On January 15, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic HER2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who have received a prior trastuzumab-based regimen....
Although patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative, aromatase inhibitor–resistant metastatic breast cancer maintained quality of life for a longer time following treatment with palbociclib plus either exemestane or fulvestrant than capecitabine, those receiving chemotherapy...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to lorlatinib in ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and Breakthrough Therapy designation to the combination of tiragolumab plus atezolizumab in NSCLC with high PD-L1 expression. The FDA also updated the...
Reporting on how deferred care worsened outcomes for patients with lung cancer when the COVID-19 pandemic first surged in the spring of 2020, Robert M. Van Haren, MD, MSPH, FACS, and colleagues explained that they have identified a framework that could help people with serious health conditions...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are three abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapies for polycythemia vera. For full details of these study...
On December 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved osimertinib (Tagrisso) for adjuvant therapy after tumor resection in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R mutations, as...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recognized three Choosing Wisely Champions, practitioners working to tackle overuse of hematology tests and treatments, at the all-virtual 2020 ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition. Choosing Wisely, a program of the ABIM Foundation and Consumer Reports, aims...
Edith P. Mitchell, MD, FACP, FCPP, FRCP, Associate Director for Diversity Affairs at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, has been recognized as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London (RCP). The RCP was founded in 1518 by a Royal Charter from King Henry VIII. RCP...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved relugolix (Orgovyx) for the treatment of adult patients with advanced prostate cancer. “Today’s approval marks the first oral drug in this class and it may eliminate some patients’ need to visit the clinic for treatments that require...
Sintilimab provided superior clinical benefit compared to docetaxel in patients with previously treated, advanced and/or metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to phase III study findings presented by Shi et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)...
On December 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved margetuximab-cmkb (Margenza) in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received two or more prior anti-HER2 regimens, at least one of which was for...
Patients with muscle-invasive urothelial cancer and postsurgical circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) positivity have high risk of disease recurrence following cystectomy and experienced improved clinical outcomes with adjuvant atezolizumab as compared to patients undergoing observation. These...
ASCO has elected Eric P. Winer, MD, FASCO, a longtime member and volunteer, to serve as its President for the term beginning in June 2022. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in June 2021. Five new members were also elected to the ASCO Board of Directors and the...
Patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have pleural effusion, especially those requiring pleural evacuation, experienced poorer survival when treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors, according to findings presented by Epaillard et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Thomas Powles, MD, of Barts Cancer Institute, London, and colleagues, extended follow-up of the phase III KEYNOTE-426 trial shows continued progression-free and overall survival superiority with pembrolizumab/axitinib vs sunitinib alone in first-line treatment ...
ASCO has released a new evidence-based clinical practice guideline to assist in clinical decision-making for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.1 “Advanced hepatocellular carcinoma has transitioned from a disease where we had a single approved therapy for patients to one where we now...
Relapse is the primary obstacle to cure in leukemia. The term minimal residual disease (MRD) was coined in the early 1990s to describe finding a disease-specific marker in the context of a morphologic-appearing remission. The technique first used for MRD detection was the Southern blot (!), but the ...
Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors, established as a treatment of many solid tumors, may be finding a role in the treatment of breast cancer. The current state of the art regarding immunotherapy for triple-negative breast cancer was the focus of a talk by Heather L. McArthur, MD, MPH, Medical ...
Caring for older adults with cancer is the purview of every oncologist. Over the next 30 years, the older adult population (65 years and older) will represent the fastest-growing segment of the world population. Globally, the number of persons 80 years and older is expected to triple from 143...
Endometrial cancer is the fourth most common cancer diagnosed in the United States, and the seventh most common cause of cancer death among women.1 This year, nearly 66,000 women will be diagnosed with the cancer, and about 12,600 will die of the disease.2 And although endometrial cancer is one of...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present the Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib and Medeiros explore extranodal marginal zone lymphoma of mucosa-associated lymphoid neoplasms (MALT lymphomas). For each quiz...
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most difficult-to-treat cancer types. Although there have been some advances in the past few years, the needle has not moved much on survival and prognosis. An important issue for those patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who respond to front-line...
Sarcoma has bedeviled researchers for many years because of its heterogeneity. Sarcoma encompasses more than 100 different subtypes, which makes it difficult to design studies to identify effective therapies. As researchers dig deeper into the constellation of subtypes of sarcoma, some therapies...
The Immunoscore assay can assess the risk of disease recurrence in Asian patients with early-stage colon cancer and may be used together with TNM classification to guide clinical decision-making, according to findings presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Asia Virtual...
A cohort study of 188,862 cases of all-stage melanomas of the trunk and extremities found no differences in overall survival between patients treated with Mohs micrographic surgery or with wide local excision.1 “These findings add to the existing body of evidence demonstrating that wide local...
New diagnostic criteria and modern imaging techniques, a wealth of new therapeutics, and an update on current thinking as to when to treat patients with smoldering myeloma were highlighted during the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 2020 Virtual Congress: Hematologic Malignancies™....
“There has been a lot of interest in the development of new antiandrogens” for clinical use in patients with breast cancer,” Anthony D. Elias, MD, reported in an update on male breast cancer at the 2020 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium, sponsored by the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center...
The addition of CS1001, an anti–PD-L1 monoclonal antibody, to platinum-based chemotherapy significantly prolonged progression-free survival vs chemotherapy in treatment-naive patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to phase III findings presented by Zhou et al at the...
With the announcement of a complete nationwide lockdown on March 25, 2020, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, a lot of unprecedented events came into being in India. The National Health Mission reported a 69% reduction in measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in children; a 21% reduction in...
Patients with locally advanced or metastatic radioiodine-refractory differentiated thyroid carcinoma demonstrated a statistically significant progression-free survival benefit when treated with anlotinib, a novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor, vs placebo, as well as higher response rates, according to...
Sintilimab, an anti–PD-1 antibody, in combination with a bevacizumab biosimilar as first-line therapy significantly improved survival compared to sorafenib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, according to findings presented by Ren et al at the ESMO Asia Virtual Congress 2020...
Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE announced they will submit a request today to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization of their mRNA vaccine candidate, BNT162b2 against SARS-CoV-2, which will potentially enable use of the vaccine in high-risk populations in the United...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Arnon P. Kater, MD, PhD, of Amsterdam University Medical Centers, and colleagues,1 the 4-year progression-free and overall survival rates were significantly higher with venetoclax plus rituximab vs bendamustine plus rituximab in the phase III...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Paolo Ghia, MD, PhD, of the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy, and colleagues, the phase III ASCEND trial showed significantly prolonged progression-free survival with acalabrutinib monotherapy vs investigator’s choice of either...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Shaji K. Kumar, MD, of the Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, and colleagues,1 the phase III ENDURANCE trial has shown no improvement in progression-free survival with carfilzomib plus lenalidomide/dexamethasone (KRd) vs bortezomib plus...
Based on early results in clinical trials, interest in the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in multiple myeloma has been high, especially for products targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA). During the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, further support for CAR T-cell...
Clinicians who treat multiple myeloma can anticipate a host of new treatments: melflufen, cereblon E3 ligase modulators (CELMoDs), antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, FASCO, Director of the Jerome Lipper...
The past year has seen remarkable advances in the treatment of leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, which combined account for 9.9% of the estimated 1,806,590 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the United States and an estimated 56,840 cancer-related deaths.1 Novel therapies are providing...
Studies of second-generation bispecific antibodies were among the highlights of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The bispecific T-cell engager blinatumomab was the first such agent to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in...
As chemotherapy and chemoimmunotherapy regimens reach their maximal impact in follicular lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma, clinicians are turning to chemotherapy-free approaches to achieve better control, less toxicity, and (hopefully) a cure. During the ASCO20 Virtual Education Program, Sonali...
At the 2020 Debates and didactics in Hematology and Oncology Virtual Conference, sponsored by Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute, Pamela Allen, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Emory, described recent trials on therapeutic approaches that are informative on this ...
In a European Intergroup for Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma/Children’s Oncology Group phase III trial, reported in TheNew England Journal of Medicine, -Véronique Minard-Colin, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, Université Paris-Saclay, Villejuif, France, and colleagues found that the addition of rituximab ...
On October 16, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to venetoclax (Venclexta) in combination with azacitidine, decitabine, or low-dose cytarabine for newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in adults aged 75 or older or who have comorbidities precluding...
On November 13, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of patients with locally recurrent unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer whose tumors express PD-L1...
A strategy of front-line maintenance treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab combined with best supportive care improved both progression-free and overall survival vs best supportive care alone across prespecified subgroups of patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma that had...
With the worst 5-year overall survival of all cancers and the second-leading cause of cancer death, pancreatic adenocarcinoma remains a dismal prognosis for the vast majority of patients. However, more accurate tumor staging and better understanding of distinct molecular subgroups have started to...
The National Academy of Medicine recently announced the election of 90 regular members and 10 international members during its annual meeting. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated...
As the number of older patients with cancer continues to rise, interventions that reduce the high rates of symptoms, toxicity, and distress in this population are urgently needed. Research presented during the 2020 ASCO Quality Care Symposium has added to the growing body of evidence supporting...
A new study points to a need for oncologists to ask their patients about sexual health after chemotherapy, radiation, and other cancer treatments. In a survey of nearly 400 cancer survivors, 87% said they experienced sexual side effects, but most also said their oncologist had not formally asked...
A new study finds that the racial composition of clinical trials involving radiation therapy does not match that of the U.S. population. Examining trials from the past 23 years, researchers found that roughly 12% of trial participants were Black, which is less than the 13% population composition of ...