In the phase III IMPRINT trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brian I. Rini, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, and colleagues found no overall survival benefit of adding the multipeptide cancer vaccine IMA901 to sunitinib (Sutent) in the first-line treatment of locally...
November is National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, the impetus for this article. Pancreatic cancer is a huge health challenge. It's the eighth most common cancer in the United States and the fourth most common cause of cancer deaths but is expected to become the second most common cause of...
Here is a brief look at the study findings and clinical implications of several recent and important clinical trials in neoplastic hematology. Attention is focused on myelodysplastic syndromes, multiple myeloma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Myelodysplastic Syndromes Clinical Trial:...
Combination immunotherapy is producing response rates ranging from 26% to 38% among patients with metastatic bladder cancer in the early stages of a three-arm clinical trial presented at the 2016 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. “Until...
As part of its mission to improve the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of cancer care so that patients can live better lives, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has announced the launch of Just Bag It: The NCCN Campaign for Safe Vincristine...
NOVEMBER 21st Annual Perspectives in Thoracic OncologyNovember 18-19 • New York, New YorkFor more information:http://imedex.com/perspectives-thoracic-oncology-conference/index.asp Mayo Clinic Angiogenesis and Tumor Microenvironment Symposium: From Translational Research to Clinical Practice...
Seattle Genetics, Inc, and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited have announced completion of patient enrollment in the ECHELON-2 clinical trial. ECHELON-2 is a global phase III randomized trial evaluating brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) as part of a front-line combination chemotherapy regimen in...
I still remember the day I met Kensie. It was Valentine’s Day. I had sneaked out of the hospital to get my wife a Valentine’s Day card, taking my place among scores of other husbands and boyfriends in front of the rapidly emptying rack of cards. As I started browsing, my beeper sounded. It was the ...
Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a common side effect of cancer treatment—the incidence is reported to be as high as 70% in the first month of chemotherapy1—and can cause significant disability in patients. The extent of the neurotoxicity incurred by patients varies depending on the...
ASCO is excited to launch two new online-only journals, JCO Precision Oncology (JCO PO) and JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics (JCO CCI). Both journals will be exploring the latest topics in oncology and filling a void for the oncology community. Manuscripts will go through the traditional peer-review ...
In a spirited debate, abounding with citations of clinical trials and other evidence, but not without humor and mutual respect, E. Shelley Hwang, MD, MPH, and Armando E. Giuliano, MD, reviewed the data and their clinical experience managing ductal carcinoma in situ and reached opposite...
Pancreatic cancer has been notably unresponsive to immunotherapeutic approaches, but a Stand Up 2 Cancer Dream Team believes their research can change that. Team co-leader Elizabeth Jaffee, MD, Deputy Director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, ...
The injectable oncolytic immunotherapy talimogene laherparepvec (also known as T-VEC, Imlygic) may become a valuable component of combination immunotherapy approaches in melanoma, a strategy believed to help overcome resistance of tumors to single-agent immunotherapies. “[Talimogene laherparepvec] ...
Checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized the treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but evidence of their benefit was restricted to the second-line setting. However, early-phase trials with both pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nivolumab (Opdivo) demonstrated favorable results in...
The programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) significantly improved overall survival, compared to docetaxel, in previously treated, advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to preliminary results of the phase III OAK study. The findings are the first...
The most comprehensive study of its kind to date found that older women enjoy the same benefits from breast reconstruction following mastectomy for breast cancer as younger women, without a significant increase in the risk for complications. As with patients across all age groups, the benefits of...
Mir et al found that regorafenib (Stivarga) was active in patients with advanced nonadipocytic soft-tissue sarcoma previously treated with an anthracycline, according to a French-Austrian phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology. Regorafenib should be evaluated further in this setting, the...
African American cancer survivors are more likely than whites to experience lasting debt or forgo necessary medical care as they struggle with the financial burden of cancer, whereas white cancer survivors are somewhat more likely to use existing assets to pay for their cancer care, according to a...
Implementation of the Affordable Care Act may have led to a significant increase in the number of Hispanic breast cancer patients treated in California at a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center. Further, there was also an increase reported in the number of Hispanic women who...
OCTOBER 16th Biennial Meeting of the International Gynecologic Cancer SocietyOctober 29-31 • Lisbon, PortugalFor more information:http://igcs2016.com NOVEMBER 2016 Oncofertility Conference: Expanding Access to Emerging and Existing Oncofertility ServicesNovember 1-3 • Chicago, Illinois For more...
A quality improvement project conducted within the OhioHealth system showed that oncologists can change their behavior and refer patients earlier to hospice care. After a relatively minor intervention, 18 medical oncologists in private practice doubled the mean length of stay in hospice care for...
Question 1: Which statement about donor selection for allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplant is correct? Correct Answer: C. If a donor is available, the genotypic identity between the patient and his brother should be established by typing the patient’s parents; if this is not possible, the...
In the phase III S-TRAC trial reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Ravaud et al, adjuvant sunitinib (Sutent) significantly prolonged disease-free survival vs placebo in patients with high-risk renal cell carcinoma after...
In patients with advanced lung or thymus carcinoid receiving everolimus, pasireotide LAR, or the combination of the two drugs, statistically significant positive impact was seen on proportion of patients’ progression-free rate at 9 months (primary endpoint) in all three arms, more relevant in ...
The investigational immunotherapeutic IMC-20D7S was found to be well tolerated and somewhat active in patients with advanced melanoma, including one complete response, according to the results of a phase I/Ib trial reported by Khalil et al in Clinical Cancer Research. IMD-20D7S is a...
A radiation boost to the local tumor bed following treatment with breast-conserving therapy (ie, local excision followed by whole-breast radiation therapy) improves local control for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ, according to a study of pooled data from 10 academic centers,1 presented at...
Ipilimumab (Yervoy) was associated with prolonged progression-free survival—but not overall survival—compared with placebo in men with asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic chemotherapy-naive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer without visceral metastases, according to a...
The addition of the CD38-targeted antibody daratumumab (Darzalex) to lenalidomide (Revlimid)/dexamethasone improved progression-free survival in patients with previously treated multiple myeloma, according to the results of the phase III POLLUX trial reported by Dimopoulos et al in The New England...
Lurbinectedin showed promising clinical benefit in pretreated patients with metastatic breast cancer and BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, including patients previously treated with platinum, according to phase II trial results presented by Balmaña et al at the 2016 European Society for Medical...
In the phase III IMPRINT trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Rini et al found no overall survival benefit of adding the multipeptide cancer vaccine IMA901 to sunitinib (Sutent) in the first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma. IMA901 contains 10 tumor-associated ...
The first phase III study of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in previously treated non–small cell lung cancer has seen significant improvements in survival compared to standard chemotherapy, reported Barlesi et al at the European Society for Medical...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is set to become a new option for first-line treatment of patients with advanced lung cancer and high programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression, according to the results of the phase III KEYNOTE-024 trial presented by Reck et al at the 2016 European Society for ...
In a pooled analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gadgeel et al found that alectinib (Alecensa) was associated with good central nervous system (CNS) response in patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) previously treated with crizotinib (Xalkori). Study ...
We pass them every day on our way to the hospital, the street dwellers of our town in India. Their home consists of a plastic sheet suspended between four poles on the pavement. One day, two women sat under the plastic sheet in happy conversation. It had rained heavily the previous night, and I...
Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, began his term as ASCO President-Elect in June 2016 and will serve as 2017–2018 President. A thoracic cancer specialist, Dr. Johnson is Chief Clinical Research Officer and institute physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical...
In a phase III trial (CA184-156) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of LungenClinic Grosshansdorf, Germany, and colleagues, the addition of the anti–CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4) checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy) to...
OCTOBER American College of Surgeons Clinical CongressOctober 16-20 • Washington, DCFor more information:www.facs.org/clincon2016 ACCC 33rd National Oncology ConferenceOctober 19-21 • St. Louis, Missouri For more information: www.accc-cancer.org/meetings/slideshow-NOC2015/NOC2015.asp 48th Annual...
The Susan G. Komen breast cancer organization gathered philanthropic, civic, medical, and business leaders in Washington, DC, September 14 to formally launch a $27 million, 10-city initiative to reduce breast cancer death rates among African American women. “African American women are almost 40%...
A session at the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium focused on the special needs of cancer caregivers. In a large survey, caregivers of persons with cancer reported higher levels of stress and significantly more duties than caregivers of other patients. But, according to research from...
On October 4, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted alectinib (Alecesna), an anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor, a second Breakthrough Therapy designation. This latest designation was granted for the treatment of adult patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small...
The third annual Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium, held on September 9–10, 2016, in San Francisco, California, brought together more than 650 attendees from multiple countries, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and China. It featured over 250 study...
Kerr et al found that adding adjuvant bevacizumab (Avastin) to capecitabine did not improve disease-free survival in unselected patients with stage III or high-risk stage II colorectal cancer. The results of the phase III QUASAR 2 trial were reported in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details In the...
In the UK ProtecT trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Freddie C. Hamdy, FRCS, FMedSci, of the University of Oxford, and colleagues found no significant differences in prostate cancer–specific or overall mortality among men with clinically localized prostate cancer detected by...
In a two-institution experience reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Naidoo et al identified the incidence of pneumonitis occurring in patients receiving anti–PD-1/PD-L1 (programmed cell death protein 1/ligand 1) monoclonal antibody as monotherapy or combined with anticytotoxic...
Analysis of data from the Veterans Administration Central Cancer Registry, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Sanfilippo et al, showed that statin use was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause and multiple myeloma–specific mortality in patients with multiple myeloma....
OCTOBER International Cancer Imaging Society Meeting and 16th Annual Teaching CourseOctober 3-5 • Glasgow, ScotlandFor more information:http://www.icimagingsociety.org.uk/index.cfm?task=meetings 9th International Workshop on Waldenstrom’s Macroglobulinemia & Symposia on Multiple MyelomaOctober...
Significant advances in cancer care and treatment have led to a steady increase in survivorship—currently, more than 15.5 million cancer survivors are living in the United States. This number is only expected to grow, with an estimate of more than 20 million American cancer survivors in 2026.1 A...
Music therapy, an established adjuvant to standard cancer care, is offered in a growing number of cancer centers throughout the United States and internationally. Defined by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) as “the evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individual...
A recent study1 published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (see “Breaking the ‘Conspiracy of Silence’” in this issue of The ASCO Post) found that just 1 in 20 patients with advanced, incurable cancer has sufficient understanding of his or her prognosis or life expectancy. Now, another new study ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on September 15 that it has taken action against 55 tobacco retailers by issuing the first warning letters for selling newly regulated tobacco products—such as e-cigarettes, e-liquids, and cigars—to minors. These actions come about a month after ...