PROMISING BREAKTHROUGHS in cancer care don’t just happen overnight; they result after years of hard work by the brightest minds in cancer research. Yet many are unaware of the vast resources necessary to fuel cutting-edge research projects. Increasing awareness around this issue is vital to...
In my area of research, lung cancer, precision medicine is indeed transforming the treatment of this disease and has important implications for other cancers and for the future of our patients with cancer. Today’s achievement of being able to systematically identify genomic changes that can be...
TESTICULAR CANCER is among the most common cancers in young men. The majority of patients are cured of their disease, but a newly published study shows many remain at risk for later complications from chemotherapy or other treatments. The study, published by Mohammad Abu Zaid, MD, Assistant...
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,...
MARIUSZ A. WASIK, MD, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Pathology at Fox Chase Cancer Center and Jeanes Hospital. He will also serve as Associate Director of the Cancer Center, a position he assumed on July 2, 2018. As Chair of Pathology and a key member of Fox Chase’s leadership...
Dr. Weiss is Assistant Professor (Medical Oncology), Developmental Therapeutics, Melanoma Program, Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Sznol is Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology); Co-Director, Cancer Immunology Program, Yale Cancer Center Co-Director, Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer, New Haven, Connecticut. ...
A POOLED analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has shown a benefit of treatment beyond disease progression on Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) in some patients receiving anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) antibodies for unresectable or...
TUMOR MUTATIONAL burden is emerging as a predictive biomarker for the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as well as other tumor types. However, experts say tumor mutational burden has hurdles to overcome. At the 2018 Annual Meeting of...
COMBINING CMP-001, a Toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist, plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) appears to overcome resistance to anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) therapy, according to a preliminary phase Ib study.1 Adding CMP-001 to pembrolizumab was well tolerated, with antitumor efficacy ...
FORMAL DISCUSSANT Parameswaran Hari, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, was impressed by many aspects of the bb2121 study, which represents the “largest and most mature” data set for the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell approach in myeloma, he noted. According to Dr. Hari,...
IN AN UPDATE of a phase I trial, a heavily pretreated population of patients with multiple myeloma continued to respond to the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy bb2121.1 The results presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting confirmed previous findings for bb2121 in the dose-escalation...
IN PATIENTS with advanced breast cancer harboring a PIK3CA mutation, the addition of the PI3 kinase (PI3K) inhibitor taselisib to endocrine therapy with fulvestrant (Faslodex) significantly improved progression-free survival compared with fulvestrant alone, in the international phase III SANDPIPER...
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...
IF THE INITIAL promise of research presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting bears fruit, we may one day have a simple blood test to screen for early-stage lung cancer and possibly other cancers. Although it is still very early days for this test, an initial report from the ongoing Circulating...
“TODAY WE HAVE good news, because IMpower 150 is another clear positive trial on the combination of chemotherapy with immunotherapy. This is true in terms of progression-free and overall survival, which are both statistically significant [for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus bevacizumab (Avastin)...
ATEZOLIZUMAB (TECENTRIQ) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) plus a platinum doublet (ABCP) improved overall survival by 22% compared with bevacizumab plus a platinum doublet (BCP) in patients with advanced wild-type (without an identified mutation) nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according...
BRUCE D. CHESON, MD, Director of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, DC, agreed that rituximab (Rituxan) plus lenalidomide (Revlimid; R2) is a reasonable first-line option, considering the findings of the RELEVANCE trial. “Dr. Fowler showed ...
IN PATIENTS with previously untreated advanced follicular lymphoma, the chemotherapy-free combination of rituximab (Rituxan) plus lenalidomide (Revlimid), the so-called R-squared (R2) regimen, yielded outcomes as good as those in patients who received standard rituximab-chemotherapy, in the interim ...
WARREN CHOW, MD, a sarcoma specialist at City of Hope, Duarte, California, said maintenance therapy has not traditionally been used in the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma; therefore, the findings represent “a paradigm shift.” Although the RMS2005 Maintenance study established a new standard of care ...
THE ADDITION OF 6 months of maintenance chemotherapy in the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma improved 5-year survival by 13%, in the European RMS2005 Maintenance study reported at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “At the end of this long, not-easy study, we concluded that maintenance is an effective and ...
SUSAN O’BRIEN, MD, Associate Director for Clinical Science, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California Irvine Health, told The ASCO Post that the pairing of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta) “is clearly a very powerful combination.” The next question, she...
A REGIMEN COMBINING ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and venetoclax (Venclexta) in previously untreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) greatly reduced the risk of venetoclax-associated tumor-lysis syndrome and led to promising rates of undetectable minimal residual disease (MRD) in the phase ...
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 ...
A research team led by a St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital epidemiologist has conducted the largest analysis to date of how adult survivors of childhood cancer view their health risk. The scientists found that a surprisingly high number of survivors showed a lack of concern for their...
In a Japanese phase III noninferiority trial (JCOG0504) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kayama et al found that salvage stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) was noninferior to whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) for survival in patients with 1 to 4 resected brain metastases. In the...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Naren Ramakrishna, MD, of the University of Florida Health Cancer Center at Orlando Health, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline update on disease management for patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer and...
In a study of Ovarian Cancer Cohort Consortium data reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Trabert et al found that daily aspirin use was associated with a modest reduction in the risk of ovarian cancer. The study included prospective individual-level data from 13 studies in the ...
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 the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Earlier this year, apalutamide (Erleada) was approved for ...
Significant disparities in the quality of end-of-life lung cancer care were found among racial/ethnic minorities, with higher odds of experiencing potentially preventable medical encounters during end of life as compared with non-Hispanic whites. These findings were published by Siddharth Karanth, ...
In a letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, Thomas J. Smith, MD, of Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, and colleagues described the successful use of oxybutynin to treat hot flashes in a patient receiving androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) for ...
On June 27, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the combination of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib (Braftovi) and the MEK inhibitor binimetinib (Mektovi) in patients with advanced BRAF V600–mutant melanoma, as detected by an FDA-approved test.1 Dual targeting of the MAPK...
To dig a bit deeper into some of the issues touched upon in the new book, The Key to Prostate Cancer: 30 Experts Explain 15 Stages of Prostate Cancer, The ASCO Post recently spoke with the author, Mark Scholz, MD. Dr. Scholz is a medical oncologist who exclusively treats men with prostate cancer....
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center researchers have published a new guide to help clinicians navigate a recent revolution in care for advanced Merkel cell carcinoma. The guide was published in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and it accompanies NCCN’s new...
With the development of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test in the early 1990s, the urology community advocated for population screening of all men of a certain age, igniting a heated argument about the test’s clinical value vs potential harms that has not abated to this day. Moreover, from...
Eight years ago, I was having a series of colds I couldn’t shake and pain that radiated throughout my back. Still, my symptoms weren’t concerning until, on Halloween morning in 2010, I stepped out of bed and fell to the floor in excruciating pain, unable to move. A visit to the emergency room and a ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently accepted a new drug application and granted Priority Review designation for glasdegib, an investigational oral smoothened inhibitor being evaluated for the treatment of adult patients with previously untreated acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in...
As reported by Bisogno et al in The Lancet Oncology, a phase III trial (EpSSG RMS 2005) has shown no benefit of adding doxorubicin to standard IVA (ifosfamide, vincristine, dactinomycin) in 3-year event-free survival among patients with high-risk rhabdomyosarcoma. Study Details In the open-label...
City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Provost and Chief Scientific Officer, Steven T. Rosen, MD, has been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Dr. Rosen was nominated, reviewed, and elected by peers in recognition of...
Christine M. Eischen, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Cancer Biology at Thomas Jefferson University and co-leader of the Molecular Biology & Genetics Program at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, was recently invested as the inaugural Herbert A. Rosenthal, MD ’56 Professor in ...
GUEST EDITOR Integrative Oncology is guest edited by Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine and Chief, Integrative Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. “Mindfulness” has gained significant popularity in the lay press in recent...
GUEST EDITOR Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology explores the unique physical, psychosocial, social, emotional, sexual, and financial challenges adolescents and young adults with cancer face. The column is guest edited by Brandon Hayes-Lattin, MD, FACP, Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical...
The phase III IMpassion130 study has met its co-primary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS). Results demonstrated that the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) as first-line treatment significantly reduced the risk of disease worsening or death in patients...
Many cases of early-stage kidney cancer can be treated with a relatively new, nonsurgical procedure used to destroy tumors, a new study by Talenfeld et al in Annals of Internal Medicine suggests. The procedure, called percutaneous ablation, involves the insertion of a needle through the skin into...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, of Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues, the phase II ELIANA trial has shown that the anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for standard review a new supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as adjuvant therapy in the treatment of patients with resected, high-risk stage III melanoma. The Prescription Drug User Fee Act, or...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Tao et al, the phase III GORTEC (Groupe Oncologie Radiothèrapie Tête et Cou) 2007-01 trial has shown improved progression-free survival with the addition of concurrent chemotherapy to cetuximab (Erbitux) and radiotherapy (RT) in...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pietanza et al found no benefit of adding the PARP inhibitor veliparib to temozolomide (Temodar) in recurrent platinum-sensitive or platinum-refractory small cell lung cancer. Benefit was observed with the combination in the subgroup ...