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 installment, Yen Nien (Jason) Hou, PharmD, DiplOM, LAc, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus...
Incidence rates for invasive lobular carcinoma have increased more drastically than all other breast cancers combined between 2012 and 2021, according to findings from the American Cancer Society’s Lobular Breast Cancer Statistics 2025 report, published in Cancer. “Although lobular breast cancer...
John L. Cameron, MD, FACS, a surgeon who radically improved the mortality rates of the Whipple procedure, was honored with the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award at the ACS Clinical Congress 2025 in Chicago. The award recognizes a surgeon who exemplifies...
In a Brazilian phase II trial (HERCULES; LACOG 0218) reported in JAMA Oncology, Maluf et al found that pembrolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy showed activity in patients with advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma. The investigators explained, “Advanced penile squamous cell carcinoma is...
For patients with intermediate-risk, localized prostate cancer, radiation therapy delivered in five sessions reduced patient-reported side effects compared to longer courses of radiation, according to results of a large, randomized phase III trial. Patients treated with stereotactic body radiation...
In a phase II trial (PASS-01) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Knox et al found similar progression-free survival with modified leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan, oxaliplatin (mFOLFIRINOX) vs gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel in patients with previously untreated metastatic pancreatic...
Zidesamtinib, an investigational oral, highly selective ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor designed to overcome common resistance mechanisms and improve brain penetration, has demonstrated activity in both pretreated and tyrosine kinase inhibitor–naive patients with ROS1-positive non–small cell lung...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved imlunestrant, an estrogen receptor antagonist, for adults with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative, estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1)-mutated advanced or metastatic breast cancer with disease progression after at least one line of...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Smith-Bindman et al found that medical imaging among children was associated with a significantly increased risk of pediatric and adolescent hematologic cancer. The study involved data from a retrospective cohort of 3,724,623 children born ...
The 15th edition of the annual AACR Cancer Progress Report presents a mixed picture of the major advances in cancer care over the past year, including the approval of 20 new anticancer drugs, juxtaposed against the continuing rise in early-onset cancers and disparities in care as well as the...
Acute cystitis signaled the presence of urogenital cancers in middle-aged men and women, according to the results of a Swedish cohort study published in BMJ Public Health. Based on these findings, the researchers suggested that acute cystitis could be used as a clinical marker for urogenital...
In a single-center phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tang et al found that metastasis-directed radiotherapy without systemic therapy was associated with good outcomes in patients with oligometastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Study Details In the trial, 121 patients...
Investigators have found several oral bacteria and fungi associated with an increased risk for pancreatic cancer, according to findings published in JAMA Oncology. This cohort study seems to confirm a long-standing suspicion of the relationship between poor oral health and pancreatic cancer and...
In a U.S. two-center phase III trial (MC1675) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ma et al found that de-escalated adjuvant radiotherapy was associated with a reduced cumulative, chronic grade ≥ 3 toxicity rate at 3 to 24 months after radiotherapy compared with standard adjuvant treatment in patients...
Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is one of the success stories among the hematologic malignancies. Now, with decades of data informing its management, it is time to change some of the practices to which clinicians have become accustomed, said leukemia expert Hagop M. Kantarjian, MD, FASCO, Professor...
Research published by Zheng et al in Health Affairs Scholar found that the passage of the government price-setting provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was associated with a broad decline in industry-funded oncology trials after first U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval, with...
In an interim analysis of a Chinese phase III trial (ETER100) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Zhou et al found that the combination of the PD-L1 inhibitor benmelstobart and anlotinib improved progression-free survival vs sunitinib in the first-line treatment of advanced clear cell renal cell...
On April 22, 2025, an ASCO Expert Panel voted to approve ASCO’s global guideline on geriatric assessment of patients with cancer older than age 65 who are being treated in resource-limited settings or countries.1 Guideline recommendations were informed by the ADAPTE methodology and formal consensus ...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) has released Prostate Cancer Statistics, 2025, a report on current prostate cancer occurrence and outcomes in the United States. According to the study, prostate cancer incidence rates have reversed from a decline of 6.4% per year during 2007 through 2014 to an...
An analysis from the phase III CheckMate 77T trial confirms that perioperative nivolumab does not compromise health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including those with stage III N2 disease. These results were presented at the...
In a retrospective study reported in JAMA Oncology, Dai et al found that use of GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) for weight loss in adults with overweight/obesity was associated with an overall reduction in risk of cancer. As stated by the investigators, “…GLP-1 RAs… are widely prescribed for...
Use of a daily interferon-α nasal spray could significantly reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection among adult patients with cancer, according to the results of a multicenter, randomized trial published in Clinical Infectious Diseases. The results suggest that the nasal spray could be a potential...
After 2 decades of practicing medicine across multiple disciplines and health systems, I’ve witnessed the dramatic transformation of patient-physician interactions, and none more dramatic than what I’m seeing in this era of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on cancer care. Early in my...
As pediatric cancer survival rates continue to improve, attention has shifted to quality of life and symptom management. While a majority of patients experience problematic symptoms during treatment, these symptoms usually go undocumented and untreated. In a secondary analysis of a cluster...
In a German single-center phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Pabst et al found that use of the fibroblast activation protein α (FAP)–directed radiotracer Ga-68–FAPi-46 for positron-emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) has shown promising ability to identify FAP-expressing...
“Neoadjuvant treatment with osimertinib, with or without chemotherapy, should be considered when planning treatment for patients with resectable, EGFR-mutated, stage II to IIIB non–small cell lung cancer [NSCLC],” according to Jamie E. Chaft, MD, FASCO, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and ...
The results of a cohort study published in JAMA Network Open revealed an epidemiologic association between postmastectomy implant-based breast reconstruction for any breast tumor and both B- and T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas of the breast. According to Kinslow et al, this includes diffuse large...
A new drug-releasing system, TAR-200, eliminated tumors in 82% of patients in the phase II SunRISe-1 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04640623) for individuals with high-risk non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer whose disease had previously resisted treatment. In the majority of cases, the...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to zongertinib (Hernexeos), a kinase inhibitor, for adults with unresectable or metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have HER2 tyrosine kinase domain (TKD)–activating mutations, as...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to dordaviprone (Modeyso) a protease activator, for adult and pediatric patients aged 1 year and older with diffuse midline glioma harboring an H3 K27M mutation who have progressive disease after prior therapy. This...
It has been widely reported that colorectal cancer incidence has been increasing among younger adults under age 50 since the mid-1990s, with a consistent annual increase of 2% among adults aged 20 to 39. This increase prompted the American Cancer Society (ACS), in 2018, and the United States...
Greater consumption of ultraprocessed food is associated with an increased risk of developing either small cell or non–small cell lung cancer, according to findings published in Thorax. "Over the past 2 decades, the consumption of ultraprocessed food has significantly increased worldwide,...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Hoogendijk et al, the EUROCARE-6 population-based study has provided long-term survival rates and cure fraction estimates for pediatric patients with central nervous system (CNS) tumors across 31 European countries. Study Details The study involved data from...
Earlier this year, the first interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-689 trial showed that the use of the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab as part of a perioperative treatment regimen with standard-of-care surgery plus adjuvant radiotherapy (with or without cisplatin alone) improved event-free...
A large prospective cohort study conducted by Ye and Kang et al and published in JAMA Network Open found that, after adjusting for familial and other cancer-related factors, interstitial lung disease (ILD) was associated with an increased risk of developing most histologic subtypes of lung cancer....
Continuing its efforts to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced plans to significantly enhance Risk Adjustment Data Validation (RADV) auditing in Medicare Advantage. Beginning immediately, CMS will audit all eligible...
The 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting included the presentation of data from more than 7,000 abstracts and clinical trials set to advance research, uncover findings, and in some cases change the standard of practice across multiple tumor types, moving science forward and improving care for the more than 2...
In an individual patient-level meta-analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Villacampa et al found that the HER2DX assay risk score was prognostic for event-free survival outcomes in patients with early-stage, HER2-positive breast cancer. Study Details Systematic review of the literature...
A retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open revealed that biomarker testing rates among patients with advanced cancer have increased over time but remain suboptimal, despite established guideline recommendations and growing insurance coverage for testing. DaCosta Byfield et al noted...
Alcohol-associated cancer deaths have doubled in the United States, disproportionately affecting men and those aged 55 or older, according to the results of an observational study presented at the 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Over the study period of 30 years, proportional mortality rates increased...
In a Chinese phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Xia et al compared objective response rates seen with camrelizumab plus famitinib vs camrelizumab alone in previously treated patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer. Study Details In the multicenter, open-label ...
COVID-19 vaccine boosters for adult patients with cancer helped to keep these patients from being hospitalized or admitted to intensive care units due to severe COVID-19 infections, according to the results of a retrospective cohort study published in JAMA Oncology. “Cancer patients are a...
In a UK phase III trial (IoN) reported in The Lancet, Mallick et al compared survival outcomes among patients with low-risk differentiated thyroid cancer who underwent thyroidectomy with no postoperative radioiodine ablation vs thyroidectomy plus ablation. Study Details In the multicenter...
In a UK population-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Watling et al examined the relationship between ever use vs never use of oral contraceptives and the risk of liver cancer. Some findings suggested the possibility of slightly increased risk with longer-term use. As noted by the...
Researchers have developed a novel AI-powered online platform for diagnosing endocrine cancers with speed and accuracy. The AI models achieved diagnostic accuracy of 99% or more in recognizing multiple endocrine tumors. Reports of the development and validation of the models were presented at ENDO...
Obesity-related cancer deaths have tripled in the United States over the past 2 decades, with significant disparities seen by gender, race, age, and geography, according to findings from a national epidemiological analysis presented at ENDO 2025, the annual meeting of The Endocrine Society...
The TRUST trial is the first phase III randomized study to show improved progression-free survival for primary cytoreductive surgery compared with interval surgery without compromising short-term or long-term quality of life, although the study failed to meet its primary endpoint of overall...
Treating drinking water for multiple contaminants, especially arsenic and chromium-6, could prevent more than 50,000 cancer cases in the United States, according to the results of a study by the Environmental Working Group that was published in Environmental Research. Study findings highlighted...
Weight-associated risk for developing breast cancer after menopause may be higher among women with cardiovascular disease compared with those without cardiovascular disease and women with or without type 2 diabetes, according to the results of two prospective European cohort studies, which were...
In a Spanish-French phase II trial (SPOTLIGHT-203) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Márquez-Rodas et al investigated the combination of the intratumoral agent BO-112 and pembrolizumab for activity in patients with advanced anti–PD-1–resistant melanoma. BO-112 is a synthetic,...