In the phase III Lumiere trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, O’Connor et al found that the Aurora A kinase inhibitor alisertib did not improve outcomes vs investigator’s choice of single-agent treatment in relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL). Study...
The latest U.S. estimates indicate that since 1989, hundreds of thousands of women's lives have been saved by mammography and improvements in breast cancer treatment. In a study published by Hendrick et al in Cancer, findings point to progress made in the early detection and management of...
An increase in the diagnosis of glottic carcinoma in young adults may be due in part to infection with strains of human papillomavirus (HPV). Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) described finding HPV infection in all tested samples of glottic carcinoma from 10 patients diagnosed ...
In an interim analysis of a prospective cohort study (IOTA5) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Froyman et al found that the risk of malignancy and acute complications is low when adnexal masses with benign ultrasound findings are managed conservatively. In the study, patients with at least 1...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, AlDubayan et al found that inherited pathogenetic variants in the checkpoint kinase 2 gene (CHEK2), among inherited pathogenetic DNA-repair gene (DRG) alterations, were associated with susceptibility to testicular germ cell tumors. The study involved screening ...
In a French phase III trial (PRODIGE 12-ACCORD 18-UNICANCER GI) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Edeline et al found that adjuvant gemcitabine plus oxaliplatin (GEMOX) did not significantly improve relapse-free survival vs surveillance following resection for localized biliary tract...
The German S2k guidelines for cutaneous basal cell carcinoma were recently updated to include new developments regarding the epidemiology, diagnosis, and histology of the disease. Commissioned by the Dermatologic Cooperative Oncology Group of the German Cancer Society and the German Society of...
Results from the randomized, phase III KEYNOTE-426 clinical trial show that first-line therapy with a combination of pembrolizumab and axitinib extended both overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for patients with clear cell metastatic renal cell carcinoma compared with the...
A large, retrospective study analyzing 5 years of data from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) found that African American men with chemotherapy-naive, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer who were treated with abiraterone acetate or enzalutamide lived 20% longer compared with...
A single-arm, phase II trial in men with prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-positive, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer that progressed despite standard therapies found that a majority of men treated with a novel, targeted radiation therapy called lutetium-177 PSMA-617...
In a prospective cohort clinical trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Lehman et al found that multiple factors, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings, played a role in conversion to mastectomy among women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) who were candidates for wide local excision...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a split-dosing regimen for daratumumab (Darzalex), a CD38-directed antibody, providing health-care professionals and patients with multiple myeloma an option to split the first infusion over 2 consecutive days. The approval is based on...
THE PRINCIPALS and staff of Harborside, publisher of The ASCO Post, congratulate Harborside Medical Education (HSME) for staff recognition by the Alliance for Continuing Education (CE) in the Health Professions (the Alliance). Two senior staff were honored during the awards ceremony preceding the...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Stephanie Tuminello, MPH, and colleagues found that video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) was less likely than open resection to be associated with long-term opioid use in patients undergoing surgery for early-stage lung cancer....
As reported in JAMA Dermatology, Jianqiang Wu, MD, PhD, and Gary S. Wood, MD, found that the widely available nonprescription topical antimicrobial agent gentian violet has potent activity against cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) in studies in vitro and ex vivo. The study involved high-throughput ...
Neoadjuvant combination checkpoint blockade showed activity among patients with high-risk stage III melanoma in a small study. However, a high incidence of side effects caused the trial to be closed early. These results were published by Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, Assistant Professor of Melanoma...
In 2019, we will mark the 20th year of the establishment of the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), which helped lay the foundation for the emerging field of integrative oncology. Over the past 2 decades, academic cancer institutions, including The...
BREAST CANCER is a microscopic disease, with most patients presenting with “localized” stage I to III disease, for which they are offered curative-intent surgery often accompanied by radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and hormonal therapy. More accurately, we now know that patients with localized...
Five years ago, I was living my dream life. I was under contract as a commentator on Fox News, which necessitated commuting weekly from my home in Los Angeles to New York, and was building a new home in Palm Springs with my partner, Matt Lashey. Not only was my career and personal life going well,...
IN A GLOBAL phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Benjamin J. Solomon, MBBS, of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, and colleagues found that lorlatinib showed high overall and intracranial activity in patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were...
ON JANUARY 22, 2019, 23andMe received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for a genetic health risk report on the hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome MUTYH-associated polyposis. The clearance follows the FDA’s authorization for 23andMe’s BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants) Genetic...
ON JANUARY 28, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ibrutinib (Imbruvica), a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, in combination with obinutuzumab in treatment-naive patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL). This is the first approval of...
Discussions of benefits and harms from screening of high-risk populations for lung cancer have missed the point. The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed an early and statistically significant major benefit in all-cause mortality from computed tomography (CT) screening.1 Those referred for...
The proliferation of immunotherapeutics in the treatment of cancer over the past decade has revolutionized the way many cancers are treated, especially lung cancer and melanoma, as well as some blood cancers, including leukemia and lymphoma, drastically improving outcomes for many patients with...
V. CRAIG JORDAN, OBE, PhD, DSc, FMedSci, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, will receive the 2019 Reynold Spector Award in Clinical Pharmacology, during the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) Annual Meeting at Experimental Biology 2019 in...
JULIAN SCHINK, MD, has been appointed Chief Medical Officer of Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA). As Chief Medical Officer for the comprehensive cancer care network, Dr. Schink will provide leadership and direction for its enterprise-wide clinical programs and will serve as a liaison...
AS PART of The ASCO Post’s continued coverage of the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here is an update on seven different studies on new therapeutics in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Among the treatments highlighted here are the erythroid maturation...
THE NATIONAL Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) announced that the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) were downloaded more than 10 million times in 2018, marking a 26% increase over downloads in 2017. The NCCN Guidelines provide up-to-date recommendations for...
THE FIRST full year of educational training in the practice of complementary therapies is now underway at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor through its Integrative Oncology Scholars Program, which launched in 2017. The program, which is supported through a 5-year grant from the National...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted the following designations and applications and also issued a statement: Priority Review for Pexidartinib in Tenosynovial Giant Cell Tumor The FDA has accepted a new drug application (NDA) and granted Priority Review for pexidartinib...
A study published by Cook et al in JAMA Oncology focused on whether treatment with checkpoint inhibitors is both safe and effective in patients with advanced cancer who are also human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive. Because checkpoint inhibitors manipulate the immune system, the concern has...
Although colorectal cancer rates in older adults have been decreasing in the United States since the mid-1980s, incidence rates for the cancer have been increasing among young and middle-aged adults, according to a study by the American Cancer Society (ACS). Based on the new data, in 2018, the ACS...
In an update from the Multiethnic Cohort Study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Stram et al found persistent racial/ethnic differences in risk for lung cancer at similar levels of cigarette smoking intensity. A prior report from the study found that African Americans and...
Leading health-care companies and organizations representing patients, providers, academic medical centers, laboratories, and diagnostic manufacturers urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to revise its interpretation of the National Coverage Determination (NCD) for...
A research team is using a branch of artificial intelligence known as machine learning to better target immunotherapy to those who will benefit. In a recent study published by Leiserson et al in PLOS One, the team used data from a clinical trial of patients with bladder cancer to...
For patients at the end of life, palliative care can prolong survival and improve the quality of life for patients with a life-threatening illness and for their families—but studies have found that racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to receive end-of-life palliative care than...
In a Chinese, single-center, noninferiority phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Wang et al found that postmastectomy hypofractionated radiotherapy was noninferior to and associated with similar toxicities vs conventionally fractionated radiotherapy in patients with high-risk breast...
In an observational study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Hu et al found that an automated 'deep learning'–based visual evaluation algorithm permitted identification of cervical precancer/cancer cases with greater accuracy than other screening methods. Study Details ...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved caplacizumab-yhdp (Cablivi) injection, the first therapy specifically indicated, in combination with plasma exchange and immunosuppressive therapy, for the treatment of adult patients with acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (aTTP), a...
This letter is a follow-up to a report published previously in The ASCO Post. Recent trials report comparable or improved efficacy of direct-acting oral coagulants (DOACs) over low–molecular-weight heparins (LMWH) in the treatment of cancer-related VTE (cVTE) at the expense of increased...
The approval of several new agents for metastatic melanoma in the past several years has led to changes in how the disease is treated and managed. Treatments such as the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitors pembrolizumab, ipilimumab, and nivolumab; BRAF inhibitors; and MEK inhibitors...
The first report from a phase II, multicenter clinical trial has found that a newer, more aggressive form of radiation therapy—stereotactic ablative radiation—can extend long-term survival for some patients with stage IV cancers, while maintaining their quality of life. The study was...
In a Dutch-Belgian study (CYPTAM) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sanchez-Spitman et al found no associations between CYP2D6 genotypes or levels of endoxifen (active metabolite of tamoxifen) and clinical outcomes in patients receiving adjuvant tamoxifen for early-stage breast cancer....
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Ganju et al found that implementation of a cancer care network–wide peer review process aimed at standardizing treatment resulted in increasing use of hypofractionated radiotherapy in early-stage breast cancer at community-based...
In phase Ib results from the JAVELIN Solid Tumor Trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Disis et al found that avelumab produced durable responses in some patients with recurrent or refractory ovarian cancer. In the study, an expansion cohort of 125 women with advanced disease who had received...
Data on the risk factors for the development of skin cancer after a solid organ transplant are limited. In a retrospective cohort study, researchers sought to determine the relationship between human leukocyte antigen (HLA) mismatch and risk of skin cancer after transplant. Their findings were...
According to the American Lung Association’s recently released 2019 State of Tobacco Control report, states and the federal government have not taken meaningful action in establishing policies to prevent and reduce tobacco use, the nation's leading cause of preventable death and disease. ...
In a Singaporean study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lai et al found that tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment outcome did not differ according to mesenchymal epithelial transition factor (MET)-high vs MET-low status in treatment-naive, EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer...
In a population-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Downing et al found little difference in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) between men with advanced vs localized prostate cancer. Sexual function problems were common among all patients—and often not addressed—and use of ...
A new study has found rates are increasing for 6 of 12 cancers related to obesity in younger adults in the United States, with steeper increases in progressively younger ages and successively younger generations. The study, published by Sung et al in The Lancet Public Health, also looked at rates...