Patients with biliary tract cancer have an altered genetic architecture in some immune system receptor systems, according to research published by Cornillet et al in Gastroenterology. Research Findings Researchers at Karolinska Institutet investigated the genetic architecture of two large genetic ...
Despite an avalanche of novel therapies approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the past decade in the treatment of multiple myeloma, including proteasome inhibitors and immunomodulatory drugs, this blood cancer remains largely incurable, and nearly 13,000 people are expected...
I sit paralyzed at my desk. Everyone else has left the clinic. I can hear the sound of the broom in the hall as the after-hours cleaning begins. No phones ring, no patients hurry to appointments, no chatter lingers in the air. The silence is oppressive, the air is heavy, and the distance from my...
Karen Gelmon, MD, was born and reared in Saskatoon, the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It is surrounded by vast prairie and situated along the Trans-Canada Yellowhead Highway and is home to the University of Saskatchewan. “We lived close to the University,” she shared. “My...
The three-drug combination of encorafenib, binimetinib, and cetuximab significantly improved overall survival in patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer, according to results of the phase III BEACON CRC clinical trial. These findings were presented by Kopetz et al at the European...
Welcome, everyone. We are so glad that you are all here today. Those of you attending your first ASCO Annual Meeting: Welcome to this amazing organization. What I’d like to do is to show you some of what ASCO offers, and challenge you all to join in to make a powerful future a reality. We have a...
Unlike non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), which has seen a paradigm shift in treatment modalities with the discovery of genetic signatures (including EGFR mutations) that are responsive to targeted drugs, systemic treatment of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) has remained largely unchanged for over...
“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...
The largest adjuvant trial in pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the global phase III APACT trial, evaluated the combination of adjuvant nab-paclitaxel/gemcitabine vs gemcitabine monotherapy in patients with resected pancreatic cancer. Results of the study were reported by Margaret A. Tempero, MD, of the...
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...
A novel therapy using two targeted treatments for prostate cancer has been shown to maximize efficacy while reducing side effects, according to research presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) and published by Emmett et al in The Journal ...
The findings of the landmark IDEA trial in stage III colorectal cancer, presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting and subsequently published in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 were upheld by a subsequent analysis by the same group, the International Duration Evaluation of Adjuvant...
I was born at the beginning of World War II in a country half way around the world from the fighting. As a child, I was immune to the carnage. My father was too old to be included, although his elder brother had been killed in World War I. Thousands of families in many countries lost a father, a...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to provide oncologists with greater help in acquiring expanded access to investigational therapies. Deemed Project Facilitate, the pilot program was announced at a press briefing during the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting. Project Facilitate is essentially ...
“The end-of-study analysis of the CLEOPATRA trial demonstrates and confirms the long-term benefit of combined HER2-antibody therapy, with a significant number of ongoing responders,” said John T. Cole, MD, breast cancer specialist and Director of Clinical Cancer Research at Ochsner Health System...
The end-of-study analysis of the landmark CLEOPATRA trial shows that 37% of patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer are still alive at 8 years, according to principal investigator Sandra M. Swain, MD, FACP, FASCO, Associate Dean for Research Development at Georgetown University Medical ...
Early detection and treatment through screening with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) has been investigated as a potential means of reducing lung cancer mortality for more than 2 decades. In 2011, a large U.S. study—the randomized National Lung Screening Trial (NLST)—reported a 20%...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a new drug application for niraparib in the treatment of certain pretreated gynecologic cancers; granted Fast Track designation to a T-cell product; accepted investigational new drug applications for a myelopreservation agent and an...
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...
New research published in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and presented by Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, at the NCCN 2019 Annual Conference suggests that institutions and networks that utilize immunotherapy should consider establishing multidisciplinary teams for...
A DIAGNOSIS of any life-threatening cancer or other serious illness has always been a world-shaking event for those touched by significant disease, and most of us have known—or will know—the frustration, helplessness, and desperate sense of urgency provoked by the words, “The disease is worsening,...
EARLY REGISTRATION is now open for the ASCO Research Community Forum (RCF) 2019 Annual Meeting. The ASCO RCF Annual Meeting brings together physician investigators and research staff from across the country for 2 days of learning and collaboration. The meeting offers colleagues from a variety of...
Recent technologic improvements in radiotherapy now offer an unprecedented opportunity to enhance immune response, and going forward, may play a role in the definitive treatment of head and neck cancer, according to William Stokes, MD, Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at...
Patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-related head and neck cancer stand to benefit greatly from immunotherapy, according to Nabil F. Saba, MD, FACP, Director, Head and Neck Medical Oncology Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta. He added, immunotherapy will likely play...
Despite progress being made in cancer survivorship—there are currently nearly 17 million cancer survivors in the United States1—not everyone is benefiting equally, especially those patients living in rural communities across America. According to “The State of Oncology Practice in America, 2018:...
The KEYNOTE-048 trial is practice-changing, according to its invited discussant, Vanita Noronha, MD, Professor of Oncology at Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai, India. Although a number of questions remain to be answered, she said the take-home message is that the study “met most of its primary...
A fixed-duration regimen of venetoclax plus obinutuzumab demonstrated superior progression-free survival, complete response rates, and minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity compared with chlorambucil plus obinutuzumab as first-line therapy for older patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia...
IN A SEPARATE interview with The ASCO Post, Charles Drake, MD, PhD, commented on the clinical implications of the ENZAMET and TITAN trials, as well as studies of apalutamide, abiraterone acetate, and docetaxel used in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Dr. Drake is Director 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...
“THE RATIONALE for the POLO study is sound,” said invited study discussant Wells Messersmith, MD. “There’s clearly an unmet need in pancreatic cancer, and there are promising data for poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors in other BRCA-mutated tumors.” Dr. Messersmith is Professor and Head ...
In patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer and germline mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2, maintenance therapy with olaparib doubled the time to disease progression and the proportion of patients who were progression-free at 2 years, in the phase III POLO trial.1 “Maintenance olaparib provided a...
Excluding skin cancer, colorectal cancer is the third most prevalent and lethal cancer among both men and women in the United States.1 Although the risk of developing colorectal cancer increases with age—more than 90% of cases occur in people aged 50 or older2—recent research shows that the...
HOW DO YOU respond when patients with a good prognosis want to delay chemotherapy to try an anticancer diet for a few months or visit an unregulated clinic for unproven therapies? I’m asking because of an alarming finding of ASCO’s 2018 National Cancer Opinion Survey: “Nearly 4 in 10 Americans...
WHEN ASKED which treatment to start with—docetaxel or enzalutamide, Dr. Sweeney said, “Patients fit for chemotherapy with high-volume disease can receive chemotherapy [docetaxel] and come back to these newer hormonal treatments or start with anyone of the hormonal options. Choosing among the newer...
Agents that improve survival in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer when added to background androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) are showing success in treating metastatic prostate cancer earlier while it is still hormone-sensitive. These agents include docetaxel (chemotherapy) and...
As you probably already know, physicians do not make the best patients. When I began experiencing the early signs of Hodgkin lymphoma, in 2007, including a persistent cough, unusual fatigue, and pruritus, I self-diagnosed allergic rhinitis and began treatment with intranasal corticosteroids....
The recently published report of Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group’s Study 18 (ABCSG-18)1 for the secondary endpoint of disease-free survival suggests that denosumab given in a low dose of 60 mg subcutaneously every 6 months during aromatase inhibitor adjuvant therapy is...
Nonmetastatic (M0) castration-resistant prostate cancer arises in the subset of men with biochemically recurrent disease (ie, rising prostate-specific antigen [PSA] level after definitive therapy in the absence of metastases) who develop PSA progression after chronic exposure to...
An international group of researchers has found that antibodies to the human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) may develop in the body between 6 to 40 years prior to a clinical diagnosis of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, and their presence indicates a strong increased risk of the disease....
The Colorectal Cancer Alliance is calling on allies to participate in its 2019 Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Survey. The survey enables the Alliance to learn about and track the self-reported medical, psychosocial, and quality-of-life experiences of patients, survivors, and...
I RECENTLY returned from Normandy, France, where my wife and I attended events honoring the 75th Anniversary of D-Day and the millions, including close friends and family, who fought and died in the Second World War. My wife and a journalist from Los Angeles laid a wreath on Omaha Beach in honor of ...
A new retrospective study led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute examined outcomes for patients after receiving treatment for locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), finding that the average radiation dose delivered to the...
The E2810 trial was conducted to determine whether treatment with the oral drug pazopanib following surgery to remove further metastases in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma would improve their disease-free survival. Results from the study—which showed that primary endpoint of...
Results from an experimental arm of the phase II NRG-GI002 trial using veliparib, a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, as part of total neoadjuvant therapy (induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy and surgery) in patients with locally advanced rectal adenocarcinoma were...
The poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib may benefit some men with prostate cancer, according to findings from the phase II TOPARP-B trial presented by Mateo et al at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 5005). Olaparib previously showed activity against metastatic...
A recent, updated predictive analysis of the three World Health Organization (WHO)-defined molecular subgroups based on IDH mutation status and 1p/19q codeletion status represented in the high-risk treatment arms of a phase III trial found that both IDH-mutant subgroups may derive benefit ...
As I write this, I think I’m making sense but am not 100% sure. My brain is a little scrambled after nearly 4 years of treatment for grade 4 glioblastoma multiforme, but I think the essence of my humor and humanity is still intact. When I experienced my first partial seizure while riding my...
Mathematics, modeling, and simulation to study cancer are topics covered in a new special series in JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics (JCO CCI). On April 24, JCO CCI published its fourth special collection of articles, “Mathematical Oncology,” which showcases the current state of the field and new...
The discussant of the abstract on the use of prophylactic cranial irradiation in patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), Kristin Higgins, MD, underscored the marked shift in practice patterns in the United States. However, she noted that many questions remain concerning...
Programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitors are approved for the second-line treatment of head and neck cancer and likely will be soon in the first-line treatment of locally advanced disease. According to Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, developments in immunotherapy for this population should be...