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Showing 1651 - 1700Has Scalp Cooling Reached the Level of Standard of Care?
Does evidence of the effectiveness and safety of scalp cooling to reduce hair loss among women being treated for breast cancer mean that scalp cooling is a new standard of care? “I would suggest that it is,” stated Mikel Ross, MSN, RN, AGNP-BC, of the Breast Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan...
AACR Remembers George H.W. Bush for Role in Cancer Research Support
The Board of Directors of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) released an announcement expressing sadness upon the passing of former President George H.W. Bush, on November 30 at the age of 94. Once elected, President Bush appointed Bernadine Healy, MD, in 1991 to lead the National ...
Expert Point of View: Joseph C. Alvarnas, MD
“When people don’t respond [to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy] as well as they should, it may be that the T cells are depleted and functionally exhausted. The mechanism of exhaustion is in part mediated by checkpoint-related killing. By thwarting that process with pembrolizumab...
Expert Point of View: Joseph C. Alvarnas, MD, and Henry Fung, MD
Commenting on the ibrutinib (Imbruvica)/chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell approach at a press conference, Joseph C. Alvarnas, MD, said: “Patients with CLL do not do as well on CAR T-cell therapy as those with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and by combining ibrutinib with CAR T cells,...
Controlling the Global Burden of Liver Cancer
The burden of mortality related to liver cancer is increasing worldwide. Prevention and control of viral hepatitis will be vital in combating this burden, but curbing the growing epidemic of obesity must also be seen as a key part of liver cancer prevention, according to Rosmawati Mohamed, MD, of...
Will the Trump Administration’s Plan to Reduce Cancer Drug Prices Work?
High drug prices are the number one health-care concern of many Americans. The average price of a cancer drug rose from less than $10,000/yr before 2000 to more than $170,000/yr in 2017.1-3 Between 1995 and 2013, the launch price of cancer drugs increased by 10% to 12% every year, and the average...
KATHERINE Trial: Adjuvant T-DM1 Reduces Invasive Disease Risk by 50% vs Trastuzumab in HER2-Positive Early Breast Cancer
In patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer and residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, adjuvant treatment with trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) reduced the risk of invasive disease by 50% over trastuzumab (Herceptin).1 The phase III KATHERINE study was presented at the 2018...
ASCO and Friends of Cancer Research Applaud NCI’s Expansion of Clinical Trial Eligibility Criteria
ASCO and Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) applaud the National Cancer Institute's (NCI) recent revision of its clinical trial protocol template to broaden eligibility criteria for cancer clinical trials. The protocol template was expanded to help increase the opportunity for ...
Oncology Care Team Reduces Opioid Use After Surgery by Using Quality Improvement Approach
IN A QUALITY improvement project that was featured in the Quality Care Symposium press program,1 members of an oncology care team achieved a 46% reduction in opioid use among patients who underwent a range of urologic surgeries. They did this by using a systemic approach that identified multiple...
Moxetumomab Pasudotox-tdfk for Relapsed or Refractory Hairy Cell Leukemia
ON SEPTEMBER 13, 2018, moxetumomab pasudotox-tdfk (Lumoxiti), a CD22-directed cytotoxin, was approved for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory hairy cell leukemia who received at least two prior systemic therapies, including with a purine nucleoside analog.1,2 Supporting...
Encorafenib and Binimetinib: A New Benchmark in Metastatic Melanoma Therapy?
IN JULY 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the combination of the oral BRAF inhibitor encorafenib (Braftovi) and the oral MEK inhibitor binimetinib (Mektovi) for BRAF V600E– or V600K– positive metastatic melanoma. The FDA approval was based on the results of the COLUMBUS...
Shedding Light on Mechanisms of Resistance to Treatment of Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
ONE OF the pressing issues in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer is the development of resistance to therapies directed at the androgen receptor (AR), such as enzalutamide (Xtandi) and abiraterone acetate (Zytiga). Research is ongoing to identify mechanisms of resistance in the hope of ...
Management of HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Business as Usual?
MANAGEMENT OF HER2-positive breast cancer changed after the introduction of trastuzumab (Herceptin), the first anti-HER2 therapy to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this type of cancer. Recent studies have more clearly defined the role of pertuzumab (Perjeta) and...
Expert Point of View: Reinhard Dummer, MD
KEYNOTE-022’S invited discussant, Reinhard Dummer, MD, Professor of Dermatologic Oncology at the University Hospital Zurich Skin Cancer Center in Switzerland, told attendees, “We’ve been waiting for this small prospective randomized phase II trial, and the initial results appear very promising.”...
Using Tumor‑Infiltrating Lymphocytes to Treat Metastatic Melanoma
STEVEN A. ROSENBERG, MD, PhD, Chief of Surgery at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), began his pioneering research in adoptive cell transfer using interleukin (IL)-2 in the mid-1970s. His IL-2 studies were among the clinical trials that led to the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval ...
Expert Point of View: Catherine C. Park, MD, FASTRO
DISCUSSANT OF the abstract, Catherine C. Park, MD, FASTRO, Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco, expressed excitement about this study’s results, which suggest the possibility of curing patients with stage IV disease. “We’re...
Local Consolidative Therapy Associated With Survival Benefit for Some With Oligometastatic NSCLC
FOR A SUBSET of patients with stage IV lung cancer, aggressive treatment may improve overall survival, according to data presented at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).1 The results of the phase II study showed that with long-term follow-up, local...
Beyond Checkpoint Inhibitors: Novel Immunotherapy Combinations With Antitumor Activity
THE 2018 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting hosted a meeting of the minds of the world’s premier cancer immunologists. In addition to the cutting-edge laboratory science explored and presented at the meeting, numerous phase I clinical trials and a few phase II studies offered ...
Should Oncologists Recommend Cannabis?
A RECENT survey of 400 clinical oncologists found that 80% discuss the use of medical cannabis with their patients, and although nearly 50% recommend it, fewer than 30% consider themselves knowledgeable enough to make such recommendations.1 Oncologists are perhaps among the most evidence-demanding ...
Palliative Care Trailblazer, Charles von Gunten, MD, PhD, Shares Insights With Advanced Practitioners
“The data are in, and they are clear and convincing. Palliative care leads to better outcomes for patients. The major challenge now is to make it part of standard cancer care everywhere in the United States and then everywhere else in the world, said Charles von Gunten, MD, PhD, a medical...
Palliative Care in the Pediatric Oncology Setting
Cancer is the leading cause of disease-related childhood death. To better serve the special needs of this highly vulnerable patient population, pediatric palliative care teams use a personalized, holistic, and interdisciplinary approach tailored to relieve the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual ...
Lenvatinib in Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma
On August 16, 2018, lenvatinib (Lenvima) was approved for the first-line treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the findings of a phase III open-label noninferiority trial (REFLECT), in which 954 patients with previously...
Adding Genomic Factors to MSKCC Risk Model in Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Voss et al found that adding the mutation status of prognostic genes to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) risk model improved the prognostic performance of the model in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma. The study involved...
Cardiovascular Toxicities Associated With Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Treatment
In a pharmacovigilance study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Salem et al found that immune checkpoint inhibitors can cause “severe and disabling inflammatory cardiovascular immune-related adverse events” that need to be considered in patient care and clinical trial design. Study...
Ultrasonography Findings and Risk of Ovarian Cancer
In a study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine, Smith-Bindman et al found that the appearance of ovarian masses on ultrasonography was highly associated with risk of ovarian cancer in a large unselected population of women undergoing pelvic ultrasonography. Study Details The study was a nested...
FDA Approves Venetoclax Combination for Adults With AML
On November 21, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to venetoclax (Venclexta) in combination with azacitidine or decitabine or low-dose cytarabine for the treatment of newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in adults who are age 75 years or older or...
DNA Vaccine Leads to Immune Responses in HPV-Related Head and Neck Cancer in Small Study
A therapeutic vaccine may boost antibodies and T cells, helping them infiltrate human papillomavirus (HPV)-related head and neck cancer tumors. Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania tested the immunotherapy in two groups of patients with advanced head and...
FDA Approves Pembrolizumab for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Previously Treated With a Kinase Inhibitor
ON NOVEMBER 9, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with the kinase inhibitor sorafenib (Nexavar). KEYNOTE-224 APPROVAL WAS based on KEYNOTE-224, a...
Probiotics
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. Shelly Latte-Naor, MD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, explore some of the beneficial effects attributed ...
2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium Award Winners Announced
THE SAN ANTONIO Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will honor three researchers for their work in breast cancer at the upcoming 2018 SABCS in December. They are Ian Smith, MD, FRCP, FRCPE, who will receive the SABCS William L. McGuire Memorial...
Patients With Cancer in Rural America Remain Underserved
Despite growing national awareness of health-care inequities, the plight of rural Americans diagnosed with cancer has persistently remained inadequate. Speaking with The ASCO Post, Jan Probst, PhD, Professor at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, noted, “We...
Duvelisib in Resistant Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia: Expanding the Treatment Armamentarium
The phase III DUO trial, reported by Flinn et al and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, has led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a novel B-cell receptor (BCR) kinase inhibitor, duvelisib (Copiktra), which targets phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-δ/γ in patients...
Katherine C. Lee, MD, on Emergency Surgery and End-of-Life Care
Katherine C. Lee, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses her study findings that showed older patients with metastatic cancer who survived emergency general surgery experienced higher intensity end-of-life care than similar patients who did not undergo surgery (Abstract 56).
Neoadjuvant Therapy With Reduced-Dose Immunotherapy for Stage III Melanoma
In patients with stage III melanoma, a reduced-dose neoadjuvant immunotherapy combination was well tolerated and led to high pathologic response rates, in the phase II OpACIN-neo trial presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress.1 “Neoadjuvant ipilimumab (Yervoy) at...
Treatment With Radium-223 Plus Abiraterone Not Advisable in Metastatic Prostate Cancer
The combination of radium-223 plus AAP (abiraterone acetate [Zytiga] and prednisone) was not superior to placebo plus AAP in the phase III ERA 223 trial, which enrolled men with asymptomatic bone-predominant metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.1 Patients treated with the combination had ...
Expert Point of View: Catherine C. Park, MD, FASTRO
Discussant of the 12-year report from the NRG/RTOG 9804 trial, Catherine C. Park, MD, FASTRO, Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco, underscored the high prevalence of ductal carcinoma in situ, which comprises approximately 20%...
ME STRONG Joins With ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation to Support Research for Men’s Cancers and Neuroblastoma
ME STRONG, a nonprofit public charity in Deland, Florida, is one of the newest supporters of Conquer Cancer. Linda Ryan, ME STRONG co-founder and 16-year cancer survivor, understands the importance of research: it saved her life decades ago, and she’s relying on experimental treatment as she...
Risk Factors for Late Recurrence After Resection for Hepatocellular Carcinoma
In a Chinese retrospective study reported in JAMA Surgery, Xu et al found that risk of late recurrence (> 2 years) of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after curative liver resection was associated with male sex, presence of cirrhosis, and aggressive characteristics of the initial HCC. The study...
FDA Approves Pembrolizumab for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Previously Treated With a Kinase Inhibitor
On November 9, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with the kinase inhibitor sorafenib. KEYNOTE-224 Approval was based on KEYNOTE-224, a single-arm,...
The WHO Classification of Tumors of Hematopoietic and Lymphoid Tissues
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib and Medeiros explore the recently updated World Health Organization (WHO) classification of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissue...
Corticosteroid Use at Start of PD-1/PD-L1 Inhibitor Therapy Affects Outcomes in NSCLC
IN A STUDY reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kathryn C. Arbour, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues found that baseline treatment with corticosteroids was associated with poorer efficacy of programmed cell death protein 1/programmed cell death ligand 1...
Tackling Financial Toxicity: One Institution’s Roadmap Forward
ALTHOUGH FINANCIAL toxicity has become an important issue in the oncology community, evidence suggests the subject is rarely addressed by oncologists, exacerbating its grave effects on patients with cancer and their families.1 “But I don’t think it’s because health-care providers don’t want to...
Do Incident Learning Systems Prevent Medical Errors?
ACCORDING TO a study by Johns Hopkins, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States.1 Lakshmi Santanam, PhD, tackled such sobering data at the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium. “Incident learning systems are not just about medical errors or data; it’s kind of a first...
Radiation to Primary Tumor Improves Survival in Subset of Men With Metastatic Prostate Cancer
MEN WITH newly diagnosed metastatic prostate cancer do not typically receive treatment to the primary tumor with radiation or surgery. A new analysis of the STAMPEDE trial found that radiation administered to the prostate can improve overall survival in men with newly diagnosed metastatic prostate...
Can Patients Use Topical Skin Creams During Radiation Therapy?
Contrary to the advice most patients with cancer receive when they go through radiation treatment, topical skin treatments, unless applied very heavily, may not increase the radiation dose to the skin and can be used in moderation before daily radiation treatments, according to findings from a new...
PURE-01 Trial: Neoadjuvant Immunotherapy in Muscle-Invasive Bladder Carcinoma
In the Italian phase II PURE-01 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Necchi et al found that neoadjuvant pembrolizumab (Keytruda) before radical cystectomy in muscle-invasive bladder carcinoma produced complete pathologic response (pT0) in 42% of patients, with pT0 being more common...
IASLC Issues Statement on Lung Cancer Screening With Low-Dose Computed Tomography
The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) recently issued a statement on lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) based on the results of the Dutch-Belgian NELSON lung cancer screening trial presented at the IASLC 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer...
COMBI-AD Trial: Longer-Term Follow-up of Adjuvant Dabrafenib Plus Trametinib in Resected BRAF V600–Mutant Stage III Melanoma
As reported by Hauschild et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, longer-term follow-up of the phase III COMBI-AD trial has confirmed improved relapse-free survival with adjuvant dabrafenib (Tafinlar) plus trametinib (Mekinist) vs placebo in resected BRAF V600–mutant stage III melanoma. In...
Health-Policy Forum Focuses on New Care-Delivery Paradigms
What was an MBA doing at the podium of a clinical oncology meeting? Ten years ago or so, that might have been surprising. But in an era of rapid change—in therapies, costs, payment models, and practice—it only makes sense. Amy Porter-Tacoronte, MBA, Health System Chief Administrative Officer at the ...
Expect Patient Concerns and Some Fear About Radiation Therapy for Early-Stage Follicular Lymphoma
Radiation therapy to the limited disease in patients with early-stage follicular lymphoma “achieves local control in over 90% of lesions, and almost 50% of patients remain free of any lymphoma event (cured) for decades,” Joanna C. Yang, MD, MPH, and Joachim Yahalom, MD, wrote in a recent editorial...
