In a study presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program1 and published as a brief report in JAMA Oncology,2 Praful Ravi, MB, BChir, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues found that rechallenge with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy was capable of producing...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Kim N. Chi, MD, of BC Cancer and Vancouver Prostate Centre, and colleagues, the first analysis of the phase III TITAN trial has shown that the addition of apalutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy improved radiographic progression-free and...
In the phase III ARAMIS trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 Karim Fizazi, MD, PhD, of the Institut Gustave Roussy, Universite Paris-Sud, Villejuif, France, and colleagues found that the androgen-receptor (AR) antagonist darolutamide significantly prolonged metastasis-free...
A year ago, initial results from the double-blind, multicenter, randomized phase III ARAMIS clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of darolutamide, a structurally unique androgen-receptor antagonist, in men with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, were published in The...
In the final overall survival analysis of the phase III PROSPER trial reported at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program1 and published in The New England Journal of Medicine,2 Cora N. Sternberg, MD, and colleagues found that enzalutamide plus androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly...
As reported at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program1 and in The New England Journal of Medicine2 by Neal D. Shore, MD, FACS, of Carolina Urologic Research Center, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and colleagues, the phase III HERO trial showed sustained castrate testosterone levels and lower risk of...
Initial results of the randomized phase II TheraP trial showed that therapy directed to prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) with lutetium-177–labeled PSMA-617 (LuPSMA) significantly improved prostate-specific antigen (PSA) response compared with cabazitaxel in men with metastatic...
Over the past year, we have seen significant advances in the treatment of prostate, kidney, and urothelial cancers that will benefit patients now and in the future. We have learned about the final results of important clinical trials across multiple genitourinary cancers disease states leading to...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) have approved record numbers of new cancer drugs recently. This is extraordinarily good news for physicians, patients, and drug companies, but it raises important questions as to how effective these drugs are, whether...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued coverage of the virtual edition of the 25th European Hematology Association Annual Congress (EHA25 Virtual), here are a few abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on clinical research in Hodgkin and marginal zone lymphomas. Omission of...
David Sallman, MD, an assistant member of the Malignant Hematology Department of Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida, commented on the IMerge and QUAZAR studies for The ASCO Post. As background, he noted the “predominant struggle” of patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic ...
As outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic spiked across the country earlier this year, federal health officials and cancer societies advised people to delay seeking routine cancer screenings, including mammograms and colonoscopies, to keep them out of medical centers and away from potential exposure to ...
Over the past few weeks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued designations and accepted applications for novel agents, as well as approved companion diagnostics. We summarize these regulatory movements below. Breakthrough Therapy Designation for MK-6482 in von Hippel-Lindau...
On July 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib (Cotellic) and the selective BRAF kinase inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf) for the treatment of patients with advanced BRAF V600 mutation–positive...
Periodontal disease was associated with an increased risk of two precursors of colorectal cancer, according to results of a study published by Lo et al in Cancer Prevention Research. “Periodontal disease is prevalent among adults, with periodontitis affecting more than 40% of the U.S. population,”...
Minard-Colin et al recently reported for the European Intergroup for Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma/Children’s Oncology Group (EICNHL/COG) a significant improvement in event-free survival among children and adolescents (aged 6 months to 18 years) with high-risk mature B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma...
Marcus Noel, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC, included SWOG S1505 in the presentation of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Highlights during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program. Susan Tsai, MD, MHS, ...
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, oncology providers from around the world had to forgo their annual trip to McCormick Place—but the show did go on. We all realized important research can still be presented, clinicians and fellow researchers will still listen, and ASCO presentations will still...
Some monuments are difficult to topple. At least that was the case dating back to 1976, when investigators from the Southwest Oncology Group demonstrated the importance of doxorubicin in the treatment of patients with a group of lymphoid malignancies then referred to as diffuse aggressive...
“The IKEMA trial is based on the interest of adding a CD38 naked antibody to a carfilzomib-plus-dexamethasone skeleton, a protocol nearly identical to the recently presented CANDOR trial,” said Craig Hofmeister MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Hematology and Oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute...
New research published by Douglas et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network examined coverage trends for circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing, also known as liquid biopsy. In the first-ever study to analyze insurance coverage for ctDNA-based panel tests, researchers found ...
Women with early-stage cervical cancer treated with minimally invasive radical hysterectomy had a 71% increased risk of recurrence and a 56% increased risk of death compared with those treated with open radical hysterectomy, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 studies involving ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is honoring Christopher I. Amos, PhD, with the 2020 AACR–American Cancer Society (ACS) Award for Research Excellence in Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention. Dr. Amos, the Selzman Endowed Professor, Director of the Institute for Clinical and...
Oscar Colegio, MD, PhD, the Lawrence P. & Joan Castellani Family Endowed Chair in Dermatology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York, died unexpectedly on June 13, 2020, at a family residence in Connecticut. He was 47. Dr. Colegio had relocated to Buffalo when he was...
Bjørn Henning Gronberg, MD, PhD, presented a paper at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program reporting astounding positive results favoring higher-dose, twice-daily radiation therapy in limited-stage small cell lung cancer.1 This was a phase II study (large for phase II but small for phase III)...
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. In this installment, Yen Nien Hou, PharmD, DiplOM, LAc, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus on...
In 2007, sorafenib became the first approved systemic therapy for hepatocellular cancers and the first agent to improve overall survival in these patients.1 In a similar multikinase inhibitor strategy, lenvatinib was found to be noninferior to sorafenib in overall survival in the same patient...
Adjuvant atezolizumab, a PD-L1–blocking antibody, failed to meet the primary endpoint of disease-free survival in patients at high risk of recurrence of muscle-invasive bladder cancer compared with observation alone, according to the primary analysis of the IMvigor010 trial reported during the...
Clinicians interested in breast cancer who logged into the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program were greeted with an abundance of high-impact presentations. The ASCO Post has reported on several studies in depth elsewhere, but here we offer our readers a roundup of several important studies in early...
Data from the phase II PrE0505 multicenter trial showed that adding durvalumab, an immune checkpoint antibody targeting programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1), to the combination of cisplatin and pemetrexed chemotherapy improved outcomes in previously untreated patients with unresectable malignant...
Although the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with cancer is still being evaluated, data from several studies show that in comparison with people who do not have cancer, those who do generally experience a higher risk of severe events including admittance to the intensive care unit, ...
Arnon P. Kater, MD, PhD, of the University of Amsterdam, Cancer Center Amsterdam, discusses phase IIIb results from the VENICE I trial, which confirmed that venetoclax monotherapy can achieve deep responses and has a tolerable and manageable safety profile in patients with relapsed or refractory...
Two phase III trials provide support for secondary cytoreductive surgery in women with recurrent ovarian cancer, with the caveats that patient selection is key and the surgery should be performed at sites of excellence. The results of the DESKTOP III and SOC1 trials, both presented during the...
In a poster presentation at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, Mansoor Raza Mirza, MD, of the the Department of Oncology, Rigshopitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, and colleagues reported the final analysis of the phase II NSGO-AVANOVA2/ENGOT-OV24 trial comparing the...
In the final, preplanned, overall survival analysis in the randomized phase III SOLO2/ENGOT-ov211 trial, maintenance treatment with the PARP inhibitor olaparib extended overall survival by an unprecedented 12.9 months, compared with placebo. This marks the first time that overall survival has been...
Tucatinib, a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is highly selective for HER2, plus trastuzumab/capecitabine significantly improved central nervous system (CNS) progression-free survival, overall survival, and intracranial response rate vs placebo plus trastuzumab/capecitabine, as shown...
Advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients whose tumors have no EGFR or ALK alterations poses a particular challenge in terms of first-line therapy. The use of nivolumab plus ipilimumab as well as nivolumab/ipilimumab plus two cycles of chemotherapy, respectively, as first-line therapy ...
When added to bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients with multiple myeloma, selinexor significantly improved progression-free survival and response rates, with a lower incidence of peripheral neuropathy, compared with bortezomib/dexamethasone alone, according to results from the global phase III...
Treatment with the anti–PD-1 agent pembrolizumab significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma compared with standard brentuximab vedotin, according to results of the phase III KEYNOTE-204.1 The study results were presented during the ASCO20 Virtual...
Results of the phase III E2108 study indicate that surgery and radiotherapy given after systemic treatment afforded no additional survival benefit among women with newly diagnosed metastatic breast cancer. The practice may, however, reduce locoregional progression of disease, according to a report...
No superior efficacy was shown with the combination of carfilzomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (KRd) in newly treated patients with standard- and intermediate-risk multiple myeloma who are not slated for immediate autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), compared with the standard of care: ...
Upfront treatment with immunotherapy not only improved results in a subset of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, it doubled the rates of median progression-free survival. These findings—the first of their kind—arose from the interim analysis of the randomized open-label phase III...
According to an interim analysis of the phase III JAVELIN Bladder 100 trial, rates of survival among patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma who did not progress on first-line platinum-based chemotherapy were significantly prolonged by maintenance therapy with avelumab and best supportive care...
On June 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved avelumab (Bavencio) for the maintenance treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma that has not progressed with first-line platinum-containing chemotherapy. JAVELIN Bladder 100 Efficacy of avelumab...
In a study published by Wolpert et al in the European Journal of Cancer, venous thromboembolic events (VTE) were reported in 12% of a cohort of patients with cancer that had metastasized to the brain. Researchers identified thrombogenicity of primary tumor, immobilization, chemotherapy, obesity,...
On June 29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the first-line treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) colorectal cancer. KEYNOTE-177 Approval was based on...
Men with prostate cancer on androgen-deprivation therapy are usually treated with leuprolide, a long-acting injectable luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist requiring an every-3-month injection, but it may be possible for ADT to be delivered by a daily oral treatment, pending...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lo et al developed a novel risk calculator for sentinel node metastasis—the Melanoma Institute Australia Nomogram—that appears to more accurately predict risk of metastasis in patients with primary cutaneous melanoma than other commonly used risk...
Although the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has recommended extended-fraction radiation therapy (more than 10 fractions) not be routinely used for palliation of bone metastases,1 a recently published retrospective cohort study using Medicare data for more than 12,000 patients found ...
An analysis of radiation therapy patterns among more than 12,000 Medicare patients treated for bone metastases found that 23.4% received extended-fraction radiation therapy, “wasting both health-care dollars and precious patient time,” according to the investigators.1 One-third of the treating...