Radiation therapy has long been one of the three pillars of cancer therapy—surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy—only recently joined by what is widely considered a fourth pillar, immunotherapy. In part 1 of this two-part report, we trace the beginnings of radiation oncology in the United...
In this installment of Living a Full Life, Guest Editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Ariela L. Marshall, MD, Director, Women’s Hemostasis and Thrombosis Program at Penn Medicine. Along with her clinical and research activities, Dr. Marshall is also an advocate for women’s health and equity in ...
On June 23, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued marketing denial orders (MDOs) to JUUL Labs Inc for all of their products currently marketed in the United States. As a result, the company must stop selling and distributing these products. In addition, those currently on the U.S....
In Ukraine, with a population of about 44 million, there are more than 1.3 million patients with cancer. Approximately 160,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed each year.1 In almost every region, there are local cancer centers; specialized oncologic centers are located in large cities. In Kyiv,...
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) now stands as the largest single public funder of biomedical research in the world.1 The FY2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 2471), signed into law in March, increases biomedical research funding by nearly 5%, and it provides a total of $45 billion...
Recently, a new ASCO study,1 published in JCO Oncology Practice, found that among respondents participating in the survey, most oncology practices do not systematically collect data related to sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). The study points to the need to increase understanding...
ASCO’s CancerLinQ® and Count Me In recently announced a new collaboration that aims to allow cancer researchers to learn from every patient with cancer, by actively engaging patients as part of the clinical research enterprise. CancerLinQ—a real-world oncology data technology platform developed by...
In patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer and KRAS wild-type tumors, novel treatment with the monoclonal antibody nimotuzumab, which targets the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), plus gemcitabine significantly improved overall survival and other outcomes over...
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 study’s invited discussant was Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of the Colon and Rectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. “Neoadjuvant dostarlimab-gxly for 6 months represents a promising new treatment for...
Invited discussant Patricia LoRusso, DO, PhD, of Yale School of Medicine, said to the assembled audience at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting: “I see you are as excited about these data as I am,” after the applause ended following Dr. Modi’s presentation. “I want to thank our colleagues for helping to...
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 ...
A study of more than 90,000 postmenopausal women found that those who consumed at least one sugar-sweetened beverage daily faced a 78% higher risk of developing liver cancer compared with people who consumed less than three servings per month of such beverages. These findings were presented by Zhao ...
Research shows that what we eat may influence our cancer risk, but it’s not always clear which foods or dietary patterns are best for cancer prevention. Results from a new study presented by Shah et al during Nutrition 2022 Live Online, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition,...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Andrew R. Clamp, PhD, and colleagues, no significant differences in overall survival or updated progression-free survival were found with first-line treatment with weekly dose-dense regimens of carboplatin/paclitaxel vs every-3-week carboplatin/paclitaxel in...
Researchers have, for the first time, identified genes that may predict response to a therapy for a blood cancer that can have serious side effects for some patients. The therapy, selinexor, is part of the treatment armamentarium for multiple myeloma, but the ability to target its use to patients...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tachibana et al found high recurrence-free survival rates among patients with pathologic stage II nonseminomatous germ cell tumors who underwent primary retroperitoneal lymph node dissection and who did not receive adjuvant ...
Representing a total investment of $100 million, the following teams are the first to be funded through the partnership between Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the United States. These teams join the Cancer Grand Challenges community, which now unites more than 700...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with surgical oncologist Héctor Martínez-Said, MD, of the Melanoma Clinic at NCI Mexico. Dr. Martínez-Said’s maternal grandfather was part of a Lebanese immigration movement...
According to a study published by DuMontier et al in the journal Blood Advances, frailty assessments—geriatric exams considered essential to predicting health outcomes in older adults with cancer—are both safe and feasible when conducted virtually for patients with blood cancers. While providers...
Telemedicine stepped up to the plate when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. Oncology providers—and practitioners in all specialties—had to rapidly adapt to a telemedicine format when face-to-face visits were severely limited. This scenario had its benefits for both patients and providers (and...
On June 17, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized emergency use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 to include use in children as young as 6 months of age. For the Moderna vaccine, the FDA amended the emergency...
On this episode, we’re continuing our coverage of high-impact research presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, focusing on major studies in breast cancer and mantle cell lymphoma.
Optimizing oncology care in the United States will require making state-of-the-art care more accessible to all. Delivering quality, equitable cancer care is undoubtedly a challenge in a country as large, diverse, and disparate as the United States, but if it is to be achieved, it will entail the...
Androgen receptor (AR) signaling may affect response to BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy in both male and female patients with melanoma, according to findings from a study published by Vellano et al in Nature. The report provides a new target to combat therapeutic resistance and one possible answer to...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Sanjay Popat, FRCP, PhD, and colleagues found that among patients initiating first-line pembrolizumab for EGFR and ALK wild-type advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), ever-smokers had significantly better overall survival vs...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Gaebe et al found that stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) was associated with “equitable survival” compared with whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) in the first-line treatment of intracranial metastatic disease in patients with...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bootsma et al found that higher circulating tumor cell (CTC) enumeration trajectory identified through longitudinal liquid biopsy was associated with poorer survival in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment for metastatic...
ASCO and the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) jointly released recommendations that address the lack of equity, diversity, and inclusion in cancer clinical trials. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 their recommendations detail specific actions to engage the entire cancer ...
ASCO’s CancerLinQ® and Atropos Health announced a new collaboration that will provide oncology clinicians with the latest real-world evidence available to help inform personalized care and treatment of an individual patient. Atropos Health and CancerLinQ will work together to provide a “digital...
The Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation recently announced it will provide $25 million in new grant funding to expand or establish five Ralph Lauren cancer centers, aimed at reducing disparities in cancer care and access across underserved communities in the United States. The funding will benefit...
The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, which actively partners with scientists, research institutions, and philanthropic organizations around the world to accelerate research in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, recently announced that Ryan Schoenfeld, PhD, has been appointed...
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch), Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), Seattle Children’s, and the University of Washington (UW) Medicine have completed the restructure of their longtime relationship and the formation of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, a unified adult cancer...
Patients who underwent robotic-assisted radical cystectomy with intracorporeal diversion spent fewer days in the hospital and experienced fewer complications compared with those who underwent open radical cystectomy, according to data presented at the 2022 American Urological Association (AUA)...
After a nationwide search, Jennifer Willcox, JD, has been named Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Governance Officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In this role, Ms. Willcox has overall responsibility for the legal and board governance function of Dana-Farber. She will serve on...
Xiao-Jing Wang, MD, PhD, assumed the role of Chief Science Officer and Associate Director for Basic Science for the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center in Davis, California. She is also Associate Director for Basic Science. Dr. Wang comes to UC Davis from the University of Colorado Anschutz...
Tom and Kari Whitehead came to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) 10 years ago looking for a miracle. Their 6-year-old daughter, Emily, had relapsed in her battle with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), after many months of unsuccessful chemotherapy and a disease that had progressed so...
The Moroccan Cancer Society (MCS; Société Marocaine de Cancérologie/https://smc.ma) was created in 1992 by a group of Moroccan medical and radiation oncologists, surgeons, and pathologists who had led the field in the 1980s. To date, this scientific society has more than 350 members practicing in...
The COVID-19 pandemic and the confluence of events that followed—including the rapid development of vaccines, the mixed messaging on mitigation efforts to prevent coronavirus infection, and the growing political polarization—helped spark public mistrust and skepticism toward science. This mistrust...
Preliminary results of the basket BEGONIA trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), paired with the immune checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, has strong activity in advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer among patients not biomarker-selected for...
Since the introduction of trastuzumab in the late 1990s, overall survival for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer has substantially improved. Median overall survival in the pivotal first-line trial was only 20.3 months in the chemotherapy arm, and 25.1 months in the...
Although overall cancer incidence and mortality are declining across all population groups, compared with White individuals, racial and ethnic minorities and other medically underserved populations continue to shoulder a disproportionate burden of cancer, according to the study results published in ...
Eunice Wang, MD, Chief of Leukemia at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and colleagues presented the long-term results of a phase II clinical trial combining crenolanib, a second-generation FLT3 inhibitor, with standard intensive chemotherapy for the treatment of adults with newly diagnosed ...
Researchers from the SWOG Cancer Research Network, a clinical trials group funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), found that the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) expansion of Medicaid insurance in 2014 was followed by a significant increase in the proportion of patients enrolling in SWOG trials...
In a phase II clinical trial, immune checkpoint blockade before surgery was associated with favorable responses and outcomes in undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS) and recurrent dedifferentiated liposarcoma (DDLPS), Keung et al reported at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA11501)....
Although women of African descent experience a higher incidence and mortality from triple-negative breast cancer than women of other races or ethnicities, research findings presented by Hall et al at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting showed that the magnitude of gene-specific risks of triple-negative...
Rarely, if ever, has one abstract presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting warranted its own session—but that happened with a small but mighty study from Memorial Sloan Kettering. In a study of patients with locally advanced mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) rectal cancer, 6 months of treatment with the ...
The use of fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki doubled progression-free survival compared with the standard-of-care treatment plus conventional chemotherapy. It also significantly improved overall survival for patients with metastatic breast cancers expressing low levels of the HER2 receptor,...
In a collaboration announced today, ASCO will work with the World Health Organization (WHO) to measure and improve the quality of cancer care internationally. The goal is to achieve health-related targets of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and WHO Global Action Plan on...
In patients with stage II colon cancer where cancer DNA was not present in the blood (as circulating tumor DNA, or ctDNA), adjuvant chemotherapy could be skipped without compromising recurrence-free survival. Conversely, for patients where ctDNA was present after surgery, the rate of recurrence...