On January 26, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved lutetium Lu-177 dotatate (Lutathera) for the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs). The drug is indicated for adult patients with somatostatin receptor–positive GEP-NETs. GEP-NETs can be...
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and RWJBarnabas Health welcome Howard S. Hochster, MD, an internationally recognized leader in the development of cancer clinical trials, gastrointestinal oncology, and early-phase cancer drugs. In January, Dr. Hochster assumed the role of Associate Director...
The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation and the American Lung Association’s LUNG FORCE welcome the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer as a new member of the Lung Cancer Patient Registry, a place to gather and store detailed patient information, providing a real-world view...
In a single-center phase II study reported in JAMA Oncology, Feng and colleagues found that individualized adaptive stereotactic body radiotherapy achieved high rates of local tumor control with low complication rates in patients with liver tumors and preexisting liver dysfunction. Theodore S....
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Pavel and colleagues, no significant difference in deterioration of health-related quality of life was observed with everolimus (Afinitor) vs placebo in the phase III RADIANT-4 trial, which included patients with advanced nonfunctional well-differentiated...
The phase III ACT IV study has shown no survival benefit of adding rindopepimut, a vaccine targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) deletion mutation EGFRvIII, to temozolomide in patients with newly diagnosed EGFRvIII-positive glioblastoma. These findings were reported in The Lancet...
City of Hope recently announced the appointments of four new scientists to its research faculty. Jianjun Chen, PhD, joins the staff as Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Systems Biology. Before joining the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, Dr. Chen had been serving as...
“For patients with early-stage breast cancer, we’ve seen a significant decline in chemotherapy use over the past few years without a real change in evidence,” or in national guidelines and recommendations, reported Allison W. Kurian, MD, MSc, lead author of a study on chemotherapy recommendations ...
The use of chemotherapy to treat women with early-stage breast cancer “declined markedly over time,” according to analysis of data from 2,926 women between the ages of 20 and 79. The trends documented “are remarkable for their steepness of decline, independent of clinical factors and despite no...
What I thought after feeling a large, hard lump—similar to the feel of a granola bar—in my left breast was that I probably pulled a muscle while playing with my two young children, ages 7 and 5. Cancer never entered my mind until I asked my husband to feel the lump, and he immediately said, with...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the “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,...
Oncology drug labels, especially those that have been on the market for more than 15 years, may not always be up-to-date. Critical data about safety, efficacy, or prescribing information may be missing. Modernizing the labeling process can correct inaccurate information, add data for indications ...
Neil Johnson, PhD Richard Pomerantz, PhD Vasily Studitsky, PhD Italo Tempera, PhD Kuang-Yi Wen, PhD The Fox Chase Cancer Center is pleased to announce the first winners of its new privately funded pilot project grants. The program supports cutting-edge...
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology Tumors & Treatment: A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The Antiseptic Era: 1876–1900.” The photograph...
On June 16, 2017, daratumumab -(Darzalex) was approved for use in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone for treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies including lenalidomide (Revlimid) and a proteasome inhibitor.1,2 Supporting...
On May 23, 2017, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was granted accelerated approval for treatment of adult and pediatric patients with unresectable or metastatic microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) solid tumors progressing following prior treatment and who have no...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stokes and colleagues found lower posttreatment mortality rates with stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) vs surgery in early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with the difference in rates increasing as a function of age....
On August 1, 2017, the IDH2 inhibitor enasidenib (Idhifa) was granted regular approval for treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with an isocitrate dehydrogenase-2 (IDH2) mutation as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved...
On July 11, 2017, blinatumomab (Blincyto) was approved for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in adults and children.1,2 Blinatumomab received accelerated approval in December 2014 for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-negative...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clarke et al found that increasing body mass index (BMI) was associated with lower rates of cervical precancer diagnosis and higher rates of cervical cancer diagnosis. The investigators had hypothesized that increased body mass could decrease ...
In an analysis of more than 120,000 women diagnosed with and treated for early-stage breast cancer, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center determined the rate of additional breast biopsies needed for these patients during their follow-up care. The findings, reported by...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has announced the launch of the AACR–Johnson & Johnson Lung Cancer Innovation Science Grants to stimulate research aimed at eradicating this malignancy. This new funding opportunity, which is supported by the Johnson & Johnson Lung...
The following essay by Shaker R. Dakhil, MD, FACP, is adapted, with permission, from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and...
Alexis A. Thompson, MD, MPH, an expert in sickle cell disease and thalassemia, will serve as President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) for a 1-year term through December 2018. Dr. Thompson is Head of the Hematology Section of the Division of Hematology Oncology Transplantation and...
This past September, Olivier Elemento, PhD, Associate Director of the Institute for Computational Biomedicine and Director of the Laboratory of Cancer Systems Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, was named Director of Weill Cornell’s Englander Institute for Precision Medicine. In this...
Now that we have entered 2018, let’s take a moment to reflect on how far we have come and what lies ahead in integrative oncology care. Overview To cope with the physical, emotional, and spiritual effects of cancer, and in search of relief from symptoms that their conventional treatments have not...
Updated results from the ELIANA clinical trial of tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah), formerly CTL019, in relapsed or refractory pediatric and young adult patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have been published by Maude et al in The New England Journal of Medicine. New data include...
As part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) efforts to enhance transparency around its drug-approval decisions, the FDA is exploring new ways to build on its obligation to share information about product approvals, as announced by FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD. The FDA is...
Holly G. Prigerson, PhD, Co-Director of the Weill Cornell Medicine’s Center for Research on End-of-Life Care, was born in Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, where her father had been a resident. Her family moved to Long Island, first living in Islip, where Dr. Prigerson’s father practiced medicine...
In a single-center phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kantarjian et al found that the addition of inotuzumab ozogamicin (Besponsa) to low-intensity chemotherapy produced promising outcomes in older patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome–negative acute lymphoblastic ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Esplen et al found that a group psychosocial intervention was effective in improving body image concerns and breast cancer–related quality of life among breast cancer survivors. Study Details In the study, 194 breast cancer survivors...
As reported by Aparicio et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a French phase III trial (PRODIGE 9) showed no benefit of maintenance bevacizumab (Avastin) during postinduction chemotherapy-free intervals in metastatic colorectal cancer. Study Details In the open-label trial, 491 patients from ...
A type of cancer that occurs in the lower stomach has been increasing among some Americans under the age of 50, even though in the general population, the incidence of all stomach cancers has been declining for decades. These findings were published by Anderson et al in the Journal of the National...
To ensure that clinicians stay apace and provide optimal patient care, three leading medical societies—the College of American Pathologists (CAP), the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP)—have updated their...
Among men with prostate cancer who underwent radical prostatectomy, those who were obese had a higher risk of biochemical recurrence, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special Conference on Obesity and Cancer: Mechanisms Underlying Etiology and...
Among postmenopausal women with normal body mass index (BMI), those with higher body fat levels had an increased risk for invasive breast cancer, according to data presented at an American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special Conference titled Obesity and Cancer: Mechanisms...
On January 30, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals announced it has received notice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that U.S. studies of BPX-501—an agent being studied to improve outcomes for patients undergoing stem cell transplant who lack a matched donor—have been placed...
The final overall survival results of the phase III ASPIRE trial indicate significant improvement with carfilzomib (Kyprolis), lenalidomide (Revlimid), and dexamethasone (KRd) vs lenalidomide plus dexamethasone (Rd) in patients who had received one to three prior lines of therapy for multiple...
As reported by de Haan et al in The Lancet Oncology, data from the International Network on Cancer, Infertility and Pregnancy (INCIP) registry indicate that use of chemotherapy during pregnancy has increased over a 20-year period, and that infants exposed to antenatal chemotherapy may be more...
A pooled analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has shown a benefit of treatment beyond progression, as defined by RECIST criteria, in many patients receiving anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) antibodies for unresectable or metastatic melanoma. The analysis was ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Holowatyj et al found that among women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative, node-negative invasive breast cancer, non-Hispanic black women had higher 21-gene recurrence scores at diagnosis vs non-Hispanic white women....
In a phase IIa multiple-basket study (MyPathway) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hainsworth et al found that agents targeting specific molecular alterations produced responses in tumors outside of current labeling for the agents, with high response rates being observed in some tumor...
As reported by Chi et al in The Lancet Oncology, the addition of abiraterone and prednisone to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) in the phase III LATITUDE trial was associated with improved patient-reported outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed metastatic castration-naive prostate cancer. The...
A new and unique new way to treat cancer—chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy—is poised to transform the outlook for children and adults with certain otherwise incurable cancers. ASCO named this type of adoptive-cell immunotherapy the Advance of the Year in its annual...
On January 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved lutetium Lu-177 dotatate (Lutathera) for the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs). This is the first time a radiopharmaceutical has been approved for the treatment of GEP-NETs. Lu-177 dotatate is...
Sumanta K. Pal, MD, of the City of Hope, discusses immunotherapy as a front-line treatment for kidney cancer and the strategy of VEGF blockade with immunotherapy, which is emerging as a possible treatment modality.
Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of the Yale School of Medicine, summarizes a session that included discussion of the mechanisms of immunotherapies, biomarkers for activity of these agents, overcoming resistance, and using treatment combinations.
Aaron Goodman, MD, of the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, discusses an analysis of more than 100,000 patients with cancer for CD274 (PD-L1) amplification and the implications for treatment with immune checkpoint blockade (Abstract 47).
Researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) and GeneDx, a genetic testing company, have identified two new genetic mutations associated with breast cancer: MSH6 and PMS2. The researchers’ study—published by Roberts et al in Genetics in Medicine—suggests that...
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers developed a single blood test that screens for eight common cancer types and also helps identify the location of the cancer. The test, called CancerSEEK, is a unique noninvasive, multianalyte test that simultaneously evaluates levels of eight cancer...