Richard L. Schilsky, MD, ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer, discusses the key presentations at this year’s conference.
James Kochenderfer, MD, of the National Cancer Institute, discuss results of a small study on genetically modified CAR-T cells, which may well become a standard lymphoma treatment (Abstract LBA3010).
Rakesh Chopra, MD, of the Artemis Health Institute, and Mary Gospodarowicz, MD, of Princess Margaret Hospital, discuss oncology from an international point of view.
Nagi S. El-Saghir, MD, of the American University of Beirut, and Mary Gospodarowicz, MD, of the Princess Margaret Hospital, discuss oncology from an international point of view.
Eduardo L. Cazap, MD, PhD, of the Latinamerican & Caribbean Society of Medical Oncology, and Mary Gospodarowicz, MD, of the Princess Margaret Hospital, discuss oncology from an international point of view.
A pilot study revealed large differences in median retail prices for 23 cancer drugs in 7 different countries, with the highest retail prices identified in the United States and the lowest, in India and South Africa. Notably, after the monthly drug price is expressed as a percentage of domestic...
For breast cancer survivors who carry mutations in BRCA genes, preventive surgery may substantially reduce the risk of future breast and ovarian cancers. However, it appears that black women are far less likely to receive these widely recommended procedures than white or Hispanic...
An analysis of health claims data from 2007–2014 on more than 28,000 patients under the age of 65 found that a large proportion of patients with advanced solid tumors received at least one form of aggressive care within the last 30 days of life. The study was presented by Chen et al at...
A Web-mediated follow-up application (app; Moovcare™) improved advanced lung cancer survival, according to a French multicenter randomized phase III study. Researchers analyzed the association and evolution of self-reported clinical symptoms over time. The median overall survival of patients...
Eric Roeland, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, and Timothy E. Quill, MD, of the University of Rochester Medical Center, discuss the debate on whether physician-assisted death should be a legally available option at the end of life when neither palliative nor hospice care is...
Eric Roeland, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, and Linda Van Le, MD, of the University of North Carolina discuss ways to manage symptoms that affect up to 80% of postmenopausal women, diminishing their quality of life.
Eric Roeland, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, and Jennifer S. Temel, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discuss findings that showed the benefits of offering palliative care integrated with oncology care (Abstracts 10003 and 10131).
Newly elected ASCO President Daniel F. Hayes, MD, of the University of Michigan Health System Comprehensive Cancer Center, talks about his vision for the society during his tenure.
Paul E. Goss, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, discusses disease-free survival results from a study extending adjuvant letrozole for 5 years after completing an initial 5 years of aromatase inhibitor therapy alone or preceded by tamoxifen...
Julie R. Park, MD, of Seattle Children’s Hospital, discusses findings from this phase III trial of tandem myeloablative autologous stem cell transplant using peripheral blood stem cell as consolidation therapy for high-risk neuroblastoma (Abstract LBA3).
Julie Lemieux, MD, of Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec, discusses patient-reported outcomes from a study extending adjuvant letrozole for 5 years after completing an initial 5 years of aromatase inhibitor therapy alone or preceded by tamoxifen (Abstract LBA506). To see the French language ...
Julie Lemieux, MD, of Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Québec, discusses in French patient-reported outcomes from a study extending adjuvant letrozole for 5 years after completing an initial 5 years of aromatase inhibitor therapy alone or preceded by tamoxifen (Abstract LBA506). To see the...
James R. Perry, MD, of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, discusses findings of a phase III trial of short-course radiotherapy with or without concomitant and adjuvant temozolomide in older patients with this tumor (Abstract LBA2).
Antonio Palumbo, MD, of the University of Torino, discusses this phase III study of daratumumab, bortezomib, and dexamethasone versus bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (Abstract LBA4).
Antonio Palumbo, MD, of the University of Torino, discusses in Italian this phase III study of daratumumab, bortezomib, and dexamethasone versus bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (Abstract LBA4). To see the English language version of this...
Findings from the European phase II FAST study showed that the novel, first-in-class antibody IMAB362 can significantly extend median survival when added to standard chemotherapy (13.2 vs 8.4 months) for patients with advanced gastric cancer. This therapy targets a protein called claudin-18 splice...
Initial findings from a pivotal phase III trial showed that daratumumab (Darzalex) added to a standard two-drug regimen (bortezomib [Velcade] and dexamethasone) markedly improved outcomes for patients with recurrent or refractory multiple myeloma. The daratumumab combination reduced the risk of...
The anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) immunotherapy atezolizumab (Tecentriq) is effective in patients with previously untreated advanced bladder cancer who are not eligible for the standard treatment with cisplatin. According to a nonrandomized phase II trial, atezolizumab shrank...
Historically, less than 50% of children with high-risk neuroblastoma live 5 or more years after diagnosis. A National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded phase III trial performed by the Children’s Oncology Group found that adding a second autologous stem-cell transplant to standard therapy...
Early findings from a first-in-human clinical trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T) shows promising efficacy against recurrent small cell lung cancer (SCLC). The treatment, which combines a novel anti-DLL3 antibody with a powerful anticancer agent, halted...
A Canadian-led randomized phase III trial found that adding temozolomide chemotherapy during short-course radiation therapy, followed by monthly maintenance doses of temozolomide, significantly improved survival of elderly patients with glioblastoma, reducing the risk of death by 33%. These data...
For updated findings on aromatase inhibitor therapy from the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, please click here, here, or here. A randomized phase III clinical trial, MA.17R, found that postmenopausal women with early breast cancer benefit from extending aromatase inhibitor therapy with...
Usha Menon, MD, of University College London, discusses a significant new version of a screening test for ovarian cancer that may reduce death from the disease (Abstract 5507).
Michele Cavo, MD, of the Seràgnoli Institute of Hematology, Bologna University School of Medicine, discusses in Italian results from this phase III study of upfront autologous stem cell transplantation vs novel agent-based therapy for multiple myeloma (Abstract 8000). To see the English language ...
Michele Cavo, MD, of the Seràgnoli Institute of Hematology, Bologna University School of Medicine, discusses results from this phase III study of upfront autologous stem cell transplantation vs novel agent-based therapy for multiple myeloma (Abstract 8000). To see the Italian version of this...
Maria Clemence Schwaederle, PharmD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses an analysis of 13,203 patients in phase I clinical trials, which showed that a personalized strategy led to improved response rate and progression-free survival (Abstract 11520).
Lawrence N. Shulman, MD, of Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and Daniel A. Goldstein, MD, of the Rabin Medical Center, discuss global challenges in cancer care, including treating patients in areas lacking resources, and cancer drug price disparities (Abstract LBA6500).
Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses findings of this phase III study of sorafenib plus doxorubicin versus sorafenib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (Abstract 4003).
Luis G. Paz-Ares, MD, PhD, of the Hospital Universitario 12 De Octubre, discusses study findings on adding necitumumab to gemcitabine and cisplatin chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of patients with stage IV squamous non-small cell lung cancer. To see Dr. Paz-Ares discuss this video in...
The targeted PARP inhibitor rucaparib, which has demonstrated robust clinical activity in patients with ovarian cancer who have a BRCA mutation, also showed promise in previously treated patients with pancreatic cancer who have the mutation, according to results from a phase II clinical study...
Nikhil Wagle, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the strides made in this national direct-to-patient initiative to accelerate genomics research (Abstract LBA1519).
Several clinical trials have demonstrated that maintenance therapy with lenalidomide (Revlimid) after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant reduces the risk of disease progression in patients with multiple myeloma, but there have been no definitive results regarding overall...
John D. Hainsworth, MD, of the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses early findings from this umbrella basket study on targeted treatment, outside of current drug indications, for different types of advanced solid tumors (Abstract LBA11511).
Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, of The West Clinic, reports on progress of the now year-old ACCC initiative to speed adoption of immunotherapeutics in community practices.
Surgery to remove the primary tumor in women diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer followed by standard combination therapies improved survival over standard therapy alone, an international clinical trial revealed. The results of the phase III randomized, controlled trial were presented today...
A study presented by Antonia et al at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 100) showed that utilizing the immunotherapeutic agents nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) could lead to more effective treatment options for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) who have progressed after...
Yousuf Zafar, MD, of Duke Cancer Institute, summarizes his educational lecture on the financial toxicities of treatment and the need to focus on both short- and long-term interventions to reduce the burden on patients.
Martin J. Van Den Bent, MD, PhD, of the Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center, discusses the interim analysis of the EORTC phase III study on concurrent and adjuvant temozolomide in anaplastic glioma without 1p/19q co-deletion (Abstract LBA2000).
John P. Neoptolemos, MD, PhD, of the University of Liverpool, discusses findings from this international phase III study of adjuvant combination chemotherapy: gemcitabine and capecitabine vs monotherapy gemcitabine in patients with resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (Abstract LBA4006).
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, discusses phase III study results on a new possible alternative to trastuzumab for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer: the biosimilar known as Myl-1401O (Abstract LBA503).
An innovative project launched in October 2015 may help expedite metastatic breast cancer genomics research and provide leads for development of new treatments. In the 7 months since the launch, more than 2,000 patients have enrolled in the research study designed to collect and...
Helen MacKay, MD, of the Sunnybrook Odette Cancer Centre, discusses findings from this phase II study of intraperitoneal vs intravenous chemotherapy following neoadjuvant chemotherapy and optimal debulking surgery in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (Abstract LBA5503).
A large-scale genomic analysis found that patterns of genetic changes detected in blood samples (liquid biopsy) closely mirror those identified in traditional tumor biopsy. With blood samples from more than 15,000 patients and 50 different tumor types, this is one of the largest cancer genomics...
Researchers reported encouraging early results from a phase II trial that matches patients with molecular abnormalities in the tumor to corresponding targeted treatments. Twenty-nine of 129 patients with 12 different types of advanced cancers responded to drugs outside of U.S. Food and Drug...
For a more in-depth look at these data, please click here. Patients with anaplastic glioma without 1p/19q codeletion benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy, according to early results from a European phase III trial. The estimated 5-year survival rates were 56% with radiation therapy and...