental health concerns—and reviews best practices for treatment decisions, social distancing, and maintaining emotional health. Recorded April 15, 2020.
On May 6, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to capmatinib (Tabrecta) for adult patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have a mutation that leads to mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) exon 14 skipping as detected by...
Patients with cancer who were infected with COVID-19 were much more likely to die from the disease than those without cancer, according to research from physician-researchers at Montefiore Health System and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Their findings were published by Mehta et al in Cancer...
In the single-arm phase III OLYMPUS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kleinmann et al found that primary chemoablation of low-grade upper tract urothelial carcinoma using a mitomycin-containing reverse thermal gel (UGN-101) resulted in disease eradication in more than half of patients. As...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Getz et al found that use of dexrazoxane was associated with preservation of cardiac function in pediatric patients receiving front-line treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and resulted in no adverse effects on treatment outcomes. As...
As reported in The Lancet by Brunt et al, 5-year findings from the phase III FAST-Forward trial indicated that adjuvant radiotherapy with 26 Gy in 5 fractions over 1 week was noninferior to 40 Gy in 15 fractions over 3 weeks in preventing local tumor relapse in women with early-stage breast ...
This week, we’ll start off with a report that showed that ibrutinib may help to protect patients infected with COVID-19 from pulmonary injury due to the disease. Next, we’ll move onto a report from the AACR Virtual Annual Meeting on talazoparib in patients with locally advanced or metastatic...
“The hypothesis of combining kinase inhibitors with checkpoint inhibitors could be a fantastic idea,” said formal study discussant Charles Sawyers, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. “This trial [IMspire150] is positive, and that is great news. Triple therapy is superior to...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to two targeted therapies (the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib) as initial therapy improved outcomes compared with the two targeted therapies plus placebo in patients with newly diagnosed BRAF V600E/K–mutant advanced ...
The treatment of colorectal cancer has always been something of an art—but never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ASCO Post asked three experts in this malignancy to share their concerns and their approaches to achieving good patient outcomes while minimizing the risk of COVID-19...
A randomized multicenter study of a combination of immunotherapy with a targeted therapy improved cancer control for some patients with biliary tract cancer, according to research presented by Yarchoan et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting (Abstract...
A team of researchers and patient advocates have addressed the challenges related to traveling after receiving radiation therapy involving Lu-177 dotatate in a study published by Kendi et al in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Due to the residual radiation activity of Lu-177 dotatate, some patients ...
In the phase II monarcHER trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Sara M. Tolaney, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of abemaciclib, fulvestrant, and trastuzumab prolonged progression-free survival vs trastuzumab plus standard-of-care chemotherapy in patients with previously treated...
In a Japanese phase Ib/dose-expansion trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fukuoka et al found that the combination of regorafenib and nivolumab showed activity in patients with previously treated gastric cancer and colorectal cancer with microsatellite stable/mismatch...