COVID has upended our world, and medical conferences have had to adapt to ever-shifting sands depending on the behavior of the variants of the virus that emerge. The 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition was no exception, offering a hybrid meeting for in-person...
Joshua Brody, MD, Director of the CLL/Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, who was not involved in these trials, commented: “CLL is an extremely prevalent disease affecting nearly 200,000 patients in the United States. Most patient do not require...
Charles Shapiro, MD, Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, commented on the study findings. “MA.32 is a large, randomized placebo-controlled trial of metformin in over 3,600 women with invasive breast cancer. The rationale for...
The addition of metformin, a drug commonly used to treat type 2 diabetes, to standard adjuvant treatment failed to improve invasive disease–free survival or overall survival for hormone receptor–positive or –negative breast cancer, according to the results of a large landmark trial led by the...
Joshua Brody, MD, Director of the CLL/Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, who was not involved in these trials, commented: “CLL is an extremely prevalent disease affecting nearly 200,000 patients in the United States. Most patient do not require...
Amy Tiersten, MD, Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, Director of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas,...
In a single-institution phase II trial reported in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Marron et al found that neoadjuvant treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab-rwlc in patients with resectable hepatocellular carcinoma produced a high level of pathologic tumor necrosis at resection ...
In a phase III trial (MPD-RC 112) reported in the journal Blood, John Mascarenhas, MD, and colleagues found no difference in 12-month complete response rates between treatment with pegylated interferon-alfa vs hydroxyurea in previously untreated patients with high-risk polycythemia vera or...
In a study published in the journal Gastroenterology, Trivedi et al described an increase in early-onset colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps, based on a large, nationally representative study of patients younger than 50 who underwent colonoscopy. It was the first large-scale study to look at...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Raja Flores, MD, and colleagues found that a population-level shift to earlier-stage diagnosis has been accompanied by a reduction in population-level mortality during recent years in U.S. patients with non–small cell lung cancer...
More than 1 in 10 patients with localized prostate cancer experienced treatment-related regret, a study published in JAMA Oncology suggests. And the major driver of that regret seems to be a disconnect between patient expectations and outcomes.1 In an interview with The ASCO Post, the study’s lead...
“A disconnect between patient expectations and outcomes” is a major contributor to treatment-related regret among patients with localized prostate cancer, according to a study published in JAMA Oncology.1 The disconnect, “both as it relates to treatment efficacy and adverse effects, appears to...
A study evaluating the clinical characteristics and outcomes of fully vaccinated patients with cancer who had breakthrough COVID-19 infections indicated they remained at high risk for hospitalization and death. The report, published by Schmidt et al in Annals of Oncology, showed that fully...
ASCO has elected Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, to serve as its President beginning in June 2023. Dr. Schuchter will take office as President-Elect immediately after the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2022. Seven new members were also elected to the ASCO...
Tarek H. Mouhieddine, MD, of The Mount Sinai Hospital and The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses data that suggest patients with heavily pretreated, predominantly triple-class refractory multiple myeloma who relapse after treatment with bispecific antibodies may still have good...
The text and photograph here are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Anesthesia Era 1845–1875 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photograph appears courtesy of Stanley B. Burns, MD, and The Burns...
Mount Sinai Health System, together with BronxCare Health System, recently held a ribbon-cutting to launch BronxCare Mount Sinai Comprehensive Cancer Care—a new, state-of-the-art comprehensive cancer facility in the Bronx. The new spacewill allow both health systems to bring their strengths...
Recent advances in medical imaging have led to more accurate detection and management of early thoracic diseases such as lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and cardiovascular disease—three of the top four leading causes of death in the United States. Unfortunately, if not...
Investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine have identified significant differences in the molecular characteristics of tumors from younger and older patients with cancer across several cancer types. Their research, published by Shah et al in Cell Reports, suggests that cancer treatment could...
Patients with multiple myeloma lacking an antibody response to COVID-19 vaccination may also fail to mount a T-cell response, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have reported. This scenario seemed to be most common among patients actively treated with anti-CD38 and...
Charles L. Shapiro, MD, Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, commented on the findings of the coopERA trial for The ASCO Post. He maintained that the oral selective estrogen receptor degraders now in development will be a...
In a prospective cohort study (CEASAR) reported in JAMA Oncology, Wallis et al found that patient expectations of treatment efficacy and adverse effects were associated with treatment-related regret at 5 years after diagnosis in men with localized prostate cancer. As stated by the investigators,...
Young adults diagnosed with cancer may require different treatments than those received by older patients, according to a study that systematically compared the genomes of 14 different types of cancers affecting both younger and older adults. The results, published by Lee et al in Cell Reports,...
When I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma of my left femur nearly 20 years ago, I remember telling my parents that I didn’t want to die. The diagnosis was terrifying because all the people I knew who had cancer had passed away, and I thought this cancer would kill me, too. That evening, my dad went...
Researchers have developed a new model that uses DNA and RNA sequencing data from hundreds of patients to identify specific genes and genetic alterations responsible for subtypes of multiple myeloma. They also identified potential targeted treatments based on the findings, which were reported by...
The results of a study published by Lee et al in Cell Reports suggest that several genetic hallmarks may play key roles in identifying precise treatment options for young adult patients with cancer. The investigators, who systematically compared the genomes of 14 different types of cancers that...
Individuals with solid tumors had an appropriate, protective immune response to vaccination against SARS–CoV-2, at least with the mRNA-1273 vaccine, and side effects were no more common than in the general population, according to a large Dutch study.1 The study was reported during the European...
Mary Pasquinelli, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, was the recipient of this year’s James L. Mulshine, MD, National Leadership Award presented during the Prevent Cancer Foundation’s Quantitative Imaging Workshop held virtually earlier in November. Dr. Pasquinelli is a nurse practitioner in the Division of...
Patients with multiple myeloma lacking an antibody response to COVID-19 vaccine may also fail to mount a T-cell response, according to research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Concerningly, this scenario was most common among patients actively treated with anti-CD38 and...
The National Cancer Act of 1971 established a national priority to address the widely shared dread of a cancer diagnosis. The goal of the National Cancer Act was to strengthen the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to more effectively carry out the national effort against cancer. After the Act was...
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...
Perspectives on ARIEL4 were provided for The ASCO Post by the invited discussant Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Chief of Gynecologic Oncology and the Brock Wilson Family Chair at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and Konstantin Zakashansky, MD,...
The past year has been a remarkable and noteworthy time with much exciting progress made in gynecologic cancers, despite the underlying presence of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several key studies were presented in 2020–2021 that detailed the results of novel therapies for our patients with cervical,...
A retrospective analysis of large data sets of biomarkers from tumors and healthy tissue by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Convergence Institute suggests that older patients with cancer may benefit as much from cancer immunotherapies as younger patients. The findings,...
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the tragedy of patients dying in isolation, separated from family and friends to limit infection in hospital settings. The process has altered the experience of serious illness for patients and their loved ones, including their ability to grieve, share important...
In a prospective cohort study reported in Clinical Imaging, David Steiger, MD, of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York, and colleagues in the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) identified emphysema in ...
About one in four patients with blood cancer fail to produce detectable antibodies after COVID-19 vaccination, but results vary substantially by type of blood cancer, according to a study by Greenberger et al published in the journal Cancer Cell. Although earlier studies have shown that certain...
Robotic prostate surgery pioneer Mani Menon, MD, is joining Mount Sinai and will serve as Chief of Strategy and Innovation in the Department of Urology for the Mount Sinai Health System. He will also serve as Professor of Urology, Director of Education, and Director of the Precision Prostatectomy...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel gene therapies for resistant non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL), including...
Invited discussant of the FORWARD II trial,1Amit M. Oza, MD, MBBS, concluded that bevacizumab and mirvetuximab soravtansine was a “very well tolerated and effective” combination with “encouraging activity,” even in patients previously treated with bevacizumab and weekly paclitaxel. Dr. Oza is Head ...
Mount Sinai Health System has recruited an internationally recognized expert in the management of breast cancer and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-associated malignancies, Joseph A. Sparano, MD, FACP, as Chief of Hematology and Medical Oncology and Deputy Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, John Mascarenhas, MD, and colleagues found that treatment with the telomerase inhibitor imetelstat at a dose of 9.4 mg/kg produced clinical benefit in patients with relapsed or refractory myelofibrosis after Janus-associated kinase...
Albert Einstein Cancer Center (AECC), Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Montefiore Health System have announced that cancer biologist Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, PhD, has been named founding Director of the Cancer Dormancy and Tumor Microenvironment Institute (CDTMI), Director of the Gruss-Lipper...
The dire cancer incidence and mortality statistics for Black patients compared with White patients are well known. Collectively, Black individuals have the highest mortality rate and shortest survival of any racial or ethnic group in the United States for most cancers. Black men also have the...
Patients with multiple myeloma had a wide variety of responses to COVID-19 vaccines—in some cases, no detectable response at all—pointing to the need for antibody testing and precautions for these patients after vaccination, according to a study published by Van Oekelen et al in Cancer Cell. Mount...
In the phase Ib/II CARTITUDE-1 trial reported in The Lancet, Jesus G. Berdeja, MD, and colleagues found that ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel), a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with two B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-targeting single-domain antibodies, produced a high rate of...
The Brigham and Women’s hospital community mourns the loss of Francisco Marty, MD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases, who died April 8, 2021, after a tragic accident while hiking in the Dominican Republic. He was 53. A member of the Brigham community for more than 20 years, Dr. Marty is...
Matt D. Galsky, MD, of the Tisch Cancer Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses results from a phase II trial designed to test gemcitabine and cisplatin plus nivolumab as neoadjuvant therapy in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer and to better predict benefit in...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Karyn A. Goodman, MD, and colleagues, mature results of the phase II CALGB 80803/Alliance trial indicated that treatment guided by early positron-emission tomography (PET) assessment of response to induction neoadjuvant chemotherapy improved...
Clinical trial data show that adjuvant imatinib improves recurrence-free survival as well as overall survival, when administered for at least 3 years, among patients who undergo a macroscopically complete resection of a primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), Chandrajit P. Raut, MD, MSc,...