Radiotherapy at a high enough dose may increase survival in early-stage pancreatic cancer, according to research presented at the European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology (ESTRO) 36 Conference.1 Previous research has suggested that radiotherapy may be of little help in this setting. The...
Encourage your practice to participate in the 2017 ASCO Practice Census—the only annual survey of the entire U.S. oncology practice community that aims to capture and describe changes in cancer care and oncology practice over time. The data and insights obtained from the Practice Census are...
The hematology/oncology workforce continues to struggle with adequate representation of racial and ethnic minorities. To promote the development of an oncology workforce that reflects the demographics of the population it serves, ASCO has introduced its Strategic Plan for Increasing Racial &...
Next month, more than 30,000 oncology professionals will gather in -Chicago for the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting. This year’s theme, “Making a Difference in Cancer Care WITH YOU,” speaks to driving advances in cancer care and treatment through teamwork among clinicians, researchers, educators, and...
On May 23, President Trump presented the White House’s fiscal year 2018 budget request, which proposes a $7.18 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—a budget decrease of 21%. In addition, it cuts the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s chronic disease...
Here are several abstracts selected from the proceedings of the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, highlighting newer therapeutics in smoldering and relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma. For the full details of these study abstracts, visit...
Adding hydroxychloroquine, an inhibitor of autophagy, to neoadjuvant chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer increases its efficacy and alters the tumor’s molecular profile in a way that may render the tumor more susceptible to immune checkpoint inhibitors, according to interim data from a phase II...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review a supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) seeking approval for treatment of patients with recurrent or advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma who have already...
Ronald P. DeMatteo, MD, FACS, has been named Chair of the Department of Surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He will assume his new post July 1, 2017, and will lead a department that includes 130 faculty across 11 divisions who provide advanced patient care ...
Launched during the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 22nd Annual Conference: Improving the Quality, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of Cancer Care™, JNCCN360.org is the latest resource from the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (JNCCN). Currently available for breast...
In a UK study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Allgood et al found that provision of a second timed appointment for breast cancer screening improved screening rates among women who did not attend a first offered appointment. Study Details In the study, women who were invited for breast screening...
As thyroid cancer rates rise, more patients are having surgery to remove all or part of their thyroid. A new study by Papaleontiou et al in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism suggests complications from these procedures are more common than previously believed. Overall, 6.5% of ...
As reported by Hyman et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a basket study has shown activity of an investigational ATP-competitive pan-AKT kinase inhibitor (AZD5363) in solid tumors with AKT1 E17K mutation. Study Details In the study, 52 patients with advanced estrogen...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Diéras et al, the final overall survival results of the phase III EMILIA trial show improved outcome with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla) vs capecitabine plus lapatinib (Tykerb) in previously treated HER2-positive advanced breast cancer. Approval of...
”This was a great study and novel, asking what longer-term survivors with colon cancer are dying from—the toxicity of our treatment or population-risk illnesses?” commented session co-moderator, Patrick S. Sullivan, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Chief Quality Officer, Division of Surgical ...
Patients with colorectal cancer who survive at least 5 years are increasingly likely to die from causes that are common in the general population, highlighting the importance of screening and lifestyle modification, suggested a large cohort study conducted in California.1 The analysis of more than...
The ASCO Answers chemobrain fact sheet helps patients understand and manage the cognitive side effects of chemotherapy. Patients will learn about the causes, symptoms, management, and treatment of “chemobrain.” The ASCO Answers diarrhea fact sheet helps patients understand the causes and risks of...
Johns Hopkins University faculty members Stephen B. Baylin, MD, and Robert F. Siliciano, MD, PhD, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” They are among 84 new members and 21 foreign associates ...
Join the discussion: Use #ASCO17 on Twitter to follow and participate in the Annual Meeting conversation in real time. During this past year’s Annual Meeting, more than 16,000 health-care professionals, researchers, news outlets, patients, advocates, and other participants sent nearly 70,000...
Attention is focused among the cancer community on identifying the optimal immunotherapy combinations, with more than 800 ongoing trials of combination therapy. Two studies presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) reported promising preliminary...
ASCO has issued recommendations addressing the needs of sexual and gender minority populations as they relate to cancer. The recommendations, published in a policy statement in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 are designed to focus attention on the challenges facing the sexual and gender...
In a separate interview with The ASCO Post, David L. Porter, MD, Director of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and the Jodi Fisher Horowitz Professor in Leukemia Care Excellence at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, said: “It is encouraging that many patients with acute lymphoblastic...
Updated results in 51 adults with relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York showed high complete response rates regardless of pre–CAR T disease burden.1 That said, pretreatment...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) awarded the 2017 Heine H. Hansen Award to Rafal Dziadziuszko, MD, PhD, at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) 2017, which was held May 5–8 in Geneva, Switzerland. The...
Marie Bleakley, MD, PhD, a pediatric oncology physician-scientist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch), has received a 2017 Innovative Research Grant in immuno-oncology from Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). Dr. Bleakley will use the 3-year, $750,000 award to develop T-cell therapies...
LUNGevity Foundation has announced that Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, joined its Scientific Advisory Board, a group of 20 world-renowned scientists and researchers who guide LUNGevity’s research program. The Scientific Advisory Board is integral to the Foundation, overseeing the scientific strategy and...
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 Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly and Company are collaborating with NCCN to study combination...
A leading pediatric oncologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD, was named Chief of the Section of Cellular Therapy and Transplant in the Hospital’s Division of Oncology. Dr. Grupp, who has researched and led groundbreaking clinical trials of an innovative...
Platinum-based combination chemotherapy became a mainstay of first-line treatment for metastatic urothelial cancer in the 1980s. With combination platinum-based regimens, 40% to 50% of patients achieve an objective response to treatment. However, aside from approximately 5% to 10% of patients who...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues, the phase II CheckMate 275 trial has shown that nivolumab (Opdivo) produced durable responses in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer who had received at least one prior...
Commenting on the phase I study of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) presented at the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, Attending Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, said: “It is very encouraging to...
Lung cancer persistently remains the leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the United States. Only about 15% of lung cancers are diagnosed at the localized stage, when clinical intervention could markedly improve patient outcomes. For decades, lung cancer specialists and advocacy...
Triple-negative breast cancer is an aggressive disease with no approved targeted therapy, and it remains challenging to treat. Early data from a phase I study suggest that the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) can extend the lives of a subset of women who respond to this checkpoint...
On May 23, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for adult and pediatric patients with unresectable or metastatic, microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR) solid tumors that have progressed ...
Puma Biotechnology presented interim results from the phase Ib/II FB-10 clinical trial of the oral pan-HER family irreversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor neratinib given in combination with the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (also known as T-DM1, Kadcyla) at the 2017 American...
Formal discussant of the MONARCH 1 trial and the MONALEESA-2 biomarker analysis, Filipa Lynce, MD, of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, DC, noted that this is the first study to evaluate a cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor in patients with progressive...
In the single-arm phase II MONARCH 1 trial, the investigational cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor abemaciclib achieved an objective response in about 20% of heavily pretreated patients with metastatic hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer and a disease control rate of...
For patients with breast cancer starting on aromatase inhibitors, sexual dysfunction is commonly reported. Early intervention may lessen its impact—but it’s not an easy fix, says a specialist in this area, Leslie R. Schover, PhD. Dr. Schover is Founder of Will2Love, an online sexual health program ...
Cedars-Sinai investigators have identified a stem cell–regulating gene that affects tumor growth in patients with brain cancer and may strongly influence survival rates of patients. The findings, published by Edwards et al in Scientific Reports,1 may move physicians closer to their goal of better...
Spencer C. Hoover, a decorated U.S. Army veteran who joined Henry Ford Health System in 2015, was appointed Vice President and Executive Director of the health system’s Henry Ford Cancer Institute and cancer care services. Mr. Hoover had previously served as Vice President of Planning and Business ...
“This study of 2,759 patients with ductal carcinoma in situ provides data for women who are considering their surgical options,” said Julie Margenthaler, MD, a breast surgeon at Washington University of Medicine, St. Louis, and Communications Chair of the American Society of Breast Surgeons...
After phase I results of Seattle Children’s Pediatric Leukemia Adoptive Therapy (PLAT-02) trial, published by Gardner et al in Blood,1 showed T-cell immunotherapy to be effective in sending 93% of patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) into complete initial...
An increasing number of women with ductal carcinoma in situ are undergoing contralateral mastectomy, but the 5-year risk of cancer in the opposite breast is only about 3%, a study from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center recently found.1 Investigators hope these numbers will dissuade women from ...
“Inflammatory breast cancer represents the aggressive end of the spectrum of breast cancer at presentation. It is encouraging It to see the high 5-year breast cancer–specific survival rates reported in this cohort of 114 women,” said Judy C. Boughey, MD, a breast surgeon at the Mayo Clinic,...
In 2005, Stupp and colleagues published their landmark paper demonstrating in a randomized phase III trial that the addition of temozolomide to radiation increased overall survival in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. Notably, patients over age 70 years were excluded from this study.1...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, James R. Perry, MD, of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, and colleagues found that adding temozolomide to short-course radiotherapy improved overall survival in patients aged at least 65 years with newly diagnosed...
Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) announced the formation of a “Dream Team” of top researchers to take on one of the toughest challenges in cancer research and treatment: colorectal cancer, which is expected to claim the lives of more than 50,000 Americans this year. The announcement was made at a special...
On April 28, 2017, the European Commission approved nivolumab (Opdivo) as monotherapy for the treatment of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) in adults with disease progression on or after platinum-based therapy. Nivolumab is the first and only immuno-oncology treatment that has...
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology featured an ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline on the management of small renal masses reported by Finelli and colleagues.1 This comprehensive guideline is written by a group of well-regarded and...
Contemporary triple-modality therapy achieves excellent locoregional tumor control of inflammatory breast cancer, with only 4 locoregional recurrences out of 114 patients treated at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. The investigators described their approach at the...