In an analysis from the GLIOMAP study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Gerritsen et al found that awake craniotomy for glioblastoma in eloquent brain areas (essential areas for carrying out basic neurological functions) was associated with reduced risk of neurologic deficits and improved survival...
A new clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides guidance on the use of radiation therapy to treat patients with brain metastases. Evidence-based recommendations guide the multidisciplinary planning and delivery of advanced radiation therapy techniques to...
The human epidermal growth factor (HER) family of receptors are a well-established therapeutic target. Indeed, seminal studies conducted nearly 2 decades ago identified a key association between activating mutations in the kinase domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR, also known as...
Priscilla K. Brastianos, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, talks about her efforts to better understand how brain metastases evolve genomically and to test such agents as abemaciclib, paxalisib, and entrectinib, which may stop their growth. Palbociclib, a CDK...
Imagine this. You are a large pharmaceutical company that launches an international randomized phase III trial to assess whether one of your drugs improves the outcome of patients with a common type of cancer. The trial was solidly backed by preclinical evidence that the drug target was essential ...
Mihir Gupta, MD, a neurosurgery resident at the University of California San Diego and postdoctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Neurosurgery, and Ganesh M. Shankar, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School,...
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is readily detectable in the plasma and cerebrospinal fluid of patients with central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma and is a strong prognostic biomarker for outcomes, a team of researchers from Germany and Stanford University reported at the 2021 American Society of...
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” —Plutarch About 30% to 40% of patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) experience relapse, and 10% are refractory to the...
In an effort to synthesize findings from multiple guidelines on various management approaches for brain metastases, ASCO, the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO), and the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) spearheaded the development of a novel publication to inform and update physician...
In the phase II DESTINY-Lung01 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, and colleagues found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed durable activity in patients with metastatic HER2-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) refractory to standard...
In a Danish nationwide cohort study reported in JAMA, Hargreave et al found no association between maternal hormonal contraception use and risk of central nervous system (CNS) tumors in children. As stated by the investigators, “The incidence of CNS tumors in children appears to be increasing, yet...
In a phase III trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Porter et al found that armodafinil, a psychostimulant, did not improve cancer-related fatigue vs placebo in adult patients with high-grade glioma. As stated by the investigators, “Nearly 96% of patients with high-grade glioma report...
In an interim analysis of a phase II basket trial (ROAR) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Patrick Y. Wen, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib produced responses in adult patients with recurrent or progressive BRAF V600E–mutant high-grade and low-grade glioma. ...
Previously treated patients with HER2-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) achieved encouraging response rates and duration of response to the antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) in the phase II DESTINY-Lung01 trial. These results were reported at the European...
In an analysis from the single-institution phase III SJMB03 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Acharya et al found that increasing radiation doses to the corpus callosum, frontal white matter, and hippocampus were associated with neurocognitive impairment in pediatric patients...
Erin Murphy, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses new data that show no apparent difference in cognitive performance up to 2 years post-treatment among adults with low-grade glioma who were treated with concurrent radiotherapy and temozolomide (Abstract 3258).
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maas et al developed a novel integrated molecular-morphologic risk classification score that improved prediction of disease recurrence in patients with meningioma. Study Details The study involved DNA methylation, copy-number, and mutation...
Diana D. Shi, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, discusses studies being planned and already underway to test BAY 2402234, a de novo pyrimidine synthesis inhibitor that possibly could be used clinically to target IDH-mutant gliomas and may act as a...
Two new studies published in Nature Communications indicate that immunotherapy may benefit people with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, a rare but serious complication of cancer that has spread to the brain and/or spinal cord. Approximately 5% to 8% of all patients with cancer develop leptomeningeal ...
In a phase II clinical trial, the drug 4-demethyl-4-cholesteryloxycarbonylpenclomedine (DM-CHOC-PEN) improved survival for some adolescent and young adult patients with cancers involving the central nervous system, according to results presented by Morgan et al at the AACR-NCI-EORTC Virtual...
With three new HER2-targeted therapies approved over the past year or two alone, the treatment landscape for patients with metastatic breast cancer has become increasingly crowded. In the third-line setting and beyond, there are now at least eight HER2-targeted agents approved by the U.S. Food and...
In a single-institution cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Keilty et al identified factors associated with an increased risk of hearing loss in pediatric patients receiving radiation therapy and chemotherapy for central nervous system and head and neck tumors. The study...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Burke et al found that dose-adjusted etoposide, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide with vincristine and prednisone plus rituximab (DA-EPOCH-R) did not improve event-free survival vs historical controls in children and adolescents with ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present the Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib, Desai, and DeAngelis explore the treatment of older patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), which pose...
On August 13, 2021, belzutifan, a hypoxia-inducible factor inhibitor, was approved for treatment of adults with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease who require therapy for associated renal cell carcinoma, central nervous system (CNS) hemangioblastomas, or pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors but do not...
Despite the ongoing challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice-changing studies presented at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting clarified the continuing momentum in the oncology community to improve the lives of our patients. Immunotherapy demonstrated efficacy in cancers where it had not been...
I read with great interest the results from the phase II ZUMA-12 study of axicabtagene ciloleucel, presented during the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 But the results raised several questions for me. Axicabtagene ciloleucel, an autologous anti-CD19...
A cross-sectional survey of patients, caregivers, and physicians on the diagnosis and treatment of brain metastases, conducted by the American Brain Tumor Association (ABTA) as part of its Metastatic Brain Tumor Initiative, revealed disparities in practice patterns and communication around...
In a letter to the editor published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bagchi et al describe the course of treatment in a 3-year-old child with an intracranial tumor and his response to therapy with the kinase inhibitor lorlatinib. Key Points Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the head in a...
A new study found that incidence rates for malignant brain and other central nervous system (CNS) tumors declined by 0.8% annually during 2008 through 2017 in the United States for all ages combined. The decline was driven by trends in adults, whereas rates have slightly increased by 0.5% to 0.7%...
Sonali M. Smith, MD, of the University of Chicago, discusses the many uncertainties in preventing secondary high-grade B-cell lymphomas, which have a poor prognosis; how to discern the patients at highest risk; and whether prophylaxis with monoclonal antibodies such as rituximab can mitigate the...
On August 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved belzutifan (Welireg), a hypoxia-inducible factor inhibitor, for adult patients with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease who require therapy for associated renal cell carcinoma (RCC), central nervous system (CNS) hemangioblastomas, or...
In a phase II New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy (NANT) consortium study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, DuBois et al found that combining the radiotherapeutic I-131 metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) with vorinostat produced a higher response rate in relapsed or refractory...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel gene therapies for resistant non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL), including...
In a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) phase III trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Leary et al found that the addition of carboplatin to radiotherapy in pediatric patients with newly diagnosed high-risk medulloblastoma improved event-free survival in the group 3 molecular subgroup but not in others....
On March 3, 2021, lorlatinib was granted regular approval for treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with ALK-positive tumors as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test.1,2 The FDA simultaneously approved the Ventana ALK (D5F3) CDx Assay ...
Invited study discussant Jaishri O. Blakeley, MD, Director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Neurofibromatosis Center, Baltimore, changed the title of her talk to “Finding Needles in Haystacks,” “because this is what we do with CNS [central nervous system] tumors,” she told listeners. “ALK...
Locoregional delivery of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells has resulted in objective responses in adults with glioblastoma, but the approach has not been evaluated in pediatric patients with brain and central nervous system tumors. The innovative, ongoing phase I BrainChild-01 trial is...
More research into the efficacy of a modified ketogenic diet may be beneficial for people with brain tumors, according to a new study published by Schreck et al in the journal Neurology. The diet, which is high in fat and low in carbohydrates, led to changes in the metabolism in the body and the...
In a first-in-human phase I trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fares et al found that neural stem cell delivery of an oncolytic adenovirus (NSC-CRAd-S-pk7) was safe and feasible in patients with newly diagnosed malignant glioma, with immunologic and histopathologic findings supporting continued ...
In an analysis from the European Neuroblastoma Study Group (SIOPEN) HR-NBL1 high-risk neuroblastoma trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bellini et al found that ALK amplification and clonal mutation were associated with poorer outcomes in pediatric patients with high-risk...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Jeff M. Michalski, MBA, MD, and colleagues, the Children’s Oncology Group noninferiority phase III ACNS0331 trial has shown no decrease in event-free survival with reduced radiation boost volume in patients with newly diagnosed, average-risk...
New research has uncovered substantial differences in the rates of childhood cancers when considering a single year of age rather than grouping several years together. The study, published by Marcotte et al in the journal Cancer, also found that minority children seem to have different risks than...
In the second interim analysis of the phase III CATNON trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Martin J. van den Bent, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that adjuvant temozolomide—but not temozolomide concurrent with radiotherapy—was associated with an overall survival benefit in patients with newly...
In a prospective longitudinal trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ali et al found that infants treated for central nervous system (CNS) malignancies had baseline intellectual quotient (IQ) and parent-reported working memory and adaptive functioning worse than normative expectations; ...
“This study is interesting, and the results were a little surprising,” said Patrick Y. Wen, MD, Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “The prognosis of these tumors in children and adolescents is so terrible...
The combination of dabrafenib plus trametinib led to encouraging and durable responses in patients with low- and high-grade gliomas harboring BRAF V600E mutations, according to the results of the phase II basket study known as ROAR. Results were presented during the virtual edition of the American...
In the phase II PATRICIA trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nancy U. Lin, MD, and colleagues found that pertuzumab plus high-dose trastuzumab produced central nervous system (CNS) objective responses and clinical benefit in 68% of patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Durno et al in the International Replication Repair Deficiency Consortium (IRRDC), use of an IRRDC surveillance protocol was associated with improved overall survival among patients with constitutional mismatch repair deficiency syndrome (CMMRD)....
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this article, Nirupa Raghunathan, MD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus on the increasing use...