In less than a decade, immunotherapy has reshaped the treatment landscape of cancer, but some histologies tend to be more responsive to this modality than others. During the Society of Surgical Oncology 2022 International Conference on Surgical Care, Yuman Fong, MD, of the City of Hope Medical...
According to Cancer Research UK, over 52,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year in the UK, and there are more than 12,000 deaths. Over three-quarters (78%) of men diagnosed with the disease survive for over 10 years, but this proportion has barely changed over the past decade in the...
A study released by the University of Colorado Cancer Center showed that more than 70% of patients with breast cancer have reported changes that affect their sexual health during and beyond treatment. The study was published by Huynh et al in the Annals of Surgical Oncology. Study Background “More...
A new study led by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS), shows serious smoking cessation activity declined among adults in the United States immediately after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and persisted for more than a year. Declines in attempts to quit smoking were largest among...
A study looking at the correlation between daily insulin dose and cancer incidence among patients with type 1 diabetes found that higher insulin dose is positively associated with cancer incidence and that the association is stronger among those with insulin resistance. The results were published...
Physicians and researchers from UK HealthCare's Transplant Center and the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center conducted a study of patients over age 70 with hepatocellular carcinoma to examine how the outcomes of ablative treatments compare to liver transplants. The findings were published...
Women make up just 37.7% of all speakers at hematology and medical oncology board review lectures, according to a study published in Blood Advances. The findings call attention to the many barriers people underrepresented in medicine face in obtaining educational opportunities that can be vital to...
A recent survey shows that only 40% of Americans are concerned that they might get lung cancer, and only about one in five have talked to their doctor about their risk for the disease, despite lung cancer being the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. The 2022 Lung Health Barometer, ...
Patients seeking to purchase chemotherapy drugs online face a confusing array of websites, over half of which potentially operate unsafely or illegally, according to a study published by Sun et al in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. A survey of online pharmacies claiming...
Patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head or neck were 93% less likely to die of any cause during the first 3 years after diagnosis if they ate a healthy diet high in nutrients found to deter chronic disease, according to results published by Vieytes et al in Frontiers in Nutrition. The...
The invited discussant of the ATLAS trial, Peter M. Voorhees, MD, Professor of Medicine, Chief of the Plasma Cell Disorders Division, at Levine Cancer Institute and Atrium Health/Wake Forest Baptist in North Carolina, applauded the very good outcomes achieved in the study.1 However, he posed the...
For newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma participating in the international phase III ATLAS trial, use of carfilzomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (KRd) as maintenance therapy after induction and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) significantly reduced the risk of disease...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Kevin Billingsley, MD, MBA, FACS, Chief Medical Officer of the Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center. Although interracial marriage is common in the United States...
A team of researchers believe they have identified a cell-signaling pathway responsible for the development of esophageal adenocarcinomas, an aggressive type of esophageal cancer that has gradually become more common, even in younger people. Research published by Venkitachalam et al in...
A diverse and well-prepared leadership workforce in the nation’s cancer centers is vital to tackle challenges in the delivery of equitable cancer care delivery. Recognizing this, the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI) examined the diversity among cancer center leaders and found...
Frequent aspirin use may be linked with lower ovarian cancer risk in individuals with multiple risk factors, according to a new study published by Hurwitz et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Ovarian cancer is the most fatal gynecologic cancer. Most known risk factors of ovarian cancer—such...
Researchers studying the molecular landscape of over 500 patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma discovered a prevalence of activated key oncogenic pathways in these patients—much more than previously thought. Upward of 45% to 65% of NF-κB and RAS/MAPK pathways each had alterations....
The invited discussant of the CAIRO5 presentation at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting was Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, FASCO, Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville. Dr. Eng explained the key questions being asked by the investigators. “If you have a...
1,2-Dichloropropane (1,2-DCP) is a synthetic organic solvent used in the printing industry. It was linked to cholangiocarcinoma in 2013, when printing company employees in Osaka, Japan, exposed to 1,2-DCP were diagnosed with the cancer. Thereafter, the International Agency for Research on Cancer...
Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) who previously developed a blood test for mutations in a gene linked to gliomas have now applied their technology to detect additional mutations—in this case, in the gene that codes for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The advance,...
The invited discussant of PALOMA-2 was Claudine Isaacs, MD, Professor of Medicine and Oncology at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Dr. Isaacs examined the findings in context of the MONALEESA trials, which showed an overall survival benefit with...
In some patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, downstaging of disease to within criteria that qualify the patient for a liver transplant leads to excellent 10-year posttransplant outcomes, according to new research published by Tabrizian et al in JAMA Surgery. The results validate current national ...
From June 10 to 15, delegates from the Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) participated in the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Medical Association’s (AMA) House of Delegates (HOD). The AMA HOD is the principal policy-making body of AMA and meets twice a year to discuss pressing issues and...
ASCO has issued a new practice guideline update on the use of systemic therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer, just 4 years after the previous practice guideline update was released in 2018.1,2 This latest update reviews results from multiple clinical trials published between 2016 and 2021 that...
For some patients aged 55 or older with early-stage, low-risk breast cancer, endocrine therapy following breast-conserving surgery may be sufficient without the need for postoperative radiation therapy, according to the results of the prospective LUMINA trial, reported at the 2022 ASCO Annual...
Even as soaring medical costs strain public and private budgets around the world, patients yearn for therapeutic breakthroughs. Game-changing cancer treatments, emerging antiviral agents, and mRNA vaccines are powerful reminders of medical technology’s potential. But insurance premiums and...
It has been 14 years since a collaboration between the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Pfizer identified a unique role for cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive human cell line models and demonstrated that these agents act...
A multitude of presentations were available to attendees at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, including hundreds in the hematologic malignancies tracks. In addition to coverage in The ASCO Post of the major news stories at the meeting, here we offer summaries of additional studies of special interest...
Time-limited venetoclax-based regimens provide deeper and more durable remissions than chemoimmunotherapy combinations in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), regardless of patients’ fitness, according to late-breaking data presented during the European Hematology...
Researchers have discovered that a protein associated with metabolism—and formerly recognized as a potential therapeutic target for ovarian cancer—may instead be associated with a better prognosis for patients with the malignancy. In a report published by Clemente et al in Cancer Research...
A new Survivor Views survey from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) showed that a majority of respondents (83%) who had applied to a copay assistance program and were accepted said the assistance enables them to get the medication they otherwise couldn’t afford. However,...
Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, Chief Executive Officer of ASCO, issued the following statement on July 21: ASCO applauds President Biden for his reported decision to appoint ASCO Past President Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, FASCO, as the new Director of the National Cancer Institute...
In the phase III EVEREST trial, adjuvant everolimus improved median recurrence-free survival in patients with resected renal cell carcinoma (RCC), but this finding failed to be statistically significant in the total study population of 1,499 patients, according to a prespecified boundary. However,...
Assessing the thickness of melanoma is difficult—whether done by an experienced dermatologist or a well-trained machine-learning algorithm. A study published by Polesie et al in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology showed that an algorithm and a group of approximately...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Syed Ali Abutalib and L. Jeffrey Medeiros explore the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissue...
In countries with a high income, research in oncology is sponsored by funding agencies and industry, which has meaningfully improved survival outcomes of patients with cancer. In contrast, the African continent is disadvantaged in all aspects of human development, particularly in the fields of...
In this installment of Living a Full Life, Guest Editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Mark A. Lewis, MD, Director of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Intermountain Healthcare, Murray, Utah, and Vice President of American Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Support. Dr. Lewis is also a social media...
CancerCare has released a report entitled “Cancer Caregivers: National Research Report on Shared Treatment Decision-Making.” It details the findings of its caregiver decision-making survey, which polled a nationally representative sample of 2,703 cancer caregivers between February and July 2021....
Caregivers for patients with multiple myeloma may suffer from higher rates of anxiety and depression than patients themselves, according to a new study published by O’Donnell in Blood Advances. Although medical professionals have long acknowledged the toll a serious or terminal diagnosis can have...
Guest Editor’s Note: Despite the increasing use of complementary modalities that include mind-body therapies and natural products, significant disparities exist in integrative health care. Contributing factors include access to care and affordability. In this installment of The ASCO Post’s...
In an analysis that evaluated the outcomes of anticancer drug studies in the advanced disease setting with regard to patient quality of life (QOL), improved QOL outcomes were associated with improved overall survival but not with improved progression-free survival. Almost half of the studies that...
Researchers analyzed data from each of the 5,329 patients across the United States who used medical aid in dying in the 23 years after Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice (in 1997) and found one demographic dominates the group: well-educated, White patients with cancer. These...
The effective treatment of patients with brain metastases is an unmet need because, until fairly recently, patients with brain metastases were excluded from clinical trials of systemic therapies. However, the emergence of molecular targeted therapies has allowed a new treatment approach in patients ...
Invited discussant Susan Slovin, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, pointed out there are no relevant serum biomarkers for disease progression and the challenges of interpreting response in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. “We should have more definitive...
Lutetium-177–labeled PSMA-617 (LuPSMA; lutetium Lu 177 vipivotide tetraxetan) achieved longer progression-free survival with fewer toxicities compared with cabazitaxel in patients with prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer whose disease...
On July 13, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine, adjuvanted, for the prevention of COVID-19 caused by SARS–CoV-2 in individuals aged 18 years and older. “Authorizing an additional COVID-19 vaccine expands the...
A study that surveyed cancer screening data included in medical journals worldwide from January 2020 into December 2021 showed significant decreases in the number of screenings for breast, colorectal, and cervical cancers during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of the study,...
On July 13, President Joe Biden announced his intent to appoint Mitchel Berger, MD; Carol Brown, MD; and Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD, to the President’s Cancer Panel. The three are distinguished members of the scientific, research, and public health communities appointed by the President to advise him...
In a pooled analysis of patients with follicular lymphoma treated in National Clinical Trials Network trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rutherford et al found evidence that bone marrow biopsies can be avoided in response assessment. The investigators stated, “Bone marrow biopsies ...
“BCMA-targeting bispecific antibodies work, showing impressive single-agent activity in heavily pretreated multiple myeloma. This class of agents is likely to become an important component of future antimyeloma therapies, but we must learn how to optimally use them,” said Madhav V. Dhodapkar,...