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Showing 2901 - 2950Mitomycin Gel for Low-Grade Upper Tract Urothelial Cancer
On April 15, 2020, mitomycin gel was approved for the treatment of adult patients with low-grade upper tract urothelial cancer.1,2 Mitomycin gel is for pyelocalyceal use alone and not for intravenous, topical, or oral administration. Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the...
Luspatercept-aamt for Anemia in Adults With Myelodysplastic Syndromes
On April 3, 2020, luspatercept-aamt was approved in the treatment of anemia failing to respond to an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent and requiring 2 or more red blood cell (RBC) units over 8 weeks.1,2 The treatment is geared toward adult patients with very low– to intermediate-risk myelodysplastic ...
ASCO’s President-Elect Aims to Ensure Equitable Cancer Care for Every Patient
The desire to pursue a career in medicine took root when Lori J. Pierce, MD, FASTRO, FASCO, was a young child visiting family in segregated Ahoskie, North Carolina. She witnessed firsthand the impact the town’s lone African American family physician had on the community. When it came time to...
Lessons Learned on Rotation at COVID-19 Inpatient Service at New York City Hospital
AS I WRITE TO YOU, I am happy to report I have just completed a 7-day rotation at the COVID-19 inpatient service at my hospital in New York City! Overall, it was a positive experience, despite the occasional sad and scary moments. I left the service feeling uplifted and fulfilled. I am glad to have ...
COVID-19 Infection in Pediatric Patients With Cancer
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Boulad et al found a low rate of COVID-19 morbidity among infected pediatric patients with cancer seen in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center pediatric program, as well as a low rate of infection in patients without COVID-19...
Low-Intensity Surveillance as an Option for Some Patients With Non–Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer
Low-intensity cystoscopic surveillance may be a viable option for patients with high-risk, non–muscle invasive bladder cancer, according to data from a paper presented to the media during a special session moderated by the American Urological Association (AUA) on May 15. The research was also...
Combining Pembrolizumab With IL-12 Electroporation May Improve Clinical Response in Patients With Immunologically 'Cold' Melanoma
Patients with non–immune-infiltrated “cold” tumors have low frequencies of intratumoral tumor-reactive, checkpoint-positive cytotoxic lymphocytes, making them less responsive to checkpoint blockage than patients with immune-infiltrated “hot” tumors. A phase II study by Alain P. Algazi, MD, and...
Study Finds Cancer-Related Deaths Declined in States With Expanded Access to Medicaid
States that adopted Medicaid expansion after passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 saw a decline in cancer mortality rates by 29% compared with 25% in states that did not expand access to Medicaid, according to a study by Anna Lee, MD, MPH, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New...
Ruxolitinib in Glucocorticoid-Refractory Acute Graft-vs-Host Disease After Stem Cell Transplant
In the phase III REACH2 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Zeiser et al found that the JAK1/2 inhibitor ruxolitinib improved response rate vs investigator’s choice of therapy in patients with glucocorticoid-refractory acute graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) following allogeneic stem...
Half of Surveyed Cancer Researchers Report Their Work Is on Hold Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic
A survey of American Cancer Society grantees found that about half reported their cancer research has been halted as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Cancer Society reached out to all of its funded researchers to assess the state of their projects and collect information to guide...
My ASCO Journey: Opportunities for Gratitude and Breaking Glass Ceilings
In my native language, there is a saying that is translated as, “A child who does not travel only appreciates their mother’s cooking.” In the broad sense, as we grow up and experience the different things that life has to offer, two things happen if we allow our minds to open up: we realize there...
Grace and Forgiveness
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,...
Highlights From ASH 2019 Included New Data in Leukemia, Lymphoma, Myeloma, and Myelodysplastic Syndromes
The 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition featured a cornucopia of sessions. It was impossible to attend all the lectures, symposia, oral presentations, poster presentations, and special events because many were concurrent. Below, we have selected some...
KEYNOTE-522: A Biomarker Resource for PD-1 Inhibition in Early Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
In the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Schmid et al1 found that the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in stage II or III triple-negative breast cancer significantly improved the pathologic...
Bispecific Antibodies Poised to Impact Treatment of Lymphoma and Other Blood Cancers
Studies of second-generation bispecific antibodies were among the highlights of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The bispecific T-cell engager blinatumomab was the first such agent to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in...
Vascular Imaging for Detection of Breast Cancer: Best of Two Worlds?
For breast imaging, contrast-enhanced mammography, which uses the anatomic imaging of a mammogram in addition to imaging neovascularity, can offer the overall screening capability of standard mammography and the sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at a fraction of the cost of MRI,...
Can Breast Cancer Surgery Be Eliminated in ‘Exceptional Responders’ to Neoadjuvant Therapy?
Can patients with breast cancer who achieve an “exceptional response” to neoadjuvant therapy safely forgo surgery? That is a question being seriously explored in multinational trials. “We’ve known for a long time that we can eliminate disease in many patients if they have chemosensitive tumors....
Early Signs of Activity With Immunotherapies in Low-Incidence Cancers
Immunotherapy is showing promise for patients with rare cancers, offering new treatment opportunities and clinical trials to those with previously limited options. At the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, presenters discussed the use of immunotherapy in three low-incidence cancers: ...
Kimlin T. Ashing, PhD, on Tobacco and Vape Shops in Neighborhoods With Lower-Income and Minority Populations
Kimlin T. Ashing, PhD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, discusses analyses that showed neighborhoods with lower-income and minority populations had a greater number of tobacco and vape shops, increased use of electronic nicotine delivery systems, and lower-priced tobacco products. This...
Chemoablation of Low-Grade Upper Tract Urothelial Cancer With Mitomycin-Containing Reverse Thermal Gel
In the single-arm phase III OLYMPUS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kleinmann et al found that primary chemoablation of low-grade upper tract urothelial carcinoma using a mitomycin-containing reverse thermal gel (UGN-101) resulted in disease eradication in more than half of patients. As...
AACR 2020: Atezolizumab Alone or in Combination With Cobimetinib for Biliary Tract Cancer
A randomized multicenter study of a combination of immunotherapy with a targeted therapy improved cancer control for some patients with biliary tract cancer, according to research presented by Yarchoan et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting (Abstract...
Regorafenib Plus Nivolumab in Advanced Gastric and Colorectal Cancers
In a Japanese phase Ib/dose-expansion trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fukuoka et al found that the combination of regorafenib and nivolumab showed activity in patients with previously treated gastric cancer and colorectal cancer with microsatellite stable/mismatch...
FDA Issues Emergency Use Authorization for Remdesivir for Treatment of Severe COVID-19
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the investigational antiviral drug remdesivir for the treatment of suspected or laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in adults and children hospitalized with severe disease. Severe disease is defined as low...
Negotiating the Obstacles to Conducting Clinical Trials of Immunotherapy During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is perhaps the biggest challenge health-care systems have ever had to face. As part of a series of interviews The ASCO Post is conducting with oncologists, we talked with Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, about the impact of COVID-19 on his practice and on the conduct...
On the Shoulders of Giants
Before the dawn of the modern antibiotic era and amid the chaos of World War II, future Professor of Radiology and Founding Dean of two American medical colleges, Dr. George T. Harrell,* penned what could now be argued was far too bold a statement. As the opening lines of his nonrandomized study...
Are There Racial Differences in Time to Treatment for Melanoma?
Black patients with stage I to III melanoma are likely to experience a longer delay from diagnosis to surgery than non-Hispanic white patients, according to a study published by Tripathi et al in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. “We already knew that black patients with melanoma...
AACR 2020: I-SPY2 Trial: Durvalumab/Olaparib/Paclitaxel ‘Graduates’ in HER2-Negative Breast Cancer
The I-SPY2 trial found that the combination of the checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, the PARP inhibitor olaparib, and the taxane paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide as neoadjuvant therapy improved pathologic complete responses vs paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide...
Allocating Ventilators in Times of Crisis: A Brave New World
The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has challenged us, as a society, to evaluate our core values and philosophy. Ventilators, a precious and limited commodity, are now in short supply. Humanity is at a precipice, and we physicians are facing an ethical dilemma, how best to allocate ventilators, and, ...
High- vs Low-Dose Anti-CD19 CAR T-Cell Therapy in Patients With Relapsed or Refractory CLL
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Noelle V. Frey, MD, and colleagues, a higher dose of anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells was associated with a higher rate of complete response in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia, with...
Disruptions in Health Insurance Coverage and Cancer Care, Survival
A new study published by Yabroff et al in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute found disruptions in health insurance coverage are common in the United States and are associated with poorer cancer care and survival. Disruptions can be caused by gaps in insurance coverage or transitions ...
AACR 2020: Cell-Free DNA Liquid Biopsy May Provide an Early Detection Test for Patients With Suspected Cancer
The Circulating Cell-free Genome Atlas Study is a large multicenter, case-controlled, observational study of 15,254 participants, 56% with cancer and 44% without cancer, with longitudinal follow-up to support the development of a cell-free DNA (cfDNA) multicancer early detection test. In this phase ...
AACR 2020: Study Finds Vape Shops Are Mostly Concentrated in Low-Resource, Minority Communities
An analysis investigating the socioecologic context of tobacco and vape shops in Los Angeles has found that vape shops are more likely to be concentrated in low-resource communities. The communities also tended to have higher concentrations of minority residents and fewer tobacco and vaping sales...
Hypercoagulability in Critically Ill Patients With COVID-19: Where Do We Stand?
“Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.” ―Hippocrates The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that occasionally quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib and Connors...
Isatuximab-irfc for Previously Treated Multiple Myeloma
On March 2, 2020, the CD-38-directed cytolytic antibody isatuximab-irfc (Sarclisa) was approved for use in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone for adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor.1,2...
Adapting Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy by Patient Age and Risk
The individualization and optimization of adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer are important and not always simple. Guidance on this issue was offered at the 2020 Miami Breast Cancer Conference by Joyce O’Shaughnessy, MD, the Celebrating Woman Chair in Breast Cancer Research at Baylor...
21-Gene Assay Recurrence Score and Risk of Locoregional Recurrence in Hormone Receptor–Positive, Node-Positive Breast Cancer
A retrospective analysis from the Southwest Oncology Group S8814 trial, reported by Wendy A. Woodward, MD, PhD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues in JAMA Oncology,1 showed that a low 21-gene assay recurrence score was...
Radon Exposure: A Leading Environmental Cause of Cancer Mortality in the United States
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has concluded that about 21,000 people die each year of lung cancer related to radon gas exposure, making it the second leading cause of lung cancer death in the United States. Although the EPA and various other organizations, including the National Radon ...
PD-1 Inhibition in Mismatch Repair–Deficient/Microsatellite Instability–High Cancers Other Than Colorectal Cancer
Mismatch repair (MMR)-deficiency and consequently high DNA microsatellite instability (MSI-H) are associated with high tumor mutational burden. A high mutational load increases the potential number of neoantigens that can be presented by the tumor cell and recognized by host lymphocytes. Detection...
NCI-MATCH Subprotocol Finds Nivolumab Active in Mismatch Repair–Deficient Cancers Other Than Colorectal Cancer
In a study (NCI-MATCH trial subprotocol, arm Z1D) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nilofer S. Azad, MD, of Johns Hopkins Medicine Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer, and colleagues found that nivolumab was active in mismatch repair (MMR)-deficient noncolorectal cancers.1 As stated by...
Addition of Isatuximab to Pomalidomide and Dexamethasone in Relapsed and Refractory Multiple Myeloma
As reported in The Lancet by Michel Attal, MD, of the Institut Universitaire du Cancer Toulouse Oncopole, France, and colleagues, the phase III ICARIA-MM trial has shown that the addition of the CD38-targeted antibody isatuximab to pomalidomide and low-dose dexamethasone significantly improved...
Gut Bacterial Diversity: A Marker or Driver of Outcomes After Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation?
Previous single-center studies have linked the gut microbiota (via stool sample analysis) to outcomes after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT), such as overall mortality, transplant-related mortality, graft-vs-host disease, and graft-vs-host–related mortality.1-4 Although intriguing, these...
How CRISPR-Cas9 Gene Editing May Improve the Effectiveness of Cellular Therapeutics in Patients With Cancer
The results from the first in-human phase I clinical trial in the United States evaluating CRISPR-Cas9–edited T cells in patients with advanced cancer has shown that the therapy is both feasible and safe, representing a big step forward in the potential of using gene editing to boost the natural...
CheckMate 142 Updated Analysis: First-Line Nivolumab Plus Low-Dose Ipilimumab in MSI-H/dMMR Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
As a first-line regimen for patients with metastatic colorectal tumors that are microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR), the combination of nivolumab and low-dose ipilimumab yielded an objective response rate of 64%, a complete response rate of 9%, and a disease...
More Antibody-Drug Conjugates on the Horizon for Breast Cancer
Novel antibody-drug conjugates that target actionable cell-surface markers in metastatic breast cancer will soon expand the utility of the class that already includes ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1), according to two speakers at the 2020 Miami Breast Cancer Conference. These new agents were...
Study Finds Chemoradiation Plus Bevacizumab Safe and Feasible in Locally or Regionally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Cancer
The addition of bevacizumab to the current standard of care of chemoradiation therapy is safe and feasible for the treatment of locally or regionally advanced nasopharyngeal cancer, according to data presented at the 2020 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1 “I’m pleased to report...
Expert Point of View: Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH
Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, Leslye M. Heisler Assistant Professor for Lung Cancer Excellence at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, underscored the paucity of treatment options for metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. “Even though pembrolizumab is...
EXPECT INTEREST AND QUESTIONS ABOUT STATINS AND METFORMIN
A study showing that statins used alone or in combination with metformin was associated with reduced prostate cancer mortality and all-cause mortality among men with high-risk prostate cancer may raise more questions about these already commonly used drugs.1 “Metformin is the first-line therapy for ...
Statins With or Without Metformin Are Associated With Increased Survival in Patients With High‑Risk Prostate Cancer
A population-based retrospective cohort study involving 12,700 patients found that men with high-risk prostate cancer who took a statin alone or in combination with metformin had reduced all-cause and prostate cancer–specific mortality. The associations between the medications and reduced...
Chemotherapy and the Sweat Lodge
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of 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, historical...
NIH Launches $1 Million Competition to Target Disease Diagnostics
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has launched the $1 million Technology Accelerator Challenge to spur the design and development of noninvasive, handheld, digital technologies to detect, diagnose, and guide therapies for diseases with high global and public health impact. The challenge is...
