Treating high-risk, asymptomatic bone metastases with radiation may reduce painful complications and hospitalizations and possibly extend overall survival in people whose cancer has spread to multiple sites, a phase II clinical trial suggests. Results of the multicenter, randomized trial were...
A randomized study has confirmed that patients with high-risk prostate cancer can be treated with 5 vs 8 weeks of radiation therapy. The phase III clinical trial is the first to confirm the safety and efficacy of a moderately shortened course of radiation exclusively for patients with high-risk...
Adding stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) to systemic therapy with sorafenib for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) may extend overall survival and delay tumor progression without compromising patients’ quality of life, findings from the randomized phase III NRG...
A multicenter analysis of patients with invasive lobular carcinoma—the second most common histologic subtype of invasive breast cancer in the United States—showed that, despite its prevalence, invasive lobular carcinoma was detected later with worse outcomes vs invasive ductal carcinoma and had...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Jfri et al identified risk for cutaneous adverse events among patients with cancer receiving adjuvant phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor therapy. Study Details The analysis included 15 phase II or III randomized controlled...
Female patients with cancer were less satisfied with the quality of their cancer care than male patients with cancer, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Survivor Views program of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). In addition, female patients were more...
Mepitel Film—a silicone-based polyurethane film dressing—may be beneficial in reducing skin toxicities caused by radiation treatment, according to data presented during the October 2022 session of the ASCO Plenary Series by Chow et al (Abstract 390226). Results of the phase III trial showed the...
In a preplanned analysis of the PALLAS trial, the addition of adjuvant palbociclib to standard endocrine therapy did not improve outcomes over endocrine therapy alone in patients with stage IIA breast cancer. Palbociclib offered no additional benefit in terms of invasive disease–free survival (the...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kevin Harrington, MD, PhD, and colleagues, updated results of the phase III KEYNOTE-048 trial showed enduring survival benefits with first-line pembrolizumab alone and pembrolizumab/chemotherapy vs cetuximab/chemotherapy in patients with recurrent...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Julie R. Brahmer, MD, MSc, FASCO, and colleagues, a 5-year analysis of the phase III CheckMate 227 trial showed improvement in overall survival with first-line nivolumab/ipilimumab vs platinum-doublet chemotherapy, at ≥ 3 years after cessation of...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Veiga et al found that receipt of radiotherapy was the strongest risk factor for development of thoracic soft-tissue sarcomas in U.S. breast cancer survivors; both hypertension and diabetes were significant risk factors for...
David Cescon, MD, PhD, Clinician Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada, was the invited discussant of the two MONALEESA analyses.1,2 He noted that the most recent overall survival analysis, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2021,...
Further analyses of the MONALEESA metastatic breast cancer trials have shown that the benefit of ribociclib plus endocrine therapy in the first-line setting extends to most intrinsic molecular subtypes and is consistent across multiple subgroups. The studies were presented at the 2021 San Antonio...
Invited discussant of the MONALEESA-3 trial, Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, commented: “I totally agree with the authors when they say these results are ‘impressive.’” Among all the phase III trials evaluating...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial, which included postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer, first-line treatment with ribociclib plus fulvestrant added nearly 16 months of overall survival time vs fulvestrant...
For advanced breast cancer that is hormone receptor–positive and HER2-negative, sacituzumab govitecan-hziy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression by 34% over physician’s choice of treatment, based on the results of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial.1 The heavily pretreated patients in...
The past year has seen an unprecedented number of practice-changing advances across all three major breast cancer subtypes. For patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab firmly entered the standard of care based on improvements in...
The final overall survival analysis of the phase III PALOMA-2 trial has shown no significant benefit for palbociclib given with letrozole, vs letrozole and placebo, as a first-line treatment in hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.1 The results were reported at the 2022 ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Javier Cortés, MD, PhD, of the International Breast Cancer Center, Barcelona, and colleagues, the phase III DESTINY-Breast03 trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) vs...
The antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) doubled progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with “HER2-low” metastatic breast cancer—ie, patients with low levels of HER2 expression. The agent also extended overall survival for patients with low ...
Datopotamab deruxtecan, an antibody-drug conjugate directed against trophoblast cell surface antigen-2 (Trop-2), is showing promise as a treatment for relapsed or refractory advanced triple-negative breast cancer, according to early findings from the phase I TROPION-PanTumor01 trial presented...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, and colleagues, a preplanned interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial has shown improved event-free survival with the addition of pembrolizumab to...
Switching from an aromatase inhibitor to fulvestrant upon early identification of the ESR1 mutation in plasma—before disease progression—doubled progression-free survival in the phase III PADA-1 trial, presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “PADA-1 is the first trial to...
“OlympiA is clearly a practice-changing trial, and olaparib should be offered to patients meeting the entry criteria for the study,” said Mark E. Robson, MD, Chief of the Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Dr. Robson was invited to discuss the findings of...
The OlympiA trial of adjuvant olaparib in patients with HER2-negative, high-risk early-stage breast cancer and BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations has now demonstrated a significant overall survival benefit, reducing the risk of death over placebo by 32% and yielding an absolute improvement of 3.8% at 3...
New drugs for HER2-positive breast cancer are able to overcome some of the obstacles that have made brain metastases challenging to treat, according to Mark Pegram, MD, the Susy Yuan-Huey Hung Professor of Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, who described the promising ...
Use of the first investigational oral selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) elacestrant significantly reduced the risk of death or disease progression and lengthened progression-free survival compared with standard-of-care endocrine therapy with fulvestrant or an aromatase inhibitor in...
Longer-term follow-up of the global phase III monarchE trial showed an increasing benefit for adding abemaciclib to endocrine therapy in the adjuvant treatment of early high-risk hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, regardless of Ki67 index. The latest findings were reported at a ...
Researchers have unmasked mutations in the RNF43 gene as predictive biomarkers of a response to treatment with anti-BRAF/EGFR combination therapy in patients with microsatellite-stable BRAF V600E–mutated metastatic colorectal cancer. Data showed that patients with tumors harboring loss-of-function...
In a Chinese single-center, retrospective cohort, propensity score–matched analysis reported in JAMA Surgery, Wan et al found no difference in long-term outcomes, including distant metastasis–free and overall survival, with minimal-access breast surgery vs conventional breast surgery in women with...
In the past year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved four treatment options for patients with breast cancer, which are summarized herein. T-DXd for HER2-Low Breast Cancer On August 5, 2022, the FDA approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu; T-DXd) for adult patients with...
In a phase Ib/II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Christopher J. Hoimes, MD, and colleagues found that first-line enfortumab vedotin-ejfv plus pembrolizumab produced a high response rate and prolonged response durations in cisplatin-ineligible, previously untreated patients with...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by François-Clément Bidard, MD, and colleagues, the French phase III PADA-1 trial has shown that switching to fulvestrant/palbociclib vs continuing first-line aromatase inhibitor (AI)/palbociclib therapy was associated with improved progression-free survival among ...
Invited discussant James Larkin, PhD, a clinical researcher at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, commented on the findings from NICHE-2.1 “These striking data are consistent with the recent report in locally advanced mismatch repair–deficient [dMMR] rectal cancer from Memorial Sloan Kettering.2...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Carroll et al, an analysis from the Thinking and Living with Cancer Study has shown higher levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) at baseline and during follow-up among women with stage 0 to III breast cancer diagnosed at age ≥ 60 years vs controls,...
Treatment with neoadjuvant immunotherapy in colon cancer resulted in major pathologic responses in 95% of patients, NICHE-2 investigators reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022.1 Additionally, after 4 weeks of nivolumab plus ipilimumab, 67% of patients with...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Michael B. Atkins, MD, and colleagues, the phase III DREAMseq trial (ECOG-ACRIN EA6134) showed that first-line treatment with nivolumab plus ipilimumab followed at disease progression with dabrafenib and trametinib improved 2-year overall survival...
Although breast cancer death rates dropped by 43% from 1989 to 2020, Black women continue to be 40% more likely to die of the disease, despite a lower incidence, according to findings outlined in the American Cancer Society’s report Breast Cancer Statistics, 2022, and a companion study published by ...
Just 1 month after the DESTINY-Breast04 data were presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Plenary Session,1 an ASCO expert panel released updated guidance that endorses the adoption of the antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) into clinical practice for patients with...
Although standard therapies may provide long-lasting remissions for many patients with various subtypes of lymphoma, there is a critical need for new strategies for the sizable high-risk subset. At the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference, four experts in the field described future therapies for...
Jonathan Ledermann, MD, of UCL Cancer Institute University College London, was the formal discussant of both the phase III SOLO1 and PAOLA-1 trials. He was quite enthusiastic about SOLO1: “Perhaps, this is really cure we are seeing.” He also noted that overall survival is still immature and is...
First-line maintenance therapy with olaparib extended survival beyond historical expectations in some women with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer, according to two phase III studies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2022 Congress.1,2 In the SOLO1 trial,1 more...
An overall survival benefit has now emerged for sacituzumab govitecan-hziy in women with previously treated, hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative, locally recurrent, inoperable or metastatic breast cancer, according to a planned second interim analysis of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial.1 The...
Pembrolizumab (anti–PD-1 therapy) plus chemotherapy continued to demonstrate a survival benefit and durable responses as first-line treatment of metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the results of two phase III trials.1,2 Five-year overall survival was improved in both...
The results of SWOG S18011 were met with enthusiasm by attendees at the Presidential Symposium of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022. The ASCO Post captured the thoughts of several melanoma experts, who had somewhat different ideas about the immediate clinical...
In resectable stage III to IV melanoma, three cycles of neoadjuvant pembrolizumab followed by adjuvant pembrolizumab was significantly more beneficial than adjuvant pembrolizumab alone, based on the results of the phase II SWOG S1801 trial presented in a Presidential Symposium at the European...
Abstract discussant Hisashi Saji, MD, Chair of Thoracic Surgery at St. Marianna University School of Medicine, Kawasaki, Japan, said that, based on two recently reported phase III studies, sublobar resection, including wedge resection and segmentectomy, must be considered as a standard of care for...
After a nearly 20-year wait, the results are finally in: sublobar surgery has been found to be noninferior to lobectomy and may be the new standard of care of patients with small, early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results of the phase III Alliance trial, presented at the International ...
The addition of cabozantinib to nivolumab plus ipilimumab prolonged progression-free survival in untreated intermediate-risk patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), according to the first results of the phase III COSMIC-313 trial. These findings were presented as a Presidential Symposium ...
Recent findings showed that historical housing discrimination may negatively affect contemporary care and outcomes for patients diagnosed with colon cancer, according to a study by Hussaini et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The findings were also presented at the 2022 ASCO Quality Care...