In a single-institution cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Keilty et al identified factors associated with an increased risk of hearing loss in pediatric patients receiving radiation therapy and chemotherapy for central nervous system and head and neck tumors. The study...
Several recent investigations have led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of novel antiandrogens to treat nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Yet, this work has not addressed the treatment of nonmetastatic hormone-sensitive biochemically recurrent prostate...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Burke et al found that dose-adjusted etoposide, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide with vincristine and prednisone plus rituximab (DA-EPOCH-R) did not improve event-free survival vs historical controls in children and adolescents with ...
In a single-center study reported in JAMA Oncology, Daneng Li, MD, and colleagues found that a geriatric assessment–driven intervention (GAIN) was associated with a reduced incidence of grade ≥ 3 adverse events and a higher frequency of completion of advance directives vs standard of care among...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Alexander Melamed, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that improvements in median overall survival have been similar in patients from U.S. cancer programs that did vs did not increase their use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for women with advanced ovarian cancer in...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Pilishvili et al for the Vaccine Effectiveness among Healthcare Personnel Study Team, a case-control study has shown that full vaccination with the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines was highly effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infection in U.S....
Researchers have shown that using a validated risk calculator helped to drive informed treatment decisions in older patients with cancer. Mbewe et al identified the Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG) calculator as a quick and helpful tool in assessing chemotherapy toxicity probability in...
Historically, rates of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have been lower in rural areas than urban regions. However, a recent study published by Zhou et al in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology shows that while cases of HCC have begun slowing in urban communities in the United States, the...
Breast cancer survivors who participated in Active Living After Cancer, an evidence-based 12-week group program, markedly increased their physical activity and ability to accomplish the basic pursuits of daily life, reported Tami-Maury et al in the journal Cancer. The results show the program could ...
In a multicenter cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Hsu et al found that among pancreatic cancer kindreds, individuals with germline ATM pathogenic variants had a sixfold increased risk of developing pancreatic cancer vs noncarriers of pathogenic variants. Study Details The study involved data ...
Every system in the body relies on oxygen. From cognition to digestion, effective breathing not only provides us with a greater sense of mental clarity, but it can also help us sleep better, digest food more efficiently, improve our body’s immune response, and reduce stress levels. According to...
With a population under half a million people, Brunei Darussalam is a small equatorial nation in Southeast Asia. Bordered by the South China Sea on the north, Brunei Darussalam is surrounded on all other sides by Malaysia, which separates the nation into two noncontiguous parts. Nearly two-thirds...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present the Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib, Desai, and DeAngelis explore the treatment of older patients with primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL), which pose...
Katherine Van Loon, MD, MPH, was raised in Miami, until the age of 12, and then her family relocated to Atlanta, where she spent her junior and high school years. “If you ask my parents about my decision to become a doctor, they will say I first declared it at age 5. Nobody knew how that idea came...
Newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma deemed at high risk for disease progression may achieve sustained measurable residual disease (MRD) negativity with newer regimens and transplantation, and this may translate into longer progression-free survival. That’s the key take-away message from...
As ASCO Annual Meeting attendees know by now, clinicians don’t have to be at McCormick Place to hear practice-changing findings and forward-looking advances in the field of oncology. Interesting content was no exception at the 2021 conference, so in addition to covering the biggest news from the...
The first randomized study in patients with malignant pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma has found that sunitinib prolongs progression-free survival by more than 5 months. The late-breaking results of the FIRSTMAPPP trial were presented by Eric Baudin, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the European...
By the time my non–small cell lung cancer was diagnosed in 2004, it had already reached stage IIIB, and I was told there was little that could be done for me. I was 56, a wife, the mother of 3 children, and at the peak of my career as president of Olympian Oil. Although my aunt, brother, and...
Although the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has identified adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer as a distinct patient population from children and older adults with the disease, research into the diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship specific to this patient population has not kept...
The phase II ANCHOR CRC study, the largest prospective study of BRAF inhibitor–based therapy as first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, has met its primary endpoint, with 47.8% of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer responding to first-line treatment with encorafenib,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has amended the emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to allow for the use of a single booster dose to be administered at least 6 months after completion of the primary series in individuals aged 65 years and older;...
In a prospective evaluation of the role of comprehensive geriatric assessment in personalizing therapy for elderly patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), geriatric intervention changed therapeutic choices in about 1 out of 10 patients and played an important...
In an analysis from a Blood or Marrow Transplant Survivor Study cohort reported in JAMA Oncology, Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that late mortality among patients undergoing allogeneic blood or marrow transplantation for hematologic malignancies has declined over the past 40 years,...
It has been well documented that a confluence of many factors, including low-socioeconomic status, contribute to health disparities and worse outcomes in minority patients with cancer. Strategies that partnered community-based health workers with low-income and minority patients with cancer...
In a study reported in JAMA Network Open, Fleming et al found that low skeletal muscle area and high visceral-to-total fat ratio were associated with increased expression of proinflammatory cytokines and VEGF as well as worse 5-year outcomes in patients with nonmetastatic colon cancer. Study...
In the primary analysis of the phase II DESTINY-Gastric02 trial, fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) produced clinically meaningful and durable responses in Western patients with advanced HER2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancers whose disease had progressed after a...
For patients with early-stage hormone receptor–positive breast cancer, extending the duration of letrozole after tamoxifen—for up to 8 years of total endocrine therapy—significantly improved invasive disease–free survival and overall survival over the standard treatment of approximately 5 years of...
New details about patients with cancer who have been infected with COVID-19 have emerged from the large observational OnCOVID study. According to data presented by Alessio Cortellini, MD, and colleagues at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2021 (Abstract 1560O_PR),...
A cancer diagnosis can abruptly and durably alter the course of daily life—not just for the person diagnosed but also for family members. New research presented by Sinen Korbi, MD, and colleagues at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2021 examined the coping mechanisms of...
Investigators from 22 institutions aimed to evaluate the impact of diabetes mellitus in a retrospective cohort of patients with advanced cancer treated with a single-agent immune checkpoint inhibitor. In a report presented by Cortellini et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)...
In advanced ovarian cancer, the duration of maintenance bevacizumab should remain 15 months, according to the European multicenter phase III ENGOT/GCIG trial. These results were presented during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting by Jacobus Pfisterer, MD, PhD, of the AGO Study Group and Gynecologic...
Sentinel lymph node biopsy “had similar diagnostic accuracy and prognostic ability as lymphadenectomy in patients with high-grade endometrial cancer at greatest risk for nodal metastases,” according to the SENTOR trial, a prospective cohort study of 156 patients with clinical stage I disease. Using ...
In the first report from the pivotal phase III KEYNOTE-775/Study 309 trial, the combination of lenvatinib, a multikinase inhibitor of VEGFR1, VEGFR2, and VEGFR3 kinases, and the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab significantly improved multiple outcomes compared with standard single-agent chemotherapy in ...
Disease regression was observed in 82% of women with endometrial hyperplasia with atypia and 43% of women with endometrial cancer after treatment for 6 months with a hormonal intrauterine device, in a phase II study reported during the virtual edition of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO)...
The treatment of recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer has not changed much in recent years, but according to preliminary trials presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress 2020, checkpoint inhibitors and antibody-drug conjugates may become new options. In the...
Although the incidence of cervical cancer has decreased 1.03% a year over the past 17 years in the United States, likely due to screening or vaccination, other human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers are increasing in both men and women, according to a study by Cheng-I Liao, MD, currently of...
The KRAS-specific inhibitor sotorasib achieved responses in patients with KRAS G12C–mutated non–small lung cancer (NSCLC) who had experienced disease progression on platinum-based chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or both treatments. The objective response rate was 37.1%, and responses extended to all...
An updated analysis of the PALOMA-3 randomized, placebo-controlled trial demonstrated continued superiority for the combination of palbociclib (CDK4/6 inhibitor) plus fulvestrant over fulvestrant plus placebo in women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer whose...
In addition to covering the biggest news from the meeting in other articles, The ASCO Post brings you these brief news summaries of notable abstracts in multiple myeloma, lymphoma, and leukemia. Maintenance Daratumumab in Multiple Myeloma Part 2 of the CASSIOPEIA trial in 866 patients with newly...
The combination of fixed-duration, first-line treatment with ibrutinib plus venetoclax achieved complete responses in more than half of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic leukemia (SLL), based on the primary analysis of the fixed-dose cohort of the phase II CAPTIVATE ...
Acalabrutinib was equally efficacious with less toxicity when compared directly with ibrutinib in patients with previously treated relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to the results of an open-label, randomized, noninferiority phase III trial presented at the 2021...
First-line treatment with cemiplimab-rwlc monotherapy improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and objective response rates compared with chemotherapy in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with PD-L1 expression of at least 50% and clinically stable treated brain...
Combination targeting of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) with amivantamab/lazertinib achieved durable responses in more than one-third of chemotherapy-naive patients with EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that had progressed on osimertinib, according to a cohort analysis of the ...
In a phase I trial (ALLCAR19) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Roddie et al found that the fast off-rate autologous CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy CAT19-41BB-Z—also known as AUTO1—was well tolerated and produced high remission rates in adults with relapsed or...
In a single-institution study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Gould Rothberg et al found that establishment of a dedicated cancer urgent care center within a large tertiary academic center resulted in a significant but modest decrease in emergency department use—but no significant reduction in...
In a validation study with data presented at the American Urological Association’s 2021 Annual Meeting, clinician-researchers reported that a new test (miR Sentinel PCC4 Test) may be able to detect and risk-classify prostate cancer at the molecular level with predictive accuracy based on a single...
In an interim analysis of a single-institution study reported in JAMA Network Open, Pavlos Msaouel, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the use of a mobile device application for patient reporting of adverse reactions to immune checkpoint inhibition was feasible. It permitted identification of...
Acalabrutinib was equally efficacious with less toxicity when compared directly with ibrutinib in patients with previously treated relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to the results of an open-label, randomized, noninferiority phase III trial presented at the 2021...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Meletios A. Dimopoulos, MD, of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and colleagues, the phase III APOLLO trial has shown significantly improved progression-free survival with the addition of subcutaneous (SC) daratumumab to oral...
Ovarian cancer is one of the most common gynecologic cancers, with 313,959 new cases and 207,252 deaths reported worldwide in 2020.1 Since there is no effective screening method, ovarian cancer in general is diagnosed in its late stage. The 5-year survival rate in women with ovarian cancer is less...