Despite advances in prevention, early detection, and treatments, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. Although cigarette smoking is the main cause of lung cancer, about 10% of these patients are lifelong never smokers for whom the molecular...
For nearly 20 years, chemoradiation using single-agent platinum therapy has been the standard of care for advanced or recurrent cervical cancer.1 More recently, the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) 240 trial tested the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to platinum-based chemotherapy, which...
In the phase III MURANO trial, treatment with the targeted cancer drug venetoclax (Venclexta) in combination with rituximab (Rituxan) more than doubled the likelihood that patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) would survive for 2 years without cancer progression, compared to treatment...
The phase III BELLE-3 trial has shown prolonged progression-free survival but a worse safety profile with the addition of the pan-phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitor buparlisib to fulvestrant (Faslodex) in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast...
On November 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved CDx (F1CDx), a breakthrough-designated, next-generation sequencing–based in vitro diagnostic test that can detect genetic mutations in 324 genes and 2 genomic signatures in any solid tumor type. The Centers for Medicare &...
Patients with advanced HER2-negative breast cancer with germline BRCA mutations had significantly prolonged progression-free survival when treated with the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor talazoparib, compared with those who received chemotherapy of physician’s choice, according...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Thomas Karn, PhD, of Goethe-University Frankfurt, and colleagues found that triple-negative breast cancers with high immune gene expression levels were characterized by lower clonal heterogeneity, reduced copy number alterations, and lower somatic mutation,...
BOOKMARK Title: Cancer: What You Need to Know: Overcome the 10 Common Mistakes Patients MakeAuthor: Stephen A. Rosenberg, MDPublisher: Stephen Rosenberg, MDYear Published: November 2017Price: $9.99, paperback, 248 pages Stephen A. Rosenberg, MD, is Chief Resident in Radiation Oncology at the...
BOOKMARK Title: Tripping Over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine’s Most Entrenched ParadigmsAuthor: Travis Christofferson, MSPublisher: Chelsea Green PublishingPublication Date: February 2017Price: $24.95, hardcover; 288 pages Bringing a book to market is...
NYU Langone Health has announced that nationally renowned physician and researcher Raoul Tibes, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology at NYU School of Medicine, will lead efforts to expand the clinical and investigative leukemia programs at its Perlmutter Cancer Center....
On August 3, 2017, a liposome-encapsulated combination of daunorubicin and cytarabine (Vyxeos) was approved for treatment of adults with newly diagnosed therapy-related acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or AML with myelodysplasia-related changes.1,2 This is the first U.S. Food and Drug...
On August 17, 2017, olaparib -(Lynparza) in tablet form was granted regular approval for maintenance treatment of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy.1,2 Olaparib...
An analysis of bacteria present in the mouth showed that some types of bacteria that lead to periodontal disease were associated with higher risk of esophageal cancer, according to a study published by Peters et al in Cancer Research. Esophageal cancer is the eighth most common cancer and the...
On November 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the FoundationOne CDx (F1CDx), the first breakthrough-designated, next-generation sequencing–based in vitro diagnostic test that can detect genetic mutations in 324 genes and 2 genomic signatures in any solid tumor type. The ...
Donald Coffey, PhD, a distinguished Johns Hopkins Professor and prostate cancer expert, who was the former Director of the Brady Urological Research Laboratory and Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, died on November 9, 2017, at the age of 85. In his more than 50 years at...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Wyatt et al found high agreement between driver mutations in plasma circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) and metastatic tissue biopsy in castration-resistant prostate cancer. Martin Gleave, MD, and Alexander Wyatt, DPhil, of Vancouver...
NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) researchers have found that for the most common high-risk type of human papillomavirus (HPV) to cause cervical cancer, an important viral gene may need to have a precise DNA sequence. The findings, published by Mirabello et al in Cell,1 contribute to a better...
CHILDREN WITH relapsed or refractory malignant rhabdoid tumors, epithelioid sarcomas, or poorly differentiated chordomas with a particular genetic defect were treated with the investigational drug tazemetostat and appeared to tolerate treatment well. Some patients had objective and durable...
Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, of Sarah Cannon and Tennessee Oncology, and Therese Marie Mulvey, MD, FASCO, of Massachusetts General Hospital North Shore Cancer Center, were selected by the ASCO Nominating Committee as candidates for ASCO President-Elect. Below, the candidates share...
Stand Up To Cancer, joined by the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, LUNGevity, and the American Lung Association, announced that four teams of top researchers will study lung and pancreatic cancers using a new approach of “cancer interception” at their earliest stages. “The...
In a study presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Asia 2017 Congress (Abstract 35P_PR), researchers analyzed the presence of mutations in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with lung cancer and brain metastases. Tumor tissue from brain metastasis is difficult to obtain,...
Poly (ADP ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are among the most exciting new classes of oncology drugs, and their development has coincided with the increasing recognition of the therapeutic vulnerability in targeting DNA damage response and DNA repair. The initial clinical testing of PARP...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s MSK-IMPACT tumor profiling assay, an in vitro diagnostic test that can identify more biomarkers that may be found in various cancers than any test previously reviewed by the...
On November 14, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) granted clearance to the Ventana MMR IHC Panel, which provides clinicians with a comprehensive group of immunohistochemistry (IHC) tests for patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The tests detect proteins associated with the DNA...
Donald Coffey, PhD, a distinguished Johns Hopkins professor and prostate cancer expert, who was the former Director of the Brady Urological Research Laboratory and Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, died on November 9 at the age of 85. Long Career at Johns Hopkins In his...
A cohort study in Ashkenazi Jewish women with breast cancer identified mutations other than BRCA1 and BRCA2 founder alleles that were associated with cancer risk. These results were reported by Walsh et al in JAMA Oncology. Among Ashkenazi Jewish women, three mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2...
PAUL NEIMAN, MD, PhD, a founding member of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch), transplant physician, and cancer biologist, died on October 11 of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 78. Dr. Neiman was also one of the founders and leaders of the Basic Sciences Division,...
Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World pictures an eerie future where humans are genetically bred, altered to create worthy citizens. Welcome back to the future. First there was the astounding feat of sequencing the entire human genome; now, thanks to a revolutionary...
Tumor mutation burden is emerging as a biomarker for selecting non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients for immunotherapy, according to Naiyer Rizvi, MD, the Price Family Chair of Clinical Translational Medicine, Professor of Medicine, and Director of Thoracic Oncology at Columbia University,...
In a St. Jude Adrenocortical Tumor Registry and Children’s Oncology Group study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pinto et al found that a positive Ki67 labeling index was associated with a poorer outcome in children with adrenocortical tumors independent of germline TP53 mutation ...
JOAN H. SCHILLER, MD, Deputy Director of Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, pointed out that no one particular chemotherapy regimen has been shown to improve overall survival vs other standard regimens. “So if we can’t identify one best chemotherapy, what else can we do to make...
IN PATIENTS with early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the use of expression of BRCA1 failed as an approach to customize chemotherapy, investigators from the Spanish Lung Cancer Cooperative Group reported at the 2017 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World...
An investigational test that screens for colorectal cancer could detect genetic mutations that are indicative of the disease with a high degree of sensitivity and specificity, according to results of a study presented by Powell et al at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular...
Children with relapsed or refractory malignant rhabdoid tumors, epithelioid sarcomas, or poorly differentiated chordomas with a particular genetic defect tolerated treatment with the investigational drug tazemetostat well, and some had objective and durable responses, according to data from a phase ...
Stand Up To Cancer has awarded 10 Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst clinical trial projects in which researchers from more than 30 institutions collaborate across academic and corporate borders on clinical trials studying correlated translational research. The inaugural Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst...
The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) released its Atlas of EGFR Testing in Lung Cancer at the IASLC 18th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) in Yokohama, Japan. The EGFR Atlas provides health-care professionals with information on EGFR testing processes and...
New research shows that treating stage II and III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) node-positive resected patients with customized chemotherapy based on their specific BRCA1 expression levels, as opposed to providing the standard treatment, did not increase overall survival rates among...
National Cancer Institute (NCI) researchers have found that for the most common high-risk type of human papillomavirus (HPV) to cause cervical cancer, an important viral gene may need to have a precise DNA sequence. The findings, published by Mirabello et al in Cell, contribute to a better...
ON JULY 31, 2017, nivolumab (Opdivo) was granted accelerated approval for treatment of patients 12 years and older with DNA mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) and microsatellite instability– high (MSI-H) metastatic colorectal cancer progressing following treatment with a fluoropyrimidine,...
PATIENTS WITH DNA mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer display a high level of microsatellite instability (MSI-H)1 and demonstrate poor chemosensitivity and shorter overall survival than patients with mismatch repair–proficient (pMMR) metastatic metastatic colorectal...
THE PHASE II CHECKMATE 142 TRIAL has shown that nivolumab (Opdivo) produces durable responses in previously treated recurrent or metastatic DNA mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR)/ microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) colorectal cancer. These study findings were reported in The Lancet Oncology...
NADIA HARBECK, MD, PhD, of the Breast Center at the University of Munich, Germany, said the findings of LORELEI are among a growing list of indications that “the future is bright for endocrine-based therapy.” Although the results were hypothesis-generating and not yet practice-changing, she...
Although checkpoint inhibitor–based immunotherapy has revolutionized treatment for a variety of cancers, the majority of patients with cancer do not respond to the therapy, and a subset of patients may even experience hyperprogression. Many patients also experience some degree of...
Bhishamjit S. Chera, MD, of the University of North Carolina, discusses quantification of human papillomavirus 16 in circulating tumor DNA during de-intensified chemoradiation therapy for favorable-risk HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (Presentation 92).
A new study demonstrates that a blood test to detect cancer may predict treatment outcomes for patients with localized non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and afford physicians additional lead time to personalize treatment for recurrent disease. Patients in the study with detectable levels of...
Investigators at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) have announced the opening of enrollment for a unique precision medicine clinical trial. NCI-COG Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (Pediatric MATCH) is a nationwide trial to explore whether...
On August 17, 2017, inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa) was approved for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data APPROVAL WAS BASED on complete remission rates in the open-label phase III INO-VATE ALL...
STAYING UP-TO-DATE in the fast-paced world of oncology literature is a daunting task at best. To assist with that task, The ASCO Post has assembled an assortment of studies recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) and the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP). Future installments...
New criteria for evaluating response in lymphoma clinical trials—RECIL 2017—have been developed by an International Working Group with the aim of harmonizing criteria with the RECIST criteria used for solid tumors.1 The new criteria were reported by Anas Younes, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering...
Osimertinib (Tagrisso) has shown high activity in the phase I expansion component of the AURA trial in previously untreated patients with EGFR mutation–positive advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). These findings were reported by Ramalingam et al in the Journal of Clinical...