The National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, will partner with Cancer Research UK to fund Cancer Grand Challenges, an international initiative to address profound and unanswered questions in cancer research. Through Cancer Grand Challenges, the NCI and Cancer...
Earlier this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading across the United States, federal health officials and cancer societies urged Americans to delay routine cancer screenings and other elective procedures to keep them out of clinics to avoid potential exposure to the coronavirus and to...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies are a major advance in the treatment of hematologic malignancies and are making inroads in solid tumors, but there is room for improvement in their design, since not all patients respond, and those who do may relapse. Researchers are studying...
Scientists have used artificial intelligence in an extensive analysis of the immune and genetic landscapes of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Their findings were published by Young et al in the journal Gut. Pancreatic neuroendocrine cancer starts in cells that produce hormones such as insulin....
Two gynecologic oncologists and ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, commented on the findings of the TROPHIMMUN trial for The ASCO Post. “The authors demonstrate efficacy of a new treatment approach for gestational trophoblastic...
Women with early-stage cervical cancer treated with minimally invasive radical hysterectomy had a 71% increased risk of recurrence and a 56% increased risk of death compared with those treated with open radical hysterectomy, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 studies involving ...
The ASCO Post spoke with Alexander Melamed, MD, MPH, a gynecologic oncologist and Assistant Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, New York, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York. New York state has had more coronavirus cases ...
Thomas J. Herzog, MD, Deputy Director, University of Cincinnati Cancer Center, who presented a distillation of the PRIMA trial data along with updated results of the phase III PAOLA-1 trial of olaparib plus bevacizumab maintenance, called the data “practice-changing.” “We’ve suspected for a while...
The message still needs to get out that metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer should be treated with both androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) and either docetaxel or an androgen receptor pathway inhibitor. In spite of “overwhelming” support for ADT plus abiraterone/prednisone,...
Given the rising costs of cancer care, many patients with cancer and cancer survivors are challenged by financial toxicity, the burden of care costs. Many struggle to choose a health insurance plan that best meets their needs. Moreover, these challenges are often exacerbated by limited health...
Public momentum for efforts to address structural and systemic racism has led many health-care institutions to consider how they can work to bring about positive change. In this column, drawing on important recent work by Kimani Paul-Emile, JD, PhD, Professor of Law at Fordham University School of ...
Daniela Matei, MD, Diana, Princess of Wales Professor of Cancer Research at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, grew up Sibiu, a picturesque Romanian city situated at the foothills of the Cindrel Mountains in historic Transylvania. “Both of my parents were physicians, and some of my ...
Measuring serum levels of tamoxifen among premenopausal women being treated for invasive breast cancer identified a “worryingly high proportion of patients, one in six, who were nonadherent to therapy at only 1 year after treatment prescription,” researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical...
Neha Vapiwala, MD, FACR, Professor and Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Radiation Oncology and newly appointed Dean of Admissions at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Philadelphia, was born in India to parents who aspired to emigrate to the...
Mary-Claire King, PhD, will receive the William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture Award at the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), to be held virtually from December 8 to 12, 2020. The William L. McGuire Memorial Lectureship was established in 1992 to commemorate Dr. McGuire’s significant...
The dramatic advances in the diagnosis and treatment of multiple myeloma over the past 20 years have resulted in significant improvements in overall survival, with 5-year relative survival rates now around 50% and more than 60% for patients younger than age 70.1 The proteasome inhibitors...
Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) athletes use combat techniques designed to dominate one’s opponent with control and force. The goal: make your opponent be the first to tap out. In 2010, BJJ practitioner Jon Thomas was surprised to discover there was no philanthropic presence within his sport. That’s when ...
The Association for Clinical Oncology signed on to a letter from the American Medical Association (AMA) and statements from the Council of Medical Specialty Societies and the American College of Physicians’ Council of Subspecialty Societies expressing concerns about the Trump Administration’s...
Cancer does not affect all people equally. The phrase “cancer disparities” refers to the differences in the number of new cancer cases as well as differences in cancer outcomes that exist among different populations. Disparities more often negatively affect racial and ethnic minorities, poor...
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has appointed Heather Brandt, PhD, a behavioral scientist with expertise in cancer prevention and control, to lead community outreach and research programs focused on the prevention of human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers through vaccination. In...
A vaccine for COVID-19 is currently the Holy Grail, but even if an effective vaccine were developed on a fast-track timetable, it may be effective in only a percentage of people, judging by existing flu vaccines, which show efficacy rates of approximately 45% and vary year by year. Until we have a...
In the time of COVID-19, there is much to learn about the intersection of coronavirus and cancer. One area of concern has been whether immunotherapies increase the risk of mortality in patients with cancer who also have COVID-19 infection. “To what extent immune checkpoint inhibition affects...
My husband and I adopted our cat, Franklin, on a cold November day. It was one of the last days Andrew felt well enough to leave the house to go anywhere other than to chemotherapy or a doctor’s appointment. Our news at these appointments had shifted toward the negative, with disease progression...
As evidenced at this year’s ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, oncology science, technology, and clinical practice are evolving at a rapid pace, bringing new challenges to the efficient and ethical practice of cancer care at all levels. To shed light on some of the large-scale public health and...
This week on The ASCO Post Podcast, we'll first hear about a study that found a steep decline in non–small cell lung cancer mortality from 2013 to 2016. Then, we'll close out with a review of a report on the addition of locoregional radiotherapy to chemotherapy in patients with...
The results of an online questionnaire of 609 breast cancer survivors in the United States suggest that nearly half of patients experienced delays in care during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was published by Papautsky et al in the journal Breast Cancer Research and ...
The development of complex biomarkers such as tumor mutational burden (TMB) has enabled clinicians to identify patients more likely to respond to treatment of a variety of cancers, leading to more accurate diagnoses and improved outcomes. Differences in testing assays, however, have produced...
Amit Mahipal, MBBS, MPH, Consultant, Associate Professor of Oncology, Mayo College of Medicine, Rochester, put the findings for tremelimumab/durvalumab into context regarding other studies evaluating checkpoint inhibitors in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. In the current study by Kelly et al, he ...
A new study published by Kanter et al in Health Affairs sheds light on another reason why the coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately affecting individuals of lower socioeconomic status: residents in low-income neighborhoods lack access to intensive care unit (ICU) beds. While the shortage of...
Extended analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-426 study upholds pembrolizumab plus axitinib as a preferred front-line regimen over sunitinib in patients with advanced sporadic renal cell carcinoma.1 These updated results were presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program by Elizabeth R....
Philip J. Saylor, MD, Attending Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston, commented on this study. “The results presented are clearly exciting and cause us to look forward to a likely phase III study of this strategy. The high response...
Initial results of the randomized phase II TheraP trial showed that therapy directed to prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) with lutetium-177–labeled PSMA-617 (LuPSMA) significantly improved prostate-specific antigen (PSA) response compared with cabazitaxel in men with metastatic...
Neuroendocrine tumors are rare malignancies that arise in neuroendocrine cells, which can occur throughout the body but are most commonly found in the gastrointestinal tract, lungs, and pancreas. Although most neuroendocrine tumors are indolent and take years to grow, some are aggressive and grow...
I’m very pleased to be joined by Piyush Srivastava, MD, Past Chair of ASCO’s Clinical Practice Committee. Dr. Srivastava is a practicing gastrointestinal oncologist, Regional Medical Director of the End of Life Options Program, and Director of Outpatient Palliative Care at Kaiser Permanente Walnut...
Great strides in research and clinical practice have decreased breast cancer mortality rates by more than 35% since 1990, yet about 40,000 American women die of the disease each year. In Radical: The Science, Culture, and History of Breast Cancer in America, health-care journalist Kate Pickert...
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with noted neurosurgeon Keith L. Black, MD, Chair of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute. During his career, Dr. Black has...
After years of development, engineering, and enhancement, researchers at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis have made available a software system that enables better detection of gene fusions. The system, called CICERO, offers additional insights into cancers as well as new targets...
Jimmie C. Holland, MD, who served as the inaugural Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, died on December 24, 2017, at the age of 89. The ASCO Post paid tribute to Dr. Holland in its January 25, 2018, issue. Here, as part of our ...
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,...
Although NTRK gene fusions occur in less than 5% of gastrointestinal cancers, it looks like they can be targeted successfully with NTRK inhibitors. In a pooled analysis of three clinical trials, 50% of such patients responded to entrectinib, in an updated analysis presented during the 2020 virtual...
David Sallman, MD, an assistant member of the Malignant Hematology Department of Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida, commented on the IMerge and QUAZAR studies for The ASCO Post. As background, he noted the “predominant struggle” of patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic ...
As outbreaks of the COVID-19 pandemic spiked across the country earlier this year, federal health officials and cancer societies advised people to delay seeking routine cancer screenings, including mammograms and colonoscopies, to keep them out of medical centers and away from potential exposure to ...
More than 70% of women with multiple tumors in a single breast reported good or excellent satisfaction with the cosmetic results of breast-conserving therapy, Alliance (ACOSOG) Z11102 investigators reported at the 2020 American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) Virtual Scientific Session.1 In...
Radiation oncologist Gita Suneja, MD, was born and reared in St. Louis, the first-generation daughter of two Indian immigrants. “My father came to the United States to pursue a degree in engineering and decided to remain here, feeling it offered greater opportunities for the family,” Dr. Suneja...
Improvements in protocol-driven clinical trials and supportive care for children and adolescents with cancer have markedly reduced mortality rates over the past 5 decades. Yet, along with clinical advances, oncologists and their young patients with cancer face a host of ethical issues, made more...
Although the United States spends billions of dollars each year on cancer research, very little of that funding is dedicated to mental health research in patients with cancer, despite the fact that cancer survivors have a six-time higher risk for psychological disability than people without...
Periodontal disease was associated with an increased risk of two precursors of colorectal cancer, according to results of a study published by Lo et al in Cancer Prevention Research. “Periodontal disease is prevalent among adults, with periodontitis affecting more than 40% of the U.S. population,”...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer took place from July 20 to 22, 2020, attracting top scientific minds from around the world to present preliminary research on the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic and its intersection with cancer care. In an...
Today, the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) Executive Committee announced that the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium will take place in 2020. However, in response to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic, the Executive Committee has made the decision—out of necessity to...
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,...