Sumanta K. Pal, MD, of the City of Hope, discusses phase II findings on the efficacy and safety of nivolumab monotherapy in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer who have received prior treatment. Follow him on Twitter: @montypal
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...
Pilot Study Title: Pilot Trial of an Implantable Microdevice for in Vivo Drug Sensitivity Testing in Patients With Early-Stage, HER2-Positive, or Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Receiving Neoadjuvant Therapy Study Type: Pilot/interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators:...
Three years ago, IBM’s Watson supercomputer was best known for defeating two former champions on the TV game show Jeopardy! Today, it is grabbing headlines for becoming an important assistant in cancer care. Able to read and understand millions of pages of text within seconds, Watson caught the...
Clinicians and researchers in the field of palliative and supportive care are enjoying the recognition the field is now receiving and expecting the future to be ripe with opportunity. But one thought leader in this specialty had a suggestion for attendees at the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology...
The advent of immunotherapies has created a number of interesting challenges for oncology providers. At the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium, specialists in the field tackled these issues. “There is a lot of newness to how we approach patient care with immunotherapies on board,” said...
To raise awareness and support for those with metastatic breast cancer, the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance launched its “Help Keep Me in the Picture” campaign. The campaign includes a social media initiative and a new microsite—KeepMeInThePicture.com—which shares stories from patients,...
Survival rates for elderly patients who received stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for early stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) rose from roughly 40% to 60% over the past decade, concurrent with the increasing adoption of SBRT, according to research presented by Dalwadi et al...
Saul J. Sharkis, PhD, a scientist who studied the biology of blood stem cells and how they could be used to treat cancer through bone marrow transplantation, died on September 4. He was 72. Dr. Sharkis was Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a faculty...
There have been numerous books explicating the information a physician or patient needs to know about our current clinical state in the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer. Many of them are good, but rare is a well-written book in the cancer genre that offers solid scientific hope exceeding ...
The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group–American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ECOG-ACRIN) Cancer Research Group has received federal approval to add a quality-of-life research study, Communication and Education in Tumor Profiling (EAQ152), or COMET, to the NCI-MATCH (EAY131) trial, which is ...
On August 13, 2013, more than 100 cancer researchers and physicians from around the world met in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to discuss 2 challenging problem areas in cancer. One group was focused on the carcinogenic potential of low-dose exposure to chemical mixtures in the environment, and the...
Phase I Study Title: Phase Ib Study of Nivolumab and Dasatinib in Patients With Relapsed/Refractory Philadelphia Chromosome–Positive Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (Ph+ ALL) Study Type: Phase I/interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Northwestern University, National...
When it comes to pediatric cancer, there are so many signs of hope, starting with the fact that the childhood cancer 5-year survival rate has climbed all the way up to 83%. But while we celebrate the victories of all these children over cancer, little is known about the long-term health effects,...
This summer, ASCO continued its active involvement in Vice President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Initiative. ASCO joined the Vice President at the formal launch of the moonshot earlier this year, and since then, has discussed research and policy proposals to advance discovery in cancer treatment...
A new study1 showing that just 1 in 20 terminally ill patients with cancer has sufficient understanding about the prognosis or purpose of treatment is highlighting the need for improvements in both the way oncologists communicate prognosis with their patients and in the development of educational...
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 ...
With the expansion of our understanding of signaling pathways in normal cells and how they are co-opted or corrupted in malignancy, the number of potential antitumor agents to be tested has exploded, exposing the limitations of traditional antineoplastic drug development and challenging us to...
As reported by Hope S. Rugo, MD, and John W. Park, MD, both of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine, the multiarm adaptive randomization phase II I-SPY 2 trial has shown that the addition of veliparib/carboplatin and the addition of...
Earlier this month, ASCO, in collaboration with the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the Society for Surgical Oncology (SSO), jointly issued an update to a clinical practice guideline for physicians treating women with breast cancer who have undergone a mastectomy. The update...
Attendees at the 2016 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference held July 18–22 in Koloa, Hawaii, got a peek at early data for a number of novel agents in the treatment of various lymphoma subtypes. The ASCO Post captured these findings. Denintuzumab Mafodotin in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Denintuzumab...
A small device implanted under the skin may improve breast cancer survival by catching cancer cells, slowing the development of metastatic tumors in other organs, and allowing time to intervene with surgery or other therapies. These findings, reported by Rao et al in Cancer Research, suggest a path ...
The study findings by Dr. Buchakjian and colleagues suggest it may be time to revisit the significance of frozen margin status, according to one of the session co-moderators, Allen Cheng, MD, DDS, of the Providence Cancer Center and Head & Neck Surgical Associates, both in Portland, Oregon....
Today, Vice President Joe Biden announced a series of new steps focused on increasing access to information about clinical trials and improving the efficiency of our clinical research system. These steps include making it easier for participants to find clinical trial opportunities as quickly as...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oreofe O. Odejide, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues surveyed hematologic oncologists to identify acceptable end-of-life-care quality measures and barriers to such care. Respondents considered unrealistic patient...
The best part of my day is hearing that little voice yell, “It’s Momma!” as my son rushes to greet me with a hug. It is humbling, and sometimes terrifying, to realize that I brought a little person into the world who is completely dependent on my husband and me for survival. Few would argue...
Three leading national cancer organizations have issued a consensus guideline for physicians treating women who have ductal carcinoma in situ treated with breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation. The new guideline has the potential to save many women from unnecessary surgeries,...
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published its landmark report “The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding,” which recognized the scarcity of research in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and the...
Sumanta K. Pal, MD, has had a longer career in oncology than many other colleagues his age. Perhaps the reason for that may center on his starting college at the age 13 and medical school at the age of 17. Today this internationally recognized leader in genitourinary cancers is Assistant Professor ...
A new multistate survey showed that nearly one-quarter to one-third of family caregivers of patients with high-mortality cancers experience high levels of depression and anxiety symptoms. The study also found that family caregivers can spend over 8 hours per day providing care and that as this time ...
Retinoic acid may play a critical role in suppressing colorectal cancer in mice and humans, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Mice with the cancer have lower-than-normal levels of the metabolite in their gut, the researchers found. Furthermore, colorectal...
Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) may have unraveled the metastatic mechanism of melanoma. According to a paper published by Dror et al in Nature Cell Biology, scientists discovered that before spreading to other organs, a melanoma tumor sends out tiny vesicles containing molecules of...
Looking back, I’m haunted by what might have been if my advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) had been caught in its earliest stage, when perhaps a cure was possible. I certainly presented my physicians with enough clues—shortness of breath, coughing, and some body weakness—to have warranted...
With the increasing population of older adults with cancer, there has been a commensurate need for more readily available and widely accessible educational and clinical resources in geriatric oncology. As part of the Cancer and Aging Research Group and ASCO’s Geriatric Oncology Special Interest...
The Cancer Moonshot initiative is bringing together scientists, oncologists, patient advocates, and representatives of the biopharmaceutical industry with renewed collaborative focus and the ambitious objective of consolidating 10 years of cancer research in 5 years. Achieving this outcome will...
The effect of combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in increasing a woman’s risk of breast cancer is likely to have been underestimated by a number of previous studies, according to a new prospective study published by Jones et al in the British Journal of Cancer. HRT is used to treat...
Hair loss can be a devastating side effect of chemotherapy, but the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of the DigniCap Cooling System and the growing acceptance of scalp-cooling methods in the United States may improve the quality of life for many patients receiving...
The ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group has received federal approval to add a quality-of-life research study, COMmunication and Education in Tumor Profiling, or COMET (EAQ152), to the NCI-MATCH (EAY131) trial already underway. Using feedback surveys before and after a patient undergoes tumor gene...
Three leading national cancer organizations have issued a consensus guideline for physicians treating women who have ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) treated with breast-conserving surgery and whole breast irradiation. The new guideline has the potential to save many women from unnecessary...
A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) research team has identified an additional mechanism for resistance to targeted treatment for BRAF-mutant melanoma. Their findings, published by Shen et al in Nature Medicine, report that inactivating mutations in two genes responsible for regulating key...
BookmarkTitle: The Gene: An Intimate HistoryAuthor: Siddhartha Mukherjee, MDPublisher: ScribnerPublication date: May 2016Price: $32.00; hardcover, 608 pagesOn February 28, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick entered The Eagle, a favorite watering hole for researchers working at the University of...
American cancer centers promoting their services dramatically increased their advertising spending from 2005 to 2014, with the bulk of the spending by for-profit organizations, according to the results of a study published by Vater et al in JAMA Internal Medicine.1 Small Percentage Responsible for...
Study Title: A Pilot Study of a Protein-Sparing Modified Fast for Weight Loss in Obese Endometrial Cancer Survivors Study Type: Pilot/interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, National Cancer Institute Purpose: To study whether the...
“Are you a member of ASCO?” I distinctly remember being asked that question in 1984, during my second year as a fellow at what was then the Sidney Farber (now Dana-Farber) Cancer Institute. My first reaction: “What’s an ASCO?” Turned out it was a) the Society that many of my mentors had or would...
Prophylactic use of dexamethasone mouthwash significantly minimized the incidence of all grades of stomatitis in postmenopausal women receiving everolimus (Afinitor, Zortress) and exemestane for the treatment of hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer, according to data presented by...
Research conducted at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, is moving the field of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy forward in the treatment of B-cell malignancies. At the 2016 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference in Koloa, Hawaii, David G. Maloney, MD, PhD, Professor of...
Most adolescent survivors of childhood cancer have no reported psychological symptoms, but an analysis led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital found that those who do often have multiple symptoms and distinct symptom profiles. The findings, published by Krull et al in the Journal of Clinical...
The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation has presented a gift of $1 million to support the Shirley Sadoff Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Research Acceleration Network 2 Grant. The grant will support a large, multicenter phase II clinical trial studying an immunotherapeutic approach in patients with...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Odejide et al surveyed hematologic oncologists to identify acceptable end-of-life-care quality measures and asked the clinician to identify barriers to such care. Respondents considered unrealistic patient expectations the top barrier to...
A collaboration between multiple European institutions has uncovered a correlation between a rare mutation in colorectal cancers and a better prognosis, raising the possibility that patients with such tumors may not require chemotherapy after surgery. Findings were published by Domingo et al in The ...