Six young scientists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller University, and Weill Cornell Medical College have been named the inaugural winners of a new prize established to recognize postdoctoral investigators in the life sciences. The Tri-Institutional Breakout Awards for Junior...
Here are several real-life examples of the positive effects of the mind-body program, shared by Robin Hardbattle, MS, LAc, and the parents of children who benefited from it. Breathing Practices and Guided Imagery: Prior to learning breathing practices and guided meditation, Matt, a 12-year-old...
The fundamental challenge in treating children with cancer centers on how to help relieve their suffering while they undergo difficult care. Typically, they do not yet have adult coping skills, and even if they had some ability to cope, many of the issues they face during treatment are...
From Wrigley Field to McCormick Place, Chicago residents and visitors felt the energy surrounding the launch of The Campaign to Conquer Cancer during the ASCO 2015 Annual Meeting. The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (CCF) threw out the ceremonial first pitch...
Drugs targeting the immune-checkpoint pathways have shown promising activity in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, Garon and colleagues reported the results of the KEYNOTE-001 clinical trial evaluating single-agent pembrolizumab...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brian Rini, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, and colleagues developed a 16-gene assay and recurrence score that predicted postoperative outcome in patients with stage I to III clear cell renal cell carcinoma.1 Development Phase In the ...
The quality of mammography images has markedly improved over the past few decades. However, the quality of the interpretation of mammograms remains variable. That said, more than 38 million mammograms are performed annually in the United States. So said Diana Buist, PhD, Senior Scientific...
The benefit from immune-directed therapies in patients with advanced melanoma is not limited to the exploding field of checkpoint inhibitors. According to Robert Andtbacka, MD, Associate Professor of Surgical Oncology, at the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City,...
If new immunotherapy combinations were administered to the half a million Americans dying of cancer each year, the nation’s price tag for treating them—for just 1 year—could top $174 billion, according to projections by Leonard Saltz, MD, Chief of Gastrointestinal Oncology and Chair of the Pharmacy ...
At the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, Annick Desjardins, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology at Duke University Medical Center, presented a brief update on the ongoing study of oncolytic PVS-RIPO in glioblastoma, which now includes 24 patients.1 The median age of enrolled patients is 57, most have a...
An emerging JAK inhibitor, pacritinib, appears not only effective in a broad population of patients with myelofibrosis but also among a subset with very low platelet counts, investigators from the global phase III PERSIST-1 trial reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “There is a huge unmet...
The combination of lenvatinib (Lenvima) plus everolimus (Afinitor) significantly extended progression-free survival compared with everolimus alone in metastatic renal cell carcinoma, according to a randomized phase II trial.1 Median progression-free survival for patients who received the...
“This is an important study. We’ve known for some time that the aromatase inhibitors tend to be better than tamoxifen for postmenopausal women with hormonally sensitive invasive breast cancer. The NSABP B-35 trial asked the same question in ductal carcinoma in situ. These data, which now follow...
Anastrozole was found to be at least as safe and effective as tamoxifen in preventing breast cancer recurrence in women with ductal carcinoma in situ, in the large NSABP B-35/SWOG-35 study.1 Among all women in the trial, however, the 10-year breast cancer–free interval rates were higher in women...
Results are now in for the phase III MARIANNE trial. Although ado-trastuzumab emtansine (formerly known as T-DM1, Kadcyla) proved noninferior to trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus a taxane in the first-line metastatic breast cancer setting, it performed no better than the standard of care.1 “T-DM1 and...
As a regular readers of The ASCO Post know, ASCO is developing an exciting new health information learning system called CancerLinQ™, which will exponentially enlarge our understanding of cancer therapy far beyond what we’ve achieved with our system of clinical trials. Cancer clinical trials have...
“We have had remarkable success in treating patients with cancer. Millions of survivors are a testament to this success. But the ‘cost of cure’ borne by our patients is substantial in terms of diminished quality and quantity of life,” commented the formal discussant of the study Michael P. Link,...
Survivors of childhood cancers can expect longer lives than their peers of 30 years ago. Improvements in the care of children with cancer have reduced the long-term mortality rate, according to an analysis of 34,000 participants in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study.1 Cumulative all-cause late...
At a median follow-up of 3 years, ibrutinib (Imbruvica) demonstrated continued activity with durable responses that improved in quality with extended treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). In addition, grade 3 toxicity and adverse events leading to treatment discontinuation...
Michael O’Malley, PhD, MPH, former Associate Director of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and former Adjunct Associate Professor of Health Policy and Management at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, has passed away...
Brian E. Henderson, MD, began his medical path as a researcher in virology, and as a young scientist, he ventured to Africa as part of a Centers for Disease Control team to study yellow fever. The better part of his esteemed medical career, however, was as one of the world’s most respected...
I've been fortunate to be strong and healthy for most of my life. In fact, there is no history of any serious illness in my family, which is why I was so unprepared to hear the words “You have breast cancer” 5 years ago. Not only was the diagnosis foreign to me, I had no idea what chemotherapy and...
A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stated that the incidence of melanoma “doubled between 1982 and 2011, but comprehensive skin cancer prevention programs could prevent 20% of new cases between 2020 and 2030.”1,2 That report should serve to increase interest...
Amid the encouraging studies reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting about advances in the treatment of melanoma was a troubling finding about the incidence of melanoma increasing. An analysis of data from nine Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries found that the incidence...
Ipilimumab (Yervoy) is a fully human monoclonal antibody that blocks the negative T-cell regulator cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and has improved overall survival for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma in two phase III studies.1,2 Based upon these results, ipilimumab was...
In the phase III European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) 18071 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Alexander M.M. Eggermont, MD, PhD, Director General of the Gustave Roussy Cancer Center in Villejuif, France, and colleagues found that adjuvant therapy with the immune...
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its policies and procedures. In this installment, FDA supervisory toxicologist Todd Palmby, PhD, and pharmacologist Eias Zahalka, PhD, MBA, discuss the approach taken in the Office of ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an occasional feature that includes a case report detailing a particular hematologic condition followed by questions. Answers to each question with expert commentary can be found in the sidebar. In this installment, we present the case...
Laura van’t Veer, PhD, Co-leader of the University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center (HDFCCC) Breast Oncology Program, and her team at the Netherlands Cancer Institute were awarded the European Inventor Award for the invention of a gene-based tissue test,...
Gene therapy pioneer John A. Zaia, MD, has been named Director of the Center for Gene Therapy within City of Hope’s Hematologic Malignancies and Stem Cell Transplantation Institute. Internationally known and respected for his groundbreaking research into potential gene therapy treatments for HIV,...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO presented more than $6.7 million in grants and awards to more than 200 promising oncology researchers at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting. The Conquer Cancer Foundation and ASCO congratulate the recipients on their contributions to the field of oncology and offer...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Andrea Bezjak, MD, of Princess Margaret Cancer Center, Toronto, and colleagues,1 ASCO has recently endorsed the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) evidence-based guideline on external-beam radiotherapy for patients with locally...
Approximately 10% to 15% of patients with advanced non–small cell lung (NSCLC) cancer have mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in tumor cells. Specific therapies to inhibit the activity of EGFR-mutated NSCLC have now been clearly shown to improve response rate and...
Two early-phase studies have shown that the novel epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors rociletinib and AZD9291 exhibit high activity in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with the EGFR T790M mutation who had progressed on prior EGFR inhibitor therapy.1,2 The T790M mutation...
Some years after successful treatment of a childhood cancer, a 16-year-old survivor required surgery to replace both hip joints, which were damaged from therapy containing steroids. An x-ray of the teenager’s destroyed joints is a stark reminder of the serious health challenges faced by cancer...
At the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, both ASCO and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) unveiled details of new precision medicine trials that will greatly expand the number of patients with cancer who are benefiting from targeted agents. The trials will match a patient’s tumor molecular profile with an ...
Daniel G. Coit, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Melanoma Guidelines Panel, discussed the findings reported by Lewin et al at the ASCO Annual Meeting. “This is a small retrospective study examining a prospective...
In monitoring patients with melanoma at high risk for relapse, surveillance imaging with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose–positron-emission tomography (FDG-PET)/computed tomography (CT) can detect asymptomatic metastases and thus facilitate early treatment, according to Australian investigators who presented ...
Refinements in the classification and risk stratification for leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes were reported by three different investigators at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting. The first study showed that leukemia stem cell phenotypes are associated with outcomes in acute myeloid leukemia...
Commenting on the EF14 study was Martin J. van den Bent, MD, of The Brain Tumor Center at Erasmus MC Cancer Institute in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, who was reticent to predict that tumor treating fields will become a standard of care. He noted that 57% of patients are still alive; therefore, the...
A novel treatment modality that applies electric forces to brain tumors via scalp electrodes improved outcomes in a study reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 In the first report of the full dataset, tumor treating fields significantly and consistently prolonged both progression-free...
Triplet therapy that inhibits the BRAF, MEK, and EGFR pathways appears promising in BRAF-mutated colorectal cancer, a malignancy that typically does not respond to BRAF inhibition alone.1 At the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, Chloe Evelyn Atreya, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco,...
Kevin Fitzpatrick has been named CEO of CancerLinQ LLC, a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of ASCO. Mr. Fitzpatrick, who is currently the Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer of the American College of Cardiology (ACC), will begin his new role on August 3. CancerLinQ LLC was...
Patients with stage IV pancreatic cancer who received a novel enzyme along with standard chemotherapy experienced a doubling in progression-free survival, compared to those given chemotherapy alone, in a study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Response rates and median duration of...
Two immunotherapy agents show promise in preliminary studies of advanced urothelial bladder cancer: the anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) antibody pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and the anti–PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) antibody atezolizumab. Separate phase I studies of each drug...
Jeffrey L. Wolf, MD, Director of the Myeloma Program at the University of California, San Francisco, formally discussed the ENDEAVOR study at the ASCO Annual Meeting. He commented that the “doubling” in progression-free survival is “impressive” and said that “time will tell if this difference...
In the first head-to-head study comparing two proteasome inhibitors in relapsed multiple myeloma, carfilzomib (Kyprolis)/dexamethasone provided a doubling in progression-free survival, compared with bortezomib (Velcade)/dexamethasone.1 Results of the phase III ENDEAVOR trial of the two regimens in...
ASCO’s endorsement of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) guidelines on the role of radiotherapy in locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is an important summary of the best evidence on the appropriate role and techniques for radiotherapy in this disease.1 These...
We’ve seen how dramatically patients’ lives can change when they are matched with the right treatment at the right time in their disease course. Although this is still an exception and not the rule, we believe collaborative research approaches will make this kind of precision medicine a reality for ...
Jeremy Abramson, MD, Clinical Director of the Center for Lymphoma at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, agrees that obinutuzumab is an advance over rituximab. Like rituximab, obinutuzumab targets CD-20, but rituximab does not directly induce cell death. Obinutuzumab is a type 2 antibody and...