On June 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted for review a new supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for recombinant human papillomavirus (HPV) 9-valent vaccine (Gardasil 9). The application is seeking approval for an expanded age...
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, recently issued the following statement: Over the past decade, advances in our understanding of the basic biology of serious and life-threatening diseases has led to the development and FDA approval of targeted treatments for ...
Building on the efficacy of colorectal cancer screening, the American Medical Association (AMA) endorsed a plan at its Annual Meeting to work with physicians and payers to make the screening more available and affordable. Challenges with insurance coverage remain a barrier to colorectal cancer...
In the phase II DAWN study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gopal et al found that ibrutinib (Imbruvica) produced a response in a minority of patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma. Study Details In the study, 110 patients with ≥ 2 prior lines of treatment...
In a study of National Cancer Database data reported in Blood Advances, Bhatt et al found that 25% of patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) did not receive initial chemotherapy, despite evidence that chemotherapy is associated with a survival benefit and improvement in symptoms ...
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. Gary Deng, MD, PhD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present information on the potential health benefits ...
Valentina Nardi, MD, is a staff pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and her current clinical work includes implementing molecular assays for hematologic malignancies at the Center for Integrated Diagnostics. “I was born in Rome, but I did my high school and college education in Genoa. I ...
THE 2018 JACOBSON INNOVATION AWARD of the American College of Surgeons was recently presented to Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, Chief of the Surgery Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as well as Professor of Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and at the...
It may sound too good to be true, but asking patients a simple question about what is on their bucket list can actually spark a dialogue about how best to make their cancer care and survivorship fit into their life plans, as well as be an effective way to identify their end-of-life care goals,...
AT THE 71ST World Health Assembly in Geneva, the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) delivered two statements positioning cancer as a priority on the global agenda of the World Health Organization (WHO). Presenting its recommendations for action to the international community, ESMO...
Terminally ill patients with cancer will sometimes ask their clinicians for help with assisted or hastened death.1 Although palliative care and hospice care can usually address the concerns of most patients, some have physical or existential suffering that is refractory to comfort and supportive...
The QOPI® Reporting Registry, a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) brought to you by ASCO and the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), is your one-stop shop for 2018 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) reporting. The new...
RESEARCHERS AT the University of California (UC), Davis, have shown that patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who received their care at a National Cancer Institute (NCI) cancer center in California had a dramatically reduced risk of early mortality. Using data from the California Cancer...
By including a planned gift to ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation in your estate plans, you can help make a dramatic difference for patients with cancer years—even decades—into the future. With just one small change to your will or trust, your planned gift of any size will deliver a big impact, and: ...
This year’s ASCO Research Community Forum (RCF) 2018 Annual Meeting will not be one to miss! Though still a few months away, I am thrilled to share the work that is already underway to bring the research community together for 2 days of learning and collaboration. During my term as Chair of the...
Tell your patients about Cancer.Net’s award-winning mobile app! Recently updated, the newest version features several performance upgrades to improve the user experience, plus all the same great features offered before, including filtering capabilities, calendar integration, and native Spanish...
A career in oncology can be extremely rewarding. Fast-paced advances in research and treatment, exciting changes in the practice environment, and the opportunity to build strong relationships with and provide critical support to patients can be incredibly professionally satisfying—but they can...
JULIE MARGENTHALER, MD, FACS, a breast surgeon at Washington University School of Medicine and American Society of Breast Surgeons Communications Committee Chair, highlighted the importance of exploring clinical endpoints outside of a survival advantage. “While numerous studies have shown the...
A STUDY evaluating the impact of breast cancer screening has shown that the benefits of regular mammograms extend well beyond reduced mortality. According to data presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) 2018 Annual Meeting, women with breast cancer who underwent regular...
THE RECENTLY issued 8th revision to the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Breast Cancer Staging System incorporates tumor biology and prognostic stage groups and thus has become more accurate and clinically relevant, according to two speakers at the 2018 Miami Breast Cancer Conference.1,2...
FOLAKEMI ODEDINA, PhD, Professor of Pharmacotherapy and Translational Research at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy, has been awarded a 2018 Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship to help expand oncology clinical trials in Africa. Dr. Odedina will travel to South Africa to collaborate...
DAN THEODORESCU, MD, PhD, has been named Director of the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute at Cedars-Sinai, a position he will assume starting July 1, 2018. Dr. Theodorescu, a translational cancer researcher and expert in bladder cancer, will direct the oncology enterprise at...
Researchers can access a wide array of ASCO data through the Society’s Center for Research and Analytics (CENTRA). A detailed list of the data, along with samples of each data set, can be found on CENTRA’s updated data library page. ASCO maintains an expansive repository of information that...
ASCO invites you to participate in the 2018 ASCO Practice Census. Just as you monitor the health of your patients, ASCO regularly gathers information on the oncology practice environment, and we need your help to do so. The ASCO Practice Census is an annual survey designed to capture comprehensive, ...
As you know, for more than 2 years, ASCO has been working closely with the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) to shape the future of maintenance of certification (MOC) and assessment for our specialty. The ASCO MOC Task Force was charged by ASCO’s membership to make the process for...
The ASCO updated guidelines on the treatment of metastatic non-castrate prostate cancer penned by Morris and his colleagues1 provide valuable information annotated to the strengths of evidence in recently reported prostate cancer studies. CHAARTED, GETUG-AFU 15, LATITUDE, and STAMPEDE have...
After about 70 years with no significant progress, the landscape for men with de novo metastatic prostate cancer has changed dramatically in the past 4 years, with statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful survival improvement reported from multiple phase III trials when...
A major new study of more than 140,000 men has identified 63 new genetic variations in the DNA code that increase the risk of prostate cancer. These findings were published by Schumacher et al in Nature Genetics. Researchers devised a new test combining these single-letter genetic variants with...
Parents of adolescents believed that the potential to prevent certain types of cancer is the best reason for their children to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, whereas other reasons health-care providers often give were far less persuasive. Findings from this study were published by...
The Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP) has launched a new care delivery blog, JOP DAiS (Discussion & Analysis in Short), to serve as a forum for commentary and analysis on issues affecting the mechanisms of oncology care delivery. This new platform will be a way to collaborate, debate, and...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Antonio C. Wolff, MD, of Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, and colleagues, ASCO and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have issued a clinical practice guideline focused update on HER2 testing in breast cancer....
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Michael J. Morris, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medicine, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on optimizing anticancer therapy in men with metastatic non-castrate prostate cancer.1 To ...
“In CheckMate 227, the benefit of nivolumab [Opdivo] plus ipilimumab [Yervoy] was the same in tumor mutational burden–high patients whether or not they were programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–high or –low,” said formal discussant of this paper, Naiyer Rizvi, MD, Director of Thoracic Oncology...
The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) improved progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and a high tumor mutational burden irrespective of programmed cell death ligand 1...
The number of institutions participating in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) initiative, AACR Project Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange (GENIE), has increased by 11 participants. The 11 new institutions of the AACR Project GENIE consortium and their related cancer...
Biologics are credited with increasing median overall survival in colorectal cancer to approximately 30 months. Their optimal use was discussed by Axel Grothey, MD, Professor of Oncology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, in an article he coauthored for the Journal of Oncology Practice 1...
Commenting on this study, Amir Fathi, MD, a hematologist/oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a co-investigator on the study, expressed hope about this new targeted approach. “Ivosidenib is an oral targeted inhibitor of the altered isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) protein. This...
Ivosidenib, an isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) inhibitor, yielded durable and molecular remissions in some patients with IDH1-mutated advanced relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML). At a dose of 500 mg/d, ivosidenib was associated with a low frequency of grade 3 or higher...
An updated analysis of a randomized phase III trial showed that taking a high dose of esomeprazole with low-dose aspirin for at least 7 years may moderately reduce the risk of developing high-grade dysplasia or esophageal cancer and may delay death from any cause in people with Barrett’s esophagus. ...
“This study shows us that it is possible to get equally good outcomes with lower costs. In the United States, we have no real way to constrain the costs of health care, including the cost of drugs. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not consider drug price in deliberations about bringing...
It is widely acknowledged that the costs of cancer care are much higher in the United States than in Canada, with outcomes that are thought to be similar. A new study presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting supports that view, by documenting and quantifying the differences in health-care costs...
Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, FASCO, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, noted that the iNNOVATE trial is the first randomized comparison of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) plus rituximab (Rituxan) vs “a very active control—rituximab—to which 50% of patients responded.” The study showed that “the...
In patients with Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, the risk of disease progression was reduced by 80% with the combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and rituximab (Rituxan) over rituximab alone, in the international phase III iNNOVATE trial, reported at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting1 and...
“This is a very important study,” said ASCO expert Andrew Epstein, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), New York. “Hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy is used in the United States and elsewhere, even though the benefits are unknown. This study shows there are no benefits, and ...
With a growing emphasis on value in cancer care, some types of resource-intensive therapies may need to be reconsidered. One such treatment may be hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, which showed no benefit during surgery for colorectal cancer confined to the peritoneum in the PRODIGE 7...
Formal discussant of the GeparNuevo presentation, Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center, New York, said, “It is important that neoadjuvant immunotherapy combinations are being studied. There is a lot of enthusiasm for...
The addition of durvalumab -(Imfinzi) to anthracycline/taxane-based chemotherapy had encouraging results as neoadjuvant therapy for early triple-negative breast cancer in the randomized phase II GeparNuevo study presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 The results were positive in a subgroup of...
Formal discussant of the CARMENA trial, Daniel George, MD, of Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina, had reservations about the broad application of these results. “CARMENA was designed to reassess the value and role of nephrectomy in patients who present with metastatic renal...
Positive interim data were recently presented from an ongoing phase II study of tazemetostat—a potent, selective, orally available EZH2 inhibitor—as a monotherapy for patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma. The data, presented by Salles et al at the 23rd Annual...
In the modern era of targeted therapy, some patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma may be able to forgo nephrectomy and be treated with sunitinib (Sutent) alone, according to results of the phase III CARMENA trial reported during the Plenary Session at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 The...