In the era of genomics and precision medicine, the role of pathology in diagnosis and cancer management is rapidly evolving. For the past 50 years, from her office at the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute (NCI), pathologist Elaine S. Jaffe, MD, has been at the forefront of that...
In a population-based cohort study reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Abdel-Qadir et al found that receipt of sodium glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors was associated with a reduced risk of hospitalization for heart failure—but not risk for heart failure—among patients aged ≥ 65 years with...
In a small study reported in JAMA Network Open, D’Andrea et al found that diffusing alpha-emitter radiation therapy—a novel solid tumor management strategy using alpha-particle interstitial brachytherapy—appeared to be safe and showed activity in patients with recurrent or unresectable skin...
ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, will recognize researchers, patient advocates, philanthropists, teachers, and global oncology leaders who have reshaped cancer care with the Society’s highest honors at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Hear from select award recipients at the...
According to Sunil R. Hingorani, MD, PhD, his parents figured heavily on who he became as a person and on his career choices, which ultimately led to his current position as Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, Omaha. “My father...
Jonathan W. Friedberg, MD, MMSc, Director of the James P. Wilmot Cancer Institute, grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. While his school friends were attending camp, he spent his summers working on the family farm. “Perhaps the hardest work I’ve ever done was haying on a hot, humid night in July,...
Don S. Dizon, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Pelvic Malignancies Program at Lifespan Cancer Institute and Director of Medical Oncology at Rhode Island Hospital was born and reared in Guam. He also is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Surgery at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. “I am...
George D. Demetri, MD, FASCO, Director of the Sarcoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard, was born in Hyde Park, a town along the Hudson River in New York. When Dr. Demetri was growing up there, it was known for three...
Researchers have found that patients with cancer-related fatigue who practiced qigong may have demonstrated clinically significant improvements in their fatigue burden after 10 weeks, according to a new study published by Zimmerman et al in Integrative Cancer Therapies. The findings revealed that...
Early-phase data from the SOLTI TOT-HER3 and ICARUS-BREAST01 trials suggest that the novel HER3-directed antibody-drug conjugate patritumab deruxtecan may have beneficial activity in patients with hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative and triple-negative breast cancer subtypes, according to...
The respected members of the oncology community listed here are among some of those who passed away in 2022–2023. The ASCO Post remembers them, their lives, and their contributions to cancer research and treatment. Robert J. Gillies, PhD Moffitt Cancer Center and the global research community lost ...
In December 2019, Robert A. Winn, MD, became the second Black physician to lead a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center when he took the helm of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center. Dr. Winn’s basic science research, which has been...
Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, Head of the Dermatology Unit at Gustave Roussy and Co-Director of the Melanoma Research Unit at INSERM 981 Paris-Sud University, was born and reared in Paris. “I didn’t have a vocation for medicine when I was a kid; I wanted to be an archeologist. I’m not from a medical...
Today is the era of the multidisciplinary oncology care approach, cancer staging facilitates precision in documenting disease extent, all of which improved the quality of patient care. However, in the United States, the Rai staging system is still the most commonly used clinical staging system for...
Manali Patel, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine (Oncology) at Stanford University, grew up in Shelby, a small town in the textile and farming community of Western North Carolina, among mill workers and other blue-collar laborers. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Dr. Patel’s early life was...
Susan K. Parsons, MD, MRP, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and Founding Director of the Reid R. Sacco Adolescent and Young Adult Program for Cancer and Hereditary Blood Disorders at Tufts Medical Center, grew up on a working dairy farm in Sharon Springs,...
On May 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the optimized, high-affinity radiohybrid prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging agent flotufolastat fluorine-18 (Posluma). Flotufolastat F-18 is indicated for PET imaging of...
Delays in cancer screenings during the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted in lower reported incidences of colorectal, lung, and breast cancers, reflecting potentially high rates of undiagnosed cancer and later-stage diagnoses, according to a new study published by Romatoski et al in the Journal of ...
Researchers have developed a new strategy to identify which patients with non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer may be most likely to resist first-line treatment with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) immunotherapy, according to a new study published by Jong et al in Science Translational Medicine. The...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Kinslow et al found that MGMT promoter methylation (mMGMT) was associated with improved survival outcomes in patients receiving alkylating chemotherapy for low-grade and anaplastic gliomas. Study Details The study involved 411 patients with grade II or III...
Results from the international, randomized DIPLOMA trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04483726) comparing minimally invasive distal pancreatectomy (MIDP) with open distal pancreatectomy (ODP) in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma showed that the rate of radical resection following...
The implementation of a collaborative program between North American and Mexican medical institutions to achieve sustainable, high-quality care at a public hospital in the United States–Mexico border region for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and improve outcomes has resulted in...
Studies showed that racial minorities experience disparities in access to cancer treatment and survival. In an effort to improve access to care for disadvantaged populations, the Affordable Care Act provided funding to states to expand Medicaid eligibility criteria and provide coverage to...
Patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) who received luspatercept to treat anemia instead of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs)—the current standard of care—needed fewer blood transfusions and clinic visits. These findings from the phase III COMMANDS trial were presented by...
Adding the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab to chemotherapy, with or without bevacizumab, improved overall survival and progression-free survival in patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer, regardless of whether the cancer expressed PD-L1. These findings from the KEYNOTE-826...
ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, will recognize researchers, patient advocates, philanthropists, teachers, and global oncology leaders who have reshaped cancer care around the world with the Society’s highest honors at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Hear from select award...
Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, FASCO, has said that volunteering and working with ASCO over many years has been the highlight of her career. She served on the ASCO Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012 and on several ASCO committees, including terms as Chair of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program...
The irony is not missed on me. In August 2022, 2 months before I was to start my tenure as President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), I was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma. My entire career over the past 30 years has been in the pursuit of improving global cancer control...
In a single-institution study reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Stephanie Feldman, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues found that somatic KRAS and STK11 alterations were associated with increased risk of arterial thromboembolism in patients with solid tumors,...
The Mount Sinai Health System’s esophagectomy program has received a three-star (excellent performance) overall composite score from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). According to STS, 13 institutions in the United States and Canada hold the three-star rating, which denotes the highest...
Knowing the health-care system is complex and often creates anxiety for patients newly diagnosed with cancer, the Northwell Health Cancer Institute has launched Cancer Care Direct, a comprehensive program to connect patients with clinical registered nurse navigators who can provide expert guidance...
As discussed in Part I of this special feature on cancer survivorship, there are now more than 18 million cancer survivors in the United States, and that number is expected to grow to 26 million by 2040.1 However, most of those survivors—at least two-thirds—either cured or in remission or living...
With this issue of The ASCO Post, we introduce a new feature, View From the Top: The Future of Cancer Care Delivery, which will explore how leaders in oncology are developing strategies to ensure continued innovative oncology care in an ever-changing health-care environment. In this inaugural...
The improvement in cancer survival rates since President Richard M. Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971 into law is staggering. The legislation further committed the United States to greater investments in cancer-focused research to drive down the rates of cancer diagnoses, boost patient...
New research from the American College of Surgeons (ACS) outlines significant ways that the COVID-19 pandemic destabilized usual patterns of cancer care, as reported in the National Cancer Database (NCDB). The NCDB is one of the largest cancer registries in the world and is used by thousands of...
The updated results of the POLLUX trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dimopoulos and colleagues and in this issue of The ASCO Post, showed significantly improved overall survival with daratumumab plus lenalidomide/dexamethasone (DRd) vs Rd in patients with previously treated...
Daniel C. Link, MD, has been named Deputy Director of Siteman Cancer Center (SCC), based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, in St. Louis. In addition, Dr. Link, who also is the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine, is Chief of the...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Syed Ali Abutalib and L. Jeffrey Medeiros explore the World Health Organization (WHO) classification of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissue...
In a collaborative study from the University of Freiburg and Stanford University reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jurik A. Mutter, BSc, of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, and colleagues found that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) identified prior to and during treatment...
For this installment of The ASCO Post’s Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Sibylle Loibl, MD, PhD, Chair of the German Breast Group (GBG) and Chief Executive Officer of the GBG Forschungs GmbH. Professor Loibl, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology ...
In a single-institution cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Jason A. Mouabbi, MD, and colleagues found no difference in survival outcomes between patients with hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer with low vs no HER2 expression who received targeted therapy and endocrine...
Researchers have discovered that interleukin-21 may be a potential therapeutic target to help reduce the endocrine autoimmune adverse effects and prevent the thyroid autoimmunity experienced by patients with cancer undergoing treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors, according to a novel study...
Elizabeth A. Morris, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiology at the University of California Davis, Sacramento, told The ASCO Post that the study by Berger et al addresses an important question. “This is a topic I am kind of passionate about—it addresses the ordering of mammograms...
On March 22, 2023, the anti–PD-1 antibody retifanlimab-dlwr was granted accelerated approval for adults with metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma.1 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in POD1UM-201 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03599713), a...
On April 17, 2023, omidubicel-onlv was approved for use in adult and pediatric patients (≥ 12 years) with hematologic malignancies who are planned for umbilical cord blood transplantation following myeloablative conditioning to reduce the time to neutrophil recovery and the incidence of infection.1 ...
Carol Aghajanian, MD, Chief of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, commented on the final analysis of NOVA for The ASCO Post. She highlighted the difficulty in truly measuring overall survival in recurrent ovarian cancer. Dr. Aghajanian also ...
After resolving missing survival data in the phase III ENGOT-OV16/NOVA trial, no statistically significant difference in overall survival was found for patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer who received maintenance therapy with the PARP inhibitor niraparib, investigators...
Two studies presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer underscore the importance of enrolling patients with gynecologic cancer on clinical trials and of assuring trial access to racial minorities. One study found a statistically significant...
Joshua G. Cohen, MD, Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Surgery and Medical Director of the Orange County Gynecologic Cancer Program at City of Hope, Orange County, California, shared his thoughts on the ADAGIO trial with The ASCO Post. He noted that uterine serous carcinoma—the...
The oral, small-molecule Wee1 kinase inhibitor adavosertib was clinically active but not well tolerated by more than half the patients with recurrent or persistent uterine serous carcinoma in the phase IIb ADAGIO trial. The findings were reported at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023...