In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Fishman et al found no significant difference in the use of optimal evidence-based anticancer drug regimens in physician offices vs hospital-based outpatient departments. However, the investigators found significantly higher costs of treatment in the...
On March 27, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved durvalumab (Imfinzi) in combination with etoposide and either carboplatin or cisplatin as first-line treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC). CASPIAN Trial Efficacy of this combination in patients...
Physicians and scientists interested in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have lost one of the community’s shining lights with the death of Clara D. Bloomfield, MD, FASCO, on March 1, 2020, at age 77 years. Dr. Bloomfield is well known for her more than 50 years of groundbreaking research in blood...
The results of a phase II study suggest that a short course of immunotherapy prior to surgery for oral cavity cancer may trigger tumor regression, possibly providing long-term benefits for patients. According to data presented at the 2020 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium,1 a 3-week ...
Researchers from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recently reviewed hundreds of epidemiologic studies on the link between physical activity and both cancer risk and cancer mortality. A subsequent analysis of the findings by a panel of experts representing 17 partner organizations,...
Routine genetic counseling and multigene testing of patients with pancreatic cancer result in the detection of mutations that are actionable, not only for patients, but also for at-risk family members. At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, the use of a systemized, automated referral system ...
Christopher M. Booth, MD, the invited discussant of the BEACON CRC quality-of-life findings, applauded the investigators for choosing overall survival and quality of life as endpoints in a trial that benefits a “vulnerable patient population with unmet needs.” Patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic...
Positive findings on the potential benefit of molecularly targeted drugs in patients with advanced colorectal cancer were presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, validating the purpose of ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study.1-3 TAPUR, the first...
A new study published by Conant et al in the journal Radiology found that the advantages of digital breast tomosynthesis over digital mammography, including increased cancer detection and fewer false-positive findings, are maintained over multiple years and rounds of screening. In addition,...
In a Children’s Oncology Group study (AREN0321) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Daw et al found that the addition of vincristine/irinotecan to a regimen used in the National Wilms Tumor Study 5 (NWTS-5; vincristine, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, carboplatin, and etoposide plus...
In a study of the COVID-19 crisis in China reported in The Lancet Oncology, Liang et al found that patients with cancer may be at a higher risk of COVID-19 respiratory disease requiring admission to hospital than individuals without cancer, and that those with cancer who contract the virus have a...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to a bispecific antibody for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations; granted approval to a test for human...
The burden of colorectal cancer is shifting to younger individuals as incidence increases in young adults and declines in older age groups, according to Colorectal Cancer Statistics 2020. The median age of diagnosis dropped from 72 in 2001–2002 to 66 in 2015–2016. This finding and other data were...
In a phase I trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Karol et al found that the combination of the BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax and the chemotherapeutic agent cytarabine with or without idarubicin produced responses in pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia. As noted by...
The Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer has found that cancer death rates continued to decline from 2001 to 2017 in the United States for all cancer sites combined. The report was published by Hensley et al in the journal Cancer. The annual report is a collaborative effort among the ...
In the phase II CALGB 40903/Alliance trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, E. Shelley Hwang MD, MPH, and colleagues found that preoperative letrozole was associated with beneficial imaging and biomarker changes in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive ductal...
In a single-center Dutch phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Braat et al found that holmium Ho-166 radioembolization produced responses in patients with neuroendocrine tumor liver metastases who had received peptide receptor radionuclide therapy with lutetium Lu-177 dotatate. Study...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Daniel W. Lin, MD, and colleagues found that the 17-gene Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score was not associated with the finding of adverse pathology among men with prostate cancer undergoing radical prostatectomy after initial active...
Ilixadencel is a cell-based, allogeneic, off-the-shelf product aimed at priming the anticancer immune response when injected intratumorally. The phase II MERECA study evaluated this allogeneic dendritic cell product given with sunitinib in 88 patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The study ...
New data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium are validating the purpose of ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study, a multibasket trial that matches patients’ genomic alterations to commercially available targeted therapies. The aim is to learn...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a combination therapy in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL); gave Fast Track designations for treatments in T-cell lymphoma and adenoid cystic carcinoma; granted Orphan Drug designation to an agent for the ...
The investigational oral agent tucatinib added to trastuzumab/capecitabine reduced the risk of death by one-third and reduced the risk of disease progression or death by one-half in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, including those with untreated or previously ...
Richard E. Champlin, MD, Chairman of the nation’s largest Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, was born in Milwaukee and spent his formative years in Chicago. After high school, Dr. Champlin followed an early ambition in...
In a phase I trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Jabbour et al found that the use of pembrolizumab concurrently with chemoradiotherapy in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was tolerable, and that progression-free survival with the combination therapy was 69.7% at 12 months. As stated by the...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, and colleagues, interim analyses of the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial have shown that the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and use of adjuvant pembrolizumab vs placebo resulted in improvements in...
Patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with higher measures of tumor mutations that show up in a blood test generally have a better clinical response to certain immunotherapy treatments than patients with a lower measure of mutations. A clinical trial showed that in cases where liquid...
A pair of studies by Smith et al published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention evaluating whether a mandated reduction in the nicotine content of cigarettes may cause smokers to compensate by engaging in compensatory smoking to obtain more nicotine has found that a reduction in...
As reported in JAMA by Christiane K. Kuhl, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the ECOG-ACRIN EA1141 trial has shown that abbreviated breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was associated with a significantly higher invasive breast cancer detection rate vs digital breast tomosynthesis among women with dense...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Petrelli et al, noninferiority in relapse-free survival for 3 vs 6 months of adjuvant chemotherapy was not established among patients with resected high-risk stage II colorectal cancer in the Italian phase III TOSCA trial. A potential regimen effect was observed,...
Routine genetic counseling and multigene testing of patients with pancreatic cancer result in the detection of mutations that are actionable, not only for patients, but also for at-risk family members. At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the use of a systemized, automated referral system that does ...
On February 25, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved neratinib (Nerlynx), a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, in combination with capecitabine for adult patients with advanced or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received two or more prior anti-HER2–based regimens in the...
New research suggests that regular exercise may improve the well-being of African American cancer survivors, but most survivors do not meet current recommendations for physical activity. The findings were published by Jennifer Beebe-Dimmer, MPH, PhD, and colleagues in the journal Cancer. Because...
The EHE Foundation announced it will receive a $450,000 award from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) to drive progress toward treatments and a cure for epithelioid hemangioendothelioma (EHE), a rare vascular cancer diagnosed in about 20 individuals per year. The award recognizes The EHE...
Commenting on SAFIR02-IMMUNO for The ASCO Post, Kevin Kalinsky, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said the findings of the analysis were in accordance with other studies in metastatic breast cancer, but they came...
With the motto of “leaving no one behind,” 420 delegates from 40 countries and 61 faculty members from 19 countries attended the Annual Meeting of the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) in Geneva on November 14–16, 2019. SIOG serves as a platform to discuss a myriad of aspects...
Using antioxidants and other dietary supplements before and during adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancer may increase the risk of recurrence and “to a lesser extent, death,” according to an analysis of dietary and nutritional data from a phase III trial, published in the Journal of Clinical...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Marina C. Garassino, MD, and colleagues, global health status/quality of life was maintained or improved with the addition of pembrolizumab vs placebo to pemetrexed/platinum therapy for previously untreated metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer...
Positive findings from three Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study cohorts on the potential benefit of molecularly targeted drugs in patients with advanced colorectal cancer were presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1-3 The TAPUR study is the first...
Patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer “pose clinical challenges for us every day,” said Christopher M. Booth, MD, Professor of Medical Oncology and the Canada Research Chair in Population Cancer Care at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, the invited discussant of the...
The ASH 2019 Annual Meeting & Exposition featured countless important sessions and lectures. It would be impossible to attend all the symposia, oral presentations, poster presentations, and special events. Below, we have selected some presentation highlights to supplement our coverage of the...
Two novel dual-target chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell strategies are yielding early and durable responses for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, as well as potentially less cytokine-release syndrome and neurotoxicity compared with first-generation CAR T-cell products,...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to chemotherapy with carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel failed to significantly improve pathologic complete response rates compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with early high-risk, locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer. According...
A new study found a wide state-by-state variation in rates of melanoma caused by ultraviolet (UV) exposure, with highest rates in several states on the east and west coasts (including Hawaii), but also a few landlocked states (including Utah, Vermont, and Minnesota). The report, published by Islami ...
A personalized approach to selecting antibody therapy for patients with newly diagnosed stage IV gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma resulted in a 1-year overall survival rate of 66% and a median overall survival of 16.4 months in the PANGEA study (see Table 1).1 The study used a novel clinical...
Compared to individuals without a history of dengue virus infection, those previously infected with the virus had over twice the risk of developing leukemia, with the highest risk occurring between 3 and 6 years after infection. The results of a study conducted in Taiwan were published by Chien et...
In a Danish phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Per Pfeiffer, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the addition of bevacizumab to trifluridine/tipiracil, also known as TAS-102, significantly improved progression-free survival among patients with chemorefractory metastatic colorectal...
In a modeling study reported in The Lancet, Brisson et al in the World Health Organization (WHO)-sponsored Cervical Cancer Elimination Modelling Consortium (CCEMC) found that high human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine uptake in girls could lead to cervical cancer elimination in most low-income and...
Once considered highly experimental, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy is now an established third-line treatment option for B-cell lymphomas and leukemias. CAR T-cell therapy has saved the lives of people who would otherwise have run out of treatment options. But the question is...
Fox Chase Cancer Center has been recognized under ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) by the QOPI Certification Program LLC as successfully completing a 3-year certification for oncology practices that meet nationally recognized standards for quality and safety in cancer care. “Fox...
A year-by-year age analysis of colorectal cancer rates among adults in the United States has found a 46% increase in new diagnoses from ages 49 to 50, indicating that many latent cases of the disease are likely going undiagnosed until routine screenings begin at 50, according to a new study by...