Although many commentaries on studies featured in The ASCO Post call for scrutiny of the fine points, this is not the case for the recent report by Antonia et al in The Lancet Oncology (reviewed in the current issue of The ASCO Post).1 This article serves as a well-deserved victory lap for the...
In late 2018, calaspargase pegol-mknl, an asparagine-specific enzyme, was approved for use as a component of a multiagent chemotherapeutic regimen for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in pediatric and young adult patients aged 1 month to 21 years.1,2 The new product provides for a longer interval ...
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Anesthesia Era: 1845–1875 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photograph appears courtesy of Stanley B. Burns, MD, and...
Early in 2019, trifluridine/tipiracil tablets were approved for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma previously treated with at least two prior lines of chemotherapy that included a fluoropyrimidine; a platinum; either a taxane or...
First-line therapy consisting of nivolumab plus ipilimumab showed a consistent safety profile in special populations with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to research presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2019 World Conference on Lung ...
Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors offers a proportion of patients a chance at long-term disease control, resembling cure in some patients. Among the many questions about immunotherapy that remain to be resolved is whether patients who discontinue therapy and develop progressive disease can...
American patients are suffering from an obesity crisis, where it is estimated that 300,000 deaths per year are due to obesity.1 The obesity trend is predicted to worsen, where it is projected that 85% of U.S. adults will be overweight or obese by 2030.2 Consequently, obesity-related illnesses are...
Cancer survivors are at an increased risk of osteoporotic fractures due to the accelerated loss of bone mineral density as a result of their treatment. Bone loss from cancer therapy is faster and more severe than bone less from aging; rates of bone loss are up to sevenfold higher when they occur...
This year’s meeting of the World Cancer Leaders’ Summit: Cancer and Universal Health Coverage, held on October 15–17 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, brought together more than 350 global health leaders, including ministers of health, first ladies, and industry leaders, from 82 countries to discuss how...
In the first-line treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, checkpoint inhibitors led to favorable outcomes in studies reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2019—though one study was technically negative. The current first-line standard of care for unresectable ...
Immune-related colitis is the second most common toxicity associated with checkpoint inhibitors, affecting up to 40% of patients. The ASCO Post interviewed Yinghong Wang, MD, PhD, Director of Medication-Induced Colitis and Enteritis, Director of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation, and Associate...
The term “relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma” is often used to describe advanced myeloma that has progressed through primary or salvage therapy. The International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) defined the term in 2011 as disease that is “nonresponsive while on salvage therapy or progresses...
“There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.” –Orison Swett Marden I was informed that my patient, a 58-year-old man recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and his wife were becoming impatient waiting for me in the exam...
Question 1 Which of the following statements about cytokine-release syndrome and neurotoxicity after tisagenlecleucel infusion is correct? Correct answer: B. The median time to onset of cytokine-release syndrome is 3 days. Expert Perspective Following tisagenlecleucel infusion, cytokine-release...
Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) recently announced the launch of its latest project, ctMoniTR. This pilot project will aim to harmonize the use of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) to monitor treatment response in patients with cancer and test the feasibility of data comparison from different...
In the Japanese phase III NEJ009 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hosomi et al found that the addition of first-line gefitinib to carboplatin/pemetrexed improved progression-free survival vs gefitinib alone in patients with EGFR-mutated metastatic non–small cell lung cancer...
In a phase IIb study (STORM Part 2) reported in TheNew England Journal of Medicine, Ajai Chari, MD, of Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and colleagues found that oral selinexor and dexamethasone were active in some patients with multiple myeloma refractory to prior...
Immune-related colitis is the second most common toxicity associated with checkpoint inhibitors, affecting up to 40% of patients. The ASCO Post interviewed Yinghong Wang, MD, PhD, Director of Medication-Induced Colitis and Enteritis, Director of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation, and Associate...
As reported by Chawla et al in The Lancet Oncology, long-term data from the final analysis of an international phase II study suggest that a favorable risk-benefit ratio is maintained over time with denosumab treatment of patients with giant cell tumor of bone. Benefit of denosumab was indicated in ...
The ESMO Congress continues to grow as a pivotal platform for research in clinical oncology. At the ESMO Congress 2019, important findings were showcased in more than 2,200 studies, including 93 late-breaking abstracts. The ASCO Post summarized much of that news in separate articles over several...
For one of the rarest and most aggressive of tumors—cholangiocarcinoma—two novel molecularly targeted agents yielded encouraging outcomes in advanced disease in studies reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2019. In the phase III ClarIDHy trial, the risk of disease...
Treatment with the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib delayed disease progression and appears to improve survival, compared with newer hormonal agents in men with pretreated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and homologous recombinant repair (HRR) genetic...
In studies reported at the ESMO Congress 2019, immunotherapy yielded encouraging outcomes in two gynecologic cancer populations in need of new treatments, including patients with advanced cervical cancer that is microsatellite-stable and patients previously treated for advanced endometrial cancer. ...
In a phase IIb study (STORM Part 2) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Ajai Chari, MD, of Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and colleagues found that oral selinexor and dexamethasone were active in some patients with multiple myeloma refractory to prior...
Immunotherapy studies reported at the ESMO Congress 2019 yielded encouraging outcomes in patients with advanced cervical cancer that is microsatellite-stable and patients previously treated for advanced endometrial cancer. The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab, with two different dosing...
At the ESMO Congress 2019, ovarian cancer was a topic of heightened interest, particularly due to findings reported in several important phase III studies of PARP inhibitors in front-line maintenance therapy for patients with newly diagnosed advanced disease—and not just those with BRCA mutations....
Data from a new study presented by Singal et al at The Liver Meeting found that patients with cirrhosis in the United States have substantial financial burden and this is associated with underuse of surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (Abstract 201). Improved intervention strategies are ...
A new JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics (JCO CCI) article highlights the challenges in—and need for—obtaining real-world evidence for assessing the effectiveness of precision medicine on areas such as survival, quality of life, cost, and health disparities. The paper, titled “Clinical Molecular...
At the 2019 ASCO Advocacy Summit, ASCO members from 35 states held more than 160 Congressional meetings, urging members of Congress to take action to advance policy priorities that improve patient access to cancer care, including: The Covering Life-Saving Investigations Needed in Cancer and Other...
Ana Oaknin, MD, PhD, Head of the Gynecologic Cancer Program at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, discussed the PRIMA/ENGOT-OV26/GOG-3012 trial along with the results of the phase III PAOLA-1/ENGOT-ov25 trial of olaparib plus bevacizumab maintenance. According to Dr. Oaknin, the...
Although stem cells throughout the body acquire genetic mutations over time, usually these alterations do not affect how the stem cells function or cause disease. However, recent research in clonal hematopoiesis and aging has found an association between clonal expansion of hematopoietic cells with ...
In September 2019, Dr. Claire Harrison and colleagues, myself among them, presented two new analyses regarding the use of the JAK2 and FLT3 inhibitor fedratinib in myelofibrosis at the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO) Annual Meeting, with resulting publication in Clinical Lymphoma, Myeloma...
Lung cancer remains the number one cancer killer, leading to about 150,000 deaths per year in the United States and accounting for approximately 25% of all cancer deaths in the nation. Early detection has improved survival in other malignancies such as breast, colon, and cervical cancers, but...
Third-line treatment with cabazitaxel extended progression-free survival and overall survival in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer in the CARD trial. These results provide the first evidence from a randomized phase III trial for a survival benefit with third-line therapy, and ...
As first-line treatment for women with advanced ovarian cancer, the addition of veliparib during induction followed by veliparib maintenance therapy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression or death in the phase III VELIA/GOG-3005 trial reported at the European Society for Medical...
Men with higher levels of free (biologically active) testosterone and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) in their blood are more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to research presented by Travis et al at the 2019 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference....
A study using a technique called Mendelian randomization to investigate the causal role played by bacteria in the development of colorectal cancer was presented at the 2019 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference. First study author Kaitlin Wade, PhD, of the University of...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Robert J. Motzer, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues, extended follow-up of the phase III CheckMate 214 trial has shown maintained survival benefit of first-line nivolumab/ipilimumab vs sunitinib among patients with...
Inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) are associated with a robust benefit in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, but now the monarcHER trial has confirmed their benefit in the HER2-positive population. The new findings were reported at the...
Two new studies published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics focused on the use of proton radiation therapy to treat patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. The first study, by Sanford et al, found that proton radiation may extend overall survival compared to...
ACCC Honors Seven Cancer Programs With Innovator Awards The Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) honored the recipients of 2019 ACCC Innovator Awards at the ACCC 36th National Oncology Conference, October 30–November 1 in Orlando, Florida, where this year’s honorees shared innovative...
As reported by Alice T. Shaw, MD, and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology, a phase I/II trial has shown overall and intracranial activity of the third-generation ALK and ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor lorlatinib in patients with advanced ROS1-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Lorlatinib...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Plotkin et al found that high-dose bevacizumab induction therapy did not appear to produce better outcomes compared with lower-dose treatment in patients with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) and progressive vestibular schwannomas. As...
“The main goal in ovarian cancer is to avoid relapse after first-line therapy because otherwise, the probability of cure is quite low,” said European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) discussant of the PAOLA-1 trial, Ana Oaknin, MD, PhD, of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona....
In women with newly diagnosed ovarian cancer, front-line maintenance therapy with olaparib plus bevacizumab reduced the risk of disease progression by 41% overall and by 69% in the subset of patients with BRCA-mutated disease, vs bevacizumab and placebo, in the phase III PAOLA-1/ENGOT-ov25 trial...
In metastatic urothelial carcinoma, the bar has been set low, with a median survival of 1 year in cisplatin-eligible patients and 6 to 8 months when platinum-based therapy fails to elicit a response in patients, explained formal study discussant Thomas Powles, MD, PhD, Director, Bart’s Cancer...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, McNeel et al found that a DNA vaccine (pTVG-HP) encoding prostatic acid phosphatase did not improve 2-year metastasis-free survival vs control treatment in patients with progressive, nonmetastatic, castration-sensitive prostate...
The number of approved agents in multiple myeloma has skyrocketed in recent years, leading to significant improvements in survival, but questions remain regarding the optimal duration of treatment. Although traditionally limited to a fixed number of cycles due to accumulating toxicity, novel agents ...
Treatment with olaparib delayed disease progression, and early survival data suggest a positive trend in favor of olaparib compared with newer hormonal agents in men with pretreated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and homologous recombinant repair genetic alterations—specifically...
The investigational MEK inhibitor selumetinib showed clinical activity in adult patients with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1)-associated plexiform neurofibromas, according to preliminary results from an ongoing phase II study presented at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular...