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Showing 1601 - 1650No Improvement in Melanoma-Specific Survival With Completion Dissection vs Observation for Sentinel-Node Metastasis
THE PHASE III MSLT- II TRIAL showed that completion dissection was not associated with improved melanoma-specific overall survival vs observation in patients with sentinel-node metastasis, although a benefit was observed in regional disease control. The findings were reported in The New England...
Small Steps Forward in Brain Tumor Therapy
SOME RECENT ADVANCES in the treatment of brain tumors are promising, but others are less so, according to Jeffrey J. Olson, MD, Professor of Neurosurgery at Emory University, Atlanta. At the 2017 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and Oncology Conference, held in Sea Island, Georgia, and...
Is Complete Lymphadenectomy Still Standard of Care in Melanoma?
DOES COMPLETE lymph node dissection for sentinel node–positive melanoma still have a role in the management of this disease? That’s debatable. Although it does not improve overall survival over observation alone, complete lymphadenectomy may have other benefits, according to a dialogue at the...
Update on Nonimmunotherapy Advances in Endometrial, Cervical, and Ovarian Cancers
AT THE 12TH ANNUAL New Orleans Summer Cancer Meeting, Thomas Herzog, MD, Deputy Director of the University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute and Professor of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, delivered an update on nonimmunotherapy advances in...
PD-L1 Inhibitor Consolidation Therapy for NSCLC: New Standard of Care?
THE PROGRAMMED CELL DEATH ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) improved progression-free survival by 11.2 months compared with placebo in patients with locally advanced, unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose disease did not progress following standard treatment ...
Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Current Thoughts on Liver Transplantation
LIVER TRANSPLANT offers the highest rates of long-term survival for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, according to Maria Russell, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery at Emory University, Atlanta. At the 2017 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and Oncology Conference at Sea Island, Georgia,...
Significant Improvement in Outcomes Reported With Adjuvant Therapy for Melanoma
FOR PATIENTS with malignant melanoma, the significant improvement in outcomes with targeted agents and antibodies against the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) has now been observed in the adjuvant setting. Two landmark studies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 ...
Adoptive Cell Therapy—Act 1: The Beginning
ON AUGUST 30, 2017, the first genetically engineered T-cell therapy (tisagenlecleucel [Kymriah]) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients up to 25 years of age with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia that is refractory or in second or...
Overall Survival With Nivolumab/Ipilimumab, or Nivolumab Alone, vs Ipilimumab in Advanced Melanoma
Overall survival outcomes in the phase III CheckMate 067 trial indicate improved survival with nivolumab (Opdivo)/ipilimumab (Yervoy) vs ipilimumab and with nivolumab vs ipilimumab in patients with previously untreated advanced melanoma. These findings were reported in The New England Journal of...
The Rising Incidence of Thyroid Cancer Reconsidered
Despite a significant rise in the incidence of thyroid cancer, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a panel of independent experts in primary care and screening, has given thyroid cancer screening a D recommendation, which is a recommendation against screening. To shed light on this...
Emerging Global Leaders in Biosimilar Development: Regulatory Guidance and Cost Impact
BIOLOGICS PLAY A KEY ROLE in cancer treatment and are the principal components of many therapeutic regimens.1 However, they require complex manufacturing processes, resulting in high cost and occasional shortages in supply, limiting the accessibility of cancer treatment for many patients, more so ...
Positioning Lu-177 Dotatate Therapy and 68-Ga Dotatate Scans in Management of Neuroendocrine Tumors
The results of the phase III NETTER-1 trial, recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 have been met with great interest by clinicians who treat neuroendocrine tumors. In patients with advanced midgut lesions, treatment with the radiopharmaceutical lutetium Lu-177 dotatate...
Long-Term Follow-up in PIVOT Trial Shows No Significant Benefit of Surgery vs Observation for Overall or Prostate Cancer Mortality
After 19.5 years of follow-up in the PIVOT trial, radical prostatectomy was not associated with significantly improved all-cause or prostate cancer mortality vs observation among men with localized prostate cancer.1 The long-term follow-up was reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by...
Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer: Emerging Concepts for Checkpoint Inhibitors
With checkpoint inhibitors vitally important in the treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), clinicians must become familiar with the nuances of their use. At the 2017 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and Oncology Conference in Sea Island, Georgia, Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD,...
Recent FDA Actions Include New Formulation, Expanded Indications for Oncology-Hematology Drug Products
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted approval to olaparib tablets (Lynparza) as a maintenance therapy for ovarian cancer and to inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa), for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)....
Long-Term Follow-up of PIVOT Argues for Immediate Treatment of Men With Unfavorable-Risk and Possibly High-Volume, Low-Risk Prostate Cancer
The updated results of the PIVOT1 study—reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Wilt et al and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—did not show a statistically significant difference between treatment and observation for the initial management approach to men with newly diagnosed...
Brachytherapy for Prostate Cancer: An Old Form of Radiation Treatment That Is Still One of the Most Effective
BRACHYTHERAPY HAS a long track record in treating cancer, dating back to the first reported use of an implanted radioactive source in 1901, and brachytherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer dates back to 1914, when Pasteu and Degrais used a radium source inserted through a urethral catheter. ...
Pursuing Combination Strategies With Checkpoint and Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
PRIMARY LIVER CANCER is the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Hepatocellular carcinoma accounts for 90% of liver cancer, with around 800,000 new cases diagnosed globally each year.1 In contrast to the stable or declining trends observed for most neoplasms, the incidence and...
International Consensus (or Not) on Management of Advanced Prostate Cancer
ALTHOUGH THE National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) strongly influence the management of advanced prostate cancer, they do not always reflect actual clinical practice. It turns out that in the real world, there are multiple areas ...
Cutting-Edge Induction Strategies and Novel Approach to Reducing Skeletal-Related Events Explored in Multiple Myeloma
THE ADDITION of daratumumab (Darzalex) to a triplet induction regimen led to good responses in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, but not without toxicities. And in the treatment of myeloma bone disease, denosumab (Xgeva) in place of zoledronic acid preserved renal function and may be associated...
Deep Androgen Suppression Plus Abiraterone and Prednisone: Effective Strategy for Hormone-Naive Prostate Cancer
ANTAGONISM OF THE ANDROGEN AXIS remains a cornerstone of systemic therapy for high-risk localized and metastatic prostate cancer, reflecting the central role of androgen-dependent biologic mechanisms in hormone-naive disease. Despite the use of standard androgen-deprivation therapy, men with...
Updates of Key Trials in Metastatic Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer: KEYNOTE-024 and AvaALL
IMMUNOTHERAPY AND ANTIANGIOGENESIS were highlighted in a session on metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) at the Best of ASCO New Orleans meeting. Matthew Gubens, MD, MS, presented the selected abstracts from the ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Dr. Gubens is Associate Professor of Thoracic Medical...
Turmeric
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Gary Deng, MD, PhD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present information on...
Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Practical Approach, Promising Research
Triple-negative breast cancer has a reputation for being a particularly challenging malignancy, but breast cancer specialist Nancy Davidson, MD, Senior Vice President of the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, put this in perspective in a recent...
Blinatumomab in Advanced Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: A Brighter Therapeutic Outlook
NEW DRUGS that will improve the outcome of adult patients who develop a deadly disease such as acute leukemia are badly needed; combinations of cytotoxic chemotherapeutic drugs may have reached an upper limit of utility. Agents that eradicate leukemia by alternative mechanisms would be of...
Improved Overall Survival With Blinatumomab vs Chemotherapy in Advanced Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
IN THE PHASE III TOWER TRIAL reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Hagop Kantarjian, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues found that blinatumomab (Blincyto) treatment improved overall survival vs chemotherapy in heavily pretreated patients with B-cell ...
Alectinib: A New Standard for First-Line Therapy of ALK-Rearranged NSCLC?
ANAPLASTIC LYMPHOMA KINASE (ALK) was first identified in anaplastic large cell lymphoma. The ALK gene itself is not oncogenic, but it can become oncogenic by at least three mechanisms: by forming a fusion gene with a number of other partner genes, by copy number gain, or by mutations in the gene....
One Size May Not Fit All: Thoughts on the New Adjuvant Bisphosphonate Guideline for Early-Stage Breast Cancer
The oncology community has now conducted several prospectively designed, hypothesis-driven randomized clinical trials among women with breast cancer to address this question: Do adjuvant bisphosphonates decrease the risk of breast cancer bone metastases and other recurrence? A meta-analysis1 by...
Advances in the Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
WITHIN THE SPECTRUM of breast cancer subtypes, triple-negative disease is “particularly troubling,” but better scientific understanding of this malignancy is leading to advances in its treatment, according to breast cancer expert Nancy Davidson, MD. Triple-negative breast cancer does not express...
Convergence of Precision Medicine and Immuno-oncology
“THE CONVERGENCE of two very hot and interesting topics—precision medicine and immuno-oncology”—is being advanced by next-generation sequencing, Douglas B. Johnson, MD, MSCI, made clear at the inaugural OncoSET Symposium: Emerging Approaches to Precision Medicine,” sponsored by the Robert H. Lurie ...
Cancer on the Global Stage: Incidence and Cancer-Related Mortality in Angola
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this special feature on the worldwide cancer burden. Each installment focuses on a country from one of the six regions of the world, as defined by the World Health Organization (ie, Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, and...
MammaPrint Test Addressed in ASCO Breast Cancer Guideline Update
New recommendations on the use of the MammaPrint genomic test issued on July 10 will help guide decisions on adjuvant systemic therapy for women with early breast cancer. The recommendations update the ASCO 2016 clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers in these patients. The guideline ...
Association Between Vasectomy and Prostate Cancer
A systematic review and meta-analysis has found no association between vasectomy and high-grade, advanced, or fatal prostate cancer but a weak association with any prostate cancer. These findings were reported in JAMA Oncology by Bhindi et al. Study Details The analysis involved 53 studies,...
Pembrolizumab and Cetuximab-Treated Head and Neck Cancer: Activity Confirmed But No Surprises
WITH THE RECENT efficacy findings, improvements in survival, and resultant U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitors across multiple solid tumor indications, the publication of yet another positive trial adds to the...
Pembrolizumab in Second-Line Therapy for Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma
THE TREATMENT OF metastatic urothelial carcinoma experienced a long period of stagnation until the recognition that targeting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) pathway could yield deep and durable responses.1-3 Cisplatin-based combination chemotherapy has been the reference standard for...
Pembrolizumab Improves Overall Survival vs Chemotherapy in Second-Line Therapy for Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma
IN THE PHASE III KEYNOTE-045 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs investigator choice of chemotherapy as second-line treatment ...
Music Therapy: Relevance in Oncology
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, authors Karen Popkin, LCAT, MT-BC, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present the case ...
Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy for Poor Performance Status Patients With Pancreatic Cancer
There are few data to guide the management of nonmetastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in patients who are elderly or have a poor performance status. Although most such patients are offered supportive care or gemcitabine alone, the addition of stereotactic body radiotherapy may improve...
Advance Care Planning: Ensuring Patients’ End-of-Life Wishes Are Honored
When Amy Berman, BSN, LHD (aged 58), stood in front of the mirror to perform a routine breast self-exam and saw redness and dimpling on her right breast, she feared they were the telltale signs of inflammatory breast cancer. “I have never self-diagnosed myself before, but I had recently read an...
Encouraging Results With Pembrolizumab in Relapsed/Refractory Classical Hodgkin Lymphoma
AN EFFECTIVE antitumor immune response relies on cytotoxic T cells that are activated and able to target the malignant clone. As T cells become activated, they upregulate suppressive receptors including programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). Upregulation of inhibitory signals is important to...
Preparing for Future Challenges in Geriatric Surgical Oncology
In the past decade, advances in surgical oncology have been echoed in the field of geriatric oncology. The current literature regarding older people with cancer includes mainly retrospective cohort studies, focusing on alternatives to radical surgery in comorbid patients. More recently, work has...
ASCO’s TAPUR Study Continues Its Expansion of Sites, Participants, and Collaborators
ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) Study continues to expand and now has more than 300 participants enrolled on study drugs, more than 100 sites in 20 states, new partnerships, and a -revised protocol to lower the age of eligibility. Recently, eight new centers in 36...
Pediatric Cancer Pain May Be Misunderstood and Largely Undertreated
Cancer pain in children poses certain unique challenges. Over the past decade, insightful research into pediatric cancer pain has focused on pain management that incorporates nonopioid therapies into standard care. To shed light on this important issue, The ASCO Post spoke with Christine T....
Overcoming Sexism in Academic Medicine
The troubling results from a survey1 investigating the sexual harassment and discrimination experiences of academic medical faculty show that such incidents continue to happen with unexpected frequency despite increasing awareness of the problem. The study by Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, and...
High-Risk Mutations Predict Poor Outcomes for Patients With Myelodysplastic Syndromes Undergoing Transplantation
Although several treatment options are available for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) remains the only curative therapy.1 The risks of complications and death from transplantation can be substantial. Determining which patients may...
Mutations in Myelodysplastic Syndrome Associated With Poorer Outcome After Stem Cell Transplantation
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, R. Coleman Lindsley, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that a number of mutations present in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) were associated with poorer clinical outcome after allogeneic...
FDA Approves Panitumumab for Use in Wild-Type RAS Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
On June 30, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for panitumumab (Vectibix) for patients with wild-type RAS (defined as wild-type in both KRAS and NRAS as determined by an FDA-approved test for this use) metastatic...
Adding Midostaurin to Chemotherapy in Newly Diagnosed Acute Myeloid Leukemia With FLT3 Mutation
In a phase III trial (Cancer and Leukemia Group B 10603 [RATIFY]/Alliance) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Stone et al found that the addition of midostaurin (Rydapt) to standard chemotherapy improved overall survival in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia with...
Positive Results for APHINITY, but Value of Benefit of Dual HER2 Blockade Questioned
The results of the long-awaited APHINITY trial are in, and although the phase III study met its primary endpoint, it failed to establish dual HER2 blockade as the optimal adjuvant treatment for early HER2-positive breast cancer. After 3 years of follow-up, the addition of pertuzumab (Perjeta) to...
Major Breakthrough in Development of Systemic Targeted Therapy for Midgut Neuroendocrine Tumors
This issue of The ASCO Post discusses a recent trial reported by Strosberg et al in The New England Journal of Medicine that is the first phase III randomized international multicenter clinical trial evaluating lutetium Lu-177 dotatate as a peptide receptor radionuclide therapy in midgut...
