Some patients may make discriminatory requests for a different clinician for their health care.1-5 These individuals may want to avoid treatment with clinicians of a certain race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin. Oncologists are not exempt from this type of patient...
WHETHER THEY are parents themselves or dealing with their own parents, patients with cancer often look to their health-care team to help guide these relationships, but data on how best to help are lacking, according to two poster presentations at the 2018 American Psychosocial Oncology Society...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Fuchs et al, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed activity in patients with previously treated advanced gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer in the phase II KEYNOTE-059 trial. Study Details In the study, 259 patients from sites in 16 countries who had disease...
In a preplanned interim analysis of a phase II trial (JAVELIN Merkel 200 part B) reported in JAMA Oncology, D’Angelo et al found that avelumab was active in the first-line treatment of metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma. Avelumab was approved in March 2017 for treatment of patients aged ≥ 12 ...
CIRCULATING TUMOR DNA (ctDNA) assays are now commercially available for use in lung cancer and melanoma, where they can identify the presence of specific mutations that drive treatment selection. In breast cancer, ctDNA remains more of a research tool, but this is poised to change. At the 2018...
THE 2018 GENITOURINARY Cancers Symposium hosted an international audience of oncologists and other stakeholders to hear about the latest advances in the field. We have included coverage of many of the top news stories from the meeting in previous issues of The ASCO Post. Here are summaries of a few ...
AN OPTICAL CONTRAST agent composed of panitumumab (Vectibix), a humanized anti–epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibody, conjugated to the near-infrared fluorescent dye IRDye800, may aid in the real-time detection and surgical resection of squamous cell carcinoma, according to...
THANKS TO the efficacy of five approved anti-HER2 agents, patients with HER2-positive breast cancer have overall survival numbers that are as good as, or better than, their HER2-negative counterparts. With the next generation of anti-HER2 therapies in clinical trials, these outcomes may become even ...
Dr. Collins is Director of the National Institutes of Health. Originally posted on March 19, 2018, to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Blog (https://directorsblog. nih.gov). OVER THE PAST couple of weeks, we’ve lost two legendary scientists who made major contributions to our...
At the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), Michael Gnant, MD, FACS, of the Medical University of Vienna presented the 9-year median follow-up of a trial looking at the length of extended aromatase inhibitor therapy. At least four other recently presented or published trials have...
Yale Cancer Center has launched the Yale Center for Immuno-Oncology. The new center will build on Yale Cancer Center’s international leadership in immunobiology, cancer immunology, and development of novel cancer immunotherapies. It is a partnership between Yale Cancer Center and the Department of...
Participation in clinical trials may overcome health disparities in the treatment of advanced or recurrent ovarian cancer, according to a study presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 2018 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer (Abstract 6). The study evaluated the effect of ...
The average number of moderate or marked side effects reported by patients with breast cancer is lower if they are treated with radiotherapy to part of the breast or a reduced dose to the whole breast, rather than with standard whole breast radiotherapy (WBRT), according to new findings presented...
ARMO BioSciences, Inc, recently announced the completion of the first interim analysis in its phase III SEQUOIA trial in patients with pancreatic cancer. The Data Monitoring Committee (DMC) for SEQUOIA, a clinical trial studying pegilodecakin (AM0010) plus FOLFOX (leucovorin,...
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, and nonmelanoma skin cancer is the most common type of skin cancer, affecting more than 3 million Americans every year. Moreover, nonmelanoma skin cancer incidence is growing at an exponential rate—between 1976–1984 and...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to blinatumomab (Blincyto) to treat adults and children with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who are in remission but still have minimal residual disease (MRD). In patients who have achieved remission after...
One in five women diagnosed with cervical cancer in the United States will be diagnosed after the age of 65, suggesting that the recommended age to stop cervical cancer screening should be reconsidered, according to research presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 2018 Annual ...
On March 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to enfortumab vedotin, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who were previously treated with checkpoint inhibitors. Breakthrough Therapy ...
Parents are less likely to vaccinate adolescent boys than girls with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, and they are twice as likely to report their main reason as a lack of provider recommendation, according to a study presented at the 2018 Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting ...
A team of researchers led by Naruihiko Ikoma, MD, MS, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, analyzed outcomes in 316 patients with gastric cancer to determine whether patients who had clinically positive nodal disease before preoperative therapy have...
In a UK-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fallon et al found that adding a clinician-delivered bedside pain assessment and management tool (Edinburgh Pain Assessment and Management Tool [EPAT]) to usual care improved some pain outcomes in cancer center inpatients. Study...
Patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are less likely to have recurrent disease if they are postmenopausal or if their tumor is estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, according to research presented at the 11th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-11) (Abstract 215). DCIS accounts for about...
Patients with ovarian cancer with genetic amplification in the PARP-7 protein survived longer than those without the mutation, according to a presentation at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 2018 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer. These results call for researchers to further...
On March 20, Genentech announced that the phase III IMpower131 study met its coprimary endpoint of progression-free survival (PFS) and demonstrated that the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus chemotherapy (carboplatin and nanopartical albumin-bound [nab]-paclitaxel [Abraxane])...
COMPARED TO the general population, the risk of cardiovascular disease among colorectal cancer survivors was significantly increased more than 10 years after their cancer diagnosis, according to research presented by David Baraghoshi, MSTAT candidate, of the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the...
AT A PREMEETING webinar, American Society of Hematology then President Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, Director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, commented: “This study demonstrates this new treatment has good...
The population of bacteria in the pancreas increases more than a thousandfold in patients with pancreatic cancer and becomes dominated by species that prevent the immune system from attacking tumor cells. These are the findings of an early study conducted on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma,...
On March 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued updated information about its understanding of breast implant–associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL). The agency is providing an updated number of medical device reports (ie, adverse event reports) and medical...
A major international survey has found that around a quarter of patients with penile cancer are not receiving the recommended treatment, and that these patients had half the survival rate of those who were treated according to guidelines. The study, presented at the European Association of Urology...
A major UK survey has shown that patients with urologic cancer—such as prostate, bladder, or kidney cancer—are five times more likely to commit suicide than people without cancer. The analysis also shows that patients with cancer generally are around three times more likely to commit...
On March 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) to treat adult patients with previously untreated stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma in combination with chemotherapy. “Today’s approval represents an improvement in the initial...
ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation is pleased to announce the recipients of its Merit Awards in gastrointestinal cancers, clinical immuno-oncology, genitourinary cancers, and cancer survivorship. The following 70 researchers— oncology fellows and trainees honored for the quality and scientific merit...
The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation (SWCRF) announced that Martin S. Tallman, MD, Chief of Leukemia Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), has joined its Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Tallman, who will continue in his role at MSK, will join his fellow Scientific...
In the dose-finding, dose-expansion phase Ib JAVELIN Renal 100 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Choueiri et al identified the maximum tolerated dose of the immune checkpoint inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio) in combination with the vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitor axitinib...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Gary Deng, MD, PhD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present information on...
Physical inactivity among adult survivors of gastrointestinal cancers was tied to poor health-related quality of life, according to researchers at the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) Annual Meeting.1 Also, physical inactivity (Chi-square = 5.605, P = .018) and alcohol use (Chi-square ...
Triplet therapy that inhibits the BRAF, MEK, and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) pathways appears promising in BRAF-mutated colorectal cancer, a malignancy that typically does not respond to BRAF inhibition alone. Early results from the BEACON CRC study showed a 48% response rate and an...
Along with full coverage of key presentations from the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, The ASCO Post brings our readers this additional news roundup. Side Matters in Colon Cancer One of the studies included in the global IDEA trial, which compared 3 vs 6 months of adjuvant chemotherapy in ...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued a new clinical guideline for the use of whole-breast radiation therapy for breast cancer that expands the population of patients recommended to receive hypofractionated treatment. The guideline was published by Smith et al in...
Analysis of more than 100,000 patients with cancer for gene CD274 (programmed cell death ligand 1 [PD-L1]) amplification may have implications for treatment with immune checkpoint blockade. Although shown to be rare in solid tumors, copy number alterations in PD-L1 genes were present in more than...
Although immunotherapy has improved outcomes across a growing number of cancers, its success in unselected cases of prostate cancer has been limited. According to data presented at the 2018 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, however, investigators have identified a group of patients with ...
In a study of data from the National Cancer Database reported in JAMA Oncology, Joshi et al found that two-thirds of patients with node-positive nonmetastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the penis received lymph node dissection and approximately half received chemotherapy in recent years. ...
The combination of the poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) and the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) produced positive preliminary results in men with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer previously treated with...
Why wouldn’t you support a patient with a terminal illness the “right to try” any therapy that may save his or her life? The answer to this question—one engulfed in a political debate in Congress—seems simple. It is not. [Editor’s Note: [Editor’s Note: On May 30, 2018, the President signed into...
Patients with lower income have a significantly reduced chance of surviving anal cancer, according to a new study led by investigators at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center published by Lin et al in the journal Cancer. The study shows that both overall and...
Cabozantinib (Cometriq) has demonstrated significant activity in the first-line setting for radioiodine-refractory differentiated thyroid carcinoma, according to data from a single-site phase II trial presented at the 2018 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1 Treatment with...
Mutations in HER2 were found to confer resistance to hormone therapy in some estrogen receptor (ER)-positive metastatic breast cancer cases, and resistance could be reversed by dual treatment with the hormone therapy fulvestrant (Faslodex) and the HER2 kinase inhibitor neratinib (Nerlynx),...
Pediatric patients with solid tumors may have poor quality T cells compared to patients with leukemia, and certain chemotherapies were detrimental to the T cells and their potential to become chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, according to data presented during a media preview for the...
An antibody that is present in the blood of women previously infected with the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia is associated with a doubling in ovarian cancer risk, according to data presented during a media preview for the 2018 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
Survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer often have stronger social networks than their peers with no cancer history, according to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital researchers, who hope to translate that support into better health outcomes for the nation’s...