Among the high-quality abstract presentations at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), a few always stand out as particularly meritorious. Each year, The ASCOPost asks our Associate Editor, breast cancer specialist Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, to give us his picks. Dr. Abraham is Chairman of ...
In an Australian phase III trial (ONTRANS) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Allen et al found that 1 year of treatment with nicotinamide (vitamin B3) vs placebo did not reduce the risk of keratinocyte cancers or actinic keratoses in immunosuppressed solid organ transplant...
After analyzing the U.S. radiation oncology workforce, investigators projected a relative balance between the supply of radiation oncologists and the demand for radiation therapy services through 2030, according to an American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Workforce Taskforce review...
Researchers have found that screening for residual disease prior to a bone marrow transplant may help physicians identify which adult patients in remission from acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are at risk of relapsing after the procedure, according to a novel study published by Dillon et al in JAMA....
Aparna R. Parikh, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center’s Global Cancer Care Program, Boston, shared her thoughts on the C-800 study of balstilimab plus botensilimab with The ASCO Post. Noting that the...
David Wang, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center and VA North Texas Health Care System, was invited to discuss the CheckMate 649 and RATIONALE 305 studies. “CheckMate 649 was the first randomized controlled trial to demonstrate a significant survival...
The 3-year follow-up of the phase III CheckMate 9ER trial demonstrates superior outcomes with the combination of nivolumab plus cabozantinib vs the former standard-of-care sunitinib as first-line treatment of advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma.1 These benefits were achieved with the...
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that public health is the product of one global, integrated ecosystem. Although it is tempting to focus on specific aspects of local health-care systems, or the political or physical environment, health and health care in other countries also impacts the United ...
In 2017, ASCO published a new guideline in the Journal of Clinical Oncology outlining the best practices for communicating effectively with patients and their family members.1 The goal of the communication guideline is to provide oncologists with a framework of specific practices to enable them to...
Studies have shown that although patients with advanced cancer want their oncologists to give them an honest assessment of their prognosis, most patients still perceive their illness as curable.1 And that lack of understanding of their prognosis can lead to reduced use of hospice care and increased ...
The poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor rucaparib prolonged imaging-based progression-free survival vs physician’s choice of therapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer whose tumors harbored BRCA or ATM alterations. These results of the phase III TRITON3 study ...
Formal discussant of the CheckMate 274 trial, Michiel S. Van der Heijden, MD, PhD, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute, said it is an “important” study. “In looking at these results, one should consider the goal of adjuvant therapy in this setting. Is overtreatment of patients cured by surgery...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Eng et al found that exposure to antibiotics within 1 year of starting immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy was associated with poorer survival among patients with cancer who were aged 65 years and older. Study Details The population-based...
Investigators have found that in breast cancer survivors, the cancer’s stage and receptor status may help clinicians predict whether and when cancer might recur after initial treatment, according to a new study published by Neuman et al in Cancer. Study Methods and Results In the new study, the...
Researchers have found that patients with a history of atopic diseases may be less likely to develop melanoma than patients with a history of nonatopic diseases, according to a new study published by Komulainen et al in Melanoma Research. The findings also revealed that patients with atopic...
Patients with lung cancer who have moderate to severe depression may be two to three times more likely to have inflammation levels that predict poor survival rates, according to a new study published by Andersen et al in PLOS One. The findings may help explain why a substantial portion of patients...
Chemotherapy may affect the immune system’s ability to attack tumors in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, according to a new study published by Werba et al in Nature Communications. Background Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is hard to detect and treat, with a 5-year survival rate of ...
Research that addresses the compounding effects of age and race/ethnicity on access to quality health care and patient-centered outcomes such as physical function, frailty, and survival continues to be an emerging area of inquiry in hematology. Accordingly, novel research employing qualitative and...
Investigators found that American Indian/Native American women living in higher-income communities did not have a higher mammography uptake compared with American Indian/Native American women living in lower-income communities, according to a new study published by Christensen et al in the American ...
Researchers have identified nine new genetic variants that may increase the risk of developing prostate cancer in Black patients, according to a novel study published by Chen et al in European Urology. The investigators also found that genetic differences may help determine which patients are most...
In the phase II SWOG Cancer Research Network S1801 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Sapna P. Patel, MD, and colleagues found that neoadjuvant plus adjuvant pembrolizumab significantly improved event-free survival vs adjuvant pembrolizumab alone in patients with stage IIIB to...
More individuals may undergo cancer screenings when employers are mandated to provide paid sick leave, according to a new study published by Callison et al in The New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers found that breast cancer screening rates increased up to 4% and colorectal cancer...
Investigators have demonstrated that, despite some commonly held misperceptions, hormone therapy doesn’t increase patients’ risk of developing lung cancer—and it could help reduce the risk, according to a 16-year population-based study published by Wu et al in Menopause. The findings may help...
Black women at high risk of developing breast cancer may face a variety of obstacles keeping them from receiving preventive care that could increase their chances of survival if they did develop the disease, according to a new study published by Padamsee et al in PLOS One. The new findings provide...
Researchers have discovered that vitamin B5 in combination with existing drugs may be the key to improving outcomes in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and ineffective red blood cell production, according to a novel study published by Mian et al in Science Translational Medicine....
In an analysis reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Zhu et al found that in the United States, Black patients with cancer were at increased risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular (CVD) mortality compared with White patients, and that White patients were at increased risk of both outcomes...
Although patient navigation is increasingly recognized as an important component in the delivery of patient-centered cancer care, the service is not universally available across all cancer programs in the United States, often because of the concerns of extra cost without tangible financial...
Vadim S. Koshkin, MD, and Tanya Jindal, BS, BA, both of the University of California, San Francisco, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discuss results from the retrospective UNITE study of biomarkers of response to the antibody-drug conjugate enfortumab vedotin-ejfv in patients with...
Researchers have found that a safe, inexpensive chemotherapy combination may be better tolerated and more effective at preventing high-grade recurrence in patients with non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer than the standard-of-care bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), according to a novel study published...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wu et al developed models for predicting kidney failure among 5-year survivors of childhood cancer. Study Details In the study, predictive models were developed using data from 25,483 survivors from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS)...
Patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma whose pancreatoduodenectomy is converted to an open (CTO) procedure from a minimally invasive procedure as a result of complications may fare better at institutions that perform more minimally invasive pancreatic cancer surgeries annually, according to ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD, and colleagues, 5-year follow-up from the phase II WSG-ADAPT-TP trial indicated that pathologic complete response (pCR) was associated with better outcomes irrespective of receipt of adjuvant chemotherapy among patients with ...
Researchers have discovered that recent increases in Medicare spending on outpatient end-of-life cancer care may have been driven almost entirely by costs associated with immunotherapy, which is given to fewer than one in five patients, according to a new study published by Mantz et al in the...
Although immune checkpoint inhibitors have substantially improved clinical outcomes in many cancer types, they have also been found to induce immune-related adverse events, including myocarditis, in about 1% of patients receiving the agents, which can lead to a mortality rate of up to 50%. Current...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Anita Y. Kinney, PhD, RN, and colleagues found that a phone-based tailored risk counseling and navigation intervention resulted in a higher proportion of patients with ovarian or high-risk breast cancers receiving cancer genetic risk...
Investigators have found that millions of individuals in the United States continued to miss critical cancer screening tests during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study published by Star et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Compared with 2019 levels, individuals...
Researchers have discovered that few adverse events may be associated with the use of inferior vena cava filters to help prevent deep vein thrombosis from developing into pulmonary embolisms, according to a new study jointly published by Johnson et al in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional...
Andrea Necchi, MD, of Italy’s Vita-Salute San Raffaele University and the IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital and Scientific Institute, discusses new data from the KEYNOTE-057 trial on a novel systemic therapy for papillary high-risk non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The findings suggest that patients...
ASCO has updated its living guidelines for therapy for stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with and without driver alterations based on newly available evidence in the field.1,2 “Living guidelines are becoming more important as the field of oncology expands and developments occur more...
ASCO has endorsed a new guideline from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) on the use of mismatch repair (MMR) and microsatellite instability (MSI) testing, which could help oncologists more accurately identify patients who may be suitable candidates for immune checkpoint inhibitor ...
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis of KIT exon mutations may help to predict which second-line therapy is best for patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), according to data presented during the ASCO Plenary Series: January 2023 Session.1 Exploratory analysis of the phase...
Session co-moderator, Pretesh R. Patel, MD, Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, shared his thoughts on the Neo-AEGIS1 findings with The ASCO Post. “I think we continue to have equipoise about chemoradiation and perioperative chemotherapy in...
Invited discussant Laura Goff, MD, MSCI, Associate Professor of Medicine and Executive Medical Director for the Cancer Patient Care Center at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville, said that with the results of NAPOLI-3, clinicians have a third effective first-line regimen for metastatic...
Burkitt lymphoma (BL) is a fascinating disease from which many groundbreaking medical and oncologic lessons have been learned. Since the Irish surgeon Denis P. Burkitt, MD, FRCS, FRS, first described rapidly enlarging jaw and facial tumors in Ugandan children in 1958,1 the study of BL has led to...
In its programming for the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, ASCO included a special Education Session on “Gender-Based and Sexual Orientation Inequities: Promoting Inclusion, Visibility, and Data Accuracy in Oncology.” The session offered a comprehensive discussion on the challenges that sexual and gender ...
Paul L. Nguyen, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, discusses results from the FORMULA-509 study, which compared postoperative salvage radiotherapy and 6 months of GnRH agonist with or without abiraterone acetate/prednisone (AAP) and apalutamide, after radical...
Investigators have estimated the environmental impacts of prostate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and prostate biopsies, according to a new study published by Michael S. Leapman, MD, MHS, and colleagues in European Urology. The findings suggest that more carefully selecting patients for...
Researchers have discovered that whole-genome sequencing—rather than the current standard of exome sequencing—may allow physicians to better identify genetic changes that drive cancer development and growth, and create the most effective, personalized treatment plans for patients with classical...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Rodriguez‑Otero et al, an interim analysis of the phase III KarMMa-3 trial showed superior progression-free survival with the B-cell maturation antigen–directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy idecabtagene vicleucel (ide-cel) vs...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Buske et al, the European Consortium for Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia (ECWM)-1 study has shown a numeric benefit in progression-free survival with the addition of bortezomib to dexamethasone, rituximab, and cyclophosphamide (DRC; B-DRC) in the...