Intimacy changes after a cancer diagnosis. Both male and female survivors can experience significant sexual dysfunction, pain with sex, loss of desire, and a slew of other clinical and psychological sequelae. To make matter worse, sexual function is often not discussed by patients and their...
On March 18, 2019, atezolizumab was approved for use in combination with carboplatin and etoposide in the first-line treatment of adult patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cance (SCLC).1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the phase III double-blind IMpower133...
On July 24, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested that Allergan, the manufacturer of a specific type of textured breast implant, recall specific models of its textured implants from the U.S. market due to the risk of breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL)....
The 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting featured a wealth of presentations on important topics. In addition to our regular news coverage of the meeting, we present below some highlights of other studies that add to our knowledge base for treatment of various cancers. Olaratumab in Soft-Tissue Sarcoma...
Immunotherapy as a treatment for advanced solid cancers has rapidly evolved over the past decade—often yielding remarkable results. However, its use has also given way to new adverse effects, including drug-induced gastrointestinal and liver toxicities. “Checkpoint inhibitors are a...
Artificial intelligence (AI) may improve the efficiency and accuracy of an advanced imaging technology used to screen for breast cancer, according to a study published by Conant et al in Radiology: Artificial Intelligence. Digital breast tomosynthesis is an advanced method for cancer...
Microsatellite instability (MSI) is an important predictive biomarker of response to immune checkpoint blockade in solid cancers. However, despite recommendations by clinical practice guidelines, MSI is often not assessed, usually due to tissue insufficiency, unavailability, or infeasibility....
Immunotherapy as a treatment for advanced solid cancers has rapidly evolved over the past decade—often yielding remarkable results. However, its use has also given way to new adverse effects, including drug-induced gastrointestinal and liver toxicities. “Checkpoint inhibitors are a game changer...
A recent analysis looked at the global burden of pediatric cancer through the lens of years of affected and lost life. This work shows a much greater burden of childhood cancer, placed largely in low- and middle-income countries, than previous estimates. The findings were published in The Lancet...
Findings from a cohort of a phase II study reported by Stacchiotti et al in The Lancet Oncology indicated activity of the antiangiogenic agent pazopanib in advanced extraskeletal myxoid chondrosarcoma. As noted by the investigators, this rare sarcoma has low sensitivity to cytotoxic chemotherapy,...
A new laboratory test developed to identify chemical changes to a group of cancer-related genes may be able to accurately detect which breast tumors are cancerous or benign. Such a test could result in a more timely diagnosis of breast cancer for women in developing countries with less access to...
ASCO’S CENTER FOR Research and Analytics (CENTRA) is now accepting research applications from ASCO members who wish to conduct surveys of the Society’s membership for research purposes. The Research Survey Pool (RSP) is a service made available to ASCO members who engage in survey research. It...
In April 2019, a 3-year-old boy, Noah McAdams, missed the third round of chemotherapy for his acute lymphoblastic leukemia. His parents wanted instead to focus on alternative remedies of cannabidiol oil, alkaline water, mushroom tea, and herbal extracts. The sheriff was summoned; Noah’s parents...
A handful of investigational drugs in early-phase trials always create a buzz at ASCO Annual Meetings. Two that garnered attention this year, and could eventually change outcomes in the clinic, are the first-in-class KRAS inhibitor AMG 510 and the ROS1 inhibitor repotrectinib. Should late-phase...
At the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting, two pivotal breast cancer trials reported final or additional analyses: one confirmed the negative results seen in earlier reports,1 and the other supported a new survival benchmark.2 KRISTINE: Neoadjuvant T-DM1/Pertuzumab Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, of the David Geffen...
IT WAS a chilly Chicago morning, and I was sitting at the lobby of my hotel when I saw a smiling gentleman cheerfully waving at me from his car. It was Lawrence H. Einhorn, MD, picking me up for our drive to Indiana. I was one of the recipients of the ASCO International Development and Education...
In the EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 trial of adjuvant pembrolizumab in patients with stage III melanoma, recurrences were reduced by 44% in the immunotherapy arm, vs placebo, but this benefit increased to a 63% reduction in risk among patients developing an immune-related adverse event on treatment.1...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested that Allergan, the manufacturer of a specific type of textured breast implant, recall specific models of its textured implants from the U.S. market due to the risk of breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL)....
In a retrospective analysis published by Si et al in Surgical Endoscopy, researchers found minimally invasive surgery led to higher survival and lower local recurrence in patients with small hepatocellular carcinoma vs radiofrequency ablation, whereas radiofrequency ablation was associated with...
GUEST EDITOR Jame Abraham, MD, FACP Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. For this installment of the Living a Full Life series of articles, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD,...
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 facilitate the...
Over the past several decades, the field of psychosocial oncology has matured into an invaluable subspecialty that helps patients with cancer and their caregivers deal with the existential issues that arise in cancer, especially in the advanced-disease setting. In an effort to add to this...
Results from a phase IB trial expansion stage reported in The Lancet Oncology by Herbst et al showed the combination of ramucirumab plus pembrolizumab had manageable toxicity and antitumor activity in previously treated advanced gastroesophageal cancer, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and ...
There were more than 8.7 million person-years of life lost and $94.4 billion in earnings lost due to cancer among people aged 16 to 84 in the United States in 2015. The calculation comes from a new report published by Islami et al in JAMA Oncology. Cancer is the second-leading cause of death...
Fertility treatment is not associated with an increased long-term risk of ovarian cancer, according to the results of a large-scale multicenter study presented by Spaan et al at the 35th Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (Abstract O-183). The findings,...
In the phase II ReDOS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Bekaii-Saab et al found that a regorafenib dose-escalation strategy compared favorably with standard dosing in regard to toxicity profile and activity in patients with refractory advanced colorectal cancer. Study...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology, Hervé Tilly, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of polatuzumab vedotin, an antibody-drug conjugate targeting the CD79b component of the B-cell receptor, with immunochemotherapy showed high response rates in the phase II portion of a phase I/II study in ...
In the phase III OPTIMISMM trial, reported by Paul G. Richardson, MD, and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology, researchers found that the addition of pomalidomide to bortezomib/dexamethasone improved progression-free survival in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma previously treated with...
Henry T. Lynch, MD, widely known as “the father of cancer genetics,” had an early life that could have been lifted from the pages of a Louis L’Amour novel. He dropped out of high school and using a falsified birth certificate joined the U.S. Navy at 16 years old, serving as a gunner on a marine...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Ting Bao, MD, DABMA, MS, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, explore the current...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel hematology and oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On February 22, trifluridine/tipiracil...
Many elderly and medically complex patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC)—who are often underrepresented in clinical trials—saw overall survival benefits from treatment with targeted therapies, according to a study that analyzed 13 years of data on Medicare patients...
In an analysis from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Moskowitz et al found a significant increase in overall mortality among childhood cancer survivors who developed breast cancer vs matched controls. A numeric increase in breast cancer...
“The jury is still out,” said APACT’s invited discussant, Jiping Wang, MD, PhD, a biostatistician and hepatobiliary pancreas surgical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. “The final overall survival analysis is needed to know the real benefit from...
A phase II study found that treatment with the antibody-drug conjugate enfortumab vedotin achieved responses in 44% of patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer previously treated with platinum chemotherapy and a checkpoint inhibitor. This is a noteworthy study because it...
Patients with cancer who took cholesterol-lowering statin medication following radiation therapy of the chest, neck, or head had significantly reduced risk of suffering a stroke—and possibly other cardiovascular complications—according to research published by Boulet et al in...
Pazopanib significantly improved progression-free survival by 47% in patients with progressive carcinoid tumors, in a prospective randomized phase II trial presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “With these results, Alliance A021202 becomes the first randomized study to show that the vascular...
Study discussant Hanna K. Sanoff, MD, MPH, of the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Center, summarized the key results of VISNU-1: first, survival is shorter for patients with high circulating tumor cell (CTC) count; second, the incremental benefit from FOLFOXIRI (fluorouracil...
In a population of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer deemed to be at high risk by the presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), first-line treatment with FOLFOXIRI plus bevacizumab improved progression-free survival by about 3 months, compared with modified FOLFOX plus bevacizumab,...
Targeted therapies for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are a hotbed of investigation. Two new targeted therapies are promising for patients with lung tumors that are either EGFR exon 20 insertions or RET-rearranged. At the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting, attendees heard early data on therapies...
In the global phase III NALA trial, treatment of metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer with neratinib plus capecitabine significantly improved progression-free survival, delayed the time to intervention for central nervous system disease, and showed a trend toward improved overall survival vs...
Clinical risk factors add prognostic information that complements the 21-gene recurrence score, according to a new analysis from the landmark TAILORx trial.1,2 The integration of clinical risk with the recurrence score provides greater precision in determining recurrence risk and guiding the use of ...
In a single-center retrospective analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Funt et al found that the presence of teratoma in advanced nonseminomatous germ cell tumors was associated with a greater risk for disease-related death. The study was a retrospective review of primary tumor...
Just as newer drugs have significantly improved outcomes for patients with multiple myeloma in the past decade, newer imaging techniques are upgrading detection of the disease, leading to earlier treatment, but standards to help guide clinicians on the optimal use of advanced imaging have lagged...
The Dutch FaMRIsc study, reported in The Lancet Oncology by Saadatmand et al, found that the addition of screening magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to mammography resulted in identification of more breast cancers—and identification at an earlier stage—vs mammography alone among women...
In a report published in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Keshvani et al found that transitioning from inpatient to outpatient ambulatory infusional EPOCH (etoposide, prednisone, vincristine, cyclophosphamide, and doxorubicin)-based chemotherapy in patients with lymphoma at a safety net hospital...
In the phase III GOG 258 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Matei et al found that 6 months of adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy plus radiation therapy did not improve relapse-free survival vs chemotherapy alone in stage III or IVA endometrial cancer. In the open-label...
Outcomes are typically grim for patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. At the 2019 Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), three early-stage studies hinted at ways that standard treatments might be made more effective. Metronomic Dosing of...
Adding apalutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly improved survival in men with metastatic castration-sensitive (also termed hormone-sensitive) prostate cancer, according to the results of the phase III TITAN trial, which were presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting and...
IAN CHAU, MD, a consultant medical oncologist at the Gastrointestinal and Lymphoma Units of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust in London and Surrey, United Kingdom, was the invited discussant of KEYNOTE-062. In an interview with The ASCO Post, he first commented that although single-agent...