Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis of KIT exon mutations may help predict which second-line therapy is best for patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), according to data presented by Bauer et al during the January ASCO Plenary Series session (Abstract 397784). An...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Wang et al identified mutations linked to high tumor mutation burden in microsatellite-stable (MSS) gastrointestinal cancers that may be associated with efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Study Details Molecular alterations in 48,606...
Utilizing chronochemotherapy—a method aimed at delivering chemotherapy at a time when the body is least vulnerable to its harmful effects and when the cancer cells are at their most vulnerable—may improve the outcomes of some patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), according to a novel ...
Soon after my marriage, in 2003, I noticed swelling in the glands around my throat. Although I otherwise felt fine, I went to see my primary care physician for a checkup and a blood test. The results of the test showed that I had an abnormally high number of lymphocytes circulating in my...
Most of us have felt our stomachs sink as we opened a patient’s radiology or laboratory report and realized the patient faced a grave situation. If we’re lucky, we have a couple of days before a scheduled patient appointment to prepare ourselves to deliver that bad news. Other times, we may have...
Isaac Craig Henderson, MD, passed away at the age of 81 at his home in San Francisco on December 26, 2022, after a brief illness. Dr. Henderson was an internationally known medical oncologist who specialized in breast cancer, beginning his career at Harvard’s then-designated Sidney Farber Cancer...
Results of a planned interim overall survival analysis of the phase III monarchE trial offered further support for the addition of abemaciclib to adjuvant endocrine therapy for patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative, node-positive, high-risk disease, according to Stephen R.D....
Jaime A. Suarez-Londono, MD, a medical oncologist at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said the results of the ASAP study provide a basis for discussion with the transplant team. “The landscape of treatment of acute...
Intensive salvage therapy with the goal of achieving complete remission prior to allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT) may not be necessary in some patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to the results of the phase III ASAP trial presented at...
Precision medicine has revolutionized cancer treatment—but only for patients who have access to treatments. Nearly 2 million people in the United States are diagnosed each year with cancer, but access to targeted treatments varies widely, and only about half of the eligible people receive them,...
Northwell Health recently announced a gift from longtime trustee Roy J. Zuckerberg to create the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Hospital at Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center—Long Island’s first cancer hospital—and to establish the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Center, Northwell’s largest ambulatory cancer...
Options are growing in the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma after complete response. At the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference,1 the use of these newer strategies in older patients was discussed by Brad S. Kahl, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lymphoma Service at Washington...
Oxidative stress is a key factor in the development of many diseases including cancer. Antioxidants prevent cellular damage by neutralizing free radicals and are being investigated as potential therapeutic strategies against cancer. In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology...
Abstract discussant of the NORA trial, Antonio González-Martín, MD, PhD, Director of the Department of Medical Oncology at Clinica Universidad de Navarra, Madrid, said that despite the results of this ad hoc interim analysis, “the jury is still out” regarding the overall survival benefit of PARP...
Maintenance therapy with a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor may do more than just delay disease progression for patients with platinum-sensitive, relapsed ovarian cancer; it might also improve overall survival, according to data presented during the December 2022 European Society for...
As an oncologist, I had cared for patients facing grave illness and death. I imagined the loss of loved ones and expected grief to be an unbearable sadness, most poignant in the earliest days and lessening with time. I somehow expected that counseling people who grieved would make me more prepared. ...
Lymphoma expert Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, was born in Westchester County, New York, but soon after, his family relocated to Bergen County, New Jersey, where he spent his formative years. “I attended Tenafly High School and had dual passions: one was the natural sciences and the other on the...
Urvi A. Shah, MD, Assistant Attending at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, moderated the session where the MagnetisMM trial updates1,2 were reported and was interviewed by The ASCO Post. Elranatamab vs Teclistamab Dr. Shah noted...
On December 16, 2022, nadofaragene firadenovec-vncg, an adenoviral vector–based gene therapy, was approved for patients with high-risk bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer with carcinoma in situ with or without papillary tumors.1 Supporting Efficacy Data...
Many individuals considering screening for colorectal cancer may want information on their personal risk when making decisions about screening—such as whether to select an at-home stool-based test or colonoscopy. Investigators evaluated five online colorectal cancer risk calculators to determine...
In the DBTUST study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Berg et al found that the addition of screening ultrasound to digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) improved detection of cancer in patients with dense breasts—but also increased the rate of false-positive findings. Study Details In the ...
On December 7, 2022, Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Julie Gralow MD, FACP, FASCO, attended a reception on Capitol Hill hosted by the One Voice Against Cancer Coalition and the House Cancer Caucus, to welcome former ASCO President Monica...
A new ASCO guideline on opioids in managing pain from cancer or cancer treatment in adults provides recommendations on administering them in the midst of interventions to address the public health crisis from their misuse and related deaths across the country.1 “ASCO took wonderful leadership in...
The formal discussant of ARC-7 was Solange Peters, MD, PhD, Chair of Medical Oncology, Centre D’Oncologie Chuv, Lausanne University Hospital, Switzerland, and President of the European Society for Medical Oncology. Dr. Peters described how TIGIT (T-cell immunoglobulin and ITIM domain) plays a role ...
In a phase II study of stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), domvanalimab, a novel antibody that blocks T-cell immunoglobulin and ITIM domain (TIGIT), when added to anti–PD-1 zimberelimab immunotherapy resulted in improved response rates and progression-free survival compared with...
On December 1, 2022, the IDH1 inhibitor olutasidenib was approved for the treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia with a susceptible IDH1 mutation, as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test.1 The FDA simultaneously approved the Abbott...
Offering their thoughts on the study by Williams et al from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort were Jane N. Winter, MD, Immediate Past President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and Catherine Bollard, MBChB, MD. Both moderated press briefings where the results were presented or discussed....
Long-term follow-up of survivors of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort showed signs of “epigenetic accelerated aging,” and many of these survivors had signs of neurocognitive impairment by their late 30s, researchers reported at the 2022 American Society of Hematology...
Zanubrutinib—a next-generation Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor—achieved high response rates and durable disease control with a low incidence of cardiac effects in patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma, according to updated findings from the final analysis of the phase ...
Initial data from the global phase III SPOTLIGHT trial could herald the use of a new targeted agent for a subset of patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma. First-line treatment with zolbetuximab, which targets the transmembrane protein claudin 18.2...
Tolerability and efficacy results—including the first overall survival data—from a phase II trial examining first-line zanidatamab, an investigational HER2-targeted bispecific antibody, in combination with chemotherapy for patients with HER2-expressing metastatic gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma...
Alexey Danilov, MD, PhD, Co-Director, Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center and Professor, Division of Lymphoma, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope, Duarte, California, commented on the phase III ALPINE trial comparing ibrutinib and zanubrutinib in patients...
The next-generation Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor zanubrutinib demonstrated superior progression-free survival compared with ibrutinib, with an improved cardiac safety profile, in the first head-to-head comparison between these two BTK inhibitors in relapsed or refractory chronic...
On October 21, 2022, tremelimu-mab-actl was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in combination with durvalumab in the treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.1 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on a comparison of overall survival in the...
“Standard treatment of older or less fit adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is now venetoclax/azacitidine, which has been shown to improve overall survival vs azacitidine monotherapy. Since that backbone was established, there has been a tsunami of trials looking at drugs added to this...
Two separate studies presented at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition provide preliminary evidence that triplet combinations may have a role in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Both triplets were based on the addition of a third drug to standard ...
Neil J. Shah, MBBS, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, called the cohort study “one of a kind” because of the ability to match baseline cohorts of people living with and without HIV and metastatic non–small cell lung cancer. “These findings should be very...
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are safe and effective for people living with HIV who have metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to data presented at the 2022 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting.1 Findings from the first matched cohort to compare clinical...
Insights on findings from the phase II MonumenTAL-1 trial1 were offered by Ajay K. Nooka, MD, MPH, Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, and Medical Director of the Winship Data and Technology Applications Shared Resource, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School ...
The 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition was full of interesting abstracts in multiple myeloma. In addition to full coverage of several important presentations, The ASCO Post offers readers quick takes on some studies that could be practice-changing and others...
Debu Tripathy, MD, Professor of Medicine and Chair of Breast Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, said that the study points the way to further exploration of the benefit of adding immunotherapy to treatment after patients develop resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors for ...
Breast medical oncologist Virginia Kaklamani, MD, Professor of Medicine, UT Health San Antonio, MD Anderson Cancer Center, believes the results of the POSITIVE trial will help patients with breast cancer make decisions. “The trial is important because it helps us give advice to younger patients,”...
Preserving fertility is a driving concern for many young women with breast cancer. Many of these women have hormone receptor–positive breast cancer and are treated with adjuvant endocrine therapy for 5 to 10 years, which is known to compromise fertility. Younger women who may want to take a break...
“There is a clear suggestion from SERENA-2 that camizestrant might be a better treatment than fulvestrant,” said press briefing moderator Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, Director of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology Programs at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. “As ...
The oral selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) camizestrant improved progression-free survival, as compared with fulvestrant, in previously treated postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer in the phase II SERENA-2 trial. These results were reported at the 2022 San Antonio Breast...
“These results [from the TRIO-US B-12 TALENT trial] are exciting and impressive in HER2-low, hormone receptor–positive patients. The authors were testing the waters and got a positive signal,” said Jason Aboudi Mouabbi, MD, a medical oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. “The beauty of ...
A pilot study provides a signal that the novel HER2 antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd), is active in the neoadjuvant setting in patients with HER2-low breast cancer. Overall response rates were 75% with T-DXd alone and 63% when T-DXd was combined with endocrine therapy...
Virginia Kaklamani, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center San Antonio and leader of the Breast Cancer Program at UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center, was enthusiastic about the results of the phase III CAPItello-291 trial. “The phase III...
In the phase I/II MonumenTAL-1 trial, the novel bispecific antibody talquetamab produced responses in more than 70% of heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma.1 Of note, the safety profile confirmed results of the phase I portion of the study (recently published in TheNew England Journal...
For more than 2 decades, Don S. Dizon, MD, FACP, FASCO, has devoted his medical career to the care of women’s cancers and the sexual health of cancer survivors of all genders and sexual identities. Early in his career, Dr. Dizon founded the Center for Sexuality, Intimacy, and Fertility at Women...