The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to two targeted therapies (the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib) as initial therapy improved outcomes compared with the two targeted therapies plus placebo in patients with newly diagnosed BRAF V600E/K–mutant advanced ...
The treatment of colorectal cancer has always been something of an art—but never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ASCO Post asked three experts in this malignancy to share their concerns and their approaches to achieving good patient outcomes while minimizing the risk of COVID-19...
For community oncologists treating patients with multiple myeloma during the COVID-19 pandemic, what resources and clinical pearls would you suggest? Recorded April 24, 2020.
In a pooled analysis reported in the journal Bone Marrow Transplantation, Costa et al found that autologous followed by reduced-intensity conditioning allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (auto-allo) was associated with longer overall survival compared with tandem autologous...
For patients with multiple myeloma who are currently on clinical trials, what are the most pressing issues as we fight COVID-19? Recorded April 24, 2020.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is perhaps the biggest challenge health-care systems have ever had to face. As part of a series of interviews The ASCO Post is conducting with oncologists, we talked with Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, about the impact of COVID-19 on his practice and on the conduct...
Before the dawn of the modern antibiotic era and amid the chaos of World War II, future Professor of Radiology and Founding Dean of two American medical colleges, Dr. George T. Harrell,* penned what could now be argued was far too bold a statement. As the opening lines of his nonrandomized study...
The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has challenged us, as a society, to evaluate our core values and philosophy. Ventilators, a precious and limited commodity, are now in short supply. Humanity is at a precipice, and we physicians are facing an ethical dilemma, how best to allocate ventilators, and, ...
In dealing with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), some oncologists are modifying conventional treatment regimens to limit patients’ visits to infusion centers and providers’ offices. The ASCO Post asked C. Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, Chief of the Myeloma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer...
“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.” ―Hippocrates The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that occasionally quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib and Connors...
The results from the first in-human phase I clinical trial in the United States evaluating CRISPR-Cas9–edited T cells in patients with advanced cancer has shown that the therapy is both feasible and safe, representing a big step forward in the potential of using gene editing to boost the natural...
As a first-line regimen for patients with metastatic colorectal tumors that are microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR), the combination of nivolumab and low-dose ipilimumab yielded an objective response rate of 64%, a complete response rate of 9%, and a disease...
Inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) have changed the natural history of hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer. While median progression-free survival on these drugs is approximately 27 months, the disease eventually progresses and clinicians must choose a subsequent ...
For several tumor types, can the successes achieved with immunotherapy in the metastatic and adjuvant settings be replicated in the neoadjuvant setting? An explosion in clinical trials—with more than 300 listed on ClinicalTrials.gov—point to “yes.” “The neoadjuvant use of immunotherapy is of great ...
The worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) presents unprecedented challenges and uncertainty to the cancer care delivery system. ASCO has been actively monitoring and responding to the pandemic to ensure that accurate information is readily available to clinicians and their patients. ...
It’s 1964 in Chicago. Seven forward-thinking oncologists gather to brainstorm what will become the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Among the group is Jane C. Wright, MD, FASCO, the only woman and African American among ASCO’s founders. It’s time for the 2011 ASCO Annual Meeting in...
The addition of bevacizumab to the current standard of care of chemoradiation therapy is safe and feasible for the treatment of locally or regionally advanced nasopharyngeal cancer, according to data presented at the 2020 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1 “I’m pleased to report...
The lymphomas are an incredibly complex assemblage of neoplastic diseases. They are not one disease, and, at least based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Classification of Tumors published in 2017, they represent a collection of approximately 80 different malignancies, a number that will...
A population-based retrospective cohort study involving 12,700 patients found that men with high-risk prostate cancer who took a statin alone or in combination with metformin had reduced all-cause and prostate cancer–specific mortality. The associations between the medications and reduced...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of 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, historical...
Joseph C. Alvarnas, MD, of the City of Hope National Medical Center, discusses the patients with cancer who are at an increased risk for developing serious complications from COVID-19, including those receiving bone marrow or stem cell transplants and CAR-T cell therapy, and what they can do to...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Narek Shaverdian, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues found that most patients undergoing radiation therapy for cancer reported that anticipated adverse effects did not occur or were no worse than expected.1 However, ...
The microbiome—and the foods that feed it—is emerging as an important determinant of a patient’s response to immunotherapy. Much of the research in this area comes from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as described at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium by...
In a small study published in the Journal of Proteomics, Ayse Leyla Mindikoglu, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that dawn-to-sunset fasting was associated with proteins that were protective against cancer as well as obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, inflammation, and some neurologic disorders...
In this edition of Living a Full Life, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with hematologist Parameswaran Hari, MD, MRCP, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. In addition, Dr. Hari holds the Armand J. Quick/William F. Stapp Chair...
Vitamin D is a steroid-like hormone involved primarily in human calcium homeostasis. Obtained through sun exposure as well as food and dietary supplements,1 vitamin D in humans is metabolized in the liver and kidneys to its active form, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25[OH]2D).2 Other cell types,...
April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. —T.S. Eliot, The Burial of the Dead, The Waste Land, 1922 I started...
The coronavirus pandemic is being compared to a battlefield, with health-care workers seen as the front-line soldiers in the war against the disease. There is certainly truth to that, insofar as doctors and nurses in many countries now face an unprecedented workload in saving lives, along with the...
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement encouraging patients who have fully recovered from COVID-19 for at least 2 weeks to donate plasma, in order to ramp up supply of convalescent plasma for treatment of infected individuals. The agency also announced that spun...
In a report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), hospitals reported the most significant challenges they are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Survey Methods Brief telephone interviews were conducted from March 23 to March 27, 2020, with one or more administrators ...
Cancer and its treatment can cause infertility in both men and women. Educate your patients about this potential side effect by giving them the ASCO Answers fact sheet Your Fertility and Cancer Treatment. This fact sheet covers: An overview of what the terms fertility and infertility mean What...
ASCO, in collaboration with international oncology societies, hosts International Palliative Care Workshops (IPCWs) designed to teach participants practical skills in patient communication and the management of cancer symptoms and pain. The IPCWs are led by ASCO member volunteers and local experts...
An abstract presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting titled “Evaluating Unconscious Bias During Speaker Introductions at an International Oncology Conference,” by Narjust Duma, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Thoracic Oncologist at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center in...
The Combined Annual Meetings of the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) and the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) were held in Orlando, Florida, from February 19–23, 2020. The scientific program addressed the most timely issues in ...
Each year, The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, Chairman of the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, to offer his picks for the most important research presented at 2019 San...
Physician-scientist, Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, was encouraged by her parents to become a politically active, socially conscious citizen of the world. “As a young woman, my mother traveled from Africa on a scholarship to the United States, where she attended the University of Wisconsin. It was in the ...
The loosening of restrictions on genetic testing would mean that all health-care providers could help move this needle to where it should be, according to Kevin S. Hughes, MD, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and Medical Director of the...
ASCO has released a new guideline for clinicians and policymakers in resource-constrained settings on treating patients with late-stage colorectal cancer.1 “Around the world, there is a huge variation in resources, and what is available to clinicians may change week to week,” said Mary D....
A new prognostic tool may help to predict time to first treatment for patients with early-stage, asymptomatic chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Researchers described what they hope will become a point-of-care resource to help improve clinical decision-making in a study published by Rossi et al in ...
Attendees gathered at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco to hear the latest news about treating patients with cancers of the prostate, bladder, kidneys, and testicles. In addition to the comprehensive coverage of the meeting in The ASCO Post, here are some brief highlights...
A case study of one patient with multiple myeloma diagnosed with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, published by Zhang et al in Blood Advances examined the efficacy of the immunosuppressant tocilizumab as a treatment for this particular patient. The report also suggested that patients with hematologic...
Thyroid dysfunction following treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors is more common than previously thought, according to research that was accepted for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting (Abstract SAT-418), and that will be published in Journal of the Endocrine...
Researchers have developed the first blood test that can accurately detect more than 50 types of cancer and identify in which tissue the cancer originated—often before there are any clinical signs or symptoms of the disease. These findings were published by Liu et al in Annals of Oncology. In their ...
In 2014, three undergrads at Columbia University had a crazy idea for a hackathon challenge: colorize bleach so health-care workers could spot missed areas on the surfaces and personal protective equipment they are trying to disinfect. Five years later, the result is a product called Highlight®,...
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, The ASCO Post will be interviewing oncologists on how they and their centers are dealing with the crisis. Here, we speak with Miriam A. Knoll, MD, a radiation oncologist at the John Theurer Cancer Center, Hackensack University Medical Center, ...
Irene M. Ghobrial, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, talks about PROMISE—her screening study for people at high-risk of developing precursor conditions of multiple myeloma—and how this and other trials have been altered in the wake of the pandemic, as well as what might be considered a silver...
Bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) antibodies, such blinatumomab, may be the most appealing type of bispecific antibodies, a class of manufactured constructs that is expected to expand into the solid tumor space, according to Hermann Einsele, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Würzburg,...
This week, the American College of Surgeons issued guidelines on triage of patients undergoing elective cancer surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, hospital leadership and individual providers are facing increasingly difficult decisions about how to conserve...
The coronavirus-related pandemic has affected nearly every corner of the globe. What originated in one country is on course to likely affect every country in the world. In a few countries, the disease has peaked and is on the downward trend. In some, including the United States, the disease is on...
Karen E. Knudsen, PhD, MBA, Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, talks about what she and her staff have encountered during the COVID-19 crisis and how they and their patients are coping. Filmed March 25, 2020.