At the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 18th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Yokohama, Japan, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced data evaluating nivolumab (Opdivo) and nivolumab plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) in previously treated small cell lung cancer (SCLC) patients whose...
Data from the phase II ALTA clinical trial evaluating brigatinib (Alunbrig) in patients with locally advanced or metastatic anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have disease progression on crizotinib were presented at the International...
Early specialist palliative care for patients that were recently diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma does not impact quality-of-life measures, according to research presented by Fraser Brims, MBcHB, MRCP, MD, FRACP, of Curtin University in Australia, at the International Association...
An Italian single-center prospective cohort study suggests that adjuvant treatment with the beta-blocker propranolol significantly reduces the risk of melanoma recurrence in patients with stage IB to IIIA cutaneous disease. The findings were reported in JAMA Oncology by De Giorgi et al. Preclinical ...
On October 12, ASCO President Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, issued the following statement: The Trump administration's move to expand the rights of employers to opt out of the requirement for contraceptive coverage would have unexpected and deleterious consequences for patients of childbearing age...
As reported by Mok et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, overall survival analysis of the phase III IMPRESS trial indicated a poorer outcome when adding gefitinib (Iressa) vs placebo to chemotherapy after disease progression on first-line gefitinib in epidermal growth factor receptor...
On October 12, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the first 7-Tesla (7T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) device, more than doubling the static magnetic field strength available for use in the United States. The Magnetom Terra is the first 7T MRI system cleared for clinical use in...
On October 12, Eli Lilly and Company announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review designation to its New Drug Application (NDA) for abemaciclib (Verzenio), a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor. MONARCH 3 The NDA was based upon the positive interim...
On October 10, Eli Lilly and Company announced that its phase III JUNIPER study evaluating abemaciclib (Verzenio), a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4 and CDK6 inhibitor, as monotherapy in KRAS-mutated, advanced non–small lung cancer (NSCLC) did not meet its primary endpoint of overall...
National Cancer Institute (NCI) researchers have found that for the most common high-risk type of human papillomavirus (HPV) to cause cervical cancer, an important viral gene may need to have a precise DNA sequence. The findings, published by Mirabello et al in Cell, contribute to a better...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Balar et al, first-line pembrolizumab (Keytruda) produced durable responses in cisplatin-ineligible patients with locally advanced and unresectable or metastatic urothelial cancer in the phase II KEYNOTE-052 trial. The trial supported the accelerated approval...
On October 9, AstraZeneca announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for osimertinib (Tagrisso) for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation–positive non–small cell lung ...
Trastuzumab (Herceptin) therapy for breast cancers that express the HER2 protein does not increase the risk of complications at the surgical site in women who undergo immediate breast reconstruction after mastectomy, according to findings published by Shammas et al in the Journal of the American...
In a propensity score–matched analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Mokdad et al found that adjuvant chemotherapy had a survival benefit vs observation after preoperative chemoradiotherapy and resection in patients with locally advanced gastroesophageal cancer. Study Details The study...
In a study in the Danish population reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Salz et al found that preexisting cardiovascular conditions were associated with an increased risk of heart failure in survivors of aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The standard use of anthracycline chemotherapy ...
Although lymphodepletion chemotherapy followed by an infusion of CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells has produced high response rates in phase I studies of patients with refractory CD19-positive B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), chronic lymphocytic leukemia...
A self-controlled clinical trial by Hanai et al investigating the efficacy of cryotherapy for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in patients with breast cancer treated with paclitaxel has found that cryotherapy resulted in a clinically and statistically significant...
A Swedish population-based observational study has shown that comorbidity is a significant factor in other-cause but not prostate cancer–specific mortality after adjustment for patient, tumor, and treatment factors among men with prostate cancer. The findings were reported in the Journal of...
Overweight and obesity are associated with increased risk of 13 types of cancer—and these cancers account for about 40% of all cancers diagnosed in the United States in 2014—according to the latest Vital Signs report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Overall, the...
On October 2, Seattle Genetics, Inc, announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in combination with chemotherapy for the front-line treatment of patients with advanced classical Hodgkin lymphoma. The positive ...
Breast cancer during pregnancy is relatively uncommon; however, it poses a significant clinical challenge to the patient and her multidisciplinary care team. To shed light on this difficult issue, The ASCO Post spoke with Carey K. Anders, MD, a medical oncologist and researcher at the University...
DANA-FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE has announced the opening of the new Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living. Increasing data have indicated that integrative therapies can help alleviate the side effects of cancer therapy. The Zakim Center, as it is commonly referred to,...
Breast cancer specialist Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, was born in Manhasset, Long Island, and grew up several miles east in Muttontown, New York. Since tiny Muttontown didn’t have its own school system, Dr. Partridge went to high school in nearby Locust Valley, a town on Long Island’s North Shore,...
ON JULY 31, 2017, nivolumab (Opdivo) was granted accelerated approval for treatment of patients 12 years and older with DNA mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) and microsatellite instability– high (MSI-H) metastatic colorectal cancer progressing following treatment with a fluoropyrimidine,...
PATIENTS WITH DNA mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer display a high level of microsatellite instability (MSI-H)1 and demonstrate poor chemosensitivity and shorter overall survival than patients with mismatch repair–proficient (pMMR) metastatic metastatic colorectal...
THE PHASE II CHECKMATE 142 TRIAL has shown that nivolumab (Opdivo) produces durable responses in previously treated recurrent or metastatic DNA mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR)/ microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) colorectal cancer. These study findings were reported in The Lancet Oncology...
Studies show that only about one-third of patients with acute myeloid leukemia who have detectable amounts of cancer cells in their blood at the time of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation will be alive 3 years later, compared with nearly three-quarters of those patients without minimal...
THE PHASE III MSLT- II TRIAL showed that completion dissection was not associated with improved melanoma-specific overall survival vs observation in patients with sentinel-node metastasis, although a benefit was observed in regional disease control. The findings were reported in The New England...
IN WHAT APPEARS TO BE the largest blood-based biomarker study of a checkpoint inhibitor, an RNA transcript–based gene classifier was able to predict for melanoma patients’ response to tremelimumab. The study was recently published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.1 “Our study, in many...
NADIA HARBECK, MD, PhD, of the Breast Center at the University of Munich, Germany, said the findings of LORELEI are among a growing list of indications that “the future is bright for endocrine-based therapy.” Although the results were hypothesis-generating and not yet practice-changing, she...
FOR THE first time, an inhibitor of the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) pathway (taselisib) used in combination with endocrine therapy in the neoadjuvant setting improved response rates over endocrine therapy alone—with good tolerability—in women with early breast cancer, according to the phase...
FORMAL DISCUSSANT of ARIEL3, Sandro Pignata, MD, of the IRCCS National Cancer Institute, “Fondazione G. Pascale,” Naples, Italy, said: “This is new evidence for maintenance therapy with rucaparib [Rubraca]. These results are extraordinary, particularly in the BRCA mutation patients, but also in...
EVIDENCE CONTINUES to mount for the benefits of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition in ovarian cancer. Rucaparib (Rubraca) maintenance therapy after response to platinum-containing therapy significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer compared ...
IN PATIENTS with malignant pleural mesothelioma, combination immunotherapy with two checkpoint inhibitors in the second or third line of treatment extended survival to at least 15 months in the MAPS2 trial,1 sponsored by the Intergroupe Francophone de Cancérologie Thoracique (IFCT) and reported at ...
OSIMERTINIB (TAGRISSO) showed encouraging results as first-line therapy for patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)–mutated non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the phase III FLAURA trial, according to results presented at the 2017 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)...
“IN 2008, I presented the IPASS results. FLAURA has beaten me to the ground. The results exceeded expectations, and FLAURA is undoubtedly a positive study,” stated formal discussant Professor Tony Mok, MD, FASCO, Chair of Department of Clinical Oncology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It is ...
OSIMERTINIB (TAGRISSO) showed encouraging results as first-line therapy for patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)–mutated non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the phase III FLAURA trial, according to results presented at the 2017 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Barbera et al found that a province-wide effort to improve symptom screening and management has increased the frequency of screening but has not improved opioid prescription rates in elderly cancer patients with severe pain. A previous study...
On September 26, Eisai Inc announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for lenvatinib (Lenvima) for potential use in the first-line treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. “Patients with...
A CHANGE IN PARADIGM may be on the horizon for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. According to the results of CheckMate 214, the combination of ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus nivolumab (Opdivo) outperformed the standard of care—sunitinib (Sutent)—for first-line treatment, with improved...
PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT advance in the treatment of newly diagnosed primary melanoma has been the incorporation of sentinel lymph node biopsy as part of initial surgical management. The routine use of sentinel lymph node biopsy, often termed “sentinel lymphadenectomy,” in appropriately...
NICHOLAS TURNER, MD, of The Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK, called the findings of MONARCH 3 “practice-changing.” The cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors have answered the need for agents that target the biology of estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer, ...
THE VALUE OF cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors in advanced breast cancer became ever more certain with the announcement of interim data from MONARCH 3, which evaluated abemaciclib in combination with endocrine therapy as first-line therapy for hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative...
EARLY IN our careers, few of us imagined that a vaccine could one day prevent cancer. Now, there is a vaccine that keeps the risks from human papillomavirus (HPV) at bay, and yet universal adoption of the HPV vaccine has been incomplete. As a result of misinformation about the vaccine—and its...
Historically, randomized controlled trials have served as the state-of-the-art method for determining the efficacy and safety of new, innovative treatment regimens for patients with cancer and other diseases. It is imperative that such trials are carefully designed to ensure that they are...
On September 22, Roche announced that the European Commission has approved obinutuzumab (Gazyvaro in Europe; available in the United States as Gazyva) in combination with chemotherapy, followed by obinutuzumab maintenance in patients achieving a response, as a new treatment for previously untreated ...
The phase III ARCHER 1050 trial has shown superior progression-free survival with the second-generation irreversible epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor dacomitinib vs gefitinib (Iressa) in the first-line treatment of advanced EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in partnership with international regulatory and law enforcement agencies, recently took action against more than 500 websites that illegally sell potentially dangerous, unapproved versions of prescription medicines, including opioids, antibiotics, and...
On September 29, Roche announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted the company’s supplemental Biologics License Application and granted Priority Review for pertuzumab (Perjeta), in combination with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and chemotherapy, for adjuvant treatment of...
As reported in JAMA by Giuliano et al, 10-year overall survival in the ACOSOG Z0011 (Alliance) trial with sentinel lymph node dissection (SLND) alone was noninferior to that with axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in women with clinical T1 or T2 invasive breast cancer, no palpable axillary...