It is well established that obesity increases the risk for cancer mortality, although no mechanisms have been proven to explain the reason for this association. Now a laboratory study investigating how obesity might alter the effectiveness of daunorubicin in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fidler et al found that cancer burden was higher worldwide among women vs men aged 20 to 39 in 2012 and that the incidence was higher but mortality lower in very high vs low Human Development Index regions. Study Details The study involved data from the ...
As reported by Hillman et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, a novel genomic rearrangement signature associated with poorer overall survival has been identified in high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Study Details In the study, clinical data and whole-genome sequencing results were ...
A phase II study reported by Subbiah et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates activity of the combination of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) plus trametinib (Mekinist) in patients with locally advanced or metastatic BRAF V600–mutant anaplastic thyroid cancer. Study Details In the study,...
Visit ASCO’s patient information website, Cancer.Net, for comprehensive guides to non–small cell lung cancer at www.cancer.net/nsclc and small cell lung cancer at www.cancer.net/sclc. A shorter, one-page fact sheet on lung cancer is also available, as well as specialized resources for caregiving,...
ASCO Research Community Forum The ASCO Research Community Forum (RCF) Annual Meeting was held September 24–25, with the theme of Advancing Cancer Care Through Research Partnerships. The RCF Annual Meeting brings together ASCO leaders, regulatory experts, physician investigators, and research staff...
Alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS) is a cancer so rare that some oncologists have never heard of it. Brittany Sullivan, a 29-year-old anatomy teacher from Nashville, Tennessee, learned about it when she was 3 years old. She has been conquering it ever since. Since her childhood diagnosis, Ms....
The Conquerors Circle is the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s first-ever donor appreciation society. Donors who contribute $1,000 annually are members of the Conquerors Circle. In appreciation for their generous and loyal support of CCF, Conquerors Circle members receive exclusive benefits based on...
As one of the few organizations exclusively focused on funding research for metastatic breast cancer, Twisted Pink has a unique story to tell. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, the organization was founded in 2014 by breast cancer survivor Caroline Johnson. While Ms. Johnson fully recovered from her...
In a 2013 survey, oncologists in the United States and Canada said they aim to retire at about age 64 or 65—but the majority transition into retirement in the few years after turning 65.1 When oncologists reach the point of retirement, the transition from ever-busy physician to retiree can be a...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the release of new educational materials for health-care professionals about biosimilar and interchangeable products. The agency developed these educational materials to help increase understanding about these important new types of...
Norman E. “Ned” Sharpless, MD, took the oath of office late Tuesday, October 17, 2017, to become the 15th Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He succeeds Harold E. Varmus, MD, who stepped down as Director in March 2015. Douglas R. Lowy, ...
Here is a brief look at the study findings and clinical implications of several recent and important clinical trials in neoplastic hematology. Attention is focused on hematopoietic cell transplantation in a variety of hematologic malignancies, with investigations addressing the role of maintenance ...
According to Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data, patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) have 5-year survival rates of 86% and 71%, respectively.1 Although the increased number of survivors is welcome proof of the success of new treatment regimens, it also ...
The treatment paradigm for multiple myeloma has changed dramatically in the past decade with the availability of several efficacious agents in various drug classes. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 13th Annual Congress: Hematologic Malignancies™, Shaji K. Kumar, MD, Professor...
New therapeutic agents for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) have led to dramatic improvement in remission rates, but questions concerning the proper sequencing and combination of these agents remain. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 13th Annual Congress: Hematologic...
The 2017 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium took place October 27–28 in San Diego. Photos shown here, from left to right, as follows: 1. Eduardo Bruera, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center leads a group of attendees on a poster walk and discussion; 2. Charles Loprinzi, MD,...
Communicating effectively with patients with advanced cancer not only helps patients and their family members successfully transition to palliative and end-of-life care, it can prevent physicians from experiencing professional burnout, according to Robert M. Arnold, MD, Distinguished Service...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has granted the newly established ESMO Award for Immuno-Oncology to Laurence Zitvogel, MD, PhD, for her innovating and internationally recognized achievements in the field. Dr. Zitvogel is Professor of Immunobiology at the University of Paris XI...
Commenting on these study results, formal discussant Sandrine Faivre, MD, PhD, of Bichat-Beaujon University Hospitals Paris Nord Val de Seine, Paris, France, said: “It is a challenge to identify patients who we should allow to remain on immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment. In KEYNOTE-040, the...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) may be a better choice than standard of care for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, especially those whose tumors express programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) in 50% or more of cells, suggest results of the phase III KEYNOTE-040...
For potentially curable treatment of resectable pancreatic cancer, adjuvant therapy remains the standard “for now,” but evidence is growing that neoadjuvant therapy may be more beneficial, at least in certain patient subsets, according to Thomas Seufferlein, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the...
In GEICAM 2006-10, the addition of fulvestrant at 250 mg/d to anastrozole did not improve 5-year disease-free survival over anastrozole alone (91.0% vs 90.8%). “Immune induction” with chemotherapy or radiotherapy appeared to enhance response to nivolumab in women with metastatic triple-negative...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress, held in Madrid, featured important news including at least seven practice-changing or potentially practice-changing trials, which are covered in recent issues of The ASCO Post. Here we present additional highlights of studies in breast ...
In this roundup, The ASCO Post offers a glance at key findings from studies in noncolorectal gastrointestinal malignancies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress from investigators around the world. Docetaxel-Based Triplet in Gastric Cancer The superiority of...
IN OCTOBER, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two novel agents for lymphoma indications: -acalabrutinib (Calquence), a kinase inhibitor, for the treatment of adults with mantle cell lymphoma who have received at least one prior therapy; and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta), a...
Invited discussant Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, of University Hospitals Leuven, Belgium, commented that both ATTRACTION-02 and KEYNOTE-059 suggest that anti-PD [programmed cell death protein] antibodies have activity in advanced gastric cancer, but their findings differed with regard to the impact of ...
In updates of two important studies in metastatic gastric cancer reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress, nivolumab -(Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) demonstrated activity—but to varying degrees and with some nuances. “Anti-PD [programmed cell death protein]...
Tumor mutation burden is emerging as a biomarker for selecting non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients for immunotherapy, according to Naiyer Rizvi, MD, the Price Family Chair of Clinical Translational Medicine, Professor of Medicine, and Director of Thoracic Oncology at Columbia University,...
The study’s invited discussant, Balazs Halmos, MD, Director of Thoracic Oncology and Clinical Cancer Genomics at Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, called tumor mutation burden a “highly promising” biomarker of response to immune checkpoint inhibitors....
Patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and a high tumor mutation burden had a near doubling in response rate and 1-year overall survival when ipilimumab (Yervoy) was combined with nivolumab (Opdivo), vs nivolumab alone, new findings from CheckMate 032 have shown. Regardless of the treatment...
Early routine specialist palliative care for patients recently diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma did not impact quality of life, an international multicenter study has found.1 “Regular early specialist palliative care for patients was not associated with improved quality of life, as...
The study’s invited discussant Kemp Kernstine, MD, PhD, the Robert Tucker Hayes Foundation Distinguished Chair in Cardiothoracic Surgery at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, welcomed the findings, but expressed some concerns about the study. To begin, of a database of...
After surgical resection of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), investigators from the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) have validated outcomes for tumors deemed to be of “uncertain” residual tumor status (ie, R[un]). “The residual tumor (R) classification reflects the ...
“At Microphone 1” is an occasional column written by Steven E. Vogl, MD, of Bronx, New York. When he’s not in his clinic, Dr. Vogl can generally be found at major oncology meetings and often at the microphone, where he stands ready with critical questions for presenters of new data. Here Dr. Vogl...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lim et al have identified a microRNA expression–based risk model associated with event-free survival in pediatric acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The study involved comprehensive miRNA sequencing of 1,362 pediatric AML samples, consisting of...
In a St. Jude Adrenocortical Tumor Registry and Children’s Oncology Group study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pinto et al found that a positive Ki67 labeling index was associated with a poorer outcome in children with adrenocortical tumors independent of germline TP53 mutation ...
A phase I trial has shown that the ALK and ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor lorlatinib is active in patients with advanced ALK- or ROS1-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including those with central nervous system (CNS) metastases and failure on at least two prior tyrosine kinase...
Low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer has become standard practice, mostly due to the results of the National Lung Screening Trial. Related evidence continues to evolve, informing the benefits and risks of low-dose CT in clinical practice. Mazzone et al presented new ...
Two new studies from CHEST 2017, held recently in Toronto, reveal disparities in lung cancer screening and care that may impact detection as well as mortality and survival rates in the disease. Risk Status and Screening The first study from Lahey Hospital and Medical Center in Burlington,...
LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION! That’s what home buyers are frequently cautioned about before purchasing a property. For trialists, and more importantly, practicing oncologists, a study’s design, akin to a property’s location, must be taken into account prior to buying into the results and changing ...
JOAN H. SCHILLER, MD, Deputy Director of Inova Schar Cancer Institute in Fairfax, Virginia, pointed out that no one particular chemotherapy regimen has been shown to improve overall survival vs other standard regimens. “So if we can’t identify one best chemotherapy, what else can we do to make...
IN PATIENTS with early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the use of expression of BRCA1 failed as an approach to customize chemotherapy, investigators from the Spanish Lung Cancer Cooperative Group reported at the 2017 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World...
In a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Soni et al reported reductions in the proportion of nonelderly adult cancer patients who were uninsured between 2010 and 2013 vs 2014, after institution of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Study Details The study used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology,...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Harry Quon, MD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues, ASCO has endorsed the recently published American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) evidence-based clinical practice guideline on radiation therapy for...
On October 23, topline results of the phase III ARROW trial were announced, showing carfilzomib (Kyprolis) administered once weekly at 70 mg/m2 with dexamethasone allowed relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma patients to live 3.6 months longer without their disease worsening than...
On October 23, Novartis announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for dabrafenib (Tafinlar) in combination with trametinib (Mekinist) for the adjuvant treatment of patients with stage III melanoma with a BRAF V600 mutation following...
Results of the Pan-Canadian Early Detection of Lung Cancer (PanCan) study, reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tammemagi et al, indicate that the PanCan risk model is effective in identifying persons found to have early-stage lung cancer on low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening. Study Details ...
In a prospective cohort study reported by Jagsi et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, autologous reconstruction was associated with fewer complications and greater patient satisfaction vs implant approaches in women receiving postmastectomy radiotherapy. Study Details The...
A study reported by Lee et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology indicates that approximately 10% of patients undergoing curative-intent surgery for cancer become new persistent opioid users. Study Details The study involved data from 68,463 patients from a national data set of insurance claims...