Male breast cancer is a rare and understudied malignancy when compared with female breast cancer, with conflicting literature on survival outcomes in men and women. The ASCO Post spoke recently with breast cancer expert Sharon Giordano, MD, MPH, FASCO, Professor at The University of Texas MD...
Patients with advanced cancer often get more aggressive treatment than they want because too few oncologists elicit their end-of-life treatment preferences.1,2 In response to this problem, leading associations, including ASCO3,4 and the Institute of Medicine,5 have called for more advance care...
USING THE National Cancer Database, Bhatt et al1 recently reported that of the 61,775 adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), those who received chemotherapy from 2003 to 2011 lived longer than those who, in those same years, did not; the study is reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post....
IMMUNE CHECKPOINT inhibitors represent a giant step forward in the treatment of many cancers, and as these agents have “come of age” in the past few years, so has the collective understanding of their potential for causing adverse events. Although checkpoint inhibitors are known to be associated...
AS MORE is learned about the genomic landscape in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, clinicians are grappling with how to apply this information in the clinic. At the 2018 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference, Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, helped them understand this emerging area.1 Dr. Zelenetz is Professor of...
U.S. Senator from Arizona John McCain passed away on August 25, 2018. The cause of death was glioblastoma multiforme. A number of medical societies issued statements remembering Senator McCain, a few of which are reprinted below. The ASCO Post shares in remembering Senator McCain for his service to ...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. Ting Bao, MD, DABMA, MS, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present information on the potential...
In 2009, as Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, was preparing his Presidential Address for that year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, he came across his 6th grade essay titled “My Ambition,” which foretold with eerie specificity the career path he would follow over the next 6 decades. In the paper,...
United States Senator from Arizona John McCain passed away on August 25 of the brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Numerous medical societies issued statements in light of his death, reprinted below. ASCO ASCO President Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, FASCO, issued the following...
Children with certain types of brain tumors who undergo radiation treatment are less likely to recall the specifics of events they experienced after radiation than to remember pretreatment happenings, according to a Baylor University study comparing them to children with healthy brains. These...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
The American Cancer Society estimated that in 2015 in the United States, more than 86,000 women younger than age 45 were diagnosed with cancer. Many of them face reproduction and fertility concerns, which could lead to long-term distress and impaired quality of life in survivorship. To shed light...
The disparity in survival rates between rural and urban patients is reduced when patients in both settings are enrolled in clinical trials, SWOG study results show. The study results were published in JAMA Network Open by a team led by Joseph Unger, PhD, a SWOG biostatistician...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for filing a biologics license application (BLA) for tagraxofusp (Elzonris, formerly SL-401) for the treatment of patients with blastic plasmacytoid dendritic cell neoplasm (BPDCN), a rare hematologic malignancy. The FDA also granted Priority ...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with breast cancer surgeon...
In the early part of the 20th century, the U.S. government classified cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug: a dangerous substance with no medical value. For many years, that classification prevented systematic research in cannabinoid use in medicine. As a result of societal changes and an intense and...
In the age of big data, cancer researchers are discovering new ways to monitor the effectiveness of immunotherapy treatments. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy developed a new way to use bioinformatics as a gathering tool to determine how ...
TAILORx changes the configuration of the ball field and the shape of the ball in deciding which women will be recommended chemotherapy after resection of node-negative, hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. TAILORx was presented by Joseph Sparano, MD, at the 2018 ASCO Plenary Session and...
In February 2015, there was no indication that my life was about to radically change. I was a practicing attorney and happily raising two young children with my husband. At 40 years old, I was healthy—or so I thought—and had no physical symptoms to alert me to the devastating news that was about to ...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. Ting Bao, MD, DABMA, MS, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present information on the use of reishi...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning that the antibiotic azithromycin should not be given on a long-term basis to prevent the inflammatory lung condition bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome in patients with cancers of the blood or lymph nodes who undergo a donor stem cell...
GC4419, A SMALL molecule superoxide dismutase mimetic, reduced the duration, incidence, and severity of chemoradiotherapy-induced mucositis in patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer, with a safety profile comparable to that of placebo. This finding comes from a randomized phase IIb...
FOR THE TREATMENT of lymphoma, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are becoming an important class of drugs, as described at the 2018 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference by Brad Kahl, MD, Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.1 “We have one ADC—brentuximab vedotin...
THE EMERGENCE of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has sparked a wave of optimism in hematologic malignancies, but as experience in using CAR T-cell therapy has grown, new challenges have surfaced. A pioneer in the field, David G. Maloney, MD, PhD, enlightened attendees on these issues ...
Research published by Jung et al in OncoImmunology showed organ transplant recipients may reduce their risk of developing secondary skin cancer by changing their immunosuppressant medication. University of Queensland (UQ) researchers have studied the impact of such medications on the immune...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Mace L. Rothenberg, MD,...
On World Lung Cancer Day (August 1), the members of the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) commemorate, celebrate, and support those impacted by lung cancer. FIRS continues to support the grassroots efforts of the lung cancer community to raise awareness about lung cancer and its...
A new study from the Stanford Cancer Institute found that young women who are treated with chemotherapy for breast cancer but have residual tumor in either the breast or lymph nodes have higher chances of recurrence compared to those with no evidence of any residual invasive...
MANY IN the cancer research and National Institutes of Health (NIH) community are mourning the loss of long-time National Cancer Institute (NCI) senior leader Alan S. Rabson, MD, who died on July 4 at the age of 92. With a distinguished scientific career that spanned 6 decades and included...
ASCO HAS ENDORSED the recommendations in the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) clinical practice guidelines for integrative therapies during and after breast cancer.1,2 The guidelines “are clear, thorough, and based on the most relevant scientific evidence,” wrote the ASCO expert panel that...
RECOMMENDATIONS IN the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) clinical practice guidelines for integrative therapies during and after breast cancer treatment “are clear, thorough, and based on the most relevant scientific evidence,” concluded an ASCO expert panel that reviewed the guidelines.1,2...
Mailing colorectal cancer screening tests to patients insured by Medicaid increased screening rates for this population, reported researchers at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. In collaboration with the Mecklenburg County Health Department in...
It would be impossible to cover all of the important presentations from the 5,000-plus abstracts accepted for the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. In addition to our regular meeting coverage of the top news stories, the following highlights focus on novel investigational approaches to therapy for various...
Patients with advanced squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) had a greater benefit from first-line treatment with the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus chemotherapy vs chemotherapy alone in the randomized, phase III, IMpower131 clinical trial.1 At the landmark of 12-month...
At the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) and its collaborators presented the 8-year updates of the key modern trials of ovarian function suppression after local treatment for young women with resected breast cancer.1 These updates...
Selma Ugurel, MD, of the Skin Cancer Center Essen at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, discussed the Merkel cell carcinoma presentations at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. “Immunotherapy is of high interest in Merkel cell because of the high immunogenicity of the tumor—viral-induced and...
Squamous cell carcinoma is the second-most-common form of skin cancer. Evidence suggests the human papillomavirus (HPV) plays a role in the development of some types of this skin cancer. Two years ago, a 97-year-old woman whose right leg was covered with squamous cell tumors went to see...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed medical oncologist Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, FACP, Executive Director at the West Cancer Center, Memphis. Dr. Schwartzberg’s major research interests are new therapeutic approaches to breast cancer,...
THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION of New York named University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Professor Antoni Ribas, MD, an honoree as part of its Great Immigrants Initiative, a program honoring a selected group of naturalized citizens who have made notable contributions to the progress of American...
“TUMOR MUTATIONAL burden is an emerging biomarker independent of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) level. There are a few reasons for enthusiasm. Tumor mutational burden is a compelling biomarker for response and progression-free survival. Six-month progression-free survival is 50% with a...
“THIS IS a wonderful presentation and a very exciting trial,” said formal discussant Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Despite the remarkable advances achieved with anti–programmed cell death protein 1 and ligand 1 (anti–PD-1/anti–PD-L1) treatment, “there...
ASCO EXPERT David Graham, MD, FASCO, Medical Director at the Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, was enthusiastic about this new technology. “This is an important first step showing there is an easier way to detect lung cancer at earlier stages. If the promise of this report...
RESEARCH TO DATE has not been able to identify a subgroup of patients with estrogen receptor–positive HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer who do not derive benefit from the addition of inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases 4/6 (CDK4/6) to endocrine therapy, according to a study by the U.S. Food ...
Imagine health care in the not too distant future… JOHN IS GOING about his usual Saturday at home, when his health-care–enabled smart watch alerts him to a sudden rise in his heart rate. As he is wondering about the reason, he feels a sharp pain in his left lower quadrant. The tachycardia...
THE COMBINATION of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus platinum-based chemotherapy improved overall survival, response rates, and duration of response in patients with advanced squamous cell non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with chemotherapy alone irrespective of programmed cell death ligand 1 ...
The following essay by Sushil Bhardwaj, MD, is adapted, with permission, from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Cortes et al found that the next-generation FLT3 inhibitor quizartinib had good activity in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), with greater activity in patients with FLT3-ITD mutations. Study Details The study...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. Gary Deng, MD, PhD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present information on the potential health benefits ...
Terminally ill patients with cancer will sometimes ask their clinicians for help with assisted or hastened death.1 Although palliative care and hospice care can usually address the concerns of most patients, some have physical or existential suffering that is refractory to comfort and supportive...
RESEARCHERS AT the University of California (UC), Davis, have shown that patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who received their care at a National Cancer Institute (NCI) cancer center in California had a dramatically reduced risk of early mortality. Using data from the California Cancer...