The Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST), used in many clinical trials to evaluate changes in tumor burden over time, classify objective tumor response into one of four categories—complete response, partial response, stable disease, or progressive disease—based on the percent of...
The HER2-targeted bispecific antibody zanidatamab demonstrated durable responses in patients with treatment-refractory HER2-positive biliary tract cancer, according to research presented by Shubham Pant, MD, and colleagues at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 4008). The results were also...
Patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer without a BRCA mutation who received durvalumab and olaparib in addition to the standard of care had improved progression-free survival compared with those who received the standard of care alone, according to the interim analysis of DUO-O, an...
Adding the CDK4/6 inhibitor ribociclib to endocrine therapy resulted in a significant improvement in invasive disease–free survival for patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative early-stage breast cancer. Findings from the phase III NATALEE trial were presented by Dennis J. Slamon, MD, ...
Extended lymphadenectomy in patients undergoing radical cystectomy for clinically localized muscle-invasive bladder cancer was not associated with improved disease-free survival or overall survival and may increase the risk of adverse events and postsurgical mortality, according to new findings...
Researchers have found that the bacteria, fungi, and viruses within the tumors of patients with colorectal cancer varied significantly depending on whether they were diagnosed with early-onset or late-onset disease, according to new findings presented by Weinberg et al at the 2023 ASCO Annual...
Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD, Deputy Director of The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in a place and time she found exhilarating during her early years. “We didn’t have a lot of money—actually, we were poor. But I had a lot of freedom walking around...
In the era of genomics and precision medicine, the role of pathology in diagnosis and cancer management is rapidly evolving. For the past 50 years, from her office at the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute (NCI), pathologist Elaine S. Jaffe, MD, has been at the forefront of that...
According to Sunil R. Hingorani, MD, PhD, his parents figured heavily on who he became as a person and on his career choices, which ultimately led to his current position as Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, Omaha. “My father...
Jonathan W. Friedberg, MD, MMSc, Director of the James P. Wilmot Cancer Institute, grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. While his school friends were attending camp, he spent his summers working on the family farm. “Perhaps the hardest work I’ve ever done was haying on a hot, humid night in July,...
Don S. Dizon, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Pelvic Malignancies Program at Lifespan Cancer Institute and Director of Medical Oncology at Rhode Island Hospital was born and reared in Guam. He also is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Surgery at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. “I am...
George D. Demetri, MD, FASCO, Director of the Sarcoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard, was born in Hyde Park, a town along the Hudson River in New York. When Dr. Demetri was growing up there, it was known for three...
Researchers have identified 116 genes as key molecular vulnerabilities for multiple myeloma, according to a novel study published by de Matos Simoes et al in Nature Cancer. The findings demonstrated the potential for these genes to act as leads and help researchers discover new therapeutic options...
The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) has called for greater action for World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2023 in light of a new study published by Safiri et al in Cancer Medicine, which found that 2.5 million tobacco-related cancer deaths were reported in 2019. The UICC is a global...
Researchers have found that patients with cancer-related fatigue who practiced qigong may have demonstrated clinically significant improvements in their fatigue burden after 10 weeks, according to a new study published by Zimmerman et al in Integrative Cancer Therapies. The findings revealed that...
The respected members of the oncology community listed here are among some of those who passed away in 2022–2023. The ASCO Post remembers them, their lives, and their contributions to cancer research and treatment. Robert J. Gillies, PhD Moffitt Cancer Center and the global research community lost ...
In December 2019, Robert A. Winn, MD, became the second Black physician to lead a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center when he took the helm of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center. Dr. Winn’s basic science research, which has been...
Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, Head of the Dermatology Unit at Gustave Roussy and Co-Director of the Melanoma Research Unit at INSERM 981 Paris-Sud University, was born and reared in Paris. “I didn’t have a vocation for medicine when I was a kid; I wanted to be an archeologist. I’m not from a medical...
Susan K. Parsons, MD, MRP, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and Founding Director of the Reid R. Sacco Adolescent and Young Adult Program for Cancer and Hereditary Blood Disorders at Tufts Medical Center, grew up on a working dairy farm in Sharon Springs,...
Delays in cancer screenings during the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted in lower reported incidences of colorectal, lung, and breast cancers, reflecting potentially high rates of undiagnosed cancer and later-stage diagnoses, according to a new study published by Romatoski et al in the Journal of ...
Researchers have developed a new strategy to identify which patients with non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer may be most likely to resist first-line treatment with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy, according to a new study published by Jong et al in Science Translational Medicine. The...
A randomized study by Jennifer A. Ligibel, MD, Director of the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies and Healthy Living at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, evaluating the impact of a telephone-based weight loss intervention in...
Studies showed that racial minorities experience disparities in access to cancer treatment and survival. In an effort to improve access to care for disadvantaged populations, the Affordable Care Act provided funding to states to expand Medicaid eligibility criteria and provide coverage to...
Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, FASCO, has said that volunteering and working with ASCO over many years has been the highlight of her career. She served on the ASCO Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012 and on several ASCO committees, including terms as Chair of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program...
The fight against cancer has made remarkable progress worldwide over the past decade. Through corporate investment in research and technology, the incidence of cancer and death rates in developed nations have steadily declined. The number of people living longer and fuller lives after a cancer...
Knowing the health-care system is complex and often creates anxiety for patients newly diagnosed with cancer, the Northwell Health Cancer Institute has launched Cancer Care Direct, a comprehensive program to connect patients with clinical registered nurse navigators who can provide expert guidance...
As discussed in Part I of this special feature on cancer survivorship, there are now more than 18 million cancer survivors in the United States, and that number is expected to grow to 26 million by 2040.1 However, most of those survivors—at least two-thirds—either cured or in remission or living...
With this issue of The ASCO Post, we introduce a new feature, View From the Top: The Future of Cancer Care Delivery, which will explore how leaders in oncology are developing strategies to ensure continued innovative oncology care in an ever-changing health-care environment. In this inaugural...
The improvement in cancer survival rates since President Richard M. Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971 into law is staggering. The legislation further committed the United States to greater investments in cancer-focused research to drive down the rates of cancer diagnoses, boost patient...
The updated results of the POLLUX trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dimopoulos and colleagues and in this issue of The ASCO Post, showed significantly improved overall survival with daratumumab plus lenalidomide/dexamethasone (DRd) vs Rd in patients with previously treated...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Syed Ali Abutalib and L. Jeffrey Medeiros explore the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissue...
In a collaborative study from the University of Freiburg and Stanford University reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jurik A. Mutter, BSc, of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, and colleagues found that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) identified prior to and during treatment...
For this installment of The ASCO Post’s Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Sibylle Loibl, MD, PhD, Chair of the German Breast Group (GBG) and Chief Executive Officer of the GBG Forschungs GmbH. Professor Loibl, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology ...
Researchers have discovered that interleukin-21 may be a potential therapeutic target to help reduce the endocrine autoimmune adverse effects and prevent the thyroid autoimmunity experienced by patients with cancer undergoing treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors, according to a novel study...
Is regular surveillance with mammography important in older patients with breast cancer and a shortened life expectancy? A study of 44,475 patients with breast cancer found the practice—which may yield more harms than benefits—to be common. This study is unique in that it examined surveillance...
Two studies presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer underscore the importance of enrolling patients with gynecologic cancer on clinical trials and of assuring trial access to racial minorities. One study found a statistically significant...
The oral, small-molecule Wee1 kinase inhibitor adavosertib was clinically active but not well tolerated by more than half the patients with recurrent or persistent uterine serous carcinoma in the phase IIb ADAGIO trial. The findings were reported at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023...
In patients with recurrent low-grade serous ovarian cancer, treatment with ribociclib plus letrozole was not only active, but led to outcomes that are comparable to those achieved with current agents—with a particularly striking 19-month duration of response—according to Brian M. Slomovitz, MD,...
Whole-exome sequencing of a large database identified carriers of mutations associated with hereditary cancer syndromes (ie, hereditary breast and ovarian cancers and Lynch syndrome). What was surprising was that among those carriers, about 40% did not satisfy the existing National Comprehensive...
On May 22, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the tyrosine kinase inhibitor avapritinib (Ayvakit) for the treatment of adults with indolent systemic mastocytosis. Avapritinib is the first and only approved therapy for indolent systemic mastocytosis. Systemic mastocytosis is a rare ...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Dov Zippel, MD, a surgical oncologist at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, where he is Head of the Meirav Breast Center. Dr. Zippel is the current President of ...
The bispecific antibody REGN5459 achieved a 90.5% overall response rate when given at the two highest doses in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, according to the results of a phase I/II clinical trial.1 Although preliminary, the results of this first-in-human trial for the...
The health and well-being of our clinicians, our communities, and our care systems need vigilance now more than ever to ensure we keep pace with the effects of change that is also advancing our medicine. When clinicians or patients talk about health care, they might mention frustrations with forms ...
The Appalachian Community Cancer Alliance (ACCA) has launched a lung cancer screening initiative to improve cancer care in rural Appalachia. Home to nearly 26 million people, the Appalachian region includes all of West Virginia and parts of 12 other states, and it has a 10% higher cancer mortality...
In a U.S. cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Martin et al described the clinical course and potential factors associated with post–COVID-19 multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children with cancer also infected with COVID-19. Post–COVID-19 multisystem inflammatory syndrome is a...
Sarah Blair, MD, Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Surgery at UC San Diego Health in California, offered her thoughts on the findings from these two studies. She first pointed to the growing body of data showing how nutrition and exercise programs can improve aerobic fitness, quality of ...
Specialized exercise and wellness programs significantly elevated physical well-being and quality of life among patients with breast cancer while reducing the use of health-care resources in new research presented at the 2023 American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting. In one multicenter...
Researchers have found that individuals in early and middle adulthood who have a body mass index (BMI) indicating that they have overweight or obesity may be at an increased risk of developing gastrointestinal cancer, according to a new study published by Loomans-Kropp and Umar in JAMA Network...
Patients with early-stage cervical cancer may have an increased risk of developing catheter-associated urinary tract infections following radical hysterectomies if they had a history of smoking or used catheters for more than 7 days postsurgery, according to a new study by Mercadel et al in the...
Researchers have found that mailing human papillomavirus (HPV) self-collection kits in addition to offering scheduling assistance to underscreened, underserved patients may increase the rate of cervical cancer screenings compared with scheduling assistance alone, according to a new study published...