Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai Medical Center, discusses Lung-MAP studies in which a higher tumor mutation burden determined by next-generation sequencing was linked to overall and progression-free survival across two immunotherapy trials, and was independent of PD-L1 status (Abstract...
At a press briefing held by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), researchers presented new data that revealed factors relating to race, gender, sexual orientation, and income continue to be significant barriers to those living with lung cancer. The press briefing is...
Engineering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to overcome CD58 loss may be a way to boost responses in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who do not respond to treatment with axicabtagene ciloleucel and other CAR T-cell therapies, according to an experimental study presented...
40 Under 40 in cancer is an awards initiative to identify and recognize contributions from across the field of oncology by approximately rising stars and emerging leaders younger than 40. Awardees were nominated by colleagues and selected by a panel of reviewers from a range of areas in oncology....
B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) is the most frequent target of immunotherapies in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, but bispecific T-cell–engaging (BiTE) antibodies with novel targets are also achieving promising results. Studies presented at the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
Patients with hematologic malignancies varied in their immune response to COVID-19, and some struggled to clear the infection, according to new research published by Abdul-Jawad in Cancer Cell. In contrast, most patients with solid tumors—even those with advanced cancer—were shown to be able to...
Multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer, after non-Hodgkin lymphoma, diagnosed in the United States. In 2020, it is estimated that about 32,270 people will be diagnosed with the cancer, and despite advances in more effective treatments, nearly 13,000 will die of the disease.1...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Lehrer et al found that stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) for oligometastatic cancer was associated with “clinically acceptable” rates of severe acute and late toxicities as well as 1-year disease outcomes. As stated by the ...
Although early-stage, resectable disease represents the best chance for meaningful long-term survival and cure for patients with lung cancer, there are still high rates of recurrence. According to Rajwanth Veluswamy, MD, MSCR, neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatments are needed to improve surgical...
A recent report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has undermined the evidentiary basis for the primary treatment of stage I non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) while rating the evidence for the benefit of screening as “high.”1 According to David F. Yankelevitz, MD, these...
Global Cancer Institute (GCI), which is focused on improving survival rates for underserved patients with cancer worldwide, recently announced it has extended its programs to Bangladesh. The extension begins with the launch of monthly tumor boards, which help physicians and oncologists in...
Mount Sinai has received a $4 million donation from Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch to support prostate health and the Milton and Carroll Petrie Department of Urology at Mount Sinai. The prostate program—founded by Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh, Kyung Hyun Kim, MD Professor and Chair of Urology—will be named the ...
Although William Dameshek, MD, is renowned for his work in hematology, especially in advancing the understanding of myeloproliferative disorders and their interrelatedness, his early interest in medicine was instead focused on such diverse diseases as hyperthyroidism and typhus fever. Born on May...
Invited study discussant, Deborah B. Doroshow, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in New York, noted that the current first-line treatment paradigm for patients with advanced NSCLC and no driver mutation is based on...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has announced the 2020–2021 class of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-AACR Oncology Educational Fellows. This is the first year of the fellowship, a joint initiative of the Oncology Center of Excellence at the FDA and the AACR. The...
The ASCO Post asked Charles L. Shapiro, MD, Professor of Medicine, Director of Translational Breast Cancer Research, and Director of Cancer Survivorship at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, for his thoughts on the exploratory analysis of PALOMA-3. He first pointed out that the...
The CURE Media Group, a multimedia platform devoted to cancer updates and research that reaches more than 1 million patients, recently announced four recipients of the inaugural 2020 Lung Cancer Heroes awards and the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award. The 2020 Lung Cancer Heroes are:...
Sharing their thoughts on KEYNOTE-355 were Amy Tiersten, MD, Professor of Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and Erika Hamilton, MD, Director of the Breast and Gynecologic Research Program at Sarah Cannon Research Institute/Tennessee Oncology, Nashville, who presented...
David Yankelevitz, MD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses the renewed interest in applying adjuvant and neoadjuvant targeted treatments to earlier-stage lung cancer, given the promising results in more advanced disease. The challenges, he says, include identifying patient...
Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, of The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, discusses lung cancer screening for aggressive early-stage lung cancer; adjuvant and neoadjuvant treatment, including the ADAURA study of EGFR-positive tumors; and how cell-free DNA analysis might be used in the future to...
Skin cancers are the most common malignancy in the United States and worldwide. Between 1994 and 2014, the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers in the United States increased by 77%.1 The cost of treating melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancers to the health-care system...
Cardinale B. Smith, MD, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses results of a pilot study suggesting dedicated lay staff members, who facilitated admissions and discharges for patients with cancer across care settings, could improve health-care utilization, quality, and the...
Cardinale B. Smith, MD, PhD, of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses findings showing Black, Hispanic, and Asian patients with cancer used telehealth less often during the COVID-19 pandemic than White patients with cancer, a negative trend that will become more problematic as this ...
Patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma harboring BRAF V600 mutations did not benefit from the addition of the anti–PD-1 antibody spartalizumab to dabrafenib and trametinib in the COMBI-i trial, which was presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress...
For patients with progressing HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer previously treated with trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1), no single regimen is an established standard of care. More than 50% of these patients will develop brain metastasis, and thus far, treatments...
Deirdre J. Cohen, MD, MS, an expert in pancreatic and other gastrointestinal cancers as well as an accomplished clinical trial leader, has joined Mount Sinai Health System as Director of the Gastrointestinal (GI) Oncology Program and Medical Director of the Cancer Clinical Trials Office at The...
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer Black and Hispanic patients with cancer used telehealth (including phone encounters and video visits) compared to White patients, according to findings from an analysis of data from New York City hospitals. Significant disparities in the use of...
In the post-trastuzumab era, a number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved targeted agents for metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer are available, but there is no preferred option for third-line treatment and beyond. At the 2019 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium, Shanu Modi, MD,...
Based on some unexpected negative results, oncologists using atezolizumab for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer should pair it with nab-paclitaxel, not paclitaxel. In contrast to the overall survival benefit shown for atezolizumab plus nab-paclitaxel in the previous IMpassion130...
Born in Brooklyn on April 4, 1919, Ezra M. Greenspan, MD, did not stray far from his birthplace, spending most of his 5-decade medical career in New York. After graduating from New York University School of Medicine in 1942, he was accepted into the house training program at Mount Sinai Hospital...
There are approximately 25 million foreign-born immigrants living in the United States, which is more than 13% of the nation’s total population. Of these individuals, it is estimated that about 11 million are undocumented; by far, the largest group of this immigrant undocumented population is...
Two gynecologic oncologists and ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, commented on the findings of the TROPHIMMUN trial for The ASCO Post. “The authors demonstrate efficacy of a new treatment approach for gestational trophoblastic...
For nearly 30 years, from the time he was a young resident at the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital for Cancer Research of Harvard University, until his death from lung cancer on August 31, 1969, David A. Karnofsky, MD, dedicated himself to the pursuit of scientific excellence and the...
As reported in The Lancet by Matthew D. Galsky, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Tisch Cancer Institute, New York, and colleagues, the phase III IMvigor130 trial has shown prolonged progression-free survival with first-line atezolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy vs...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 Matthew D. Galsky, MD, of The Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and colleagues found that maintenance pembrolizumab produced additional responses and improved progression-free survival vs...
Three American Cancer Society (ACS) researchers will receive the Real-World Data Impact Award. The joint grant-making program, supported by the ACS and Flatiron Health, seeks to accelerate cancer research and improve treatment and outcomes for patients. The researchers, already funded by the ACS,...
Living in the era of COVID-19 has heightened fear and anxiety among patients with cancer. On the one hand, they are at higher risk of serious COVID-related illness. On the other hand, delaying cancer-focused treatment raises concerns of disease progression. This pandemic has led to dramatic...
In a phase Ib trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Richard S. Finn, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of lenvatinib and pembrolizumab produced durable responses in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma who had received no prior systemic chemotherapy. As...
Beth Levine, MD, Professor of Internal Medicine and Microbiology, Director of the Center for Autophagy Research, and Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern), and an investigator at the Howard Hughes ...
Two myeloma specialists weighed in on the disappointing findings of SWOG S1211: Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and Director of the Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis Service, and Joshua Richter, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has announced its newest class of grant recipients. Fellowships The 2019 Anna D. Barker Fellowship in Basic Cancer Research was awarded to Chaoyun Pan, PhD, of Emory University, Atlanta, and Conghui Yao, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge....
Two gynecologic oncologists and ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, commented on the findings of the TROPHIMMUN trial for The ASCO Post. “The authors demonstrate efficacy of a new treatment approach for gestational trophoblastic...
As reported in The Lancet by Matthew D. Galsky, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Tisch Cancer Institute, New York, and colleagues, the phase III IMvigor130 trial has shown prolonged progression-free survival with first-line atezolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy vs...
Two gynecologic oncologists and ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, commented on the findings of the TROPHIMMUN trial for The ASCO Post. “The authors demonstrate efficacy of a new treatment approach for gestational trophoblastic...
The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center—Jefferson Health (SKCC) recently announced that Andrew E. Aplin, PhD, was being recognized with the Melanoma Research Foundation Humanitarian Award. Dr. Aplin is the Kalbach-Newton Professor in Cancer Research, Enterprise Associate Director for Basic Research, and...
Discussant of the IMbassador250 trial, Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said: “These data indicate that neither anti–PD-1/PD-L1 monotherapy or the combination of anti–PD-1/PD-L1 with enzalutamide is likely to provide improved clinical benefit ...
As reported in The Lancet by Matthew D. Galsky, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and colleagues, the phase III IMvigor130 trial has shown prolonged progression-free survival with first-line atezolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy vs platinum-based chemotherapy alone in patients ...
Most who leave a mark in life are noted for a single contribution; few are remembered for the breadth of their contributions. Such a man was John W. Yarbro, MD, PhD, who, near the end of his rich life, stepped foot on Antarctica, completing his desire to have visited all of the world’s seven...
As part of a series of interviews with cancer experts during the COVID-19 pandemic, The ASCO Post spoke with Hagop Kantarjian, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, about the impact of the pandemic on treatment of...
As the worldwide cases of the coronavirus started to mount in February and March, medical societies and organizations monitoring the escalating COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international and domestic travel made the difficult decision to postpone or cancel their scientific conferences. On...