Despite advances in cancer risk assessment, prevention, disease detection, drug development, and health-care delivery, which have led to unparalleled reductions in cancer incidence and mortality, access to affordable health care and increased administrative burdens placed on oncology practices...
Eloise Chapman-Davis, MD, a gynecologic oncologist at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, commented on the SOLO2 trial results for The ASCO Post. “SOLO2 is the third randomized trial to evaluate the use of maintenance therapy in a selected subgroup of ovarian cancer patients with...
Maintenance therapy with the tablet formulation of olaparib (Lynparza) significantly prolonged progression-free survival in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer and mutations in BRCA1/2 in the phase III SOLO2 trial, presented at the 2017 Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO)...
Among patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who were treated with the anti–programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) immunotherapy atezolizumab (Tecentriq), those who responded to the treatment had a longer overall survival compared with those who did not respond, according to data...
Among patients with advanced melanoma, those who received both nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) had improved overall survival compared with those who received only ipilimumab, and appeared to have more favorable survival outcomes compared with those who received nivolumab, according to...
Treatment with the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) yielded durable responses in some patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with a 5-year survival rate of 16%, according to data from a phase I clinical trial presented by Brahmer et al at the American...
In a population-based trial reported in JAMA, Lappe et al found that dietary supplementation with vitamin D3 and calcium did not significantly reduce the incidence of all cancers over 4 years among postmenopausal women aged ≥ 55 years. Study Details In the double-blind trial, 2,303 healthy...
In a phase III trial reported by Ascierto et al in The Lancet Oncology, treatment with ipilimumab (Yervoy) at 10 mg/kg vs 3 mg/kg resulted in improved overall survival in patients with advanced unresectable or metastatic melanoma. As noted by the investigators, although options for first-line...
On March 31, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for a first-in-class cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor, palbociclib (Ibrance), based on the results from the confirmatory phase III trial PALOMA-2. The FDA action converts the...
A combination of two HER2-targeted therapies, trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb), showed clinical benefit in patients with heavily pretreated HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer, according to final results from the phase II HERACLES clinical trial, presented by Siena et al at the ...
Patients with glioblastoma who wore a medical device that delivers alternating electrical fields in addition to being treated with the chemotherapeutic temozolomide had significantly improved median overall survival compared with those treated with temozolomide only, according to final results from ...
In the phase II SUMMIT clinical trial, the likelihood that a patient’s cancer responded to the investigational pan-HER–targeted therapeutic neratinib was influenced by both the cancer type and the identity of the gene mutation present in the cancer, according to results presented by...
A study investigating the hypothesis that testing a large number of genes across all cancer tumor types could improve outcomes for patients with difficult-to-treat cancers by using targeted therapies has found that progression-free survival was significantly higher in the those treated with...
For a proportion of patients, including women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer, gene-expression profiling has a substantial impact on treatment decision-making by determining which patients might—or might not—respond to particular treatment options. Gene-expression...
Radiation therapy, either alone or in combination with chemotherapy or surgery, is one of the most common treatment options for people with cancer. Nearly two-thirds of patients with cancer in the United States receive radiation therapy during their illness. To support clinical decision-making...
On March 30, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to osimertinib (Tagrisso) for the treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) T790M mutation–positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as detected by an...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Bardia et al, the anti–Trop-2 antibody drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan has been found to produce durable responses in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Trop-2, a glycoprotein initially identified ...
A first-in-human clinical trial examining the investigational small-molecule drug ONC201 in patients with advanced solid tumors showed the oral agent to be well tolerated at the recommended phase II dose, according to Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey investigators whose research also showed...
About 5% to 10% of breast cancer cases and 10% to 18% of ovarian cancer cases can be attributed to two BRCA genetic mutations. Testing for these genetic abnormalities has risen steadily over the past decade. Previously, mainly women with a history of cancer were referred for genetic testing, but as ...
In an interim analysis of the phase IB KEYNOTE-028 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Alley et al found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) treatment produced durable responses in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Study Details The current report involves 25 patients with previously...
In a study of four immunohistochemistry programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression assays registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), scoring was highly concordant for expression in tumor cells but poorly concordant for scoring in immune cells in non–small cell lung...
A retrospective study has shown that the presence and abundance of a particular bacterial group in the intestinal microbiota are associated with a significantly lower risk of relapse or disease progression after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation. The findings were reported by Peled et...
Patients admitted to the hospital with advanced cancers who were referred early to palliative care had decreased health-care utilization and increased use of support services following discharge, according to a new study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Published...
As reported by Kochenderfer et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, remission in patients with advanced lymphoma induced by treatment with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells targeting CD19 (CAR-19) is associated with elevated serum interleukin-15 (IL-15) levels. Study Details The study...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Calip et al found that polypharmacy overall was associated with increased adherence to adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer. However, frequent use of some medication classes was associated with decreased...
Promising 3-year outcomes were found in patients from a Japanese phase I/II study of alectinib (Alecensa) in previously treated patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The findings were reported by Tamura et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details In the ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved niraparib (Zejula) for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer, whose tumors have achieved complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy....
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and Cancer Care Ontario today issued a joint clinical practice guideline update on brachytherapy for patients with prostate cancer. The update provides evidence-based recommendations for different patient risk groups and specifies the most effective...
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists report data from a new study providing evidence that random, unpredictable DNA copying “mistakes” account for nearly two-thirds of the mutations that cause cancer. Their research is grounded on a novel mathematic model based on DNA...
Hypofractionated radiotherapy was noninferior to standard radiotherapy in biochemical-clinical failure disease-free survival in men with localized prostate cancer, according to a study reported by Catton et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Study Details In the trial, 1,206 patients with...
In a Dutch observational study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kuijer et al found that use of the MammaPrint 70-gene signature (70-GS) test changed physician-intended recommendations to administer adjuvant chemotherapy in half of patients with early-stage estrogen...
In an analysis of the phase III ASSURE trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Haas et al found no disease-free or overall survival benefit of adjuvant sunitinib (Sutent) or sorafenib (Nexavar) vs placebo in a high-risk subset of patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma histology and pT3, pT4, or...
Margaret A. Tempero, MD, of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the evidence for using neoadjuvant and adjuvant systemic therapies in resectable and borderline resectable pancreatic cancer.
Elizabeth R. Plimack, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses selecting first- and second-line therapies for patients with advanced bladder cancer and the emerging data and role of immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Leo I. Gordon, MD, of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, discusses novel immunomodulatory agents and standard treatment options for patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma.
Given the pace of advances in immunotherapy in recent years and physicians’ need to keep up with these developments, ASCO and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) have announced a joint collaboration to publish practical clinical guidance on the management of side effects caused by...
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 the Conquer Cancer Foundation, Conquerors Circle members receive...
On January 26, 2017—prior to the official opening of the 2nd Annual Cancer Survivorship Symposium—cancer survivors, caregivers, patient advocates, family physicians, oncology providers, and others gathered in San Diego, California, to make connections, discuss survivorship issues, and get expert...
Be sure to check out new ASCO Answers fact sheets on myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and understanding bone marrow transplantation at Cancer.Net. These 1-page (front and back) introductions include an overview, illustrations, terms to know, and questions to ask the doctor. Find these and a library...
As part of ASCO’s efforts to support cancer researchers and research sites, the ASCO Research Community Forum was created in 2010 to help physician investigators and research staff overcome common barriers to conducting research and enhance their research-site operations. The Forum is a go-to...
On February 23, 2017, ASCO launched its newest online-only journal, JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics (JCO CCI). The first four articles published in JCO CCI are: 1) An editorial from JCO CCI Editor-in-Chief Debra A. Patt, MD, MPH, MBA, introducing the publication and laying out its objective of...
In a study using Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, H. Gilbert Welch, MD, of Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, and colleagues found that screening mammography has resulted in a substantial increase in...
All patients with cancer experience some level of distress associated with their cancer diagnosis and the effects of the disease and its treatment—regardless of the stage of disease. Not only does distress affect a patient’s mental and psychosocial well-being, but because distress is a...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Oncology Research Program (ORP) has funded three studies in its first multi-industry collaborative research project in which Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly are collaborating with NCCN to study combination therapeutic agents in ...
The International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) has a workshop to educate young investigators in geriatric oncology research. The SIOG Advanced Course, which is held in Treviso, Italy (June 28–July 1, 2017), is our unique continuing medical education–accredited training program led by...
In the upcoming decades, the number of older adults with cancer will drastically increase due to aging of Western societies.1 The risk of cancer strongly increases with age. Consequently, all future oncologists will be exposed to the challenges of caring for this heterogeneous population. Older...
Ruben A. Mesa, MD, of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, discusses molecular abnormalities and their use in the diagnosis, risk stratification, and selection of treatment for myelofibrosis.
Suzanne George, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses current and emerging systemic therapies for soft-tissue sarcoma and the options for multimodality treatment.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted accelerated approval to avelumab (Bavencio) for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, including those who have not received prior chemotherapy. Avelumab is a programmed cell...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Thomas et al found that interruption of radiotherapy for head and neck cancer was more frequent and treatment outcomes were poorer among indigent populations vs commercially or Medicare-insured populations within a single academic health...