Clinical trials are the key to driving advances in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, yet, it is estimated that only about 5% of patients with cancer participate in clinical trials. That is why Cancer.Net, ASCO’s patient-facing educational website, has teamed up with Neal Meropol,...
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its policies and procedures. In this installment, FDA oncologists Gideon Blumenthal, MD, and Tatiana Prowell, MD, discuss 10 common myths about FDA’s Office of Hematology and Oncology ...
Richard D. Carvajal, MD, has been named Director of the Experimental Therapeutics/Phase I program and melanoma service in medical oncology at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center effective November 1, 2014. Dr. Carvajal, a medical oncologist, has extensive clinical expertise in...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have announced a new partnership to optimize patient care and foster excellence in the practices of pathology and oncology through interprofessional education, advocacy, quality improvement,...
Janet Woodcock, MD, Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, has been awarded the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognizes “an individual who has had a significant career history of making...
In the treatment of advanced/metastatic melanoma, recent debate has focused on the choice of initial therapy: ipilimumab (Yervoy) or, for patients with BRAF-mutant cancer, a BRAF/MEK inhibitor. This issue is now taking a back seat to the emerging conversation about the positioning of antibodies...
Despite advances in detection and treatment, colorectal cancer remains the third deadliest cancer among men and women in the United States. To get a better understanding of the current state of this disease and what lies ahead, The ASCO Post recently spoke with colorectal cancer expert John L....
The FDA’s proposed regulatory framework is based on a test’s level of risk to the patient. Premarket approvals would be required of the tests in the highest-risk category within a year of the final guidance; that would include tests for which there is already an FDA-approved equivalent. For...
The packed ballroom looked like a plenary session at any big medical research meeting. But on the dais were representatives of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the subject was the Agency’s proposed regulation of laboratory-developed tests, and the attendees who lined up to ask questions for...
“Overdiagnosis has been overblown” in concerns voiced about lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography, Andrea B. McKee, MD, told participants at the opening session of the 2014 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. Dr. McKee is Chair of the Department of Radiation ...
Immunotherapy agents “really work” in treating lung cancer, but they have unique toxicities, are challenging to combine with other therapies, and questions remain about dose and duration, Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, stated at the 2014 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. “There are ...
The American Cancer Society’s annual cancer statistics report found that a 22% drop in cancer mortality over 2 decades led to the avoidance of more than 1.5 million cancer deaths that would have occurred if peak rates had persisted. And while cancer death rates have declined in every state, the...
Progression-free survival was significantly improved among patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving sunitinib (Sutent) as switch maintenance compared to placebo, according to results of an Alliance phase III trial (Cancer and Leukemia Group B [CALGB] 3067). The effect of...
Oncologists need a better understanding of why women choose contralateral prophylactic mastectomies without indication, and they need data to counter their patients’ misperceptions about this treatment choice. “Many women who choose [contralateral prophylactic mastectomy] are not at increased risk...
Fulvestrant (Faslodex) at a 500-mg dose was superior to anastrozole as first-line therapy for advanced hormone receptor–positive breast cancer in the phase II FIRST study.1 Overall survival and time to disease progression were significantly better with fulvestrant than with the current standard of...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to olaparib (Lynparza) for women with advanced ovarian cancer with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated advanced ovarian cancer, as detected by an FDA-approved test, who have been treated with three...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo) for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma who no longer respond to other drugs. Nivolumab, a programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor, is intended for patients who have been...
Study discussant Mary L. Disis, MD, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean of Translational Science at the University of Washington, Seattle, commented that the response rate, approaching 20%, is “in the ballpark” of those observed in melanoma, lung cancer, and renal cancer. She pointed out that...
Among women with triple-negative breast cancer, overall, basal-like and non–basal-like tumors were equally likely to demonstrate a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, but they responded differently to the addition of carboplatin and bevacizumab (Avastin) to a standard...
The addition of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor nilotinib (Tasigna) to standard low-intensity chemotherapy improved outcomes in elderly patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and may represent a new approach to this group of patients, who are ...
In patients with Hodgkin lymphoma who are at risk for disease progression following autologous stem cell transplantation, early consolidation with brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) post-transplant significantly improved progression-free survival compared with placebo in the phase III AETHERA trial.1...
As session moderator, Fredrick Hagemeister, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, commented during the discussion of Dr. Connors’ study. He first emphasized the need to establish the safety of new drugs in clinical trials before incorporating them...
Several studies presented at the 2014 ASH Annual Meeting supported the use of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in Hodgkin lymphoma. The Reed-Sternberg cells of classical Hodgkin lymphoma typically express CD30, which is targeted by brentuximab vedotin, an anti-CD30 monoclonal antibody conjugated by a ...
Anyone who has awoken from a decades-long amnestic spell can be forgiven for thinking that physicians cannot do anything right nowadays. Compared with decades ago, when physicians did mostly right, we now seem to be nowhere close to correctness. Nearly every malady that befalls the health-care...
David H. Vesole, MD, PhD, FACP, Co-Division Chief and Director of Research for the Multiple Myeloma Division at the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, commented after the presentation of the ASPIRE trial data that the findings were “impressive.” “It’s ...
The phase III global ASPIRE trial documented an “unprecedented” duration of remission in relapsed multiple myeloma patients receiving carfilzomib (Kyprolis) plus a standard-of-care doublet, according to Keith Stewart, MB, ChB, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, who...
Two years ago, my son was diagnosed with the rare vascular sarcoma epithelioid hemangioendothelioma, on which there is incredibly little reseach and knowledge (see here for more on this rare cancer). PubMed revealed a “characteristic” description: unpredictable behavior, no correlation with...
Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma is a rare and devastating vascular sarcoma that affects between 100 and 200 people, mostly young adults, each year in the United States. The cancer may arise as a solitary lesion but more commonly presents with metastatic involvement, usually in the liver and lungs. ...
The concept of “chemobrain” is underrecognized, noted Serena Wong, MD, co-investigator of a clinical trial examining the effects of chemotherapy and hormonal therapy on the brain. Dr. Wong is a medical oncologist at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Assistant Professor of Medicine at...
The novelty of our approach is that we are going to be using multiple modalities” to study the effects of chemotherapy and hormonal therapy on the brain, looking for structural changes within the brain and how these changes might affect psychomotor function, particularly upper-extremity movements...
Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD, a pioneer in the field of vaccine therapy for pancreatic cancer and leader in immunology research, has been appointed Deputy Director of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Dr. Jaffee, the Dana and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins...
FEBRUARY AACR-SNMMI Joint Conference: State-of-the-Art Molecular Imaging in Cancer Biology and TherapyFebruary 11-14 • San Diego, California For more information: www.aacr.org 2015 BMT Tandem Meeting American Society for Blood and Marrow TransplantationFebruary 11 - 15 • San Diego, California For...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with newly diagnosed or recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. The studies include pilot, phase I, I/II, III, and observational trials investigating chemoradiation therapy;...
The Melanoma Research Alliance has reported that Suzanne Topalian, MD, Chair of the group’s Scientific Advisory Panel, and former Chief Scientific Officer, has been named one of 10 people in science who mattered in 2014 by the Nature International Weekly Journal of Science. Dr. Topalian was cited...
West Cancer Center has announced the establishment of The University of Tennessee (UT)/West Institute for Cancer Research, a nonprofit public charity fully dedicated to raising funds for adult cancer research in Memphis. The UT/West Institute for Cancer Research is soliciting grants from government ...
Friends of Cancer Research, in conjunction with the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at Brookings, recently held the seventh annual Conference on Clinical Cancer Research in Washington, DC. The panels that comprised the daylong meeting discussed a future that has already begun. The most...
Amgen and its subsidiary Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc, announced the submission of a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) carfilzomib (Kyprolis) to seek approval for the treatment of patients with relapsed multiple myeloma who have received at least...
Nearly 5,000 scientific abstracts were presented at the 2014 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exhibition in San Francisco. Along with our targeted coverage of the meeting’s key newsmakers, The ASCO Post provides you with these brief reports of other interesting...
Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida have participated in a global effort that has identified six new regions of the genome that increase risk of epithelial ovarian cancer, according to a news release from Moffitt. The collaborative study was published recently in Nature...
At the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, a research team led by Michael Dixon, MD, of Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, shed light on the development of endocrine resistance and presented a four-gene messenger RNA (mRNA) profile that can predict response to letrozole with a high degree ...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. In December 12, 2014, ramucirumab (Cyramza) was approved for use in ...
ASCO has released a policy statement calling for greater access to and education about phase I clinical trials, the first-in-human studies of new agents designed to fight cancer. In “The Critical Role of Phase I Trials in Cancer Research and Treatment” ASCO policy statement, the Society stresses...
Encourage your patients to consider participating in clinical trials, including phase I clinical trials. Direct your patients to www.cancer.net/clinicaltrials for detailed information about the purpose and advantages of clinical trials and why today’s phase I studies are different. On the...
In just a year’s time, four new therapies have been approved for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), treatments that are highly effective and far easier for patients to tolerate. These therapies are a major step forward, bringing renewed hope to nearly 120,000 people living with CLL...
Frank M. Muller, Jr, the newest member of the Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF) Cornerstone Planned Giving Society, has a 40-year history of successfully leading investment and high-tech corporations. He served 8 years on active duty in tours to Vietnam. It is rare for him to experience a challenge...
Treatment of advanced bladder cancer continues to prove challenging, and therapies that offer long-term survival remain elusive. The ASCO Post recently spoke with Derek Raghavan, MD, PhD, FACP, FRACP, FASCO, President of the Levine Cancer Center, Charlotte, North Carolina, about the current state...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today expanded the approved use of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) for patients with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, a rare, indolent type of B-cell lymphoma. Ibrutinib is the first therapy indicated specifically for Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia and previously...
Inotuzumab ozogamicin combined with a low-intensity chemotherapy called mini-hyper-CVD achieved highly encouraging results in older patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in a phase II study reported at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology.1 After the...
"I’m certainly excited about the promise of CAR T cells for patients with lymphoid leukemia (ALL and CLL). It’s clear from the data presented and published that CAR T cells can induce remissions in patients refractory to multiple lines of therapy,” said Timothy Graubert, MD, Hagler Family Chair in...
As more experience is gained with the use of genetically engineered chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells in patients with leukemia, the data continue to be highly encouraging. Three different groups using slightly different modifications of CAR T cells reported positive experiences in treating...