Two separate studies presented at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition provide preliminary evidence that triplet combinations may have a role in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Both triplets were based on the addition of a third drug to standard ...
The 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition took place in the vibrant city of New Orleans. The meeting brought together tens of thousands of participants from across the world to present and discuss the results of studies that ranged from hypothesis-generating to...
In newly diagnosed patients with Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), ponatinib was more effective than imatinib when given with reduced-intensity chemotherapy. These results were presented by Jabbour et al during the February ASCO Plenary Series session...
Patients with prostate cancer who reported the highest amounts of plant-based foods in their diets had a 52% lower risk of disease progression and a 53% lower risk of recurrence compared with those who had the lowest amounts of plants in their diets. The diet assessments were based on...
The most humbling—and fortunate—experience I’ve had since I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma 13 years ago at the age of 43 was being treated in the pediatric wing of a major cancer center in New York City. It is pretty difficult to feel sorry for yourself when you are sitting next to a 14-year-old...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Kristin Flowers, MD, a general surgeon at Tanana Valley Clinic at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in rural Alaska. Dr. Flowers’ surgical areas of interest include treating...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Derek Raghavan, MD, PhD, FACP, FRACP, FASCO, Founding President of the Levine Cancer Institute. Established in 2011, the Levine Cancer Institute is part of Atrium Health (formerly the...
At the inaugural MD Anderson Clinical Education Symposium on Immunotherapy Organ Toxicity Management (IOTOX), a panel of experts discussed common immune-related adverse events associated with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, including gastrointestinal (GI), hepatic, dermatologic, pulmonary, and ...
KRAS G12C–mutated colorectal cancer represents 3% to 4% of metastatic colorectal cancers. Like other KRAS-mutated metastatic colorectal cancers, this group of patients represents a patient population with an unmet need, with limited options beyond two lines of therapy. In contrast to other KRAS...
A new ASCO guideline is available on the use of immunotherapy and biomarker testing for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The guideline provides recommendations related to PD-L1 and tumor mutational burden (TMB) testing, selection of therapy in the...
The ASCO Board of Directors recently took further action to support members in lower-middle–income countries. In alignment with ASCO’s strategic goal of making a global impact, the Board elected to expand free membership for physicians from lower-middle–income countries, as defined by the World...
Suboptimal treatment, which often underlies worse outcomes for cancer in racial minorities, did not explain a recent finding from the landmark RxPONDER study: non-Hispanic Black women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative, lymph node–positive breast cancer had worse outcomes compared with...
The invited discussant of the SOFT analysis was Polly Niravath, MD, Associate Professor and Director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas. She noted that the study evaluated the use of the Breast Cancer Index (BCI) as a prognostic tool in early hormone...
In an analysis of the SOFT trial, the Breast Cancer Index accurately identified premenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer who may benefit from ovarian function suppression in addition to adjuvant endocrine therapy. The findings were reported by Ruth O’Regan, MD, Chair...
New research has confirmed the superiority of lisocabtagene maraleucel over the standard of care for the second-line treatment of primary refractory or early relapsed large B-cell lymphoma, according to data presented by lead study author Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at...
In a single-institution retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Lee et al found that proton therapy reirradiation (PT-ReRT) may be associated with improved survival in patients with recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, with a fractionated regimen being associated with...
Investigators have found further evidence to quantify the vast, lingering impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on timely cancer screening—highlighting the urgent need for health-care providers to address significant delays to cancer screenings in populations most likely to delay testing,...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will award Carl H. June, MD, with the 2023 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research during the AACR Annual Meeting 2023, taking place from April 14 to 19 in Orlando, Florida. Dr. June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Vratislav Strnad, MD, PhD, and colleagues, 10-year outcomes in a phase III GEC-ESTRO (Groupe Européen de Curiethérapie and European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology) trial have shown no significant difference in ipsilateral breast cancer recurrence with...
The sessions’ invited discussant, Imane H. El Dika, MD, Assistant Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, said the results of the two trials in advanced biliary tract cancer were clear, and did not change the current standard of care of durvalumab combined with...
Researchers have found that stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) may be an effective treatment for patients with early-stage lung neuroendocrine tumors, according to a new study published by Oliver et al in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics. Background Primary...
Investigators have revealed that individuals who react defensively to an invitation for colorectal cancer screening may be less likely to take part, according to a new study published by Clarke et al in Cancer. Background Colorectal cancer is one of the most treatable cancer types—especially if...
The World Health Organization (WHO) has released a new Global Breast Cancer Initiative Framework, providing a roadmap to attain targets to save 2.5 million lives from breast cancer by 2040. The new framework recommends that countries implement three pillars of health promotion—early detection,...
The UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening (UKCTOCS) has shown that general population screening did not significantly reduce ovarian and tubal cancer deaths, and the researchers concluded that such screening cannot be recommended. The findings from the study prompted the Ovarian Cancer ...
The combination of ponatinib and blinatumomab has led to rapid and durable remissions in patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), according to data presented at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and...
According to a review published by Ashley et al in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, preexisting dementia may complicate cancer care and increase the risk of worse clinical outcome and inferior patient experience. People living with dementia are more likely to have cancer diagnosed at an...
In a study reported in JAMA Surgery, Heiden et al developed a surgical quality metric scoring system—the Veterans Affairs Lung Cancer Operative quality (VALCAN-O) score—that was associated with overall survival in U.S. veterans undergoing curative-intent surgery for early-stage non–small cell lung...
The EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib may improve rates of disease-free survival and reduce the risk of recurrence in patients with resected, EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to a new exploratory analysis of the ADAURA trial published by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD,...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by DuBois et al, the Children’s Oncology Group phase III AEWS1221 trial showed no event-free survival benefit with the addition of the anti–insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) monoclonal antibody ganitumab to interval-compressed...
Age-based heuristics may lead to large differences in breast cancer treatment based on small differences in chronologic age, according to a new study published by Talcott et al in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • and Physics. Background Radiation therapy often is given...
Population-based genomic screening may facilitate early detection of medullary thyroid cancer in patients with variants in the RET gene, according to a new study published by Pichardo et al in JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery. Background Medullary thyroid cancer accounts for 2% to 5% of...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Aranzazu Fernandez-Martinez, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that several B-cell–related gene signatures provided better prediction of pathologic complete response and event-free survival than tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) levels among patients with...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, McDonald et al found that receipt of blood or marrow transplantation (BMT) was associated with an increased risk of subsequent malignant neoplasms of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. As stated by the investigators, “Survivors of BMT are at increased risk of...
New research shows that patients with type 2 diabetes may experience a substantially higher rate of cancer mortality than the general population—by 18% for all cancers combined, 9% for breast cancer, and as much as 2.4-fold for colorectal cancer—according to a new study published by Ling et al in...
In a Taiwanese study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hsu et al found that survivors of childhood and adolescent cancers were at a significantly increased risk of multiple major psychiatric disorders compared to those without cancer. Study Details The study used data from a...
Most of us have felt our stomachs sink as we opened a patient’s radiology or laboratory report and realized the patient faced a grave situation. If we’re lucky, we have a couple of days before a scheduled patient appointment to prepare ourselves to deliver that bad news. Other times, we may have...
The four inaugural recipients of the Lubin Family Foundation Scholar Award have been announced by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Richard K. Lubin Family Foundation. Lubin Scholars are among the most promising physician-scientists pursuing cancer-relevant basic or translational...
Isaac Craig Henderson, MD, passed away at the age of 81 at his home in San Francisco on December 26, 2022, after a brief illness. Dr. Henderson was an internationally known medical oncologist who specialized in breast cancer, beginning his career at Harvard’s then-designated Sidney Farber Cancer...
Nancy Chan, MD, Director of Breast Cancer Clinical Research at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, New York, commented on the monarchE analysis for The ASCO Post. She noted that the study investigated the addition of adjuvant abemaciclib (an oral CDK4/6 inhibitor) to endocrine therapy in a...
Results of a planned interim overall survival analysis of the phase III monarchE trial offered further support for the addition of abemaciclib to adjuvant endocrine therapy for patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative, node-positive, high-risk disease, according to Stephen R.D....
Jaime A. Suarez-Londono, MD, a medical oncologist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said the results of the ASAP study provide a basis for discussion with the transplant team. “The landscape of treatment of acute...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will award the 19th AACR–Irving Weinstein Foundation Distinguished Lectureship to Andrea Schietinger, PhD, during the 2023 AACR Annual Meeting, held April 14–19, in Orlando, Florida. Dr. Schietinger, an associate member of the Immunology Program...
Options are growing in the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma after complete response. At the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference,1 the use of these newer strategies in older patients was discussed by Brad S. Kahl, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lymphoma Service at Washington...
Oxidative stress is a key factor in the development of many diseases including cancer. Antioxidants prevent cellular damage by neutralizing free radicals and are being investigated as potential therapeutic strategies against cancer. In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology...
As an oncologist, I had cared for patients facing grave illness and death. I imagined the loss of loved ones and expected grief to be an unbearable sadness, most poignant in the earliest days and lessening with time. I somehow expected that counseling people who grieved would make me more prepared. ...
Lymphoma expert Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, was born in Westchester County, New York, but soon after, his family relocated to Bergen County, New Jersey, where he spent his formative years. “I attended Tenafly High School and had dual passions: one was the natural sciences and the other on the...
The promise of bispecific monoclonal antibodies in multiple myeloma continues to heighten as yet another one appears to be active. In a study reported at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition,1 almost two-thirds of patients with triple-refractory disease who...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Pieter Sonneveld, MD, PhD, of Erasmus MC Cancer Institute, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues, the final overall survival analysis of the phase III CASTOR trial has shown a significant benefit of the addition of daratumumab to...
In the phase III NAPOLI-3 trial in previously untreated patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, the NALIRIFOX regimen significantly improved overall survival and progression-free survival over nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine. NALIRIFOX contains liposomal irinotecan, fluorouracil, leucovorin,...
A new ASCO guideline on opioids in managing pain from cancer or cancer treatment in adults provides recommendations on administering them in the midst of interventions to address the public health crisis from their misuse and related deaths across the country.1 “ASCO took wonderful leadership in...