Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses results from the NOW study, which showed that neoadjuvant olaparib is feasible and has a good safety profile in patients with mutated, advanced-stage ovarian cancer. Even in patients with stage IV disease,...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Tang et al, the phase II EXTEND (External Beam Radiation to Eliminate Nominal Metastatic Disease) trial has shown that the addition of metastasis-directed therapy to intermittent hormone therapy improved progression-free survival in patients with oligometastatic...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Michael J. Morris, MD, and colleagues, the phase III Alliance A031201 trial has shown no significant improvement in overall survival with the addition of abiraterone acetate and prednisone to enzalutamide as first-line treatment for metastatic...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) held its annual meeting recently in Orlando. On this week’s episode of <em>The ASCO Post Podcast</em>, we’ll hear from two presenters who discussed quality of life issues in individuals with cancer.
In an analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Wang et al found that pathologic complete response (pCR) was associated with improved outcomes among patients with localized soft-tissue sarcoma receiving neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy or radiotherapy. The analysis included data from patients from two RTOG...
In a U.S. phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Toni K. Choueiri, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of the hypoxia-inducible factor 2α inhibitor belzutifan and the VEGFR kinase inhibitor cabozantinib showed promising activity in patients with advanced clear cell renal cell...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced that it has helped launch the randomized phase III Pragmatica-Lung trial examining the efficacy of ramucirumab plus pembrolizumab in treating patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The new study is one of the first NCI-supported...
Researchers have found that digital breast tomosynthesis may have improved breast cancer screening performance in community practices and could be effective at identifying more invasive cancers compared with digital mammography, according to a new study published by Lee et al in Radiology. The...
In a single-institution Italian phase I/II trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Del Bufalo et al found that treatment with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells targeting the disialoganglioside GD2 expressed on tumor cells (GD2-CART01) produced responses in pediatric patients...
Researchers have found that the novel intravesical chemotherapy delivery system TAR-200 may be safe and effective for patients with advanced muscle-invasive bladder cancer who are medically unfit for standard treatment, according to a new study published by Tyson et al in The Journal of Urology....
Researchers have discovered that the financial impact of an individual’s cancer diagnosis may also impact a partner’s health-related quality of life, according to a new study published by Ghazal et al in JAMA Network Open. “When you think of key developmental milestones young adults expect to...
Pancreatic cancer is a rare disease, accounting for about 3% of all cancers in the United States. It is the deadliest of all solid malignancies, accounting for about 7% of all cancer deaths each year, and carries a 5-year survival rate of just 11.5%. According to the American Cancer Society, in...
In a prospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Asif et al found that endoscopic surveillance may be an alternative to prophylactic total gastrectomy in patients at risk for hereditary diffuse gastric cancer due to germline CDH1 pathogenic variants. Study Details In the study, 270...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) held its annual meeting recently in Orlando. On this week’s episode, we’ll hear from two of the presenters who discussed updates to the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology in chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma and CNS...
In an Indian single-center study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sandhya et al found that olanzapine was associated with weight gain and improved appetite vs placebo in patients receiving chemotherapy for newly diagnosed locally advanced or metastatic gastric,...
In a Japanese phase II trial (STATICE) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nishikawa et al found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed activity in patients with HER2-expressing advanced or recurrent uterine carcinosarcoma. Study Details In the multicenter trial, 32 evaluable ...
Researchers have found that the hypomethylating agent azacitidine plus the MEK inhibitor trametinib may be a promising new combination to treat patients with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML), according to a preclinical study published by Pasupuleti et al in Molecular Therapy. Background JMML ...
Researchers have revealed that the number of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, the state of necrosis, and mutations to the tumor-suppressor gene PBRM1 form a biomarker signature that may predict how patients with renal cell carcinoma will respond to immunotherapy, according to a novel study published ...
In this installment of our Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Kelly M. McMasters, MD, PhD, who, for the past 27 years, has directed a basic and translational science lab studying adenovirus-mediated cancer gene therapy and melanoma biomarkers....
The questions I am challenged to answer are twofold: (1) Should you attend the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting? (2) If you attend, how is your time best spent? Most people agree scientific conferences are important venues for cancer researchers and clinicians to share and discuss research findings,...
The approval process health insurers impose on medical services or drugs is generating a toll that exceeds the purported benefits, according to a physician survey recently released by the American Medical Association (AMA) and shared in a letter to federal health officials.1 Although health...
The management of early-stage triple-negative breast cancer has been evolving at a fast pace, thanks largely to the discovery that immune checkpoint blockade can be effective in this subtype. At the 2023 Miami Breast Cancer Conference, Priyanka Sharma, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of...
Neoadjuvant pembrolizumab may significantly improve the management of desmoplastic melanoma, increasing the likelihood of successful resection and reducing the need for further surgery or radiation therapy, according to the response data presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, with the surgical...
Two cancer experts have been named to lead Mount Sinai’s new Tisch Cancer Hospital, which is under development and expected to open in 2027. Cardinale B. Smith, MD, PhD, has been appointed Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Cancer Clinical Affairs, and Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh, has been...
Here are some brief reports from the 2023 ASCO Genitourinary (GU) Cancers Symposium that we hope are of interest. They include real-world evidence about the use of avelumab maintenance in metastatic urothelial carcinoma, data on the feasibility of sequencing radium-223 and Lu-177–PSMA-617 in...
A new study suggests that the answers generated by the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT may provide correct breast cancer screening advice the vast majority of the time; however, the information is sometimes inaccurate or even fictitious, according to the report published by Haver et al ...
The addition of the PARP (poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase) inhibitor olaparib to standard-of-care abiraterone in the first-line setting of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer achieved longer progression-free survival vs abiraterone alone, as demonstrated in the final results of the phase...
In a Chinese single-center phase II trial (EC-CRT-001) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Zhu et al found that the addition of the PD-1 inhibitor toripalimab to definitive chemoradiotherapy resulted in “encouraging activity and acceptable toxicity” in patients with locally advanced esophageal...
In a phase II trial (ACOSOG Z11102/Alliance) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Judy C. Boughey, MD, and colleagues found that breast-conserving therapy was associated with a low rate of local recurrence in women with multiple ipsilateral breast cancer sites. Study Details A total of 204 ...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Julie E. Bauman, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that the combination of the antihepatocyte growth factor antibody ficlatuzumab and cetuximab was active in patients with cetuximab-resistant, recurrent or metastatic head and neck...
Investigators revealed that the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT may help improve health outcomes for patients with cirrhosis and hepatic cancer by providing easy-to-understand information about basic knowledge, lifestyle modifications, and treatment options for these conditions,...
Commenting on these studies of menin inhibitors, Mikkael Sekeres, MD, MS, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Cancer Center, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, was enthusiastic about the promise of these agents because they are targeted to...
Menin inhibitors are making inroads in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). These drugs selectively target KMT2A-rearranged or NPM1-mutant AML, and early studies suggest they will be a welcome addition for patients with these aberrations. KMT2A rearrangements occur in about 5% of patients ...
The inaugural MD Anderson Clinical Education Symposium on Immunotherapy Toxicity Management (IOTOX) welcomed more than 250 international attendees, both virtually and in person at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston on December 3, 2022. The symposium focused on bringing the ...
“Providing hope when there is little to hope for is hard,” noted Hyman B. Muss, MD, Professor of Medicine and the Mary Jones Hudson Distinguished Professor of Geriatric Oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. At the 2023 Miami...
New long-term data from the CHRYSALIS study evaluating amivantamab-vmjw in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations whose disease progressed on prior platinum-based chemotherapy were presented by Lopez et al at the 2023 European Lung Cancer...
On this episode, we discuss two important studies presented over the past month at two oncology meetings, including the Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer and the Miami Breast Cancer Conference.
In a Swedish case-cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Eriksson et al found that an image-based short-term risk model outperformed a traditional lifestyle/familial risk–based risk model in predicting the likelihood of development of breast cancer over a 10-year period. Study...
Investigators have found that patients with platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer who participate in clinical trials may have higher rates of overall survival compared with those who don’t participate in clinical trials, according to findings presented by Morton et al at the Society of...
Time-related and financial burdens may be detrimental to the quality of life of patients with gynecologic cancer as well as cancer survivors, according to the findings from two new studies presented by Ackroyd et al and Adjei et al at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on ...
Adding immunotherapy to standard chemotherapy may result in significantly longer progression-free survival for patients with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer, according to the findings from two novel studies presented by Eskander et al and Mirza et al at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Tang et al found that the use of the subcutaneous route for administering medications and fluids in patients with cancer was highly predominant in a Canadian center, whereas use of the intravenous (IV) route was nearly universal in a U.S....
Researchers have found no significant differences in overall survival between patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer who received maintenance therapy with the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor niraparib or placebo, according to new findings presented by Matulonis et...
Treatment with the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib prior to surgical intervention and chemotherapy has demonstrated the potential for favorable surgical options, manageable adverse events, and positive health outcomes in patients with ovarian cancer who have a germline...
After comparing the efficacy of the anti–PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab prior to and concurrently with chemoradiation, researchers have indicated favorable outcomes for 2-year disease-free survival and demonstrated evidence of improved immunogenicity with neoadjuvant atezolizumab in patients with...
In a phase IIb trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Serrano et al found that exemestane at 25 mg three times weekly was noninferior to the standard dosing of 25 mg once daily in terms of serum estradiol reduction among postmenopausal patients with stage 0 to II estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jennifer K. Plichta, MD, MS, and colleagues formulated a novel prognostic staging system for de novo metastatic breast cancer. Study Details The staging system was developed using data from 42,467 patients from the National Cancer Database...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by de Braud et al, findings in the expansion cohort of a phase Ib trial indicate activity with the combination of the BRAF/CRAF kinase inhibitor naporafenib and trametinib in patients with advanced or metastatic NRAS-mutant melanoma. Study Details In ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Burgos et al developed an algorithm to identify patients with multiple myeloma and light-chain amyloidosis who have the monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS)-like phenotype, as well as identified the association of the...
Patients with early-stage esophageal adenocarcinoma from lower-income households may be significantly less likely to receive a potentially life-saving treatment and may be more likely to die from the disease, according to a new study published by Geng et al in Clinical Gastroenterology and...