Pancreaticoduodenectomy, or the Whipple procedure, is one of the most complex abdominal surgeries, and is commonly prescribed as a first line of therapy for cancer located within the pancreatic head. Investigators reported that following a 5-day accelerated recovery pathway after surgery helped to...
Each year, The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, to offer his picks for the most important research presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer ...
World Cancer Day 2019—February 4—highlights the need for urgent action to increase early-stage cancer detection, screening, and diagnosis to significantly improve patients’ chances of survival. Taking place with the theme of “I Am and I Will,” World Cancer...
Harry H. Yoon, MD, Associate Professor of Oncology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, the invited discussant of the study presented by Janjigan et al, commented on the strong rationale for combining an anti-HER2 agent, anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) agent, and chemotherapy....
As reported by Solomon et al in The Lancet Oncology1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, results from a global phase II study of the third-generation ALK inhibitor lorlatinib showed a high overall response rate and high intracranial response rate for patients with advanced ALK-positive...
KEYNOTE-181’s invited discussant, Harry H. Yoon, MD, Associate Professor of Oncology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, said the findings have a “potentially immediate clinical impact” for second-line treatment of esophageal cancer, including esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and Siewert...
Injection of a genetically modified virus that induces the body’s own immune cells to attack metastatic melanoma effectively treated almost 40% of patients with tumors that could not be surgically removed, according to findings published by Louie et al in the Journal of the American...
In a retrospective study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pui et al found that minimal residual disease (MRD)-negative status, high hypodiploidy with 44 chromosomes, and MRD-stratified treatment were associated with improved outcomes among children treated for newly diagnosed...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval for a new indication for pemetrexed (Alimta) for injection in combination with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and platinum chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell...
Over the past year, major research advances provided new treatment options for patients with rare, difficult-to-treat cancers. In recognition of these achievements, ASCO named “Progress in Treating Rare Cancers” as the Advance of the Year. To continue the forward momentum, ASCO also...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted the following application, designations, and clearance: sBLA for Atezolizumab Plus Chemotherapy for First-Line Treatment of Metastatic, Nonsquamous NSCLC On January 17, the FDA accepted a supplemental biologics license application...
Barrett’s esophagus is the only known precursor of esophageal adenocarcinoma. Although endoscopy and biopsy are standard methods for diagnosing Barrett’s esophagus, their high cost and risk limit their use as a screening modality. Researchers sought to develop a screening method based...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Surgery, Eaglehouse et al found that time to breast cancer surgery was delayed for non-Hispanic black vs non-Hispanic white women in the Military Health System but that this difference did not account for poorer overall survival in non-Hispanic black ...
A new report published by Wang et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network found that using Oncotype DX—the most commonly used test for predicting the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy to reduce the risk of disease recurrence—is not...
In a letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, Goodman et al reported a long-term follow-up of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial indicating that finasteride treatment was not associated with an increased risk of death from prostate cancer. Study Details As previously...
As reported by Willemze and colleagues in Blood, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) have released a 2018 update of their classification of primary cutaneous lymphomas. As noted by the authors, “Primary cutaneous...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed V. Shanta, MD, an internationally renowned oncologist and Chairperson of the Cancer Institute in Adyar, Chennai, India. Dr. Shanta has been with the Institute since 1955, holding several positions...
EMAD S. ALNEMRI, PhD, Thomas Eakins Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. The 2018 fellows will be inducted in a ceremony in April 2019, at the Space Center Houston during...
Peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCLs) make up a small fraction of all non-Hodgkin lymphomas—just 15%—in the United States.1 Although rare in the United States, the incidence of PTCL is common across Asia, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. Although the reason for such global variation in PTCL is...
THE IMPASSION130 trial—reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Schmid et al1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—was an eagerly awaited study in newly diagnosed metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. To briefly review, 902 patients were randomly assigned in a 1:1 fashion to...
AS REPORTED in The New England Journal of Medicine by Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, of the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, and colleagues, the phase III IMpassion130 trial has shown that the addition of atezolizumab to nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel significantly...
Surgery is an integral part of treatment of elderly patients with solid malignancies. The times we are living in will be remembered by health-care providers for the significant “contradictions” in the medical and surgical care of elderly patients with cancer. On the one hand, it has been...
“SURGEONS AND radiation oncologists are obsessed with locoregional recurrence of breast cancer,” Monica Morrow, MD, FASCO, remarked at the 2018 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium, Chicago. Working to prevent locoregional recurrence, “even if it may not be the major threat to mortality, is...
At a time of unprecedented advances in the science of cancer, growing complexity in cancer treatments, and ongoing health policy fluctuation, the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) 9th annual Trending Now in Cancer Care survey reveals how cancer programs across the country are ...
In a news item reported in The Lancet Oncology, The Lancet journalist Manjulika Das reviewed two U.S. retrospective studies indicating that patients diagnosed with cancer are at increased risk of suicide. High Standardized Mortality Ratio In one study, published by Zaorsky et al in Nature...
ADJUVANT CAPECITABINE added to standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy failed to significantly improve disease-free or overall survival in patients with early triple-negative breast cancer in the large phase III CIBOMA/2004-01_GEICAM/2003-11 (CIBOMA/GEICAM) trial.1 However, extended treatment with...
IMMUNOTHERAPY HAS revolutionized the treatment of lung cancer over the past several years. Although lung cancer is associated with immunosuppression at baseline for most patients, the addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors can overcome that suppression and lead to antitumor immune responses....
IT IS TIME for value-based prescribing—the reduction of prescribing costs using basic pharmacologic principles—to be tested and deployed in oncology. The savings are real and there for the taking. If you are concerned about the high costs in cancer care, here is a chance to get maximum value for...
A VERY LOW DOSE of tamoxifen—5 mg/d, given for 3 years rather than 5 years—halved the risk of breast cancer recurrence or new lesions over placebo in women with breast intraepithelial neoplasia, without producing the usual toxicities seen with the standard dose, Italian researchers reported at the...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Internal Medicine, Goodwin et al found that only a small proportion of Medicare enrollees undergoing low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer had a prescreening shared decision-making session, which is mandated by the Centers for...
Forty-six medical advocacy organization and professional societies have called on President Donald Trump, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to end the government shutdown and, in...
On January 22, 23andMe received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for a genetic health risk report on MUTYH-associated polyposis, a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome. The clearance follows the FDA’s authorization for 23andMe’s BRCA1/BRCA2 (Selected Variants)...
Andrew X. Zhu, MD, PhD, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses phase II/III study findings on neoadjuvant chemotherapy with gemcitabine and S-1 vs upfront surgery for resectable pancreatic cancer (Abstract 189).
Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses phase III study findings on S-1/oxaliplatin vs uracil and tegafur/leucovorin as adjuvant chemotherapy for high-risk stage III colon cancer (Abstract 484).
Investigators have identified multiple new subtypes of the most common childhood cancer, B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)—research that has the potential to improve the diagnosis and treatment of high-risk patients. Researchers used integrated genomic analysis, including...
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. Eugenie Spiguel, MSN, ANP-BC, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, explore the use of valerian for...
Here is an update on several different studies focusing on novel treatments for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The featured therapeutics include the oral agent selinexor in...
Pembrolizumab significantly improved overall survival in the second-line setting of advanced esophageal cancer in patients whose tumors tested positive for programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) with a combined positive score (CPS) of 10 or greater. This was compared to investigator’s choice...
A phase II/III trial presented by Unno et al at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (Abstract 189) sought to compare neoadjuvant chemotherapy (using gemcitabine and the oral fluoropyrimidine combination of tegafur/gimeracil/oteracil [S-1]) to upfront surgery in patients with histologic ...
Ever since President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law on March 23, 2010, the nondiscrimination provision of the law, Section 1557, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability in certain health ...
A subset of patients with aggressive prostate cancer are carriers of germline BRCA2 mutations, which are also linked to hereditary breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and pancreatic cancer. Study findings also showed family members of patients with prostate cancer who carry BRCA2 and DNA-repair...
Researchers have identified a new potential immunotherapy target in pancreatic cancer, which so far has been notoriously resistant to treatment with immune checkpoint blockade drugs effective against a variety of other cancers. A research team from The University of Texas MD Anderson ...
Patients diagnosed with cancer who also have other illnesses or conditions, such as hypertension, asthma, or a prior cancer, are less likely to talk with their health-care provider about a cancer clinical trial, are less likely to be offered to join a clinical trial, and are ultimately less likely...
On January 14, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cabozantinib (Cabometyx) tablets for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with sorafenib. The FDA’s approval of cabozantinib was based on results from the phase III CELESTIAL trial....
Among African American adults undergoing liver transplant to treat hepatocellular carcinoma, patients whose organ donor was also African American lived significantly longer than those with a racially unmatched donor, report authors of a new study using national data. Their findings were published...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Reck et al, an updated analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-024 trial indicates continued overall survival benefit of first-line pembrolizumab vs platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a...
A global resource that includes data on thousands of inherited variants in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes is available to the public. The BRCA Exchange was created through the BRCA Challenge, a long-term demonstration project initiated by the Global Alliance for Genomics and...
A study investigating how to identify and treat patients with high- and low-risk human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma has demonstrated variations in HPV-related molecules among HPV-positive cases of the disease. Using their findings, the investigators developed a ...
Global Cancer Institute recently announced the results of its Patient Navigation Program in Mexico City. The average time to referral before the program’s inception was 5 months, but the implementation of patient navigators reduced that average to 7 days. These findings were published by ...
Findings from a new study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) show that patients treated with chemotherapy for most solid tumors from 2000 to 2014 experienced an increased risk of therapy-related myelodysplastic syndrome/acute myeloid leukemia (MDS/AML). The study, which used U.S. ...