In an international phase II trial led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, treatment with the oral FGFR inhibitor erdafitinib was well tolerated and achieved a robust response for patients with metastatic urothelial cancers harboring mutations in the FGFR3...
The phase III ENLIVEN study showed a statistically significant 39% overall response rate at week 25 based on central review of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans using Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST), version 1.1 (the primary endpoint) for patients treated with oral...
A new chemotherapy strategy seems to improve cure rates for children with rhabdomyosarcoma who are at high risk for cancer recurrence. In a randomized phase III clinical trial, adding 6 months of low-dose maintenance chemotherapy after initial treatment increased the 5-year overall survival rate...
In a phase III clinical trial, the investigational PI3K inhibitor taselisib combined with standard hormone therapy fulvestrant (Faslodex) halted the growth of advanced breast cancer growth by 2 months longer than hormone therapy alone. In addition, the novel combination decreased the chance of...
An initial report from the large, ongoing Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas (CCGA) study provides preliminary evidence that a blood test may be able to detect early-stage lung cancer. This is one of the first studies to explore blood tests analyzing free-floating or cell-free DNA as a tool for the ...
A federally funded randomized study demonstrated that the use of geriatric assessment in routine care of older adults with advanced cancer significantly improved doctor-patient communication about age-related concerns as well as patient satisfaction with the communication. The study was featured in ...
An analysis of health claims data from two demographically similar regions on either side of the U.S./Canada border shows that a common treatment for advanced colorectal cancer costs twice as much in Western Washington State than in British Columbia—$12,345 vs $6,195 monthly per patient....
An updated American Cancer Society guideline now says colorectal cancer screening should begin at age 45 for people at average risk, based in part on data showing rates of colorectal cancer are increasing in young and middle-aged populations. The updated recommendations were published by Wolf et al ...
ASCO and the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) have announced that they are working to co-create a pathway to provide doctors with a flexible way to maintain board certification. The work with ASCO reflects real progress in ABIM’s efforts to collaborate with medical societies. Beginning in ...
Over the past year (June 2017–May 2018), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval to a number of new oncology drug products, including several biosimilar products. Here we provide the labeling approved for these novel drugs and new indications. EPOETIN ALFA-EPBX (RETACRIT)...
Arti Hurria, MD, FASCO, who is Director of City of Hope’s Center for Cancer and Aging, is a first generation of immigrant parents from India. “My parents left India and moved from England to Canarsie, Brooklyn, where I was born. When I was 8, my family moved to Southern California, partly due to...
“At the age of 6, my mother threw me into the arms of Hippocrates’ discipline, giving me as a special gift a toy suitcase full of medical equipment and a little puppet to train my skills with a stethoscope, syringe, thermometer, small reflex hammer, and torch to explore the oropharyngeal airways....
The remarkable careers of Jimmie C. Holland, MD, and James F. Holland, MD, spanned collectively for more than a century, leaving an indelible footprint in oncology clinical care and research. Synonymous with cancer care itself, the Hollands were a living documentary of the rich and dramatic history ...
Volker S. Diehl, MD, the internationally renowned hematologist and researcher, was born in Berlin, Germany, on February 28, 1938—arguably one of the most tumultuous periods in world history. Germany had just invaded Austria, signaling the dark intentions of the Third Reich. In 1943, the air raids...
As reported by Hedy L. Kindler, MD, of the University of Chicago, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma.1 The guideline was based on a systematic literature search and expert panel...
During her presentation “Adolescent and Young Adult Survivorship: What Do We Still Need to Know?” at the 2017 Cancer Survivorship Symposium: Advancing Care and Research, Emily S. Tonorezos, MD, MPH, a general internist in the Adult Long-Term Follow-Up Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer...
Pfizer recently announced that the independent data monitoring committee for the phase III ATLAS trial, which is evaluating axitinib (Inlyta) as adjuvant therapy for patients at high risk of recurrent renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after nephrectomy, recommended stopping the trial at a planned interim...
ASCO President-Elect Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FASCO, was born and reared in Wyoming, where her family ran a cattle ranch in the foothills of the snow-topped peaks of the Wind River Range (or “Winds” for short), a place of breathtakingly uncluttered vistas where the chief feature is the air...
On March 20, 2018, brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) was approved for the treatment of adult patients with previously untreated stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma in combination with chemotherapy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the findings of the open-label phase III...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel 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 May 1, 2018, tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah), a...
This past year’s approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of two chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies heralded a new era in both effective cancer treatments and the most expensive cancer drugs ever. Tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) was initially approved for the treatment of...
The publication of the ASCO clinical practice guideline for the management of immune therapy–related adverse events—reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—represents an important next step in the incorporation of checkpoint blocking antibodies as standard cancer treatment modalities.1 The U.S....
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Julie R. Brahmer, MD, of Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on management of immune-related adverse events in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.1 Immune...
The 2018 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting was abuzz with more than 22,000 attendees from around the world who came to Chicago to hear the latest in basic science and clinical trial results. Here we present summaries of a few of the highlights from the AACR meeting...
Named by ASCO as Advance of the Year for both 2016 and 2017,1 and with more than 10 U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved indications—and more on the way—it’s safe to say the era of cancer immunotherapy is upon us. To prepare, physicians must understand not only which patients will benefit,...
Douglas Fearon, MD, Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and colleagues may have discovered how pancreatic cancer metastasizes to the liver following surgery, as reported by Pommier et al in Science. “This discovery is significant because for patients who undergo pancreatic cancer...
The noninferiority phase III Persephone trial could shake up the standard of care for adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin), showing that patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer derived as much benefit from 6 months of trastuzumab as 12 months, according to research from the United Kingdom ...
In a letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, Smith et al describe successful use of oxybutynin to treat hot flashes in a patient receiving androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) for prostate cancer. As noted by the authors, nonhormonal treatments for menopausal hot flashes in women ...
ASCO and the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) have announced that they are working to co-create a pathway to provide doctors with a flexible way to maintain board certification. Beginning in 2020, oncologists will be able to choose from two different assessment pathways. They may take an ...
Patients with cancer have an increased risk of developing blood clots, with roughly one in five experiencing venous thromboembolism (VTE)—either deep-vein thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE). Although there are many causes and risk factors for VTE, patients with cancer are...
As reported in JAMA, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued updated recommendations on prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based screening for prostate cancer. To inform the recommendations, the USPSTF reviewed evidence on benefits and harms of PSA-based screening and treatment of...
Persephone, a large phase III randomized noninferiority study conducted in the United Kingdom comparing 6 months to 12 months of trastuzumab (Herceptin) in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer has found 6 months of trastuzumab to be noninferior to 12 months of the therapy. In addition,...
An economic model comparing different types of genetic testing in metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) found that using next-generation sequencing to test for all known lung cancer–related gene changes at the time of diagnosis was more cost-effective and faster than testing one ...
An analysis of 1,800 lung cancer screening sites nationwide found that only 1.9% of more than 7 million current and former heavy smokers were screened for lung cancer in 2016, despite U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and ASCO screening recommendations. Results from this study—the...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Iyer et al found that dose-dense neoadjuvant gemcitabine plus cisplatin produced a high response rate and was generally well tolerated in patients with planned radical cystectomy for muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Study Details In ...
Significant disparities in the quality of end-of-life lung cancer care were found among racial/ethnic minorities, with higher odds of experiencing potentially preventable medical encounters during end of life as compared with non-Hispanic whites. These findings were published by Karanth et al in...
Dr. Thompson is Professor of Melanoma and Surgical Oncology, Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, and Senior Surgeon, Melanoma Institute Australia, Sydney. IN THE MID-1990s, the surgical management of patients presenting with primary cutaneous melanomas changed forever when the...
AS REPORTED IN the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Sandra L. Wong, MD, of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and colleagues, ASCO and the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) have issued an update to the ASCO/SSO clinical practice guideline on sentinel lymph node biopsy and management of regional...
A STANDARDIZED 5-year period of surveillance by a gynecologic oncologist was found to be inadequate for some gynecologic cancers and excessive for others, according to research presented by Robert Dood, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, at the 2018 Society of...
THE NATIONAL Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) debuted three sets of completely new guidelines for treating patients with uveal melanoma, for treating patients who have cancer and the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and for managing immune-related toxicities. Cancer in People Living With...
A RECENT article in The New England Journal of Medicine explored the nuances of minimal/measurable residual disease testing after induction treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML)1 and David P. Steensma, MD, and Benjamin L. Ebert, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical...
ADDING THE IMMUNE checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to standard chemotherapy with pemetrexed (Alimta) and a platinum as first-line therapy was superior to chemotherapy alone in the KEYNOTE-189 trial.1 Induction and maintenance therapies with the new triplet therapy improved overall...
Desmoplastic melanoma is a rare subtype of melanoma that is commonly found on sun-exposed areas, such as the head and neck, and usually seen in older patients. Treatment is difficult, as these tumors are often resistant to chemotherapy and lack actionable mutations commonly found in other types of...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus attention on chamomile ...
In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) convened an advisory committee that recognized metastasis-free survival as a clinically relevant endpoint for nonmetastatic prostate cancer due to shorter trial readout times and acknowledgment that a substantial delay in the transition to a...
On December 22, 2017, the product label for nilotinib (Tasigna) was updated to include information on nilotinib discontinuation, postdiscontinuation monitoring, and guidance for treatment reinitiation in patients with Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-positive chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who have...
In a dose-finding, dose-expansion phase Ib trial (JAVELIN Renal 100) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Toni K. Choueiri, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and colleagues determined the maximum tolerated dose of the immune checkpoint inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio)...
On May 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted orphan drug designation to the cancer vaccine BN-Brachyury for the treatment of chordoma. Chordoma is a rare type of cancer that develops along the spine, with presentation occurring at one of three main sites: sacrum, mobile spine, or...
Skin cancer survivors know firsthand that the disease is most treatable when detected early, so they’re more likely to be vigilant about skin exams—and new research shows that such vigilance pays off. After studying more than 900 cases of melanoma reported through the Health...