Extended next-generation sequencing genomic profiling in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has revealed remarkable heterogeneity and molecular complexity of the disease and provided critical insights into the genetic mechanisms underpinning of preleukemic and leukemic pathogenesis.1,2 Despite...
Over the years many great oncology leaders have served at the helm as ASCO President. We recognize these individuals here, and extend our gratitude for their service and efforts to champion high-quality cancer care. 2018-2019: Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD 2017-2018: Bruce E. Johnson, MD 2016-2017:...
The Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (FASCO) distinction recognizes ASCO members for their extraordinary volunteer service, dedication, and commitment to ASCO. Their efforts benefit ASCO, the specialty of oncology, and, most importantly, the individuals at risk for, or with...
ASCO AND ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation recognized winners of ASCO’s 2018 Special Awards and Conquer Cancer’s Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Awards during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, June 1 to June 4, in Chicago. The recipients of these awards included researchers, patient advocates, and...
Simultaneously presented at the 2018 European Association of Urology meeting and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, the PRECISION trial will go down as a landmark study for solidifying the role of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in prostate cancer diagnosis.1 This trial provides...
The following medical facilities are certified, as of March 2020, to administer the U. S. Food and Drug Administration-approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy: axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta or “A”) for eligible patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah or ...
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...
Children with nonbrainstem high-grade glioma could benefit from potentially life-extending treatment if genetic testing was used to personalize therapy as it is in many adults, new research published by Mackay et al in Cancer Cell reported. Scientists analyzed the DNA of children taking an...
In 1996, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) published its first set of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) covering 8 tumor types. Guidelines are now published for more than 60 tumor types and topics. Some of the key updates were presented at NCCN’s 23rd...
Upfront use of nelarabine plus standard Children’s Oncology Group–augmented Berlin-Frankfurt-Münster (aBFM) chemotherapy boosted survival rates in children and young adults with newly diagnosed T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia (T-LL), according to the...
The opportunity to serve as ASCO President is the greatest honor of my professional career. It has been a pleasure and a highly rewarding experience to interact with our members and members of ASCO’s Board, executive leadership, and professional staff during my tenure. The year has allowed me to...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has named Wui-Jin Koh, MD, as Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, a newly created position for the nonprofit alliance of top U.S. cancer centers. Dr. Koh will add additional physician representation at NCCN headquarters, which...
On May 15, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved epoetin alfa-epbx (Retacrit) as a biosimilar to epoetin alfa (Epogen/Procrit) for the treatment of anemia caused by chronic kidney disease, chemotherapy, or use of zidovudine in patients with HIV infection. Epoetin alfa-epbx is also...
A randomized clinical trial evaluating the use of mobile and sensor technology to remotely monitor symptoms in patients receiving radiation therapy for head and neck cancer found that use of this technology reduced severe symptoms related to cancer and its treatment compared with usual care....
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,...
A large randomized phase III clinical trial by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) investigating the safety and efficacy of adding nelarabine (Arranon) to COG-augmented Berlin-Frankfurt-Munster chemotherapy (aBFM) to treat newly diagnosed patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic...
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 study reported in JAMA Dermatology, Wang et al found that risk of nodal metastasis was higher for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the lip with vermilion vs cutaneous location. Disease-specific and overall survival were similar for the two locations. Study Details The retrospective ...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Caan et al found that computed tomography (CT)-derived sarcopenia and adiposity were associated with overall survival in women with nonmetastatic breast cancer. Study Details The study involved data from 3,241 women from Kaiser Permanente of Northern...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Orphan Products Development recently granted Orphan Drug designation to CLR 131 for the treatment of rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare pediatric cancer. “Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common type of tissue sarcoma in children. While...
Researchers have identified six genes that predispose carriers to develop medulloblastoma and have used the discovery to craft genetic counseling and screening guidelines. The study was published by Waszak et al in The Lancet Oncology. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital,...
Flushing the bladder with a common chemotherapy drug immediately after surgery significantly reduces the chances of bladder cancer returning, according to a study by Messing et al published in JAMA and led by SWOG. First author Edward M. Messing, MD, is Professor of Urology and...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Kotsopoulos et al found that use of hormone replacement therapy overall did not increase risk of breast cancer among BRCA1-mutation carriers after prophylactic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy; however, use of estrogen-progesterone hormone replacement...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Morita et al found that clearance of somatic mutations at complete remission—particularly those in nonpreleukemic genes—was associated with improved outcomes in previously untreated patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML)....
Susannah E. Koontz, PharmD, BCOP, FHOPA, is a consultant for clinical pharmacy services, research, and education in the areas of pediatric hematology/oncology, stem cell transplantation, and cellular therapy. She has held positions at the Children’s Cancer Hospital at The University of Texas MD...
THE COMMUNITY ONCOLOGY Alliance (COA) has released the 2018 Community Oncology Practice Impact Report,1 which tracks data on the changing landscape of cancer care in the United States. It details a decade-long trend of closure and consolidation in the U.S. cancer system that has resulted in a...
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...
OBESITY IS associated with poor survival in patients with cancer, but when research is translated into survivorship care, obese and overweight patients can experience better outcomes, according to Karen Basen-Engquist, PhD, MPH, Professor of Behavioral Science and Director of the Center for Energy...
CONCERNS ABOUT how recurrence of gynecologic cancer can affect a person’s life, and not simply fear of recurrence alone, play an important role in patient distress and functional impairment, according to a presentation at the 2018 American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) Annual Conference in...
A MULTI-INSTITUTIONAL analysis of circulating tumor DNA extracted from the plasma of patients has shown that human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16) DNA is detectable in the majority of cases of favorable-risk HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma and may be a clinically useful...
RESEARCHERS AT The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are testing the possibility of safely eliminating surgery in patients with breast cancer who are “exceptional responders” to neoadjuvant therapy, according to Henry M. Kuerer, MD, PhD, a breast cancer surgeon who described this...
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...
FORMAL DISCUSSANT of the KEYNOTE-189 trial, Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Chief of Medical Oncology at Smilow Cancer Hospital, Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, heartily endorsed the new triplet combination of pembrolizumab, pemetrexed, and a platinum in advanced nonsquamous non– small cell lung cancer...
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...
Parenting concerns contributed significantly to the psychological distress of mothers with late-stage cancer, according to a study by University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers published by Park et al in the journal Cancer. Cancer is the leading cause of...
Early, ongoing screening of lymphatic function and immediate patient-administered therapies as needed are highly effective in improving outcomes for women at high risk for breast cancer–related lymphedema (BCRL). These were the findings of a new study presented at the American Society of ...
Modern, multimodality lumpectomy treatment significantly reduces the incidence of breast cancer recurrence at the original tumor site compared to historical protocols, according to a new study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) 19th Annual Meeting (Abstract...
Current restrictive genetic testing guidelines exclude many patients who harbor high-risk breast cancer mutations, according to two new studies presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) 19th Annual Meeting (Abstracts 402910, 404340). One study found that whether or not patients...
Women with breast cancer who underwent regular mammographic screening were diagnosed with earlier-stage disease and treated with significantly less aggressive therapies than those who delayed or never underwent screening, according to new research presented at the American Society of Breast...
Researchers have found that women with advanced triple-negative breast cancer with a BRCA mutation were twice as likely to benefit from carboplatin as docetaxel—the current standard of care for these patients. These findings were published by Tutt et al in Nature Medicine. The trial is set...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist), administered together, for the treatment of unresectable, metastatic, BRAF V600E mutation–positive anaplastic thyroid cancer. Anaplastic thyroid cancer accounts for about 1% to 2% of all...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline update on the role of bone-modifying agents in multiple myeloma.1 The update was performed by an expert panel systematic...
Despite steady declines in death rates in recent years, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths in wealthy countries. In a study published by Andreano et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, Yale researchers collaborated with investigators in Europe to examine lung cancer care and ...
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 ...
Overwhelming evidence shows that patient decision aids, such as educational booklets, videos, or Web-based tools that take into account patients’ values and personal preferences, hold enormous promise for improving the informed consent process. Patient decision aids both reduce unwanted medical...
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...
While effective antiretroviral therapy, which suppresses HIV replication and improves immune function, has resulted in increased longevity for people living with HIV and reduced the risk of certain cancers, including Kaposi sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, other cancers are expected to become more ...
On May 1, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) suspension for intravenous infusion for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma—including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), high-grade B-cell lymphoma, and...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Maurer et al found that a shorter interval between diagnosis and treatment was associated with adverse prognostic features and that a longer interval was associated with greater event-free survival in the first-line treatment of diffuse large ...