On May 16, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dalteparin sodium (Fragmin) to reduce the recurrence of symptomatic venous thromboembolism (VTE) in pediatric patients 1 month of age and older. This is the first FDA-approved therapy to treat VTE in pediatric patients....
A study investigating the frequency of targetable molecular alterations in pediatric cancer among patients enrolled in the National Cancer Institute–Children’s Oncology Group Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) trial has found that about one-quarter of patients with...
A phase III randomized trial (E3A06) by Lonial et al testing the effect of single-agent lenalidomide vs observation in patients with intermediate- or high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma has found that lenalidomide significantly reduces the risk of smoldering multiple myeloma progressing to active ...
COMBINING TWO established immunotherapy agents achieved tumor shrinkage in rare, aggressive, extrapancreatic high-grade neuroendocrine tumors, according to the results of SWOG S1609, a phase II clinical basket trial also known as DART (Dual Anti– CLTA-4 and Anti–PD-1 Blockade in Rare Tumors). The...
THE ADDITION of the MET inhibitor savolitinib to the EGFR inhibitor osimertinib led to activity in patients with MET-amplified, EGFR-mutated non–small lung cancer (NSCLC) with acquired resistance to previous therapies, according to interim results from two expansion cohorts of a phase Ib clinical...
THE FRONT-LINE systemic treatment landscape for metastatic renal cell carcinoma has undergone tremendous movement over the past several years. A better understanding of the current management paradigm for therapy-naive patients warrants a reflection of historic landmark clinical trials that have...
In the phase III NRG Oncology/Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG)-252 study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Walker et al found no progression-free survival benefit of postsurgical intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy vs intravenous (IV) chemotherapy, each combined with bevacizumab, in...
Findings from a secondary analysis of the phase III OLYMPUS trial were presented by Kleinmann et al during the Plenary Session at the 2019 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA-16). Results showed that instillation of UGN-101, an investigational formulation of mitomycin ...
Surveillance of women at risk for breast cancer–related lymphedema using bioimpedance spectroscopy was more effective in preventing lymphedema progression than traditional arm circumference measurement when each was combined with immediate compression therapy. These were the results of an...
On May 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded its approval of ivosidenib (Tibsovo) to include newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a susceptible IDH1 mutation, as detected by an FDA-approved test, in patients who are at least 75 years old or who have comorbidities that ...
Patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma with bulky lesions at the time of diagnosis may benefit from radiotherapy after chemotherapy, according to late-breaking results presented by Ricardi et al at ESTRO 38, the annual congress of the European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology...
Women with early-stage, low-risk, hormone receptor–positive breast cancer may be less likely to experience disease recurrence if they have radiotherapy after surgery as well as antihormonal treatment, according to results from a trial that has followed 869 women for 10 years. These findings...
Continuous chemotherapy showed greater benefit in patients with advanced breast cancer by both improving survival and maintaining quality of life compared to intermittent scheduling, according to analyses of the Stop&Go study presented by Erdkamp et al and Claessens et al at the European...
On April 15, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to erdafitinib (Balversa) for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma with susceptible FGFR3 or FGFR2 genetic alterations that has progressed during or following platinum-containing...
In the 2 years since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of regorafenib in the treatment of patients with sorafenib-refractory advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, we oncologists have witnessed a veritable avalanche of newly approved medicines for the treatment of advanced...
IN SPITE of the high response rates and lack of progression to active disease with the regimens described at the 2018 American Society of Hematology Meeting & Exposition, several myeloma experts interviewed by The ASCO Post said the data do not yet move them to routinely intervene in high-risk...
The discussant of the STELLAR trial abstract, Aaron S. Mansfield, MD, a translational scientist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, called the survival outcomes “very promising” for a trial that included a relatively large population of patients with the more aggressive sarcomatoid variant of...
The addition of tumor-treating fields to standard-of-care chemotherapy has been found to be safe and effective in the treatment of unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma. Data presented at the 2019 Multidisciplinary Thoracic Cancers Symposium showed that patients receiving the combination of...
With the recent breakthroughs in immunotherapy, treatments that modulate the immune system are now being used across numerous cancer types and across the spectrum of disease with significant success, but not all patients achieve objective responses. There is still a critical need to better...
Treatment with gilteritinib, an oral type 1, FLT inhibitor, significantly improved overall survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with FLT3-positive relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to the final results of the phase III ADMIRAL trial.1 The longest survival for ...
On April 19, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus axitinib for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). KEYNOTE-426 Approval was based on KEYNOTE-426, a randomized, multicenter, open-label trial conducted in ...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to erdafitinib (Balversa) for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma with susceptible FGFR3 or FGFR2 genetic alterations that has progressed during or following platinum-containing...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the first-line treatment of patients with stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are not candidates for surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation, or those with metastatic NSCLC....
IN HIGH-RISK patients with breast cancer and low expression of HER2 (HER2 low), a peptide vaccine targeting HER2, combined with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and given concurrently with trastuzumab, may help to prevent recurrence. Final analysis of a randomized phase...
GUEST EDITOR Integrative Oncology is guest edited by Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine and Chief of Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to...
NEW AGENTS for the treatment of advanced HER2-positive breast cancer should be coming soon to your clinic, according to Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, Director of the Breast Cancer Clinical Research Program and Associate Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of...
In patients with locally advanced rectal cancer, the delivery of all radiotherapy and chemotherapy neoadjuvantly—with a shorter course of radiation—may improve the chance of complete response and downstaging over conventional treatment, according to investigators from Washington University, St....
IMMUNOTHERAPY WITH the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab may prove to be an effective option for patients with advanced non–clear cell renal cell carcinoma, according to results in cohort B of the KEYNOTE-427 trial, presented at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.1 Response rates were...
Adding enzalutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly prolonged radiographic progression-free survival in men with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, reducing the risk of disease progression or death by 61% compared with ADT plus placebo, according to the results of the ...
IN THE GLOBAL phase III KEYNOTE-181 trial, pembrolizumab as second-line therapy for advanced esophageal cancer did not improve overall survival in the whole population, vs chemotherapy, but did improve survival for patients with strong expression of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1),...
PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan is active in patients previously treated with chemotherapy or checkpoint inhibitor therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer. These results from a phase I/II basket study of this agent were presented at the 2019...
TREATMENT WITH stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) results in a similar safety profile to conventionally fractionated, or moderately hypofractionated external-beam radiotherapy, in men with low- or intermediate- risk prostate cancer, according to preliminary results of the Prostate Advances ...
ADDING ENZALUTAMIDE to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly prolonged radiographic progression-free survival in men with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, reducing the risk of progression or death by 61% compared with ADT plus placebo, according to results of the phase III...
NIVOLUMAB PLUS low-dose ipilimumab continued to demonstrate strong responses as well as a survival benefit with a median of 32.4 months of follow-up as front-line treatment for patients with intermediate- and poor-risk advanced renal cell carcinoma, according to an update of the phase II CheckMate...
Maintenance treatment with the PARP inhibitor rucaparib was well tolerated and showed activity among patients with advanced BRCA- or PALB2-mutated pancreatic cancer sensitive to platinum-based chemotherapy, according to results from an interim analysis of an ongoing phase II clinical...
A combination of the experimental histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor entinostat with the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor pembrolizumab showed clinical responses in patients with melanoma that had progressed on prior anti–PD-1 treatment, according to results from the phase...
Treatment with the FLT3-targeted therapeutic gilteritinib improved survival for patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) harboring an FLT3 mutation compared with standard chemotherapy regimens, according to results from the phase III ADMIRAL trial presented by Perl et al at ...
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced policy changes to modernize mammography policies and issued a Breakthrough Therapy designation, an Orphan Drug designation, and an investigational new drug application. FDA Advances Policy Changes to Modernize Mammography Services...
THE MANAGEMENT of localized prostate cancer remains controversial. Although the widespread use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing has resulted in a dramatic increase in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, many men do not benefit from intervention because the disease is either...
IN PATIENTS with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who responded well to induction therapy and underwent transplant, 2 years of maintenance therapy with ixazomib led to a 38% improvement in progression-free survival compared with placebo, according to the results of the phase III TOURMALINE-MM3...
THE ASCO POST asked Ajay K. Nooka, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Division of Bone Marrow Transplant at Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, to comment on studies involving daratumumab. “After the phase III SWOG S0777 trial demonstrated a survival benefit with a 3-drug induction regimen...
PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan is active in patients previously treated with chemotherapy or checkpoint inhibitor therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer. These results from a phase I/II basket study of this agent were presented at the 2019...
THE ANNUAL GASTROINTESTINAL CANCERS SYMPOSIUM took place earlier this year in San Francisco. In addition to important studies captured in our past few issues, The ASCO Post here briefly summarizes additional interesting studies. Adjuvant Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy in Colon Cancer...
PATIENTS WITH advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) may no longer have to come to the clinic every 2 weeks for treatment. According to a descriptive analysis of the phase IIIb/IV CheckMate 384 study, a more convenient dosing option of nivolumab has demonstrated convincing short-term safety...
Data from post hoc exploratory analyses from the phase III ARIEL3 clinical study of rucaparib in recurrent ovarian cancer was presented during oral plenary and poster sessions at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 50th Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer. These analyses...
Results from a clinical trial presented by Cibula et al at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 50th Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer showed that a new immunotherapy treatment significantly prolongs survival in women with recurrent ovarian cancer when added to standard...
Two recent publications in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and the resulting drug approval applications that have already been filed, lead to concern that the basis of medical practice on valid evidence may be corrupted. Each involves statistically shaky analysis leading to a striking...
In 2015, ASCO and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) introduced value frameworks that utilize algorithmic scales to evaluate the clinical benefit of cancer therapies and provide an objective assessment of outcomes and treatment toxicities experienced by patients.1,2 Although the two...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gulley et al found that PROSTVAC, a viral vector-based immunotherapy, did not improve overall survival or 6-month event-free survival vs placebo in patients with asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic castration-resistant...
In the phase I/II SWOG S1313 trial, which was reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Ramanathan et al, researchers found that the addition of pegylated recombinant human hyaluronidase (PEGPH20) to modified (m) FOLFIRINOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, irinotecan, and oxaliplatin) worsened...