Promising 3-year outcomes were found in patients from a Japanese phase I/II study of alectinib (Alecensa) in previously treated patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The findings were reported by Tamura et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details In the ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved niraparib (Zejula) for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer, whose tumors have achieved complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy....
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and Cancer Care Ontario today issued a joint clinical practice guideline update on brachytherapy for patients with prostate cancer. The update provides evidence-based recommendations for different patient risk groups and specifies the most effective...
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists report data from a new study providing evidence that random, unpredictable DNA copying “mistakes” account for nearly two-thirds of the mutations that cause cancer. Their research is grounded on a novel mathematic model based on DNA...
In a Dutch observational study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kuijer et al found that use of the MammaPrint 70-gene signature (70-GS) test changed physician-intended recommendations to administer adjuvant chemotherapy in half of patients with early-stage estrogen...
The Conquerors Circle is the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s first-ever donor appreciation society. Donors who contribute $1,000 annually are members of the Conquerors Circle. In appreciation for their generous and loyal support of the Conquer Cancer Foundation, Conquerors Circle members receive...
On January 26, 2017—prior to the official opening of the 2nd Annual Cancer Survivorship Symposium—cancer survivors, caregivers, patient advocates, family physicians, oncology providers, and others gathered in San Diego, California, to make connections, discuss survivorship issues, and get expert...
All patients with cancer experience some level of distress associated with their cancer diagnosis and the effects of the disease and its treatment—regardless of the stage of disease. Not only does distress affect a patient’s mental and psychosocial well-being, but because distress is a...
The International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) has a workshop to educate young investigators in geriatric oncology research. The SIOG Advanced Course, which is held in Treviso, Italy (June 28–July 1, 2017), is our unique continuing medical education–accredited training program led by...
In the upcoming decades, the number of older adults with cancer will drastically increase due to aging of Western societies.1 The risk of cancer strongly increases with age. Consequently, all future oncologists will be exposed to the challenges of caring for this heterogeneous population. Older...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted accelerated approval to avelumab (Bavencio) for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, including those who have not received prior chemotherapy. Avelumab is a programmed cell...
Anne Friedman Glauber, 63, co-founder of Let’s Win, an online community for persons affected by pancreatic cancer, recently passed away at her home in New York City, after a courageous battle with the disease. Ms. Glauber’s dedication to the organization (www.letswinpc.org) helped countless...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Chan Shen, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that more than three-quarters of patients receiving targeted oral therapy for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) reached the catastrophic phase of the...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Moshe C. Ornstein, MD, of Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that an intermittent schedule of sunitinib (Sutent) may be feasible in patients with previously untreated metastatic renal cell carcinoma. In...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Trevor J. Royce, MD, of Harvard Radiation Oncology Program, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and colleagues found that a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) nadir > 0.5 ng/mL may be a dominant risk factor for all-cause mortality after radiation therapy and...
In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tamas Hickish, MD, of Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Dorset, England, and colleagues found that treatment with MABp1, an antibody that targets interleukin 1α and exhibits antitumor activity, was associated with improvement in the composite ...
Despite the controversy surrounding “Death With Dignity” laws, which allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients, they have a long history of majority support from Americans. According to a Gallup poll taken in 2015, nearly 7 in 10 Americans (68%) agreed that...
I read with great interest Dr. Robert E. Montenegro’s comments in the The ASCO Post, January 25, 2017, where he felt “marginalized” when questioned about his country of origin or the quality of his English. As physicians, we constantly deal in a world of uncertainties and are required to address...
Geriatrician-oncologist Arti Hurria, MD, has been named Vice Provost for Clinical Faculty at City of Hope. “I spent most of my formative years at City of Hope and was very fortunate,” said Dr. Hurria, who’s been at the medical center for 10 years. “I had mentors who helped me along the way and...
A significant philanthropic gift from the Campbell family of Las Vegas, Nevada, will establish a new endowed Chair to honor City of Hope’s former Chief Medical Officer Alexandra M. Levine, MD, MACP. The recipient of the Deana and Steve Campbell Chief Clinical Officer’s Distinguished Chair, to be...
In April 2014, I was so sick with uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea and severe abdominal and chest pain that I had to be hospitalized for 5 days. As I was in my late 20s and in otherwise good health, there was no easy explanation for my symptoms. After I was released from the hospital, my...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, authors Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present a case study...
The treatment of multiple myeloma is becoming increasingly complicated. This is not only because of the complexity of the disease, but also because of the increasing number of effective combination treatments and continuous development of new drugs. This has resulted in an ever-increasing number ...
Suresh Vedantham, MD, FSIR, an interventional radiologist and Professor of Radiology and Surgery at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University in St. Louis, assumed the office of President of the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) on March 7, 2017, during the Society’s ...
In the phase III SWOG S0777 trial reported in The Lancet, Brian G.M. Durie, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Cancer Center, and colleagues found that adding bortezomib (Velcade) to lenalidomide (Revlimid)/dexamethasone improved progression-free and overall survival in patients with newly...
In the phase III ASCEND-4 trial reported in The Lancet, Jean-Charles Soria, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy, and colleagues found that ceritinib (Zykadia) improved progression-free survival vs platinum-based chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of advanced anaplastic lymphoma kinase...
Building on their previous research focusing on intratumoral vaccination for the most common form of pancreatic cancer, investigators from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School have shown that in a mouse model of early-stage resected pancreatic...
Since the mid-2000s, medication and illicit drug abuse in the United Sates has steadily increased, creating what has now been termed an “opioid epidemic.” In response, Congress and the Bush and Obama Administrations have launched intervention and regulatory proposals to help turn the troubling...
Christian Taverna, MD, a lymphoma specialist at the Hospital Münsterlingen in Switzerland, commented on this patient series for The ASCO Post. He noted that the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) tried to address the question of the optimal duration of rituximab (Rituxan) maintenance...
Patients with follicular lymphoma are clearly living longer without disease progression, but what clinician has had no patients progress? Michael Auerbach, MD, a hematologist/oncologist in private practice in Baltimore and Clinical Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University, may have these...
The investigational small-molecule plinabulin yielded some interesting benefits when added to docetaxel in previously treated patients with stage III/IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in a phase II study.1 Although the benefit of the doublet was modest in the overall study population, the...
Sheldon M. Feldman, MD, has been named Chief of the Division of Breast Surgery and Surgical Oncology and Director of Breast Cancer Services at Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care, the clinical arm of the National Cancer Institute–designated Albert Einstein Cancer Center. He will also join...
Study discussant Heather L. McArthur, MD, MPH, Medical Director of Breast Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, noted that human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has been shown to prevent HPV-related malignancies and eradicate high-grade, HPV16-positive premalignant lesions....
When combined with chemotherapy, a vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 potentiated T-cell responsiveness and improved clinical outcomes in patients with advanced cervical cancer enrolled in the phase I/II CervISA study.1 The findings were reported at the 2017 ASCO-SITC Clinical...
A high mutational load and the presence of a T-cell–“inflamed” environment may independently predict for treatment response to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and progression-free survival, according to a study presented by Tanguy Seiwert, MD, of the University of Chicago, at the 2017 ASCO-SITC Clinical...
More than one-third of men with incurable metastatic prostate cancer mistakenly believe that their cancer may be curable, according to a survey of patient expectations at an academic cancer center. “This study is part of a larger survey of treatment decision-making among men with metastatic...
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has announced Gwen Nichols, MD, as its new Chief Medical Officer. A physician and scientific researcher, Dr. Nichols has dedicated her career to advancing cures for cancers through a unique combination of clinical, academic, and pharmaceutical experience. She...
“More than any other disease, head and neck cancer requires constant interplay between a number of different specialties,” Sandeep Samant, MD, Chief, Head and Neck Surgery, Northwestern Medicine, and Chair of the Multidisciplinary Head & Neck Symposium sponsored by the Robert H. Lurie...
The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) has endorsed a report released by the Core Team for Tobacco Control that outlines key action items that can be taken immediately to accelerate progress toward ending cigarette smoking in adults. Issuing their Executive Summary ...
“The majority of patients with oral cavity cancers will undergo an unnecessary operation,” Sandeep Samant, MD, stated at a session on managing N0 neck cancer at the 2016 Lurie Cancer Center Multidisciplinary Head & Neck Symposium in Chicago.1 That operation is elective neck dissection, and it ...
There was no difference in the incidence of lymphedema at 18 months in breast cancer patients randomized to a physical therapy intervention with education materials compared with a control.1 Although poor adherence to the intervention may have been a factor, these results, described as “very...
Manish A. Shah, MD, Director of Gastrointestinal Oncology at NewYorkPresbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, commented that “the benefit seen in patients who regularly exercise is equal to or better than the benefit seen with some chemotherapy drugs,” although he cautioned that exercise in this...
Patients with metastatic colon cancer who exercise may live longer, according to an analysis of the CALGB/SWOG 80405 trial presented at the 2017 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 According to the authors, this is the first study to demonstrate an association between physical activity and...
“CALGB 80803 really helps move the field forward,” said press briefing moderator and ASCO spokesperson Nancy Baxter, MD, PhD, a surgeon from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. “PET [positron-emission tomography] scans may prove to be a valuable tool to help oncologists fine-tune...
In patients with resectable esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer, positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging was used to assess response to induction chemotherapy. PET nonresponders were identified after the first few cycles and were switched to an alternate regimen. This strategy greatly ...
Milind Javle, MD, Professor of Gastrointestinal Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, discussed the findings from the CheckMate 040 trial presented at the 2017 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. There is a strong rationale for investigating immunotherapy in liver ...
In patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, treatment with nivolumab (Opdivo) resulted in responses and long-term survival in patients who were either previously treated or naive to sorafenib (Nexavar), CheckMate 040 has shown.1 Altogether 19% of patients responded to the antibody...
Partow Kebriaei, MD, Professor in the Department of Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, commented on the findings presented by Marty et al for The ASCO Post. “In this multicenter, randomized, placebo-controlled study, the use of...
Patients receiving the antiviral letermovir (MK-8228, AIC246), as compared to placebo, were almost twice as likely to avoid infection with cytomegalovirus or fail for other reasons in a randomized phase III international trial presented at the 2017 BMT Tandem Meetings, the joint meeting of the...
A key challenge in advancing immunotherapies is to understand mechanisms of response and resistance. Emerging research in this area—including evidence that early on-treatment biopsies can predict response—was discussed at the 2017 ASCO-SITC (Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer) Clinical...