A novel approach to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy seems to effectively target acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells with varying antigen profiles and may help to overcome antigen escape, seen with CD19-targeted therapy. According to data presented at the 2018 ASCO-SITC Clinical...
Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in young men. The majority of patients are cured of their disease, but a newly published study shows many remain at risk for later complications from chemotherapy or other treatments. The study, published by Zaid et al in JNCCN –Journal of the...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued a new clinical guideline for the use of whole-breast radiation therapy for breast cancer that expands the population of patients recommended to receive hypofractionated treatment. The guideline was published by Smith et al in...
Discussant of the abstract, Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD, Chief of the Division of Otolaryngology in the Department of Surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Director of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said this research underscores the complex biology...
Analysis of more than 100,000 patients with cancer for gene CD274 (programmed cell death ligand 1 [PD-L1]) amplification may have implications for treatment with immune checkpoint blockade. Although shown to be rare in solid tumors, copy number alterations in PD-L1 genes were present in more than...
Discussant for the abstract, Ezra Cohen, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Diego, pointed out that although this subgroup may be responsive to checkpoint inhibition, it may not necessarily be anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) therapy. “There are emerging data suggesting...
Although immunotherapy has improved outcomes across a growing number of cancers, its success in unselected cases of prostate cancer has been limited. According to data presented at the 2018 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, however, investigators have identified a group of patients with ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wharam et al found that women who were switched from low-deductible to high-deductible insurance policies had delays in diagnostic workup, early breast cancer diagnosis, and initiation of chemotherapy compared with those maintained on...
In a study of data from the National Cancer Database reported in JAMA Oncology, Joshi et al found that two-thirds of patients with node-positive nonmetastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the penis received lymph node dissection and approximately half received chemotherapy in recent years. ...
The Targeted Anticancer Therapies 2018 Honorary Award for cancer drug development has been granted to Jean-Charles Soria, MD, PhD, for his pioneering role in cancer drug development across molecular targeted agents, precision medicine, and immunotherapy. The award was presented during the 2018...
Formal discussant of this trial, Robert Bruce Montgomery, MD, Clinical Director of Genitourinary Medical Oncology, Seattle Cancer Alliance, said, “The rationale for checkpoint inhibition and [poly ADP--ribose polymerase (PARP)] inhibitors is strong in patients with underlying homologous...
The combination of the poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) and the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) produced positive preliminary results in men with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer previously treated with...
Over the past 12 years, “the debates in kidney cancer have gotten more exciting. Combination therapy with a programmed cell death protein 1/programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) inhibitor is an area of intense study,” said formal discussant and ASCO Expert Sumanta K. Pal, MD, of City of...
The combination of axitinib (Inlyta) plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) can be added to the list of combination therapies that look promising in advanced renal cell carcinoma. In a phase Ib trial, almost three-quarters of patients with newly diagnosed advanced renal cell carcinoma treated with the...
Formal discussant of this trial, Robert Jones, MD, PhD, of the University of Glasgow, Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Center, Glasgow, Scotland, said: “I think it is clear that programmed cell death protein 1/programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1)–targeted immunotherapy now has a role for...
Patients with recurrent urothelial cancer had sustained improvement in overall survival at 2 years after they received second-line treatment with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) vs chemotherapy, according to an updated survival analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-045 trial presented at the 2018...
Why wouldn’t you support a patient with a terminal illness the “right to try” any therapy that may save his or her life? The answer to this question—one engulfed in a political debate in Congress—seems simple. It is not. [Editor’s Note: [Editor’s Note: On May 30, 2018, the President signed into...
This past January, ASCO published Clinical Cancer Advances 2018,1 its 13th annual report on the progress being made against cancer. The report names chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy as ASCO’s Advance of the Year. In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two ...
Patients with lower income have a significantly reduced chance of surviving anal cancer, according to a new study led by investigators at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center published by Lin et al in the journal Cancer. The study shows that both overall and...
The moderator of the session, Francis P. Worden, MD, a medical oncologist at the University of Michigan Health System Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Ann Arbor, highlighted the number of poorly differentiated carcinomas, which is higher than reported in other previous, large studies. “In previous...
Cabozantinib (Cometriq) has demonstrated significant activity in the first-line setting for radioiodine-refractory differentiated thyroid carcinoma, according to data from a single-site phase II trial presented at the 2018 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1 Treatment with...
On March 15, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to erdafitinib for the treatment of urothelial cancer. Urothelial cancer, most frequently in the bladder, is the sixth most common type of cancer in the United States. A Breakthrough Therapy ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine by Jason D. Merker, MD, PhD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, and colleagues, ASCO and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have issued a joint review on the status of...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Mehralivand et al found that inclusion of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings in a predictive model may reduce unnecessary biopsies in men with suspected prostate cancer. Study Details In the study, a predictive model adding MRI-derived prostate volume...
Mutations in HER2 were found to confer resistance to hormone therapy in some estrogen receptor (ER)-positive metastatic breast cancer cases, and resistance could be reversed by dual treatment with the hormone therapy fulvestrant (Faslodex) and the HER2 kinase inhibitor neratinib (Nerlynx),...
Pediatric patients with solid tumors may have poor quality T cells compared to patients with leukemia, and certain chemotherapies were detrimental to the T cells and their potential to become chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, according to data presented during a media preview for the...
An antibody that is present in the blood of women previously infected with the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia is associated with a doubling in ovarian cancer risk, according to data presented during a media preview for the 2018 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
People in Louisiana communities with cancer health disparities would be interested in participating in clinical trials or submitting samples to biobanks if provided information about these opportunities by a trusted physician—but physicians reported lacking appropriate information to give to...
In an analysis of two pooled studies reported in JAMA Oncology, O’Brien et al found that a complete response to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia was more likely in patients receiving the agent as first-line therapy and in those without bulky disease....
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hoerger et al found that patients with a higher proportion of early palliative care visits addressing behavioral coping strategies had improvement in depression symptoms and quality of life. In addition, those with a high proportion of visits ...
In an investigator-initiated phase III SIRveNIB trial in Asia-Pacific patients reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chow et al found no difference in overall survival with selective internal radiation therapy, or radioembolization, vs sorafenib (Nexavar) in patients with unresectable...
Survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer often have stronger social networks than their peers with no cancer history, according to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital researchers, who hope to translate that support into better health outcomes for the nation’s...
On March 13, Merck announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted a new supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) and granted Priority Review for pembrolizumab (Keytruda), the company’s anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) therapy. The application ...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tang et al, a Chinese phase III noninferiority trial has shown similar progression-free survival with nedaplatin- vs cisplatin-based chemoradiotherapy in patients with stage II to IVB nasopharyngeal carcinoma, with nedaplatin being associated with fewer severe...
In a study of National Cancer Database data reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ennis et al found no significant survival differences between patients receiving brachytherapy-based radiotherapy vs radical prostatectomy in men with high-risk localized prostate cancer. Study Details The...
In a Canadian retrospective population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bubis et al found that patients with cancer reported higher symptom scores at 1 month after diagnosis and identified several factors associated with higher symptom scores. Study Details The study...
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...
According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States and the second leading cause of death from cancer. Projections by the ACS show that, this year, about 50,630 people will die from the disease. However, studies...
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 Anesthesia Era: 1845–1875.” The photograph...
The French phase III ALLOZITHRO trial, stopped early due to excessive hematologic relapse in the azithromycin group, showed worse airflow decline–free survival with azithromycin vs placebo after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for hematologic malignancy. The study findings were...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. MATT KALAYCIO, MD Affiliation: Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer InstituteOn balancing priorities: “As an oncologist in...
On February 15, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a new drug application (NDA) for ivosidenib (AG-120) for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with an isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) mutation. The NDA was granted Priority Review...
On February 26, Yisheng Biopharma Co., Ltd. announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation to its lead immuno-oncology candidate, YS-ON-001, for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. YS-ON-001 is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology biologic product with...
On February 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved abemaciclib (Verzenio) in combination with an aromatase inhibitor as initial endocrine-based therapy for postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer. MONARCH 3 Approval...
BOOKMARK Title: Autobiography of a FaceAuthor: Lucy GrealyPublisher: Houghton Mifflin HarcourtOriginal Publication Date: June 1994Price: $14.95, paperback; 256 pages We live in a celebrity-obsessed society that is consumed by images of what we perceive as ideal beauty. Numerous studies show that ...
BOOKMARK Title: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American MealAuthor: Eric SchlosserOriginal Publisher: Houghton MifflinOriginal Publication Date: January 2001Price: $23.95, paperback, 288 pages The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about two-thirds of...
Breast cancer specialist Stacy L. Moulder, MD, was born and reared in Brookhaven, Mississippi, a small town southwest of the state capital of Jackson. “I was always interested in math and science, and I had a wonderful biology teacher in high school. It was when the advanced placement courses...
GUEST EDITOR Addressing the evolving needs of cancer survivors at various stages of their illness and care, Palliative Care in Oncology is guest edited by Jamie H. Von Roenn, MD. Dr. Von Roenn is ASCO’s Vice President of Education, Science, and Professional Development. Although advances in such ...
The current guidelines for mammographic breast cancer screening, which are based on data from primarily white populations, may lead to delayed diagnosis in nonwhite women, according to a report published by Stapleton et al in JAMA Surgery. A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)...
An Italian study featured in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine demonstrates that a novel nuclear medicine imaging agent targeting copper accumulation in tumors can detect prostate cancer recurrence early in patients with biochemical relapse (ie, rising prostate-specific antigen [PSA] level). Copper...