In 2012, three randomized placebo-controlled trials reported a significant prolongation of progression-free survival with lenalidomide (Revlimid) as maintenance therapy for multiple myeloma.1-3 Two of these trials tested lenalidomide maintenance after stem cell transplantation, and one investigated ...
On April 9, 1964, seven physicians—Jane Cooke Wright, MD, FASCO; Arnoldus Goudsmit, MD, PhD; Fred J. Ansfield, MD, FASCO; Harry F. Bisel, MD, FASCO; Herman H. Freckman, MD, FASCO; Robert W. Talley, MD, FASCO; and William Wilson, MD, FASCO—met for lunch at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. They...
At the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), held recently in Hollywood, Florida, NCCN Panel members presented updates for several tumor types, briefly summarized here. For a more complete description of all updates, visit www.nccn.org. Breast Cancer Guidelines ...
Last January, ASCO held a leadership summit in Washington, DC, with representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, insurance payers, patient advocates, and physicians to address the skyrocketing costs of new drugs and technologies used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Although costs are ...
It is a tribute to the advances in supportive care that peripheral neuropathy, along with fatigue, has become the most vexing management challenge in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The successes of modern antiemetic regimens and white blood cell growth factor support have radically altered ...
On April 9, 1964, seven physicians—Jane Cooke Wright, MD, FASCO; Arnoldus Goudsmit, MD, PhD; Fred J. Ansfield, MD, FASCO; Harry F. Bisel, MD, FASCO; Herman H. Freckman, MD, FASCO; Robert W. Talley, MD, FASCO; and William Wilson, MD, FASCO—met for lunch at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. They...
Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, grew up in Auburn, a small historic town in central Massachusetts that was settled by the English in 1714. His desire to become a doctor bloomed early. “My decision to possibly pursue a career in medicine was first inspired by my mother, who was a registered nurse, and by...
A multicenter, open-label phase II trial found that the selective proteasome inhibitor carfilzomib (Kyprolis), in combination with cyclophosphamide and dexamethasone produced high complete response rates and was associated with low toxicity in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma....
CASI Pharmaceuticals, Inc, announced that its investigational agent ENMD-2076 has received orphan drug designation from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. ENMD-2076 is an orally active Aurora A/angiogenic kinase inhibitor with a unique...
Melphalan, prednisone, and thalidomide (Thalomid), or MPT, was a widely accepted regimen in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma when the E1A06 trial was launched, noted Philip McCarthy, MD, Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, New York....
At the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, one phase III trial confirmed the promise of a novel agent in advanced multiple myeloma, while another cooperative group trial returned some rather surprising results in newly diagnosed myeloma patients. Panobinostat Doubles Response, Prolongs Remission The phase...
Higher-dose carflizomib (Kyprolis) “provided a high overall response rate with a remarkable duration of response in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma” in a phase II study, Nikoletta Lendvai, MD, PhD, and colleagues from Memorial Sloan Kettering Center, New York, wrote in Blood....
Michael S. Katz, MBA, has lived longer than any of his doctors thought he would. A two-time cancer survivor, Mr. Katz was diagnosed, first with multiple myeloma in 1990 and then with colorectal cancer in 2008, and has spent the past 2 decades tirelessly advocating for patients with cancer. The...
I've witnessed incredible courage and zest for life among so many patients from so many walks of life—individuals committed to helping others in spite of their own adversity. Forty years ago, when survival for patients with multiple myeloma was a matter of months, I knew that every person I sat...
Title: The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful StoriesEditors: Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent CoppolaPublishing Platform: CreateSpacePublication date: May 2014Price: $9.99; Paperback, 160 pages In May, Stan Winokur, MD, and co-editor Vincent Coppola, published The...
Thomas P. Sellers, MPA, has been a tireless advocate for patients’ rights for more than 20 years. A 15-year prostate cancer survivor and only child, Mr. Sellers said it was his mother’s death from lung cancer when she was 51, followed by the death of his father from glioblastoma multiforme that led ...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On August 8, 2014, the approved use of bortezomib (Velcade) in...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved bortezomib (Velcade) for the retreatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who had previously responded to bortezomib therapy and relapsed at least 6 months following completion of prior bortezomib treatment. The labeling update includes...
The field of multiple myeloma is rapidly changing, and the shifts that are occurring impact the management of these patients, from initial diagnosis through multiple relapses. At the 9th Annual New Orleans Summer Cancer Meeting, Sergio A. Giralt, MD, Chief of the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant...
CS1 is a cell surface glycoprotein that appears to be highly expressed on myeloma cells and less expressed on normal cells; CS1 overexpression has been found to promote myeloma cell growth and survival by increasing myeloma adhesion to bone marrow stromal cells and increasing myeloma colony...
As 2014 marks the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), it seems only appropriate to highlight the founders of the Society and the vision they shared for its future. The 1960s were the early days of the use of chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer, ...
On September 11, 2001, the devastating terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center left in its wake a unique toxic site in both mass and quantity of hazardous materials. It took 9 months to remove approximately 2 million tons of wreckage from Ground Zero, during which thousands of...
Antibody-drug conjugates are being tested against several types of lymphomas and for some of these agents, “activity is quite impressive,” Andrew M. Evens, DO, MSc, reported at the recent Best of ASCO meeting in Chicago. Dr. Evens, Professor of Medicine, Chief, Division of Hematology/Oncology, and...
Melphalan in combination with bortezomib (Velcade) should be maintained as one of the standards of care for the treatment of elderly patients with multiple myeloma, concluded Spanish trialists reporting updated results from the GEM2005 study comparing bortezomib/melphalan/prednisone with...
With a $2 million, 5-year grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine will examine the molecular mechanisms that allow certain cancers, particularly multiple myeloma, to spread to the bone. The project could lead to new...
With powerful new drugs capable of achieving sustained and deep remissions in multiple myeloma, the role of upfront stem cell transplantation is being questioned by experts, who debated the pros and cons at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 9th Annual Congress on Hematologic...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), with the support of the NCCN Foundation, recently announced the availability of printed versions of the NCCN Guidelines for Patients for order on Amazon.com for the following cancer types: Breast (Stages 0–IV), Colon, and Pancreatic Cancers;...
Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese medicine technique that involves inserting and manipulating filiform needles into specific points of the body to achieve a therapeutic effect. According to traditional Chinese medicine, disruptions in the flow of “vital energy” (qi) throughout the body are the...
This is an exciting time for cancer research. We are beginning to see breakthroughs for patients with advanced melanoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, lung cancer, and many other forms of cancer. Even so, cancer is projected to increase by about 45% and to become the leading cause of death in America ...
In October, the newly formed Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance (MBCA) released its report, Changing the Landscape for People Living With Metastatic Breast Cancer, which details some disturbing findings. Following a yearlong analysis of 224 clinical trials, 2,281 funded research projects in...
Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) has announced an initiative designed to accelerate the evaluation of new investigational therapies for multiple myeloma. The MMRF, in collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), pharmaceutical,...
In an important recent study by Dr. Antonio Palumbo and colleagues,1 reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post (page 128), 273 patients aged ≤ 65 years were randomly assigned to early transplant or consolidation therapy using MPR (melphalan, prednisone, and lenalidomide [Revlimid]) after successful...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Antonio Palumbo, MD, Chief of the Myeloma Unit at the University of Turin, Italy, and colleagues found that high-dose melphalan plus autologous stem cell transplantation improved progression-free survival and overall survival...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On October 9, 2014, bortezomib (Velcade) was granted approval for ...
The FIRST trial—reported by Benboubker and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine and summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post (page 93)—is a landmark study.1 It is one of the largest randomized trials in multiple myeloma ever conducted. More importantly, it is a well-designed trial...
In the phase III FIRST trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lotfi Benboubker, MD, Service d’Hématologie et Thérapie Cellulaire, Hôpital Bretonneau, Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire (CHRU), Tours, France, and colleagues found that continuous lenalidomide (Revlimid) plus...
Carfilzomib (Kyprolis), as a single agent, failed to improve survival in relapsed and refractory myeloma patients, as compared with a corticosteroid and optional cyclophosphamide, in the phase III FOCUS trial, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress in Madrid.1...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes clinical studies actively recruiting people with Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), including AIDS-related NHL, as well as studies that are also recruiting patients with multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma....
In November, the American Society of Hematology (ASH) announced the names of seven recipients of its Bridge Grant awards. These 1-year, $150,000 awards provide critical interim support for hematology research proposals that, despite earning high scores, could not be funded by the National...
The use of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors as human cancer therapy has focused on the impact of these agents on epigenetic regulation and gene transcription. However, the use of HDAC inhibitors in myeloma may be working through a different mechanism. Specifically, HDAC6 is known to regulate...
In the phase III PANORAMA 1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jesus F. San-Miguel, MD, of Clinica Universidad de Navarra-CIMA, Pamplona, Spain, and colleagues found that adding the pan-deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat to bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone improved progression-free...
New therapies for multiple myeloma have dramatically improved life expectancy, but despite these advances, 5-year overall survival still remains below 50%. Investigators are in hot pursuit of new therapies that will extend remissions and improve survival. Thus far, monoclonal antibodies,...
The ASCO Post wishes to acknowledge and thank all contributors to the publication during 2014. Here we recognize those who shared their personal thoughts in our Op-Ed department. If you are interested in contributing to The ASCO Post in 2015, write to editor@ASCOPost.com. Robert Peter Gale, MD,...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recognized Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Kathy Giusti, Founder of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, with awards for their outstanding support and advocacy for biomedical research and the practice of hematology at the 56th ASH Annual Meeting in...
The following list presents those articles published in 2014 that were observed most often by visitors to ASCOPost.com, as measured by the number of views.a To view the full version of the articles listed below, visit ASCOPost.com and enter the URL provided below each entry. 1. Continuous...
The long-term outcome for patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is poor, with 5-year overall survival from first relapse being only approximately 10%.1,2 Patients with disease relapse following allogeneic transplant have the worse prognosis and are typically...
A “Featured Topic” session during the 56th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition drew a standing-room-only crowd to hear two experts weigh in on checkpoint blockade in hematologic malignancies. While new to hematology, these drugs—the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated...
For newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients, Cleveland Clinic specialists believe two drugs may suffice for most patients, bucking the trend toward using triplets for all patients and reserving them for patients with insufficient response to two. They described a pilot study of their “carepath”...
David H. Vesole, MD, PhD, FACP, Co-Division Chief and Director of Research for the Multiple Myeloma Division at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, commented after the presentation of the ASPIRE trial data that the findings were “impressive.” “It’s ...
The phase III global ASPIRE trial documented an “unprecedented” duration of remission in relapsed multiple myeloma patients receiving carfilzomib (Kyprolis) plus a standard-of-care doublet, according to Keith Stewart, MB, ChB, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, who...