In 2017, ASCO published a new guideline in the Journal of Clinical Oncology outlining the best practices for communicating effectively with patients and their family members.1 The goal of the communication guideline is to provide oncologists with a framework of specific practices to enable them to...
Investigators have demonstrated that, despite some commonly held misperceptions, hormone therapy doesn’t increase patients’ risk of developing lung cancer—and it could help reduce the risk, according to a 16-year population-based study published by Wu et al in Menopause. The findings may help...
Michael B. Atkins, MD, of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses treatment-free survival outcomes from the HCRN GU16-260-Cohort A study of patients with previously untreated advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma who received nivolumab and salvage nivolumab plus ipilimumab....
Researchers have discovered that few adverse events may be associated with the use of inferior vena cava filters to help prevent deep vein thrombosis from developing into pulmonary embolisms, according to a new study jointly published by Johnson et al in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional...
Session co-moderator, Pretesh R. Patel, MD, Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, shared his thoughts on the Neo-AEGIS1 findings with The ASCO Post. “I think we continue to have equipoise about chemoradiation and perioperative chemotherapy in...
Smoldering myeloma is an asymptomatic plasma cell disorder with a heterogeneous clinical behavior. Two trials presented at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition investigated early intervention for smoldering multiple myeloma, aiming for a “curative strategy”...
As in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 ASCO GI Cancers Symposium—its 20th such gathering—played to a full ballroom. It featured a stellar lineup of experts in the field as well as high-quality, impactful research in esophageal, gastric, hepatocellular, pancreatic, biliary tract, and ...
Insights on findings from the phase II MonumenTAL-1 trial1 were offered by Ajay K. Nooka, MD, MPH, Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, and Medical Director of the Winship Data and Technology Applications Shared Resource, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School ...
In the phase I/II MonumenTAL-1 trial, the novel bispecific antibody talquetamab produced responses in more than 70% of heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma.1 Of note, the safety profile confirmed results of the phase I portion of the study (recently published in TheNew England Journal...
Patients with large B-cell lymphoma who achieve a complete response to glofitamab are very likely to remain in remission 12 months after the end of treatment, according to Martin Hutchings, MD, PhD, of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, who reported these findings at the 2022 American Society of...
Alexey Danilov, MD, PhD, Co-Director, Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center and Professor, Division of Lymphoma, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope, Duarte, California, commented on the phase III ALPINE trial comparing ibrutinib and zanubrutinib in patients...
Guest Editor’s Note: Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a common and potentially debilitating side effect of neurotoxic chemotherapy. It worsens the quality of life for many cancer survivors, with limited treatment options. In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology...
A new ASCO guideline is available on the use of immunotherapy and biomarker testing for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The guideline provides recommendations related to PD-L1 and tumor mutational burden (TMB) testing, selection of therapy in the...
Patients with large B-cell lymphoma who achieve a complete response to glofitamab are very likely to remain in remission 12 months after the end of treatment, according to Martin Hutchings, MD, PhD, of Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, who reported these findings at the 2022 American Society of...
The advent of the BCR::ABL1 tyrosine kinase inhibitors for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-positive chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) was a therapeutic miracle that changed the management paradigm of CML. The first of them, imatinib, was developed in the late 1990s.1,2 Within a few...
Methotrexate may be linked to an elevated risk of three types of skin cancer, according to a new study published by Polesie et al in the British Journal of Cancer. Additionally, among patients taking the drug to treat moderate to severe psoriasis, an increased risk was observed only for basal cell...
According to a review published by Ashley et al in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, preexisting dementia may complicate cancer care and increase the risk of worse clinical outcome and inferior patient experience. People living with dementia are more likely to have cancer diagnosed at an...
New research shows that patients with type 2 diabetes may experience a substantially higher rate of cancer mortality than the general population—by 18% for all cancers combined, 9% for breast cancer, and as much as 2.4-fold for colorectal cancer—according to a new study published by Ling et al in...
Soon after my marriage, in 2003, I noticed swelling in the glands around my throat. Although I otherwise felt fine, I went to see my primary care physician for a checkup and a blood test. The results of the test showed that I had an abnormally high number of lymphocytes circulating in my...
As an oncologist, I had cared for patients facing grave illness and death. I imagined the loss of loved ones and expected grief to be an unbearable sadness, most poignant in the earliest days and lessening with time. I somehow expected that counseling people who grieved would make me more prepared. ...
Lymphoma expert Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, was born in Westchester County, New York, but soon after, his family relocated to Bergen County, New Jersey, where he spent his formative years. “I attended Tenafly High School and had dual passions: one was the natural sciences and the other on the...
Alexey Danilov, MD, PhD, Co-Director, Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center and Professor, Division of Lymphoma, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope, Duarte, California, commented on the phase III ALPINE trial comparing ibrutinib and zanubrutinib in patients...
Insights on findings from the phase II MonumenTAL-1 trial1 were offered by Ajay K. Nooka, MD, MPH, Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, and Medical Director of the Winship Data and Technology Applications Shared Resource, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School ...
The 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition was full of interesting abstracts in multiple myeloma. In addition to full coverage of several important presentations, The ASCO Post offers readers quick takes on some studies that could be practice-changing and others...
An oncolytic therapy delivered within the urinary bladder in combination with pembrolizumab has yielded high complete response rates in patients with bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive bladder cancer, according to data presented by Roger Li, MD, lead study investigator and urologic...
In the phase I/II MonumenTAL-1 trial, the novel bispecific antibody talquetamab produced responses in more than 70% of heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma.1 Of note, the safety profile confirmed results of the phase I portion of the study (recently published in TheNew England Journal...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wang et al found that a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in ROBO2 was associated with an increased risk of cardiomyopathy among childhood cancer survivors receiving higher cumulative anthracycline doses. As stated by the investigators,...
The adoptive T-cell receptor therapy afamitresgene autoleucel—which targets the MAGE-A4 cancer antigen—achieved clinically significant results for patients with multiple solid tumor types in a phase I clinical trial, according to a novel study published by Hong et al in Nature Medicine. Initial...
Among inpatients with cancer who have neutropenic fever, delaying antibiotic treatment past 60 minutes from the time of fever detection may not reduce the short-term chance of overall survival, according to a new study published by Villars et al in the American Journal of Medical Quality....
Despite widespread awareness of the importance of screening for asymptomatic, early detection of cancer, screening tests exist for only five cancer types. With few recommended cancer screening tests and generally low adherence to cancer screening recommendations, it is difficult to detect cancer...
The KRAS G12C inhibitor sotorasib demonstrated clinically meaningful anticancer activity with an acceptable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with KRAS G12C–mutated metastatic pancreatic cancer, accordi�ng to a novel study published by Strickler et al in The New England Journal of...
“Risk-reducing bilateral mastectomy allows a woman with a high-penetrance breast cancer-causing mutation to avoid an encounter with the experience of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment,” Seema A. Khan, MD, MPH, stated at the 2022 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium.1 For these women, by avoiding...
Just days before the publication of the 2022 Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer on October 27, 2022,1 which showed a continued downward trend in cancer deaths, Karen Knudsen, MBA, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of the American Cancer Society (ACS), joined the First Lady Dr. Jill...
Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, Director of Breast Cancer Research and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, and attending physician at Mass General Cancer Center, Boston, commented on the RIGHT Choice trial. Based on this study, he noted, few patients should be excluded from treatment with...
“I was in bed in the surgical wing of Duke University Hospital when the doctor popped his head in and smiled apologetically before flicking on the fluorescent lights. It was 4:00 AM, the end of my second night in the hospital, but nobody sleeps in the conventional sense,” writes Kate Bowler in the...
On December 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved nadofaragene firadenovec-vncg (Adstiladrin), a nonreplicating adenoviral vector–based gene therapy indicated for the treatment of adult patients with high-risk bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive non–muscle-invasive...
An oncolytic therapy delivered within the urinary bladder in combination with pembrolizumab has yielded the “best results seen in the field” in patients with bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive bladder cancer, according to data presented during the 2022 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer...
In an early-phase trial, nearly three-quarters of patients who received talquetamab—a first-in-class, off-the-shelf, T-cell–redirecting bispecific antibody targeting both the GPRC5D and CD3 receptors—for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma saw a significant reduction in cancer burden within a...
Editor’s Note: ASCO was deeply saddened by the news that Dr. Jeff Ward passed away on November 3, 2022. In an interview with Dr. Ward this past summer, published in ASCO Connection (August 30, 2022), ASCO recognized Dr. Ward’s commitment to exceptional patient care and public advocacy. An...
My father was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1994, when he was just 55 years old. He died 6 years later. The cancer was so aggressive, it took only a few weeks from the time he was diagnosed for the cancer to grow to the size of a softball, and even a radical prostatectomy couldn’t save his...
“I knew my husband was dying in June. He’d been living with a terminal diagnosis for 6 years, but suddenly his cancer turned aggressive…. The last time we saw the oncologist, he sent us home with a DNR order and told me to put it on the refrigerator, because that’s where the EMTs look,” writes...
Breast cancer specialist Brittany L. Bychkovsky, MD, MSc, grew up primarily in Kansas; however, given that her father was a pilot, her childhood was not wholly centered in the Sunflower State. “When I was 12 years old, my mom, who was a schoolteacher, was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. Her ...
The repercussions from the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022, to overturn Roe v Wade, effectively ending a nearly 50-year federal constitutional right to an abortion and allowing instead states to determine abortion access, are starting to be felt in the cancer care community. The ...
In addition to, or instead of, receiving therapies that are the standard of care, patients with cancer sometimes request to receive complementary (therapies used in conjunction with standard cancer treatment) and alternative (nonstandard treatments used in place of standard cancer treatment)...
A new ASCO guideline on the management of advanced colorectal cancer summarizes the latest treatments supported by quality data that could expand oncologists’ armamentarium and potentially improve survival outcomes.1 “[Colorectal cancer] remains the second-leading class of cancer deaths among men ...
Invited discussant Erica Michelle Stringer-Reasor, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Breast Cancer Program at the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, said the exploratory analysis of KEYNOTE-522 established the value of using residual...
An exploratory analysis of KEYNOTE-522, which established the benefit of neoadjuvant pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer, has now provided data to further describe prognosis and possibly guide treatment.1 In the study, presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting,...
A silicone-based polyurethane film dressing (known as Mepitel® Film) appears to be beneficial in reducing skin toxicities caused by radiation treatment, according to data presented during the October 2022 ASCO Plenary Series.1 The results of a phase III trial showed that this film dressing may be...
Iris C. Gibbs, MD, FACR, FASTRO, of Stanford Medicine in California and Chair of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Council on Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, was an invited discussant for this study on physician assessment of sexual dysfunction in women vs men receiving...
Lori Wilson, MD, FACS, was the first woman to hold the surgical oncology division chief position at Howard University Hospital and the first woman to be promoted to full professor in surgery at Howard University College of Medicine. Known as a fierce advocate for patients with cancer in underserved ...