About 9% of patients with cancer experience complications while hospitalized that lead to a deterioration in their condition, a transfer to the intensive care unit, or death. A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis is developing a machine learning–based early...
In a Korean phase III trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Kim et al found that the addition of internal mammary node irradiation to adjuvant regional nodal irradiation did not improve 7-year disease-free survival in women with node-positive breast cancer. In an ad hoc analysis, however, benefit was...
In a cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Mariana Chavez-MacGregor, MD, MSc, and colleagues found that patients with cancer infected with COVID-19 had poorer outcomes vs patients without cancer if they had received recent cancer treatment. Patients with cancer who had not received recent...
Results from the phase II FIRSTMAPPP study support the potential use of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor sunitinib in two rare neuroendocrine malignancies—pheochromocytoma and paraganglioma. Sunitinib significantly improved the primary endpoint of progression-free survival vs placebo, according to...
Amar U. Kishan, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses findings from a meta-analysis of clinical trials in patients with localized prostate cancer. The phase III results suggest that the use of androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) or prolonged adjuvant ADT with radiotherapy may...
Rising cost-sharing requirements from private insurance have exacerbated the financial burden for patients with cancer, according to research presented at the 2021 ASCO Quality Care Symposium.1 Analysis of claims data on the four most prevalent cancers in the United States—female breast,...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Engels et al found that patients with a previous cancer diagnosis who underwent solid organ transplantation had high cancer cure probabilities. Additionally, posttransplantation cancer-specific survival was associated with cancer cure...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to agents for several kinds of lymphoma, as well as nasopharyngeal cancer; a Breakthrough Therapy designation for a treatment for patients with NTRK-positive advanced solid tumors; and Fast Track designation for...
The invited discussant of this study on patient-reported outcomes, Areej El-Jawahri, MD, Associate Director of Cancer Outcomes Research and Education Program and Director of Bone Marrow Transplant Survivorship Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, said these findings underscore the importance...
Survivorship care plans are an important tool to help cancer survivors transition from active treatment to follow-up care, but a study published by Timsina et al in Supportive Care in Cancer has found that a number of vulnerable groups have a lower likelihood of receiving such plans. Cancer...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Susana Banerjee, MBBS, PhD, and colleagues, 5-year follow-up of the pivotal phase III SOLO-1/GOG 3004 trial has shown a median progression-free survival of 56 months with maintenance olaparib following response to platinum-based chemotherapy in newly diagnosed...
On October 29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 to include children aged 5 through 11 years. The authorization was based on the FDA’s thorough and transparent evaluation of the data that...
Cleveland Clinic researchers have shown that diet-associated molecules in the gut may be associated with aggressive prostate cancer, suggesting dietary interventions may help reduce risk. These findings were published by Reichard et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. While...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Bancroft et al, the first round of prostate cancer screening in the IMPACT study of men with pathogenic variants in mismatch repair genes showed an increased risk of prostate cancer in carriers of MSH2 and MSH6 variants compared with noncarrier controls. As...
Patients with multiple myeloma lacking an antibody response to COVID-19 vaccine may also fail to mount a T-cell response, according to research from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Concerningly, this scenario was most common among patients actively treated with anti-CD38 and...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Courtney D. DiNardo, MD, and colleagues, an interim analysis of the phase II portion of a phase Ib/II trial (AG221-AML-005) showed that the addition of the oral mutant IDH2 protein inhibitor enasidenib to azacitidine significantly improved overall response rate ...
Both dose-escalated radiation therapy and short-course androgen-deprivation therapy (SADT) have been shown to improve outcomes in patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer. Researchers then posed a new question—is giving both modalities upfront to newly diagnosed patients of benefit? Findings ...
Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) awaiting liver transplantation may benefit from noninvasive treatment with external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) but are rarely given this therapy, according to a new analysis of U.S. national data. Findings were presented by Nima Nabavizadeh, MD, at the...
Part 2 of the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer—provided by the American Cancer Society, National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and North American Association of Central Cancer Registries—has found that patients with cancer in the United...
A 22-gene genomic classifier (the Decipher score) may be able to predict the course of disease in men with high-risk prostate cancer, according to a patient-level meta-analysis of three randomized clinical trials presented by Paul L. Nguyen, MD, at the 2021 American Society for Radiation Oncology...
On September 14, 2021, the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor zanubrutinib was granted accelerated approval for adults with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma (MZL) who have had at least one prior anti-CD20–based regimen.1 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the...
Although overall cancer cases are declining, they are on the rise in older adolescents and young adults (AYAs). Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) recently announced the establishment of the Lisa and Scott Stuart Center for Adolescent and Young Adult Cancers (the Stuart Center), expanding ...
Guest Editor’s Note: Cancer-related cognitive difficulties, experienced by many cancer survivors, include perceived or objective deficits in memory, attention, and concentration, which can negatively impact quality of life. Given the important role that healthful sleep plays in cognitive processes, ...
The number of deaths related to breast cancer are increasing at an alarming pace worldwide. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) 2020 report, approximately 2,088,849 new cases and 627,000 deaths related to breast cancer occurred in 2018.1 More than 55% of these deaths occurred in low- to ...
On September 15, 2021, the kinase inhibitor mobocertinib was granted accelerated approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for adults with locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations, as detected by an FDA-approved test,...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with Robert A. Winn, MD, Director of VCU Massey Cancer Center, Richmond, Virginia. In 2020, he became the first Black physician to lead a National Cancer Institute–designated cancer center. Among other...
On September 22, 2021, ruxolitinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor of JAK1 and JAK2 was granted approval for treatment of chronic graft-vs-host disease after failure of one or two lines of systemic therapy in adult and pediatric patients aged ≥ 12 years.1 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was...
ASCO’s Coverage and Reimbursement Steering Group presented a poster on utilization of advance care planning (ACP) services at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium. The poster examined whether Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) codes for ACP services are regularly utilized by hematology and oncology...
On September 17, 2021, cabozantinib was approved for adult and pediatric patients aged ≥ 12 years with locally advanced or metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer progressing after VEGFR-targeted therapy and who are ineligible or refractory to radioactive iodine.1 Cabozantinib inhibits the...
The leading causes of mortality in the United States are cardiovascular disease (23%) and cancer (21%), accounting for more than 40% of total deaths reported.1,2 The increasing rise in health-care expenditures over the past several decades has driven the need for metrics to further evaluate the...
On September 20, 2021, tisotumab vedotin-tftv, a tissue factor-directed antibody and microtubule inhibitor conjugate, was granted accelerated approval for the treatment of adults with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer who have had disease progression on or after chemotherapy.1 Supporting...
Study discussant Bruna Pellini, MD, of the Department of Thoracic Oncology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Florida, noted that, regardless of PD-L1 or tumor mutation burden status, the NADIM trial demonstrated improved progression-free and overall survival for patients with resectable, stage IIIA non–small ...
Discussant of the POSEIDON trial, Julie Brahmer, MD, MSc, FASCO, Co-Director of the Upper Aerodigestive Department within the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Johns Hopkins Medicine, applauded the numerous treatment choices now available to patients with metastatic non–small...
Deb Schrag, MD, FASCO, MPH, has been named the new Chair of the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Dr. Schrag has a deep familiarity with MSK, having previously spent 8 years at the institution as a physician and faculty member. She joins MSK from the...
“Population-based screening for prostate cancer reduces prostate cancer mortality,” noted J. Kellogg Parsons, MD, MHS, FACS, Professor of Urology, UC San Diego Health, who commented on the study. “Effective screening programs focus on the early detection of aggressive but curable tumors, minimize...
The addition of 2 years of abiraterone acetate plus prednisolone (AAP) to androgen-deprivation therapy improves metastasis-free survival and overall survival compared with androgen-deprivation therapy alone in men with nonmetastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer, according to a primary...
Longer follow-up data from the phase III CheckMate 649 trial support the use of nivolumab plus chemotherapy as a new standard first-line regimen in patients with advanced gastric cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, and esophageal adenocarcinoma. The findings were reported by Yelena Janjigian, ...
Commenting on the SECOMBIT trial was Omid Hamid, MD, Chief of Translational Research and Immunotherapy at The Angeles Clinic & Research Institute, a Cedars-Sinai Affiliate, and Co-Director, Cutaneous Malignancy Program, Cedars-Sinai Cancer. Dr. Hamid said SECOMBIT addresses an important...
Barbara Pistilli, MD, of the Breast Cancer Group at Gustave Roussy Cancer Center, Villejuif, France, said the results of the TULIP trial, showing the progression-free survival benefit for vic-trastuzumab duocarmazine (SYD985), help to establish antibody-drug conjugates as key components of the...
The National Cancer Act of 1971 established a national priority to address the widely shared dread of a cancer diagnosis. The goal of the National Cancer Act was to strengthen the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to more effectively carry out the national effort against cancer. After the Act was...
Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a B-cell lymphoproliferative disorder defined by a specific phenotype and the presence of more than 5,000 clonal B cells in the peripheral blood.1 In the absence of this number of circulating cells, its soft-tissue/bone-marrow counterpart is semantically...
The invited discussant of the MONALESSA-2 trial was Gonzalo Gomez-Abuin, MD, a medical oncologist who is Head of the Clinical Research Unit at Hospital Alemán in Buenos Aires. According to Dr. Gomez-Abuin, phase III trials of three different CDK4/6 inhibitors—ribociclib, palbociclib, and...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Thierry Facon, MD, and colleagues, an interim analysis of overall survival in the pivotal phase III MAIA trial has shown a significant benefit with the addition of daratumumab to lenalidomide/dexamethasone in newly diagnosed, transplant-ineligible patients with ...
Recent advances in cancer genomics and targeted therapies have changed the treatment landscape for lung cancer, but disparities in access to precision medicine remain, according to data presented during the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2021 World Conference on Lung ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Julie R. Palmer, ScD, and colleagues have developed and validated a risk prediction model for invasive breast cancer in Black women in the United States. Study Details For the development of the model, breast cancer relative and attributable risks...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Morice et al found that pancytopenia was associated with use of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors for cancer treatment, according to drug adverse event reports in the World Health Organization global pharmacovigilance database...
A large study from the United Kingdom has taken a deep dive into SARS–CoV-2 in the setting of cancer, yielding both concerning and encouraging findings about natural and vaccine-induced immunity. The study was presented at the Presidential Symposium during the European Society for Medical Oncology...
New research published by Shaverdian et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network assessed patient satisfaction and preferences associated with telemedicine. Researchers found 45% of people with cancer undergoing radiotherapy preferred telemedicine, whereas 34% preferred...
In a phase II clinical trial, the drug 4-demethyl-4-cholesteryloxycarbonylpenclomedine (DM-CHOC-PEN) improved survival for some adolescent and young adult patients with cancers involving the central nervous system, according to results presented by Morgan et al at the AACR-NCI-EORTC Virtual...
In preclinical models, combining an investigational Aurora kinase A (AURKA) inhibitor with a KRAS inhibitor or a WEE1 inhibitor showed efficacy against lung cancer cells with intrinsic or acquired resistance to KRAS inhibition, according to results presented by Lee et al at the AACR-NCI-EORTC...