Genetic mapping of brain metastases, in the laboratory of Priscilla Brastianos, MD, Director of the Central Nervous System Metastasis Center at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and Scott Carter, PhD, at the Harvard School of Public Health, is yielding findings that could...
Pulling together the 2020 American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting in less than 1 month was a Herculean task, and an important component was producing a session on COVID-19 and cancer care. This special session involved researchers from the front lines of the pandemic...
Making sense of maintenance therapy in advanced ovarian cancer has been a tall order since the publication of impressive data for not one but three PARP inhibitors at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2019 Congress.1 The picture became a little clearer on April 29, 2020, however,...
As the worldwide cases of the coronavirus started to mount in February and March, medical societies and organizations monitoring the escalating COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international and domestic travel made the difficult decision to postpone or cancel their scientific conferences. On...
Over the last decade, researchers have become concerned about a possible link between a benign gynecologic lesion called endosalpingiosis and ovarian cancer. However, using a diagnostic method typically reserved for specimens suspected of being cancerous, a team has found the prevalence of...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Richard S. Finn, MD, and colleagues, the phase III IMbrave150 trial has shown that anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) plus anti-VEGF therapy with atezolizumab plus bevacizumab improved progression-free and overall survival vs sorafenib ...
In an article published in Science, Lawrence Corey, MD; John R. Mascola, MD; Anthony S. Fauci, MD; and Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, describe the composition and aims of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-led Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) partnership....
Although the live 2020 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference was canceled, more than 100 posters scheduled for presentation are now available online, as part of the NCCN 2020 Virtual Annual Conference. The ASCO Post has summarized some of the clinical trial updates we found ...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Shi et al found that use of higher-than-currently-recommended severity thresholds for symptom alerts for patients receiving outpatient chemotherapy would result in failure to identify and treat many patients requiring clinical intervention for ...
Commenting on the SOLO2 trial for The ASCO Post was Don S. Dizon, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Women’s Cancers at Lifespan Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. “It’s great to get an overall survival advantage from a PARP inhibitor study. Coming...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jaume Capdevila, MD, and colleagues found that the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor spartalizumab produced responses in a cohort of patients with locally advanced or metastatic anaplastic thyroid carcinoma, with all...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading throughout the world, and vaccine developers have responded with unprecedented speed. Since the COVID-19 genome sequence was released in January, human trials of an experimental vaccine candidate have already begun in the Seattle area. Although the...
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. Despite significant improvements reported in survival rates, symptom management in pediatric...
On April 8, 2020, encorafenib was approved for use in combination with cetuximab for the treatment of previously treated adult patients with metastatic colorectal cancer with a BRAF V600E mutation detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test.1,2 Encorafenib is not indicated...
Patient-reported outcomes are measures used in clinical trials to capture aspects of a patient’s health condition, reported directly by the patient, without introduction of bias from third parties. They are distinct from the physical toxicities reported by clinicians1 and are collected using a...
The 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition featured a cornucopia of sessions. It was impossible to attend all the lectures, symposia, oral presentations, poster presentations, and special events because many were concurrent. Below, we have selected some...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) has approved funding for 79 research and training grants, totaling $36,165,100 in the first of two grant cycles for 2020. Grant applications were reviewed and approved remotely in light of the coronavirus epidemic. The grants will fund investigators at 59...
In the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Schmid et al1 found that the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in stage II or III triple-negative breast cancer significantly improved the pathologic...
Studies of second-generation bispecific antibodies were among the highlights of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The bispecific T-cell engager blinatumomab was the first such agent to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Isabelle Ray‑Coquard, MD, PhD, of the Centre Leon Berard, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Groupe d’Investigateurs Nationaux pour l’Etude des Cancers Ovariens (GINECO), Paris, and colleagues, the phase III PAOLA-1 trial has shown a...
For breast imaging, contrast-enhanced mammography, which uses the anatomic imaging of a mammogram in addition to imaging neovascularity, can offer the overall screening capability of standard mammography and the sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at a fraction of the cost of MRI,...
Can patients with breast cancer who achieve an “exceptional response” to neoadjuvant therapy safely forgo surgery? That is a question being seriously explored in multinational trials. “We’ve known for a long time that we can eliminate disease in many patients if they have chemosensitive tumors....
Based on multiple phase III prospective trials, there is evidence that both PARP inhibitors and antiangiogenic therapies such as bevacizumab provide benefit when utilized in a maintenance strategy in the first-line treatment of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (GOG 218, ICON7, SOLO-1, PRIMA,...
The treatment of colorectal cancer has always been something of an art—but never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ASCO Post asked three experts in this malignancy to share their concerns and their approaches to achieving good patient outcomes while minimizing the risk of COVID-19...
In a Japanese phase Ib/dose-expansion trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fukuoka et al found that the combination of regorafenib and nivolumab showed activity in patients with previously treated gastric cancer and colorectal cancer with microsatellite stable/mismatch...
Before the dawn of the modern antibiotic era and amid the chaos of World War II, future Professor of Radiology and Founding Dean of two American medical colleges, Dr. George T. Harrell,* penned what could now be argued was far too bold a statement. As the opening lines of his nonrandomized study...
“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.” ―Hippocrates The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that occasionally quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib and Connors...
ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation®, are proud to recognize the winners of ASCO’s 2020 Special Awards and Conquer Cancer’s Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Awards. The recipients of these awards have worked to transform cancer care around the world. David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award...
Mismatch repair (MMR)-deficiency and consequently high DNA microsatellite instability (MSI-H) are associated with high tumor mutational burden. A high mutational load increases the potential number of neoantigens that can be presented by the tumor cell and recognized by host lymphocytes. Detection...
In a study (NCI-MATCH trial subprotocol, arm Z1D) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nilofer S. Azad, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medicine Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer, and colleagues found that nivolumab was active in mismatch repair (MMR)-deficient noncolorectal cancers.1 As stated by...
Previous single-center studies have linked the gut microbiota (via stool sample analysis) to outcomes after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), such as overall mortality, transplant-related mortality, graft-vs-host disease, and graft-vs-host–related mortality.1-4 Although intriguing, these...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapies for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs). For full...
As a first-line regimen for patients with metastatic colorectal tumors that are microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR), the combination of nivolumab and low-dose ipilimumab yielded an objective response rate of 64%, a complete response rate of 9%, and a disease...
Inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) have changed the natural history of hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer. While median progression-free survival on these drugs is approximately 27 months, the disease eventually progresses and clinicians must choose a subsequent ...
Novel antibody-drug conjugates that target actionable cell-surface markers in metastatic breast cancer will soon expand the utility of the class that already includes ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1), according to two speakers at the 2020 Miami Breast Cancer Conference. These new agents were...
Can patients with cancer and preexisting autoimmune disorders safely benefit from immunotherapy? The answer has been unclear, with only retrospective studies and anecdotal reports guiding oncologists. This subpopulation of patients has largely been excluded from clinical trials out of concerns over ...
The addition of apalutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) reduced the risk of second disease progression or death (PFS2) by 34% vs ADT alone in patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer, in a post hoc analysis of the phase III TITAN trial presented at the 2020...
The threat posed by head and neck cancer extends well beyond the physical disease, according to research presented at the 2020 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1,2 The pair of studies underscored the high costs of survivorship, including elevated rates of chronic pain, substance...
The lymphomas are an incredibly complex assemblage of neoplastic diseases. They are not one disease, and, at least based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Classification of Tumors published in 2017, they represent a collection of approximately 80 different malignancies, a number that will...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays, historical...
How confident should oncologists be that their patients feel adequately informed about the adverse effects of their cancer treatment? A recent study by Shaverdian et al,1 reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, found that 18% of 403 patients felt...
Vitamin D is a steroid-like hormone involved primarily in human calcium homeostasis. Obtained through sun exposure as well as food and dietary supplements,1 vitamin D in humans is metabolized in the liver and kidneys to its active form, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25[OH]2D).2 Other cell types,...
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, discusses an integrated analysis of five clinical trials, in phases I through III, for a variety of advanced cancers. Findings show that patients treated with talazoparib monotherapy had lower hospitalization rates (compared to those ...
The rapid spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has dramatically disrupted societal life within a very short time. Patients with cancer in particular can be affected by delays in routine medical care in addition to experiencing heightened anxiety and stress associated with the threat...
The spread of COVID-19 continues to have a dramatic impact around the world, disrupting social lives and the delivery of oncologic treatments to patients with cancer. Even under “normal” circumstances, health-care professionals, including those in oncology, are prone to occupational stress....
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Jayant S. Vaidya, MBBS, PhD, and colleagues, the phase III TARGIT-A trial showed that delayed second-procedure targeted intraoperative radiotherapy (TARGIT-IORT) was not noninferior to whole-breast external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) in preventing local recurrence of...
The Combined Annual Meetings of the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) and the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) were held in Orlando, Florida, from February 19–23, 2020. The scientific program addressed the most timely issues in ...
Each year, The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, Chairman of the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, to offer his picks for the most important research presented at 2019 San...
The loosening of restrictions on genetic testing would mean that all health-care providers could help move this needle to where it should be, according to Kevin S. Hughes, MD, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and Medical Director of the...
Immunotherapeutics in breast cancer will likely not be limited to late-stage triple-negative breast cancer. Earlier lines, combination regimens, and expansion into different disease subtypes should become part of this emerging landscape, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine...