In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Johann de Bono, MB, ChB, PhD, and colleagues found that olaparib significantly improved progression-free survival vs hormonal therapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who had alterations in the...
Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, of Yale Cancer Center, discusses study results on durvalumab in combination with olaparib and paclitaxel as neoadjuvant treatment in patients with high-risk HER2-negative stage II/III breast cancer. Compared with patients who received chemotherapy alone, the combination...
For community oncologists treating patients with multiple myeloma during the COVID-19 pandemic, what resources and clinical pearls would you suggest? Recorded April 24, 2020.
Christopher D'Avella, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses the impact of his institution’s oncologic urgent care center, designed to triage patients and prevent hospital admissions. Patients who presented to the direct referral unit had lower health-care expenses vs those who went to the...
Pam Baker DeGuzman, PhD, of the University of Virginia School of Nursing, discusses her study findings on the use of the NCCN Distress Thermometer, which identified and addressed distress in patients treated for head and neck cancer who were then referred to speech pathologists, lymphedema...
An artificial intelligence (AI) model for automated classification of colorectal polyps could benefit cancer screening programs by improving efficiency, reproducibility, and accuracy, as well as reducing access barriers to pathology services. In a new study published by Wei et al in JAMA Network...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the investigational antiviral drug remdesivir for the treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease. Severe disease is defined as low...
In a pooled analysis reported in the journal Bone Marrow Transplantation, Costa et al found that autologous followed by reduced-intensity conditioning allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (auto-allo) was associated with longer overall survival compared with tandem autologous...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Suzanne L. Topalian, MD, and colleagues, neoadjuvant treatment with nivolumab was found to produce pathologic complete response in approximately half of patients with resectable Merkel cell carcinoma enrolled in the phase I/II CheckMate 358 trial....
An article by Waterhouse et al in JCO Oncology Practice presented results of a recent ASCO survey of clinical programs exploring the early impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the performance of oncology clinical trials. Results highlighted the numerous issues faced by the programs, steps that are...
For patients with multiple myeloma who are currently on clinical trials, what are the most pressing issues as we fight COVID-19? Recorded April 24, 2020.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has your management strategy changed for post-transplant consolidation and maintenance therapy in patients with multiple myeloma? Recorded April 24, 2020.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, do you suggest delaying upfront autologous transplant for patients with multiple myeloma? Recorded April 24, 2020.
Rafal Dziadziuszko, MD, PhD, of the Medical University of Gdansk, talks about the adjustments to cancer care that he and his colleagues have made, how and when they employ telemedicine, and whether the technology could change the future for clinical practice. Filmed April 24, 2020.
As a result of COVID-19, has your decision model for front-line therapy changed for patients with multiple myeloma who are either transplant-eligible or ineligible? Recorded April 24, 2020.
Rafal Dziadziuszko, MD, PhD, of the Medical University of Gdansk, discusses the concerns his patients with cancer have about exposure to COVID-19 when they come to his institution for care and how he manages their fears. Filmed April 24, 2020.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is perhaps the biggest challenge health-care systems have ever had to face. As part of a series of interviews The ASCO Post is conducting with oncologists, we talked with Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, about the impact of COVID-19 on his practice and on the conduct...
Before the dawn of the modern antibiotic era and amid the chaos of World War II, future Professor of Radiology and Founding Dean of two American medical colleges, Dr. George T. Harrell,* penned what could now be argued was far too bold a statement. As the opening lines of his nonrandomized study...
On May 1, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj (Darzalex Faspro) for adult patients with newly diagnosed, relapsed, or refractory multiple myeloma. This new product allows for subcutaneous dosing of daratumumab. Daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj...
Over the past 2 weeks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML); Fast Track designations for agents in pancreatic cancer and pancreatic/nonpancreatic neuroendocrine tumors; approvals for companion diagnostic tests;...
Black patients with stage I to III melanoma are likely to experience a longer delay from diagnosis to surgery than non-Hispanic white patients, according to a study published by Tripathi et al in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. “We already knew that black patients with melanoma...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Todd A. Yezefski, MD, and colleagues found that the cost of first-line systemic therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer was higher in Western Washington state compared with British Columbia and that survival outcomes were similar. A stated by the...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vaz-Luis et al found that the use of a prespecified algorithm enabled the avoidance of routine peg-filgrastim prophylaxis during the paclitaxel portion of neoadjuvant or adjuvant treatment with dose-dense...
The I-SPY2 trial found that the combination of the checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, the PARP inhibitor olaparib, and the taxane paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide as neoadjuvant therapy improved pathologic complete responses vs paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide...
The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has challenged us, as a society, to evaluate our core values and philosophy. Ventilators, a precious and limited commodity, are now in short supply. Humanity is at a precipice, and we physicians are facing an ethical dilemma, how best to allocate ventilators, and, ...
In a Canadian study reported in JAMA Oncology, Raphael et al found that interruption and noncompletion of definitive radiation and chemoradiation for patients with squamous cell anal carcinoma were common, and that failure to complete radiation and chemoradiation was associated with poorer...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Noelle V. Frey, MD, and colleagues, a higher dose of anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells was associated with a higher rate of complete response in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia, with...
A new study published by Yabroff et al in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute found disruptions in health insurance coverage are common in the United States and are associated with poorer cancer care and survival. Disruptions can be caused by gaps in insurance coverage or transitions ...
A special report published by Oudkerk et al in the journal Radiology outlined strategies for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of thromboembolic complications in patients with COVID-19. Based on recent reports that demonstrated a strong association between elevated D-dimer levels and poor...
Barbara DeVivo, PhD, MBA, of Westmont College, talks about how the culture and structure of tumor boards—and their invisible status hierarchies—may hamper collaboration and influence the way providers treat patients with cancer (Abstract BPI20-020).
In dealing with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), some oncologists are modifying conventional treatment regimens to limit patients’ visits to infusion centers and providers’ offices. The ASCO Post asked C. Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, Chief of the Myeloma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer...
On April 29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved niraparib (Zejula) for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in a complete or partial response to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy....
A risk-prediction model that combined genetic and clinical factors with circulating biomarkers may help to identify people at a significantly higher-than-normal risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to results of a study published by Peter Kraft, PhD, and colleagues in Cancer...
First results from the TERAVOLT (Thoracic cancERs international coVid 19 cOLlaboraTion) registry for thoracic cancers—presented by Marina C. Garassino, MD, at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting in the COVID-19 and Cancer Session—indicate a high mortality rate ...
In a multi-institutional Chinese study reported at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting in the COVID-19 and Cancer Session and in Cancer Discovery, Dai et al found that the risk of severe events as a result of COVID-19 infection was higher in patients with...
In a phase II NRG Oncology trial (NRG GY003) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the addition of ipilimumab to nivolumab improved objective response rate and progression-free survival in women with persistent or recurrent epithelial...
On April 28, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to a new dosing regimen for pembrolizumab (Keytruda)—400 mg every 6 weeks—across all currently approved adult indications, in addition to the current 200 mg every 3 weeks dosing regimen. The approval was based on...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had a very busy 10 or so days, so this week, we’ll go over five recent oncology and hematology approvals the Agency issued, in bladder cancer, breast cancer, bile duct cancer, and leukemia.
The Circulating Cell-free Genome Atlas Study is a large multicenter, case-controlled, observational study of 15,254 participants, 56% with cancer and 44% without cancer, with longitudinal follow-up to support the development of a cell-free DNA (cfDNA) multicancer early detection test. In this phase ...
An analysis investigating the socioecologic context of tobacco and vape shops in Los Angeles has found that vape shops are more likely to be concentrated in low-resource communities. The communities also tended to have higher concentrations of minority residents and fewer tobacco and vaping sales...
A randomized clinical trial offers evidence that a combination of two targeted melanoma drugs, when given continuously, improves progression-free survival when compared with intermittent treatment, according to study results presented by Algazi et al at the American Association for Cancer Research...
A group of clinicians from New York City sought to determine if patients with cancer and COVID-19 in the United States have a poor prognosis. In an article published as a pre-proof in Annals of Oncology, Miyashita et al analyzed the electronic medical records from the Mount Sinai Health System, and ...
ASCO (the Society) and its affiliate organization the Association for Clinical Oncology (the Association) recently announced the results of a survey that tracked the initial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer clinical trials, highlighted a new research initiative to address the data gap on...
Jacek Jassem, MD, PhD, of the Medical University of Gdansk, and an international editor on The ASCO Post Editorial Board, talks about the situation in Poland, how his institution is coping, and the adjustments the staff has made to deliver quality cancer care. Filmed April 17, 2020.
Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori in Naples, Italy, talks about minimizing risks for patients with cancer, prioritizing surgery and other treatments for melanoma, and the state of clinical trials. Filmed April 17, 2020.
“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.” ―Hippocrates The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that occasionally quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib and Connors...
As reported by Joseph et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, follow-up in a large cohort of patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma indicates good long-term outcomes with consecutive treatment with lenalidomide/bortezomib/dexamethasone (RVD) induction therapy and risk-adapted maintenance ...
The TRACERx study investigated phylogenetic tracking and minimal residual disease (MRD) detection using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) profiling following resection in patients with stage I to III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Investigators found that ctDNA is an adjuvant biomarker capable of...
New data from the phase III EMBRACA trial showed the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor talazoparib did not produce a statistically significant overall survival benefit for patients with locally advanced or metastatic HER2-negative germline BRCA-mutated breast cancer. Most patients...
In a single-institution analysis reported in the journal Pancreas, Khetan et al found that age at diagnosis, perineural invasion, and elevated preoperative chromogranin levels may be associated with an increased risk of disease progression in patients with advanced grade 1 or 2 small-bowel...