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...
The risk of self-harm after incident psychiatric disorder diagnosis in patients with 26 cancer types and the risk of unnatural deaths after self-harm were examined in 459,542 individuals in a study published by Chang et al in Nature Medicine. Patients with cancer may experience substantial...
In a small multi-institutional study, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system improved providers’ assessments of whether patients with bladder cancer had complete response to chemotherapy before a radical cystectomy. These findings were published by Sun et al in Tomography. Yet the researchers ...
In the article “OlympiA Trial: Adjuvant Olaparib Significantly Improves Overall Survival in Germline BRCA-Mutated Breast Cancer,” which began on page 1 of the April 10 issue of The ASCO Post, a few unfortunate errors appeared, notably an incorrect P value for the overall survival comparison (after...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) awarded the 2022 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research to Tony Hunter, PhD, FAACR, Fellow of the AACR Academy, at its Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Dr. Hunter is the American Cancer Society Professor and Renato Dulbecco Chair at ...
The members of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) have chosen Philip D. Greenberg, MD, FAACR, as the Association’s President-Elect for 2022–2023. Dr. Greenberg is the Rona Jaffe Foundation Endowed Chair and Professor and Head of the Program in Immunology, Clinical Research...
Norman E. Sharpless, MD, has announced that he has decided to step down from his position as Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a position he has held since 2017. Dr. Sharpless will continue as NCI Director through April 29, 2022, to...
Cervical cancer screening has reduced new cases and deaths from the disease over the past 50 years. However, the percentage of women in the United States who are overdue for cervical cancer screening has been growing, and the reasons have not been clear. To better understand the decline in cervical ...
Andrew Chapman, DO, FACP, has been named Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, with locations in Philadelphia and nearby areas in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He has also been named the Center’s Executive Vice President for Oncology Services. He has served as the Center’s...
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 ...
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...
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,...
Cheryl L. Willman, MD, of the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the profound cancer health disparities among Native Americans, exacerbated by low rates of screening and limited access to care. Dr. Willman is heading an effort to promote community engagement in comprehensive genomic ...
Zev Wainberg, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles Medical Center, discusses preliminary data on the safety and efficacy of TTX-030, an anti-CD39 antibody, in combination with budigalimab and FOLFOX for the first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic gastric or...
David A. Barbie, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses his laboratory’s studies, showing that malignant pleural mesothelioma, an inflamed cancer type with marginal response to immune checkpoint blockade, demonstrated high tumor cell STING expression and response to STING agonists in...
Jia Luo, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the emerging class of cancer therapies for allele-specific KRAS inhibitors and the importance of their distinct clinical, genomic, and immunologic features. Because KRAS G12D–mutated non–small cell lung cancer is associated with worse...
Artificial intelligence (AI) reduced the rate at which precancerous polyps were missed in colorectal cancer screening by twofold, reported a team of international researchers in a study published by Wallace et al in Gastroenterology. Between February 2020 and May 2021, 230 study participants were...
Ann S. LaCasce, MD, MMSc, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the various agents available to treat patients with indolent B-cell lymphomas: lenalidomide plus rituximab, which has a superior progression-free survival profile compared with rituximab monotherapy; the PI3K inhibitors copanlisib ...
Genevieve Boland, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses targeted treatments and immunotherapies and how they have dramatically changed the landscape in melanoma. Initially used in advanced disease, these agents are now being used in local or locoregional melanoma in...
Gautam Mehta, MD, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, discusses how accelerated approval of potentially life-saving cancer therapies has been applied in precision oncology. Although “fast-tracking” drugs presents opportunities and challenges, one possible measure of the program’s success is...
Nicolas Girard, MD, PhD, of the Institut Curie, discusses findings from the phase III CheckMate 816 trial, which is the first study with an immunotherapy-based combination to demonstrate improved event-free survival and pathologic complete response in the neoadjuvant setting for patients with...
Today, 1 year after its founding, Break Through Cancer announced $50 million in grants to support several cutting-edge research projects using a novel “TeamLab” structure—designed to maximize interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Sidney Kimmel...
Results from two early-stage clinical trials show two drugs that target the DNA damage response (DDR) pathway in cancers—the ATR inhibitor elimusertib and the PARP inhibitor AZD5305—are safe and clinically beneficial in treating patients with advanced solid tumors. Principal investigator Timothy...
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...
A new study published by Englisch et al in the journal Blood Advances suggests that people with cancer and non-O blood types—such as types A, B, and AB—may face an increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) 3 months after their initial diagnosis. Scientists have long strived to...
Following an analysis of over 12,000 human genes, research from Yale Cancer Center indicates there is cancer-relevant importance in a much larger proportion of human genes than current cancer research models suggest. Much of cancer biology research focuses on a few dozen well-studied genes called...
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...
Patients with advanced melanoma whose cancer does not respond to treatment with PD-1 inhibitors are often switched to treatment with a second type of immunotherapy drug, a CTLA-4 inhibitor such as the drug ipilimumab. In a phase II trial presented by Vanderwalde et al during the American...
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...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a new draft guidance to industry for developing plans to enroll more participants from underrepresented racial and ethnic populations in the United States into clinical trials—expanding on the agency’s previous guidances for industry to...
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)...
Maria Elena Martinez, PhD, MPH, of the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, provides an overview of the key components of the Accelerating Colorectal Cancer Screening and Follow-up through Implementation Science program, challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and...
Electra D. Paskett, PhD, of The Ohio State University, discusses various factors that may contribute to cancer such as socioeconomic status, discrimination, violence, and access to health care. When clinicians identify these factors and intervene with access to services, it may be possible to...
Meenakshi Anurag, PhD, of Baylor College of Medicine, discusses results from the ALTERNATE trial, which showed the combination of anastrozole plus fulvestrant was superior to either drug alone in inhibiting tumor proliferation in postmenopausal women with early-stage luminal B breast cancer...
Iván Márquez-Rodas, MD, PhD, of Spain’s Hospital General Universitario Gregorio Marañón, discusses final results of the phase II SPOTLIGHT203 study of systemic pembrolizumab in combination with intratumoral BO-112 for patients with advanced melanoma refractory to anti–PD-1–based therapy. The...
Silvia C. Formenti, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses research on the best way to integrate radiotherapy with immune modifiers, which might require changes in standard radiation oncology practices. Variables such as the type of treatment fields, the inclusion of draining nodal stations, the...
Tina Cascone, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the findings of the phase II NeoCOAST study, which showed that combination immunotherapy with the anti–PD-L1 monoclonal antibody durvalumab and other novel agents resulted in numerically higher major pathologic...
Patricia M. LoRusso, DO, of the Yale University School of Medicine, discusses how patients may benefit in the coming decade from discoveries about agents that target KRAS, and how important the approval of sotorasib turned out to be, as well as other agents in the research pipeline. Dr. LoRusso...
Klaus Pantel, MD, of the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, discusses liquid biopsy technologies and biomarkers, with a focus on circulating tumor cells and circulating tumor DNA; clinical applications such as early detection of cancer, improved staging, and surveillance of measurable...
Ari M. VanderWalde, MD, MPH, MBioeth, of The West Clinic, discusses results from the S1616 trial involving patients with metastatic or unresectable melanoma who had primary resistance to PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors. Compared with ipilimumab alone, the combination of ipilimumab plus nivolumab benefited ...
Vivek Subbiah, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, talks about innovative design of clinical studies that may help demonstrate clinical benefit in precision medicine and advance treatment to deliver the right intervention to the right patient at the right time (Abstract DC06).
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...