Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has revolutionized the treatment of blood cancers, including certain leukemias, lymphomas, and multiple myeloma. However, Black and Hispanic patients were largely absent from the major clinical trials that led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has released the latest recommendations from the NCCN Advisory Committee on COVID-19 Vaccination and Pre-exposure Prophylaxis. The updated recommendations point to two booster vaccine doses for people who are immunocompromised (meaning three...
On this episode, we’ll continue our coverage of the American Association for Cancer Research, or AACR, Annual Meeting. We’ll hear from three specialists on the future of cancer research and treatment; the development of novel therapeutic strategies to target DNA damage response; and an overview of...
Contrary to what has been assumed, all recurrences of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are not genetically the same, according to a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022.1 Almost 20% of ipsilateral recurrences found in the study were genetically...
Two new, large studies led by researchers at the American Cancer Society showed an increase in the use of proton-beam therapy for patients with cancer in the United States during the past decade. However, Black patients were less likely to receive proton-beam therapy than White patients, and the...
Breast density is one factor in assessing a person’s risk of developing breast cancer. Existing breast density notification laws have increased awareness among patients and providers, but clinical records had not been incorporated in studies to confirm the accuracy of personal breast density...
One month after Russia invaded Ukraine, on March 21, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis welcomed four Ukrainian children with cancer to be treated in the United States. Two of the children are pictured in the photos below. The four children, aged 20 months to 8 years old, traveled to...
The Iranian revolution of 1979 transformed Iran from an absolute monarchy under Shah Mohammad Pahlavi to an Islamist republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. The author of a new book called The Magic of Normal, Maky Zanganeh, PhD, was born in Iran in 1970. As a young woman, she experienced the war in her ...
For older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), front-line treatment with liposomal daunorubicin/cytarabine (CPX-351) appears to be equivalent to treatment with a hypomethylating agent plus venetoclax, according to data presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting ...
Editor’s Note: The following is adapted from Dr. Hrynkiv’s presentation at the March 18 ASCO/ECO Briefing: Cancer Care During the War in Ukraine. Find resources for impacted patients and providers at asco.org/ukraine and onco-help.org. Official statistics regarding damage and losses in Ukraine are...
Abstract discussant, Angela DeMichele, MD, MSCE, the Alan and Jill Miller Professor in Breast Cancer Excellence at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, complimented the study design and conduct of the ABC trial while exploring several possible...
Taking aspirin daily does not prevent breast cancer recurrence, according to research presented during the February ASCO Plenary Series Program.1 Results of the double-blind phase III study of more than 3,000 patients with high-risk, HER2-negative breast cancer showed no improvement in invasive...
The invited discussant of the phase III ENGOT-EN5/GOG-3055/SIENDO trial was Amit M. Oza, MD, MBBS, Head of the Division of Medical Oncology & Hematology at University Health Network/Mount Sinai, Director of Clinical Research and Clinical Cancer Research Unit at Princess Margaret Hospital, and ...
Elizabeth Plimack, MD, MS, has been appointed to Deputy Director at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, according to Jonathan Chernoff, MD, PhD, Cancer Center Director at Fox Chase. Dr. Plimack is Chief of the Division of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Professor in the Department of...
Over the past 15 years, public health authorities have downgraded recommendations for the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test as a screening tool to reduce the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of men with low-grade prostate cancer. Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine have found that while these ...
Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, discussant of the CHOICE-01 trial, underscored the “tremendous progress” that’s been made over the past 2 decades in the management of metastatic non–small cell lung cancer, with overall survival increasing from less than 1 year with the use of combination chemotherapy to...
Genetics and other factors that can determine if a woman is at risk for a recurrence of breast cancer have been identified by investigators at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, providing new research avenues for preventing a new tumor from developing. The discovery was made possible...
Imagine this. You are a large pharmaceutical company that launches an international randomized phase III trial to assess whether one of your drugs improves the outcome of patients with a common type of cancer. The trial was solidly backed by preclinical evidence that the drug target was essential ...
New findings from a large national study led by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS) show cancer survivors in the United States who reported medical financial hardship had a higher mortality risk than cancer survivors without financial hardship. Medical financial hardship was measured...
On July 21, 2021, the Oncology Center of Excellence at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) convened a panel discussion entitled “Conversations on Cancer” to address the significant cancer disparities facing Asian Americans. The virtual “conversation” focused on the unfair burden impacting...
The Board of Directors for the King Hussein Award for Cancer Research is currently accepting applications for its 2022 honorees. Established in 2020 in memory of His Majesty the late King Hussein bin Talal of Jordan, the award promotes and celebrates cancer research efforts across the Arab world,...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Kana et al found that changes to Medicaid dental benefits in California from comprehensive to emergency services—and then back to comprehensive—were associated with reduced, then increased, percentages of cases of oral cavity cancer...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology: Colorectal Cancer Screening have recently incorporated significant changes, reflecting recommendations that will spare some patients unnecessary interventions and, in other cases, detect cancer earlier. The ...
Two presentations given at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022 focused on promising strategies for making breakthrough immunotherapies work for more patients. Both studies report findings from clinical trials that advance a novel immunotherapy platform in...
In an analysis from the French prospective CANTO study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vaz-Luis et al identified three trajectory groups for the risk of severe global fatigue over time among women treated for breast cancer, consisting of a high-risk group, deteriorating group, and...
Most immunocompromised people with multiple myeloma benefited from a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines—a promising sign after it was shown that two doses tended to not be sufficient for them. However, some people with multiple myeloma still remained vulnerable and may need a fourth dose or antibody...
Preliminary data from an artificial intelligence (AI) model could potentially predict side effects resulting from new combination therapies, according to results presented by Küçükosmanoğlu et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022 (Abstract 6312). “Clinicians ...
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new bioinformatics platform that predicts optimal treatment combinations for a given group of patients based on co-occurring tumor alterations. In retrospective validation studies, the tool selected combinations that...
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells from patients whose cancers did not respond to CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy had gene regulation signatures that could potentially facilitate treatment resistance, according to results presented at the American Association for...
CoVac-1, a new vaccine against SARS–CoV-2, induced T-cell immune responses in 93% of patients with B-cell deficiencies, including many patients with leukemia and lymphoma, according to results presented by Tandler et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022...
Combination immunotherapy with the anti–PD-L1 monoclonal antibody durvalumab and other novel agents outperforms durvalumab alone in the neoadjuvant setting for early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to research presented by Cascone et al at the American Association for Cancer...
A new chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product had an acceptable safety profile and showed early signs of efficacy as a monotherapy and in combination with an mRNA vaccine in patients with solid tumors, according to preliminary data from a phase I/II clinical trial presented by Haanen et al...
The accuracy of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for prostate cancer could be improved by accounting for genetic factors that cause changes in PSA levels not associated with cancer, according to data presented by Kachuri et al during the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)...
Natural killer (NK) cells derived from donated umbilical cord blood and activated with a novel bispecific antibody known as AFM13 (which targets CD16A and CD30) were shown to be effective in patients with pretreated and refractory CD30-positive lymphoma. The overall response rate was 89% in...
Sotorasib, the first KRAS G12C inhibitor approved for the treatment of KRAS G12C–mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), continues to demonstrate meaningful and durable efficacy at 2-year follow-up in the phase II CodeBreaK 100 trial. At a median follow-up of 15.3 months, 2-year overall...
During the first 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, patients with pediatric cancer from lower- and middle-income countries faced a higher risk of all-cause mortality than those in high-income countries, according to data presented by Elhadi et al at the American Association for Cancer Research...
A variant of the CTLA-4 gene associated with autoimmune disease was found to be more frequent in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who experienced an exceptionally high response to anti–PD-1 immunotherapy and a higher rate of immune-related side effects than in a comparable cohort of ...
More than 10% of cases of recurrent ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) of the breast were de novo tumors that occurred independently of the primary lesion and had distinct genetic alterations, according to data presented by Kader et al during the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
Recently, I had the honor of coauthoring a chapter with Eric P. Winer, MD, President-Elect of ASCO, on the evolution of clinical cancer care since the enactment of the National Care Act of 1971 for the book A New Deal for Cancer: Lessons From a 50-Year War, by Abbe R. Gluck and Charles S. Fuchs,...
The OlympiA trial of adjuvant olaparib in patients with HER2-negative, high-risk early-stage breast cancer and BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations has now demonstrated a significant overall survival benefit, reducing the risk of death over placebo by 32% and yielding an absolute improvement of 3.8% at 3...
President Biden is soon expected to sign into law the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 omnibus funding bill, which provides funding for all federal agencies through September 30, 2022. The bill was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate during the week of March 7, 2022. The bill...
A rapid recommendation update to an ASCO guideline offers revised parameters for adjuvant therapy in patients with resected non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have stage IB to IIIA disease.1,2 The new guidance reflects the findings from two randomized clinical trials that assessed the use of...
“Refugees and displaced people may see their cancer treatment interrupted, or they may develop a new cancer while they are in host countries. They often present with advanced disease and suffer more complications. These patients have poor outcomes because of poor hygiene and living conditions, as...
In 1999, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) President Paul Marks, MD, recruited Barrie Cassileth, PhD, to establish an Integrative Medicine Service that “provided evidence-based complementary therapies that improve patients’ quality of life by alleviating physical and emotional symptoms...
The National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS) announced the launch of its new flagship research initiative, the DNA Damage Response Consortium, in partnership with Yale Cancer Center. The consortium will bring together a diverse team of adult and pediatric researchers to advance a new class of potential...
Although The Social Conquest of Earth was published a decade ago, it is worth revisiting, because, as oncology luminary Harold Varmus, MD, stressed: “It is a tour de force that we ignore at our planet’s peril.” Its author, Edward O. Wilson, PhD, known as “the father of sociobiology,” died at the...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present the Hematology Expert Review, an occasional feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib, Kröger, and Mikulska focus on the challenges of providing cancer care amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Here they present two...
The American Cancer Society has awarded more than $16 million in grants to establish Cancer Health Equity Research Centers (CHERC) at minority-serving institutions. The inaugural cohort of institutions includes the Arizona Board of Regents–University of Arizona, the University of Illinois at...
New research published by Lowry et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network found the rate of mammography participation by breast cancer survivors has been steadily declining since 2009, particularly among younger survivors. The researchers reviewed a nationwide commercial...
Advanced radiotherapy techniques may reduce the risk of severe and debilitating toxicity associated with radiation, but not all patients have equal access to these modalities, according to data presented at the 2022 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1 Retrospective analysis of the...