Immune checkpoint inhibitors have transformed treatment for many advanced cancers, but short-term clinical trials and small observational studies have linked the medications with various side effects, most commonly involving the skin. A more comprehensive, population-level analysis now provides a...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Sibylle Loibl, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the phase III PENELOPE-B trial has shown that palbociclib plus endocrine therapy did not improve invasive disease–free survival vs placebo plus endocrine therapy in patients with residual invasive hormone...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, MD, and colleagues, the Children’s Oncology Group ARAR0332 Protocol has identified outcomes associated with different treatment strategies according to disease stage in patients with pediatric adrenocortical carcinoma....
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Nancy Y. Lee, MD, and colleagues, the phase III JAVELIN Head and Neck 100 trial showed no improvement in progression-free survival with the addition of the PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab to chemoradiotherapy in patients with previously untreated locally advanced...
Breast cancer survivors who are overweight have a statistically significant increased risk of developing second primary cancers, according to results from a study conducted by Feigelson et al and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “These findings have important public health ...
Death from infection—the leading cause of death for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)—may be linked to specific gene mutations, according to results from a study published by Else et al in the journal Leukemia. Testing for these mutations could be used to identify patients at a...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Metzger et al found that the integration of brentuximab vedotin into front-line treatment of pediatric patients with high-risk classical Hodgkin lymphoma resulted in avoidance of radiotherapy in many patients, as well as high rates of...
In an Israeli case-control study reported in a commentary in The Lancet Oncology, Waissengrin et al found that the short-term safety of the Pfizer BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was similar in patients with cancer receiving immune checkpoint inhibitors compared with healthy controls. Study Details...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Ronan J. Kelly, MBBCh, MBA, and colleagues, an interim analysis of the phase III CheckMate 577 trial has shown a significant improvement in disease-free survival with adjuvant nivolumab vs placebo in patients with resected esophageal or...
In the next 2 decades, rankings of incidence and death across cancer types in the United States will undergo important changes, according to new research published by Lola Rahib, PhD, and colleagues in JAMA Network Open. The study estimates that pancreatic cancer is on course to become the...
Tumor mutational burden (TMB) was an accurate predictor of response to treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors for female patients with melanoma, but not for male patients, according to results of a study presented by Sinha et al during the virtual American Association for Cancer Research...
The combination of copanlisib plus rituximab reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 48% compared with placebo plus rituximab in patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to results of the phase III CHRONOS-3 trial presented by Matthew J. Matasar, MD, at the virtual...
Separate studies presented at the 2021 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium provide supportive evidence for belzutifan (formerly MK-6482) as an active treatment for metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). One study showed single-agent activity for this novel approach in an early-phase trial,...
Bispecific anti-CD19/CD20 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy was well tolerated and showed signs of clinical efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphoma, according to phase I clinical trial data presented by Ghafouri et al during week 1 of the virtual American...
To complement The ASCO Post’s 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 clinical trial findings in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). For full details of...
An experienced executive has rejoined the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center team, announced Roswell Park President and Chief Executive Officer Candace S. Johnson, PhD. Jeff Walker, MBA, has been recruited back to Western New York to fill the new role of Executive Vice President of Operations ...
The European Society for Medical Oncology and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer recently presented the Heine H. Hansen Award 2021 to Johan Vansteenkiste, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven and Head of Clinic in the Respiratory Oncology Unit...
Gillianne G.Y. Lai, MBBS, of the National Cancer Centre, Singapore, discussed the presentations on novel agents for exon 20 insertion mutations in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which account for about one-third of tyrosine kinase resistance mutations. Although tyrosine kinase mutations are...
Tyrosine kinase inhibitors targeting the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) have proved to be effective drugs in the treatment of many solid tumors. However, their clinical benefit may come at the cost of cardiovascular toxicity if clinicians are not vigilant and proactive. During...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. Increasingly, patients with cancer desire nonpharmacologic strategies for managing their...
Globally, breast cancer surpassed lung cancer as the most common cancer among women, with an estimated 2.3 million cases in 2020.1,2 Approximately 685,000 women will die of breast cancer in 2020 around the world. Approximately 24.5% of all cancers in women are breast cancer, and 15.5% of...
As reported in two articles in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by David F. McDermott, MD, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and colleagues, the phase II KEYNOTE-427 study showed that pembrolizumab monotherapy produced durable responses as first-line treatment in cohorts of patients with...
Stand Up To Cancer has announced $3.25 million in grants from four national nonprofits to fund research to find new treatments for head and neck cancers, which are newly diagnosed in about 65,000 Americans every year. The grants include contributions of $1.5 million each from the Fanconi Anemia...
The findings from a recent study of patients with cancer who had an exceptional response to chemotherapy are yielding new clues on the molecular changes in patients’ tumors. These findings may explain the genetic alterations contributing to these patients’ dramatic and long-lasting responses to...
In a single-institution study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Menjak et al found that a nurse-led telephone surveillance program for toxicity associated with ipilimumab in patients with metastatic melanoma led to earlier identification of toxicities and earlier intervention, with an apparent...
In the phase III ABC-06 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Angela Lamarca, PhD, and colleagues found that second-line FOLFOX (leucovorin, fluorouracil [5-FU], and oxaliplatin) produced a statistically significant improvement in median overall survival vs active symptom control in patients with...
Given the improvements in diagnostic strategies, treatment, and supportive care, long-term survival is now an expected outcome for a large majority of patients with hematologic malignancies. Unfortunately, radiation therapy and anthracyclines, which form the backbone of front-line treatment, have...
Jennifer R. Brown, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses treatment choices for patients with relapsed or refractory CLL/SLL, when to stop therapy due to adverse events, BTK inhibitors and their second-generation counterparts, the need for ways to manage disease progression on novel...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Guillermo Garcia-Manero, MD, and colleagues found that oral azacitidine significantly improved red blood cell (RBC) transfusion independence vs placebo in patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes. An increase in early...
For the treatment of breast cancer, antibody-drug conjugates are emerging as effective players that could impact all subtypes of this disease, according to Kevin Kalinsky, MD, MS, Director of the Glenn Family Breast Cancer at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta. In the...
The incidence of brain metastasis at diagnosis in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring driver mutations was high, according to findings presented by Rashkit et al at the European Lung Cancer Virtual Congress 2021 (Abstract 38P). However, these patients achieved treatment...
In an early analysis from a Chinese phase III trial reported in JAMA Surgery, Wang et al found similar safety and improved histopathologic outcome among patients undergoing minimally invasive esophagectomy for locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma following neoadjuvant...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ho et al found that tipifarnib produced a high response rate among patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with HRAS mutations and high variant allele frequency. As stated by the investigators,...
Radiation oncologists reported that new patients are arriving for treatment with more advanced-stage disease than before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new survey conducted by the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) this winter. The national survey of radiation therapy practice...
In a single-institution retrospective study focused on a New York City location reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Satish et al found that more than 40% of patients with breast cancer not infected with COVID-19 had a delay or change in care delivery due to the pandemic. Study Details The study...
Various genetic alterations in circulating tumor cells (CTCs) were associated with clinical outcomes and resistance to hormone therapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, according to research published by Gupta et al in Molecular Cancer Research. Although only a...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by John Kuruvilla, MD, and colleagues, an interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-204 trial has shown significantly improved progression-free survival with pembrolizumab vs brentuximab vedotin in patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma....
In the PEACE study, reported in JAMA Oncology, Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, and colleagues found that both electroacupuncture and auricular acupuncture significantly reduced pain severity vs usual care in cancer survivors with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Noninferiority of auricular acupuncture to...
Computed tomography and/or magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated that 39% of patients diagnosed with stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) presented with de novo brain metastases during the COVID-19 pandemic. This percentage was higher than the historic rate of 25%, and many of these...
In a single-institution phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Joyce F. Liu, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that the WEE1 inhibitor adavosertib produced durable responses in women with recurrent uterine serous carcinoma. The investigators stated, “Uterine serous carcinoma is a...
The much-anticipated SWOG S1505 trial has failed to show that one preoperative regimen is better than another in resectable pancreatic cancer.1 “Perioperative modified FOLFIRINOX and gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel appear to have similar efficacy, with acceptable safety and resectability rates,”...
A novel inhibitor of casein kinase 2 (CK2) has shown preliminary evidence of efficacy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic cholangiocarcinoma, according to a phase I/IIb study presented at the 2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 Silmitasertib (CX-4945) is an oral small-molecule...
With inhibitors of fibroblast growth factor receptor 2 (FGFR2) fusion and other genetic alterations now in clinical trials for cholangiocarcinoma, there is interest in better understanding what FGFR2 genetic alterations mean for patients. In particular, little is known about the effects of FGFR2...
Invited discussant of the ClarIDHy trial, Rachna T. Shroff, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Arizona, and Chief of GI Medical Oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, said positive findings for ivosidenib support the notion that “biliary cancer is a perfect example of...
Ivosidenib, an inhibitor of isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1), improved overall survival by almost 3 months in previously treated patients with advanced IDH1-mutated cholangiocarcinoma, compared with placebo, researchers of the global phase III ClarIDHy trial reported at the 2021 Gastrointestinal...
In 2007, sorafenib became the first approved systemic therapy for hepatocellular cancers and the first agent to improve overall survival in these patients.1 In a similar multikinase inhibitor strategy, lenvatinib was found to be noninferior to sorafenib in overall survival in the same patient...
In the treatment of resectable, locally advanced rectal cancer, researchers are trying to identify the most effective chemotherapy regimens, the best radiotherapy approaches, and the optimal sequence of these modalities. Two phase III trials presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program...
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) recently announced the establishment of The Tow Center for Developmental Oncology (TCDO). The new institution will bring together the unique expertise of researchers and physicians from across MSK and empower them to pursue translational research...
With the widespread use of multigene panels for germline genetic testing, understanding the cancer risks associated with pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants (ie, mutations) has become increasingly necessary. To identify which genes are breast cancer susceptibility genes, population studies...
In a U.S. population–based, case-control study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Chunling Hu, MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues identified the prevalence of and breast cancer risk associated with germline pathogenic variants in established and...