In a Chinese phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Li et al found that treatment with two cycles of concurrent cisplatin and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) was noninferior to three cycles in progression-free survival and associated with reduced toxicity in patients...
In a National Institutes of Health study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Zacharakis et al found that treatment with autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) reactive to mutations in metastatic lesions produced responses in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Study Details...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating a possible increased risk of death associated with umbralisib (Ukoniq), a kinase inhibitor including PI3K-delta and CK1-epsilon, approved to treat marginal zone and follicular lymphomas. The FDA determined that initial findings from the...
A disease control rate of 100% was achieved in gastrointestinal cancers treated with the KRAS G12C inhibitor adagrasib in the phase II KRYSTAL-1 trial, presented at the 2022 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 The population included primarily those with pancreatic cancer; other noncolorectal ...
Financial assistance may be available for some individuals with cancer from CancerCare, a nonprofit organization helping people cope with and manage the emotional and practical challenges of cancer. Two assistance programs tailored to specific individuals are available to meet financial challenges...
Weight loss for adults, particularly those who are overweight or obese, may reduce their risk of developing a type of polyp that may lead to colorectal cancer, according to a new study published by He et al in JNCI Cancer Spectrum. Losing weight from early to late adulthood (up to the mid-70s)—at...
In a Spanish phase II trial (IMLC-2015) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Giné et al found that the combination of ibrutinib and rituximab produced a high complete response rate in previously untreated patients with indolent clinical types of mantle cell lymphoma. Study Details In the...
A pediatric-based protocol has delivered promising preliminary results in adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and lymphoblastic lymphoma (LBL), according to data presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 Findings from the large,...
Kerryn Reding, PhD, MPH, RN—whose research focuses on reducing cancer incidence and improving survival, with particular interests in lifestyle interventions and biomarkers of risk—was born in Australia, but her family moved to Iowa when she was a toddler. “Both of my parents were in health care. My ...
As Vice President, in 2016, Joe Biden launched the Cancer Moonshot with the mission to accelerate the rate of progress against cancer. The cancer and patient community and medical researchers responded with energy and ingenuity. On February 2, President Biden announced the reigniting of the Cancer ...
In a Swedish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lagerlöf et al identified rates of long-term morbidity in a more contemporary cohort of patients with stage I to IIA classical Hodgkin lymphoma treated with ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) and the more...
In 2014, The ASCO Post spoke with Mark J. Clemons, MB BS, BMedSci, MSc, MD, FRCP, FRCPC, of Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, about the retirement challenges faced by many oncologists. With market demand expected to exceed supply of oncologists soon, it is clear retirement is...
On January 31, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a second COVID-19 vaccine, which has been known as the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, for the prevention of COVID-19 in individuals aged 18 years and older; the approved vaccine will be marketed as Spikevax. “The FDA’s approval of [the...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jonathan Schoenfeld, MD, and colleagues found that the addition of low-dose or hypofractionated radiotherapy to durvalumab plus tremelimumab did not improve objective response rates in patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)...
Anthony B. El-Khoueiry, MD, of the University of Southern California, Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses two key phase III studies of first-line treatment in hepatocellular carcinoma: the LAUNCH trial, which explored lenvatinib combined with transarterial chemoembolization for advanced...
In a single-center phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chi et al found that the combination of the MET inhibitor binimetinib and the KIT inhibitor imatinib produced a high response rate in patients with previously untreated advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor. As stated ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Casasnovas et al, final results of the phase III AHL2011 Lymphoma Association Study showed continued similarity of progression-free and overall survival over long-term follow-up with positron-emission tomography (PET)-based de-escalation of...
David Cescon, MD, PhD, Clinician Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada, was the invited discussant of the two MONALEESA analyses.1,2 He noted that the most recent overall survival analysis, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2021,...
Further analyses of the MONALEESA metastatic breast cancer trials have shown that the benefit of ribociclib plus endocrine therapy in the first-line setting extends to most intrinsic molecular subtypes and is consistent across multiple subgroups. The studies were presented at the 2021 San Antonio...
As reported in the Journal of Oncology by Reinhard Dummer, MD, and colleagues, the phase III COMBI-i trial has shown no significant progression-free survival benefit with the addition of the anti–PD-1 antibody spartalizumab to dabrafenib and trametinib in patients with no prior systemic treatment...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Howard P. Safran, MD, and colleagues, the phase III NRG Oncology/RTOG-101 trial has shown no significant disease-free survival benefit with the addition of perioperative trastuzumab to neoadjuvant chemoradiation in previously untreated patients with...
Black women with breast cancer had significantly higher rates of lymphedema after axillary lymph node dissection compared with Hispanic, White, and Asian women in a prospective study of breast cancer–related lymphedema presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). In fact,...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) issued the following statement regarding the passing of Beatrice Mintz, PhD, FAACR, a trailblazing pioneer in multiple fields of cancer biology, who died January 3, 2022, at the age of 100. Born on January 24, 1921, in New York, New York, Dr....
Writing a comprehensive book about breast cancer that is also concise and highly readable is no easy task. However, the authors of The Breast Cancer Book: A Trusted Guide for You and Your Loved Ones have done that and more by deftly communicating science and medical content for the lay public....
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor, Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Quynh-Thu Le, MD, Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology and Co-Director of the Radiation Biology Program of the Stanford Cancer Institute, and one of the Group Chairs of the NRG Oncology...
On December 2, 2021, rituximab was approved for use in combination with chemotherapy for pediatric patients (≥ 6 months to 18 years) with previously untreated, advanced-stage, CD20-positive diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, Burkitt lymphoma, Burkitt-like lymphoma, or mature B-cell acute leukemia.1...
Tennessee Oncology, one of the largest providers of oncology care in the country, announced that Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, has been appointed Chief Medical Officer (CMO) effective January 1, 2022. Natalie Dickson, MD, President and CMO, will remain in her role as President of the company while...
African American men currently have the highest rates of prostate cancer in the United States and the poorest outcomes. New grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and American Cancer Society will fund work by two Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center teams focused on understanding and...
A greater understanding of the mutational landscape in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has identified key oncogenes, such as EGFR, ALK, ROS, RET, and BRAF, among others. These discoveries, coupled with the availability of specific targeted small-molecule inhibitors, have transformed the...
“Fifty years ago, just a few days before the new year, former President Richard Nixon signed into law the National Cancer Act (NCA), setting a clear national priority to conquer cancer. “At the time the bill was signed into law, pioneers in our field had already made substantial discoveries, but we ...
Jane N. Winter, MD, moderator of the press conference on late-breaking abstracts at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exhibition, commented on the BELINDA study in the context of two investigations that had been previously reported at the same meeting, showing...
The autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel failed to improve event-free survival vs standard-of-care treatment strategies in patients with aggressive, relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), according to results of the phase III BELINDA trial,...
New research underscores the need for aggressive support of patients hospitalized with blood cancer and COVID-19, according to data presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. Two studies of one of the largest data sets of patients with blood cancer...
For the first-line treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, the percentage of patients achieving measurable residual disease (MRD, previously called minimal residual disease) negativity was significantly greater when the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody isatuximab was added to a standard...
The bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab achieved deep and durable remissions as monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, according to the results of a pivotal phase II trial presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 In ...
As a first-line treatment of inter-mediate- or high-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the addition of the antibody-drug conjugate polatuzumab vedotin-piiq to standard-of-care therapy resulted in a 27% reduction in the relative risk of disease progression, relapse, or death, with a similar safety...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with lisocabtagene maraleucel could prove to be the new standard-of-care treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma in the second-line setting, according to data presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, Clinical Professor with the BC Cancer Centre for Lymphoid Cancer and University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and Alex Herrera, MD, Associate Professor in Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope,...
In the primary analysis of the phase III ZUMA-7 trial, examining second-line therapy for relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, the CAR T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel led to a fourfold increase in event-free survival over the standard of care. These findings were presented at the...
The 2022 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium took place in San Francisco from January 20 to 22. This week, we’re featuring commentary from the authors involved in two high-impact studies in hepatobiliary cancers.
Precursors to multiple myeloma were identified by population screening in two studies reported at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The prevalence of monoclonal gammopathies was determined in the PROMISE trial using cutting-edge technology in a high-risk ...
In the phase II DESTINY-Lung01 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, and colleagues found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed durable activity in patients with metastatic HER2-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) refractory to standard...
In a single-institution phase II trial reported in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Marron et al found that neoadjuvant treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab-rwlc in patients with resectable hepatocellular carcinoma produced a high level of pathologic tumor necrosis at resection ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by David M. O’Malley, MD, and colleagues, pembrolizumab showed durable activity in a cohort of patients with microsatellite instability–high or mismatch repair–deficient (MSI-H/dMMR) advanced endometrial cancer enrolled in the multicohort KEYNOTE-158...
In a Danish single-institution study reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Søndergaard et al found a high rate of undetected or inadequately treated preexisting cardiovascular disease prior to the receipt of chemoradiation and a high rate of cardiovascular events during follow-up in patients undergoing ...
In a long-term longitudinal analysis of the phase II ORATOR trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Anthony Nichols, MD, and colleagues found that a statistically significant improvement in swallowing quality of life persisted through 3 years after treatment with radiotherapy vs...
In a large patient-level meta-analysis of 16 trials, presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS),1 the combination of an anthracycline plus a taxane achieved a substantial 15% reduction in breast cancer recurrence at 10 years vs taxane chemotherapy alone, representing an...
Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with lutetium-177 (Lu-177) dotatate is a treatment for well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved in 2018, but clinicians have lacked a metric for predicting its benefit on an individual patient basis....
Independent drug action—not synergy nor additivity—accounted for the clinical efficacy of nearly all examined combination therapies involving immune checkpoint inhibitors in clinical trials, according to results from a retrospective analysis published by Palmer et al in Clinical Cancer Research....
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Pilonis et al found that nonendoscopic cell collection device (marked as the Cytosponge)–detected atypia and p53 overexpression could be used in combination with clinical risk factors to triage patients with Barrett’s esophagus for endoscopic...