Emerging treatments for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma include options beyond triplet regimens, including immunotherapy and mutation-driven therapy. Several exciting drugs are poised to be available in the clinic in 2020, according to speakers at the recent JADPRO Live, the annual...
Thierry Facon, MD, Professor of Hematology at Lille University Hospital in France, and Michael Jain, MD, PhD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, were interviewed by The ASCO Post on the second-generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell products for treating multiple myeloma. According to Dr. ...
In patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, two novel dual-target chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell strategies are yielding early and durable responses, with seemingly less cytokine-release syndrome and neurotoxicity than first-generation CAR T-cell products, according to the...
A study examining the differences in gene expression between African American and European American men with prostate cancer for three commercially available prostate cancer prognostic biomarker panels—Oncotype DX Prostate Score, Prolaris, and Decipher—has found that these tests may not accurately...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Richard S. Finn, MD, and colleagues, the phase III KEYNOTE-240 trial has shown no statistically significant progression-free or overall survival benefit with pembrolizumab vs placebo in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who were...
As many California residents continue to deal with the aftermath of past wildfires and the advent of new ones, CancerCare is now offering a patient assistance program for both emotional and financial support to patients with cancer affected by the California fires. As a leading national nonprofit...
The addition of the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor veliparib to carboplatin/paclitaxel chemotherapy significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with advanced HER2-negative breast cancer and germline BRCA mutation compared with placebo plus chemotherapy, according to...
In the phase II KEYNOTE-199 study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Antonarakis et al, pembrolizumab showed activity and had an acceptable safety profile in patients with treatment-refractory metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Study Details The trial was conducted at 85 ...
ASCO membership has elected Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, to serve as its President for the 2021–2022 term. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in June 2020. Six new members were also elected to the ASCO Board of Directors and...
On this episode, we hear from the authors of three high-impact abstracts presented at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition. The first paper investigated immunotherapy vs standard chemotherapy for pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia; the second focused on the efficacy of oral...
Blinatumomab improved survival in children with relapsed B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) compared with standard chemotherapy, accordings to findings from a study presented by Brown et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract LBA-1)....
Researchers have completed the first comprehensive analysis combining full genomic sequencing and gene-expression profiles of more than 1,300 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). The research was presented by Iacobucci et al during the 2019 American Society...
Treatment with an investigational oral form of azacitidine, CC-486, improved overall survival in older patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who were in remission following standard induction chemotherapy with or without consolidation therapy, according to a phase III study...
Despite the unprecedented improvement in clinical outcomes with the advent of immune checkpoint blockade for cancer,1,2 robust biomarkers for therapeutic success as well as novel strategies to increase their efficacy are urgently needed. In addition to exploring novel immune checkpoints and other...
There is an urgent need to develop new drugs for the treatment of urothelial cancer. Chemotherapy was the only approved treatment in advanced disease for 40 years, which was associated with response rates of between 30% and 50% in the front-line setting.1-3 However, durable remissions were...
The treatment of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-positive lung cancer changed dramatically after the results of the FLAURA trial showed improved progression-free survival with the third-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib as first-line therapy compared with...
Patients with follicular lymphoma who have been treated and are in remission for at least 2 years may no longer be incurable based on highly sensitive testing. This may mean they no longer need therapy or active follow-up, according to findings presented by Sarraf Yazdy et al at the 2019 American...
Most people diagnosed with early-stage, or limited, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) may be able to safely skip radiation treatment after a clear positron-emission tomography (PET) scan, according to new clinical trial results from SWOG presented by Persky et al at the 2019 American Society of ...
A study of more than 1,000 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) revealed that African Americans were more likely to have evidence of abnormal kidney functioning than whites, but this was not associated with any difference in overall survival. The findings, presented by Statler et al at the...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recognized three Choosing Wisely® Champions, practitioners working to tackle the overuse of hematology tests and treatments, at its 2019 Annual Meeting & Exposition in Orlando: Stephen L. Wang, MD, of Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center, Santa...
In patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, the addition of daratumumab to carfilzomib plus dexamethasone improved multiple outcomes, compared with carfilzomib/dexamethasone alone, in the international phase III CANDOR trial.1 “Overall, carfilzomib/dexamethasone/daratumumab was...
For older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the prospects for success of a stem cell transplant can often be predicted based on the particular set of leukemic genetic characteristics, according to results presented by Murdock et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual...
A new analysis of Medicare claims data presented by Kilgore et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 793) has provided the first real-world evidence using claims data available after the approval of autologous anti-CD19 chimeric antigen...
Even though autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHCT) is an effective treatment for multiple myeloma, only 4 out of 10 patients receive this therapy. A new study presented by Munshi et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 782) ...
Children from lower-income neighborhoods were 2.4 times more likely to die during treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) than children from middle- and high-income neighborhoods, according to findings from a study that analyzed nearly 1,500 clinical trial participants. While previous research...
For patients with high-risk myeloid malignancies undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant, adding the BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax to a reduced-intensity drug regimen prior to transplant is safe and does not impair the ability of the donor cells to engraft. The phase I study was...
More than three out of four patients with relapsed multiple myeloma, or myeloma that was refractory to at least two therapies, remained in remission 7 months after treatment with a novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy targeting two proteins that are frequently found on myeloma...
Patients with multiple myeloma who had received a median of five prior therapies with refractory disease had a high response rate when treated with the investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy JNJ-4528, which targets B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), a protein commonly found...
Preclinical studies have provided the first evidence that cellular immunotherapy for B-cell cancers could ultimately become an off-the-shelf product, capable of being uniformly manufactured in large quantities. The product—FT596—is among the first cellular immunotherapies to be based on...
The investigational bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab is showing activity in preliminary studies of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), including those who are refractory to or relapsed after third-line chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. If preliminary findings are validated by...
Does nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer really exist? Although it is considered a disease category, it turns out that the definition depends on the type of imaging used. Many patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer who were categorized as “nonmetastatic” on conventional...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Richard T. Lee, MD, describes the symptoms associated with colorectal cancer...
In a health-related quality of life analysis from the phase III KEYNOTE-407 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mazières et al found that the patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received pembrolizumab in addition to chemotherapy had better...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dung T. Le, MD, and colleagues, the phase II KEYNOTE-164 trial demonstrated activity of pembrolizumab in previously treated metastatic microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H)/mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) colorectal cancer. Findings from the...
In 2018, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute launched a large, ambitious screening study called (PROMISE; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03689595) to identify people with premalignant precursor conditions of multiple myeloma, to understand the molecular signs of progression to myeloma...
Nicholas J. Petrelli, MD, Bank of America Endowed Medical Director of ChristianaCare’s Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute, received the Tilton Award from the Medical Society of Delaware in October. The award is named after James Tilton, MD, the first U.S. Army Surgeon General...
Medical oncologist/hematologist Adetokunbo ‘Toks’ Oluwasanjo, MD, has joined Florida Cancer Specialists (FCS) in the new FCS Lake City office. For 3 years, she served on the faculty in the Department of Medicine of the Reading Health System (now Tower Health System). Dr. Toks received her medical...
In 1999, a team of researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College advocated the use of a then-novel practice: low-dose radiation CT screening for lung cancer. It captures a full thoracic image in a single breath hold, and can recognize a tumor in its earliest stages when the chance for cure is...
“There is clear evidence that patients are more likely to exercise if their oncologist tells them to do so,” reported representatives from 17 organizations participating in the Second Roundtable on Exercise and Cancer Prevention and Control. In an article published in CA: A Cancer Journal for...
The 61st American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition is being held December 7–10, 2019, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. Be sure to visit The ASCO Post in the exhibit hall (booth 2429, Harborside) and watch interviews with experts being filmed there live....
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Anesthesia Era: 1845–1875 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photograph appears courtesy of Stanley B. Burns, MD, and...
In patients with stage IV squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), those with high programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression treated with atezolizumab and chemotherapy experienced longer overall survival rates than those treated with chemotherapy alone. For those participants without...
First-line therapy consisting of nivolumab plus ipilimumab showed a consistent safety profile in special populations with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to research presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 World Conference on Lung ...
The 2019 Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) Annual Achievement Award was presented posthumously to Arti Hurria, MD, FASCO, of City of Hope. The oncology community experienced a devastating loss with the untimely passing of Dr. Hurria in November 2018. Dr. Hurria was the George Tsai...
Fox Chase Cancer Center announced the hiring of Christian A. Koch, MD, PhD, FACP, who will join the Department of Medicine, Section of Endocrinology, as Director and Professor. Dr. Koch comes to Fox Chase from the University of Tennessee, Memphis, where he served as Clinical Professor. Dr. Koch is ...
Earlier this year, ASCO published the results of its new study on oncologists’ perceptions and practice behaviors regarding obesity, weight management, and related lifestyle factors in their patients both during and after cancer treatment.1 The findings from the online survey of 971 oncology...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recognized Stanley L. Schrier, MD, a Past ASH President and formerly Professor Emeritus of Medicine in Hematology at Stanford School of Medicine, California, with the 2019 Exemplary Service Award for his years of service and dedication to ASH and to...
The American Society for Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS) has announced eight grant recipients across three research programs to support its mission to foster, develop, and encourage investigative knowledge in dermatologic surgery. Jumpstart Research Seed Grants Three Jumpstart Research Seed Grants were ...
“The majority of breast cancers are hormone receptor–positive, and treatments that target the estrogen receptors are very effective, but they also cause havoc in many tissues that are dependent on estrogen for normal functioning. As a result, breast cancer survivors suffer from ongoing symptoms and ...
Question 1 Which of the following statements about cytokine-release syndrome and neurotoxicity after tisagenlecleucel infusion is correct? Correct answer: B. The median time to onset of cytokine-release syndrome is 3 days. Expert Perspective Following tisagenlecleucel infusion, cytokine-release...