With the announcement of a complete nationwide lockdown on March 25, 2020, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, a lot of unprecedented events came into being in India. The National Health Mission reported a 69% reduction in measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination in children; a 21% reduction in...
Discussant of the abstract, Alejandro Berlin, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, called the study “thought-provoking” and applauded the data-sharing approach to answer a clinically relevant question. According to Dr. Berlin, this work resurfaces the...
The Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors have been one of the most exciting advances in the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and have led to the development of chemotherapy-free treatments for both treatment-naive as well as relapsed or refractory CLL based on...
Philip McCarthy, MD, Professor of Oncology and Internal Medicine and Director of the Transplant and Cellular Therapy Center at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York, found the results of the DREAMM-6 study to be “exciting and promising.” He commented: “The overall response...
Basem M. William, MD, MRCP (UK), FACP, Director of the T-Cell Lymphoma Program and a member of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus, said many of the new-generation bispecific antibodies are “highly promising.” He said they...
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...
At the 2020 Debates and didactics in Hematology and Oncology Virtual Conference, sponsored by Emory University School of Medicine and Winship Cancer Institute, Pamela Allen, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Emory, described recent trials on therapeutic approaches that are informative on this ...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) has published new guidelines to help older adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and their health-care providers make critical care decisions, including if and how to proceed with cancer treatment and the need for blood transfusions for those in hospice...
In the treatment of adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), use of newer antibodies and de-intensification of chemotherapy have greatly improved outcomes, according to Hagop Kantarjian, MD, FASCO, who has been very involved in much of the research in ALL treatment. Dr. Kantarjian, Professor ...
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. In this installment, Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus on the role of virtual...
A portion of patients with cancer may be less likely to enroll in a clinical trial due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. According to a report published as a research letter by Mark E. Fleury, PhD, and colleagues in JAMA Oncology, nearly one in five patients with cancer surveyed said the...
Two common genetic variants appear to be linked to toxicity induced by bevacizumab, researchers reported at the 32nd European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC)–National Cancer Institute (NCI)–American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Symposium on Molecular Targets and...
Therese Marie Mulvey, MD, FASCO, Director of Quality Safety and Value at the Massachusetts General Hospital North Shore Cancer Center, Boston, told The ASCO Post that this “provocative and elegant” study underscores the importance of listening to patients. “Baseline patient-reported symptoms are...
A new study published by Stacey A. Fedewa, PhD, and colleagues in JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that state-level lung cancer screening rates were not aligned with the national lung cancer burden. The report provides the first population-based state-level screening data for...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Anand P. Jillella, MD, and colleagues found that physician education on the main causes of death during induction treatment for acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL)—and comanagement of cases with expert physicians—resulted in a low early mortality rate...
Kimberly Irvine was used to taking care of the people she loved. Conquering breast cancer—twice—forced the young mom to learn how to take care of herself in a whole new way. In the Your Stories episode “Being Your Own Advocate,” she shares with fellow philanthropist Riccardo Braglia, Board Member, ...
As the world continues to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, ASCO is committed to providing the most current information and resources to its members and the larger oncology community to help ensure that patients with cancer receive high-quality care. Here, members of the ASCO International Affairs...
I think my age and apparent good health contributed to a delay in my diagnosis of glioblastoma multiforme. The first symptom I had of the cancer appeared on December 26, 2014, when I was 32 years old. My family and I had just gotten home from celebrating the Christmas holiday with our relatives...
As recently reported in The Lancet Oncology and reviewed in the October 10, 2020, issue of The ASCO Post, the phase III BROCADE3 trial has shown that the addition of veliparib to carboplatin and paclitaxel improved progression-free survival in previously treated BRCA-mutated advanced breast...
“What am I doing here? This question kept running through my mind as the incoming freshman medical students at the University of Chicago assembled for the first time.” The person asking the introspective question was Marvin Stone, fresh out of college, recently married to his wife, Jill, and now a...
Medical memoir dramas, especially those centered in the emergency room (ER), are often met with the anticipation of top-rated medical shows portrayed on TV, in which there is nonstop blood-and-guts action and sizzling tensions between shouting doctors and nurses. In her recently published memoir,...
Coronary artery calcification scores based on routine computed tomography (CT) scans used for planning radiotherapy therapy may be able to predict which women with breast cancer have a high probability of developing cardiovascular disease. The promise of this research is that once high-risk...
Geriatric oncologist and researcher Enrique Soto Pérez de Celis, MD, MSc, was born in Mexico City and grew up in the nearby city of Puebla. “There were no physicians in the family who might have influenced my decision to become a doctor, but both of my parents were academics; my mother was a...
With the worst 5-year overall survival of all cancers and the second-leading cause of cancer death, pancreatic adenocarcinoma remains a dismal prognosis for the vast majority of patients. However, more accurate tumor staging and better understanding of distinct molecular subgroups have started to...
Instituted as part of the 21st Century Cures Act, the Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) fosters a unified interaction between three U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) centers: Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, and Center for Devices and...
Sonali M. Smith, MD, FASCO, the Elwood V. Jensen Professor in Medicine, Interim Chief of Hematology/Oncology, and Director of the Lymphoma Program at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told The ASCO Post that communication between the patient and the caregiving team has become increasingly...
Formal discussant of these abstracts on financial toxicity, Reginald Tucker-Seeley, ScD, of USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, said the studies by Drs. Shankaran and Yabroff highlight how far the field has come in understanding the pathway from cancer diagnosis to financial hardship for...
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Nedal Estfan, MD, a noted Syrian oncologist who was at the forefront of his county’s earliest efforts to establish a national cancer care system during a time of political and military turmoil....
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has made great strides in treating patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large-B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) and refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), but there may be newer strategies that can produce equivalent outcomes, and not all patients with...
As in past years, the results from ASCO’s 2020 National Cancer Opinions Survey showed a startling dichotomy in the perceptions of Americans on a variety of health-care issues. As expected, the two major events this year, the COVID-19 pandemic and a national reckoning over racial injustice,...
What a difference 20 years have made! In the year 2000, the results of the ECOG 1594 trial were reported at the plenary session of the ASCO Annual Meeting. The study demonstrated comparable outcomes between four different platinum-based chemotherapy regimens for the treatment of metastatic...
Older women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer have poorer survival than younger women, but this gap might be closed by offering surgery to women over age 70 who are fit and have resectable tumors. According to a study presented at the 12th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC 12),...
The invited discussant of PRODIGE 13 was Tim Price, MBBS, DHthSc, Professor at the University of Adelaide, Australia, senior consultant medical oncologist, and Director of Medical Oncology and Clinical Cancer Research at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. As he reminded listeners, the current ASCO...
Is intensive monitoring of patients after curative colorectal cancer resection warranted? Not necessarily, according to the findings of PRODIGE 13, reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress 2020.1 “After curative surgery, the addition of CEA [carcinoembryonic...
For more than 4 decades, the University of Chicago Cancer Research Foundation’s Simon M. Shubitz Cancer Prize and Lectureship has honored an internationally renowned individual for his or her exceptional contributions to cancer research and clinical care. The recipient of this year’s award is...
“Triple-negative breast cancer has multiple different subtypes, and there are targeted therapies that can be used based on the biomarkers that we identify for each patient,” Kari B. Wisinski, MD, noted in a review of recently approved and emerging therapies at the 2020 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer...
The invited discussant of the phase III INOVATYON trial was Andreas du Bois, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Gynecology and Gynecologic Oncology at Kliniken Essen Mitte, Germany, and Chairman of the AGO Study Group. As Dr. du Bois explained, the study “dealt with an old question: Does...
Formal discussant of the abstract, Monika K. Krzyzanowska, MD, a medical oncologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, said this study extends the evidence base on geriatric assessment in oncology and shows that geriatric assessment should be...
Drawing on several lines of ongoing research, David A. Tuveson, MD, PhD, has created a theoretical framework to consider while developing clinical trials in pancreatic cancer. In his keynote lecture at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer, ...
In his discussion of KEYNOTE-361 and the DANUBE trial, Richard Cathomas, MD, of Kantonsspital, Graubünden, Switzerland, said both studies yielded disappointing results. Overall, in these trials as well as current evidence from other trials, treatment of platinum-eligible (cisplatin or carboplatin)...
A strategy for giving intermittent, high doses of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor sunitinib seemed to be well tolerated by patients with advanced cancer and increased drug concentrations in solid tumors, which was associated with improved survival. This research was presented by Gerritse et al at the ...
The innovaTV 204 trial’s invited discussant, Ana Oaknin, MD, PhD, Head of the Gynecologic Cancer Program at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, was encouraged by the study’s findings. “Of note, the response rate was 24%, the time to response was short, and the median duration of...
A nonsurgical treatment option for rectal cancer that preserves quality of life may be safe for selected patients, according to a new study comparing it with standard surgical treatment. These findings were published by Beard et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and were...
Researchers have found that a class of commonly used heart drugs may also improve patients’ responses to PD-L1 inhibitors, according to preliminary findings presented by Strauss et al at the 32th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics (Abstract 7). Angiotensin...
The advent of effective combination chemotherapies has changed the treatment landscape for metastatic pancreatic cancer, extending median survival and leading to durable responses in a subset of patients. However, perpetual chemotherapy is cumulatively toxic, leading to progressive bone marrow...
The editors of The ASCO Post are sad to report the death of Patrick H. Beauregard on September 6, 2020. The cause was colorectal cancer. Diagnosed with stage IV disease in 2017 at the age of 29, Mr. Beauregard dedicated the last 3 years of his life to raising awareness of colorectal cancer in...
Joan H. (Rosen) Marks, a pioneer in genetic counseling, died on September 14, 2020. She was 91. Ms. Marks received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, in 2019, in recognition of her contributions and leadership to the College and to society, the ...
International business leader Riccardo Braglia has experienced great losses due to cancer. In “The Family Business,” he shares with ASCO Chief Executive Officer Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, how the perspective he gained inspires what he gives to help patients everywhere. “My grandmother, my ...
A large cohort study1 finding that the risk of dying of breast cancer was increased threefold after a DCIS diagnosis may cause patients diagnosed with DCIS to ask what they can do to reduce that risk. Currently, there is little that most patients can do. “The lifetime risk of death following DCIS...
Kala Visvanathan, MD, MHS, is working to prevent cancer in every patient. With the help of donor-supported grants, including a Career Development Award from Conquer Cancer®, the ASCO Foundation, Dr. Visvanathan researches cancer prevention and strategies to prevent cancer recurrence. “To be...