Medulloblastomas may exist in a premalignant form at birth after initially developing during the first or second trimester of pregnancy, according to a new international study published by Hendrikse et al in Nature. As medulloblastomas typically present around age 7, the team’s discovery is the...
It may soon be possible to identify group 4 medulloblastomas from more aggressive group 3 tumors. Research based on a little-explored part of RNA that creates proteins may lead to the development of better-targeted therapies, according to investigators at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center....
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Alexander Drilon, MD, and colleagues, an updated analysis of the multicohort phase I/II LIBRETTO-001 trial confirmed the activity of selpercatinib in patients with RET fusion–positive advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The trial supported ...
In a retrospective study reported in JAMA Oncology, Butt et al found significantly higher pretreatment neurofilament light chain levels in patients who did vs did not develop immune effector cell–associated neurotoxicity syndrome (ICANS) after CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy....
The numbers are dizzying. The costs of cancer care in the United States are rising so fast that by 2030, it is projected the national cancer-attributable costs will total more than $246 billion, up from $183 billion in 2015—a 34% increase.1 And although the total global economic burden of cancer is ...
A new clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides recommendations on the use of radiation therapy to treat patients with isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH)-mutant grade 2 and grade 3 diffuse glioma. Evidence-based recommendations outline the multidisciplinary...
In the phase II TRICOTEL study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Reinhard Dummer, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of atezolizumab plus vemurafenib and cobimetinib produced durable intracranial responses in patients with BRAF V600–mutated melanoma and central nervous system (CNS)...
In the investigator-initiated, prospective, open-label, single-arm phase II TUXEDO-1 study conducted among patients with newly diagnosed or progressive brain metastases from HER2-positive breast cancer, the antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) yielded responses according...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Desai et al described outcomes with postconsolidation dinutuximab-based immunotherapy for high-risk neuroblastoma in a cohort of patients from the Children’s Oncology Group ANBL0032 trial following cessation of randomized treatment. Study ...
In an interim analysis of a single-institution phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yang et al found that proton craniospinal irradiation (pCSI) improved central nervous system (CNS) progression-free survival vs standard-of-care photon involved-field radiotherapy (IFRT) in...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Houillier et al, 8-year follow-up in the French phase II PRECIS trial has shown a maintained event-free survival benefit with autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) vs whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) as consolidation in patients aged ≤ 60...
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who previously developed a blood test for mutations in a gene linked to gliomas have now applied their technology to detect additional mutations—in this case, in the gene that codes for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The advance,...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dunkel et al, the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) ARET0321 trial has shown high 1-year event-free survival rates with intensive multimodality therapy in patients with stage II, III, and IVa extraocular retinoblastoma. Study Details In the...
This is Part 4 of Updates in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer, a four-part video roundtable series. Scroll down to watch the other videos from this Roundtable. In this video, Drs. Carey K. Anders, Erika Hamilton, and Sara A. Hurvitz discuss the management of HER2-positive residual disease. The patient ...
The effective treatment of patients with brain metastases is an unmet need because, until fairly recently, patients with brain metastases were excluded from clinical trials of systemic therapies. However, the emergence of molecular targeted therapies has allowed a new treatment approach in patients ...
Effective and safe treatments are needed for medulloblastoma—the most common type of cancerous brain tumor in children—especially for patients whose cancer has spread to the spinal cord. A recent phase I clinical trial has generated promising results for a new blocking antibody therapy that targets ...
CLN-081, a novel agent targeted to non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells harboring epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 20 insertion mutations—ie, the addition of nucleotide base pairs in exon 20 of the EGFR gene, a known oncogenic driver event—holds promise, according to the results of...
In a Spanish single-institution study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Pérez‑Larraya et al found that intratumoral infusion of the oncolytic adenovirus DNX-2401 followed by radiotherapy showed activity in newly diagnosed pediatric patients with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Lassman et al, final survival reports from long-term follow-up of the phase III EORTC 26951 and RTOG 9402 studies show continued benefit of the addition of (neo)adjuvant procarbazine, lomustine, and vincristine to radiotherapy in patients with...
New drugs for HER2-positive breast cancer are able to overcome some of the obstacles that have made brain metastases challenging to treat, according to Mark Pegram, MD, the Susy Yuan-Huey Hung Professor of Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, who described the promising ...
The all-oral combination of dabrafenib plus trametinib—two targeted therapies—significantly improved the overall response rate vs standard-of-care chemotherapy with carboplatin plus vincristine in pediatric patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive low-grade gliomas. The clinical benefit rate...
In a post hoc analysis from the phase III CROWN trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Benjamin J. Solomon, MBBS, PhD, and colleagues found that progression-free survival and the risk of central nervous system (CNS) progression were improved with lorlatinib vs crizotinib in previously...
Since the introduction of trastuzumab in the late 1990s, overall survival for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer has substantially improved. Median overall survival in the pivotal first-line trial was only 20.3 months in the chemotherapy arm, and 25.1 months in the...
A novel combination of two experimental cancer immunotherapy agents along with an immune checkpoint blocker elicited robust immune responses in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma brain tumors, according to a presentation of interim, 2-year follow-up clinical trial data given by David...
The combination of two targeted therapies, the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib and the MEK inhibitor trametinib, significantly increased the overall response rate compared to the standard-of-care chemotherapy combination of carboplatin plus vincristine in pediatric patients with BRAF V600...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Debu Tripathy, MD, and colleagues, the phase III ATTAIN trial has shown no difference in overall survival with etirinotecan pegol vs physician’s choice of chemotherapy for patients with metastatic breast cancer and brain metastases. As noted by the investigators,...
In an analysis from the GLIOMAP study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Gerritsen et al found that awake craniotomy for glioblastoma in eloquent brain areas (essential areas for carrying out basic neurological functions) was associated with reduced risk of neurologic deficits and improved survival...
A new clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides guidance on the use of radiation therapy to treat patients with brain metastases. Evidence-based recommendations guide the multidisciplinary planning and delivery of advanced radiation therapy techniques to...
The human epidermal growth factor (HER) family of receptors are a well-established therapeutic target. Indeed, seminal studies conducted nearly 2 decades ago identified a key association between activating mutations in the kinase domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR, also known as...
Priscilla K. Brastianos, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, talks about her efforts to better understand how brain metastases evolve genomically and to test such agents as abemaciclib, paxalisib, and entrectinib, which may stop their growth. Palbociclib, a CDK...
Imagine this. You are a large pharmaceutical company that launches an international randomized phase III trial to assess whether one of your drugs improves the outcome of patients with a common type of cancer. The trial was solidly backed by preclinical evidence that the drug target was essential ...
Mihir Gupta, MD, a neurosurgery resident at the University of California San Diego and postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Neurosurgery, and Ganesh M. Shankar, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School,...
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is readily detectable in the plasma and cerebrospinal fluid of patients with central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma and is a strong prognostic biomarker for outcomes, a team of researchers from Germany and Stanford University reported at the 2021 American Society of...
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” —Plutarch About 30% to 40% of patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) experience relapse, and 10% are refractory to the...
In an effort to synthesize findings from multiple guidelines on various management approaches for brain metastases, ASCO, the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO), and the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) spearheaded the development of a novel publication to inform and update physician...
In the phase II DESTINY-Lung01 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, and colleagues found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed durable activity in patients with metastatic HER2-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) refractory to standard...
In a Danish nationwide cohort study reported in JAMA, Hargreave et al found no association between maternal hormonal contraception use and risk of central nervous system (CNS) tumors in children. As stated by the investigators, “The incidence of CNS tumors in children appears to be increasing, yet...
In a phase III trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Porter et al found that armodafinil, a psychostimulant, did not improve cancer-related fatigue vs placebo in adult patients with high-grade glioma. As stated by the investigators, “Nearly 96% of patients with high-grade glioma report...
In an interim analysis of a phase II basket trial (ROAR) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Patrick Y. Wen, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib produced responses in adult patients with recurrent or progressive BRAF V600E–mutant high-grade and low-grade glioma. ...
Previously treated patients with HER2-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) achieved encouraging response rates and duration of response to the antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) in the phase II DESTINY-Lung01 trial. These results were reported at the European...
In an analysis from the single-institution phase III SJMB03 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Acharya et al found that increasing radiation doses to the corpus callosum, frontal white matter, and hippocampus were associated with neurocognitive impairment in pediatric patients...
Erin Murphy, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses new data that show no apparent difference in cognitive performance up to 2 years post-treatment among adults with low-grade glioma who were treated with concurrent radiotherapy and temozolomide (Abstract 3258).
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maas et al developed a novel integrated molecular-morphologic risk classification score that improved prediction of disease recurrence in patients with meningioma. Study Details The study involved DNA methylation, copy-number, and mutation...
Diana D. Shi, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, discusses studies being planned and already underway to test BAY 2402234, a de novo pyrimidine synthesis inhibitor that possibly could be used clinically to target IDH-mutant gliomas and may act as a...
Two new studies published in Nature Communications indicate that immunotherapy may benefit people with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare but serious complication of cancer that has spread to the brain and/or spinal cord. Approximately 5% to 8% of all patients with cancer develop leptomeningeal ...
In a phase II clinical trial, the drug 4-demethyl-4-cholesteryloxycarbonylpenclomedine (DM-CHOC-PEN) improved survival for some adolescent and young adult patients with cancers involving the central nervous system, according to results presented by Morgan et al at the AACR-NCI-EORTC Virtual...
With three new HER2-targeted therapies approved over the past year or two alone, the treatment landscape for patients with metastatic breast cancer has become increasingly crowded. In the third-line setting and beyond, there are now at least eight HER2-targeted agents approved by the U.S. Food and...
In a single-institution cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Keilty et al identified factors associated with an increased risk of hearing loss in pediatric patients receiving radiation therapy and chemotherapy for central nervous system and head and neck tumors. The study...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Burke et al found that dose-adjusted etoposide, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide with vincristine and prednisone plus rituximab (DA-EPOCH-R) did not improve event-free survival vs historical controls in children and adolescents with ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present the Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib, Desai, and DeAngelis explore the treatment of older patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), which pose...