A greater understanding of the mutational landscape in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has identified key oncogenes, such as EGFR, ALK, ROS, RET, and BRAF, among others. These discoveries, coupled with the availability of specific targeted small-molecule inhibitors, have transformed the...
“Fifty years ago, just a few days before the new year, former President Richard Nixon signed into law the National Cancer Act (NCA), setting a clear national priority to conquer cancer. “At the time the bill was signed into law, pioneers in our field had already made substantial discoveries, but we ...
Building on its long history of advancing health equity in cancer care, ASCO recently released “The ASCO Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan: A Legacy of Commitment, A Future of Promise for Individuals with Cancer.” The plan aims to infuse equity into all of the organization’s...
Jonathan Wesley Riess, MD, MS, has been appointed Medical Director to oversee UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Thoracic Oncology Program. Dr. Riess replaces David R. Gandara, MD, who will soon be co-directing a new center in experimental cancer therapeutics. Dr. Riess’ appointment is...
New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world’s toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry. People aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes in the Pacific country of 5 million, part of proposals unveiled in...
Multiple comparisons of traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy combinations that began decades ago led to the adoption of the platinum plus fluorouracil doublet as the standard of care for treatment of recurrent or metastatic esophageal cancer.1 Other combinations created by the addition and/or...
Jane N. Winter, MD, moderator of the press conference on late-breaking abstracts at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exhibition, commented on the BELINDA study in the context of two investigations that had been previously reported at the same meeting, showing...
The autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel failed to improve event-free survival vs standard-of-care treatment strategies in patients with aggressive, relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), according to results of the phase III BELINDA trial,...
After almost a century of limited efficacy of cancer immunotherapy,1 the breakthrough happened in 2012 with the discovery of immune checkpoint inhibitors,2,3 leading to the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo. Yet about 40% of patients on immune...
New research underscores the need for aggressive support of patients hospitalized with blood cancer and COVID-19, according to data presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. Two studies of one of the largest data sets of patients with blood cancer...
The ASCO Post asked Joseph Mikhael, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the International Myeloma Foundation and Professor in the Applied Cancer Research and Drug Discovery Division at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (an affiliate of City of Hope Cancer Center), to comment on the GMMG-HD7...
The bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab achieved deep and durable remissions as monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, according to the results of a pivotal phase II trial presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 In ...
Jane N. Winter, MD, Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the 2022 President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and Christopher R. Flowers, MD, MS, Chair of the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...
As a first-line treatment of inter-mediate- or high-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the addition of the antibody-drug conjugate polatuzumab vedotin-piiq to standard-of-care therapy resulted in a 27% reduction in the relative risk of disease progression, relapse, or death, with a similar safety...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with lisocabtagene maraleucel could prove to be the new standard-of-care treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma in the second-line setting, according to data presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
Amy Tiersten, MD, Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, Director of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas,...
Switching from an aromatase inhibitor to fulvestrant upon early identification of the ESR1 mutation in plasma—before disease progression—doubled progression-free survival in the phase III PADA-1 trial, presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “PADA-1 is the first trial to...
President Richard M. Nixon signed the National Cancer Act into law on December 23, 1971. The unprecedented legislation granted sweeping authority to the Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to develop a national cancer program that included the NCI, other research institutes, and federal ...
In the primary analysis of the phase III ZUMA-7 trial, examining second-line therapy for relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, the CAR T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel led to a fourfold increase in event-free survival over the standard of care. These findings were presented at the...
Precursors to multiple myeloma were identified by population screening in two studies reported at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The prevalence of monoclonal gammopathies was determined in the PROMISE trial using cutting-edge technology in a high-risk ...
Thousands of schools transitioned to online learning in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which time many children with cancer faced significant challenges with their schooling. An opinion paper by Johns Hopkins experts, published by Thornton et al in JAMA Pediatrics, highlights some of the ...
The phase III PANTHER trial, which evaluated pevonedistat plus azacitidine vs azacitidine alone in higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes, chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, and low–blast count acute myeloid leukemia (AML), failed to meet its primary endpoint of event-free survival, though lessons...
In the phase III ECOG-ACRIN E2108 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Seema A. Khan, MD, MPH, and colleagues found no difference in overall survival with early locoregional therapy vs continued systemic therapy among women with newly diagnosed stage IV breast cancer and an intact...
In a large patient-level meta-analysis of 16 trials, presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS),1 the combination of an anthracycline plus a taxane achieved a substantial 15% reduction in breast cancer recurrence at 10 years vs taxane chemotherapy alone, representing an...
Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with lutetium-177 (Lu-177) dotatate is a treatment for well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved in 2018, but clinicians have lacked a metric for predicting its benefit on an individual patient basis....
Independent drug action—not synergy nor additivity—accounted for the clinical efficacy of nearly all examined combination therapies involving immune checkpoint inhibitors in clinical trials, according to results from a retrospective analysis published by Palmer et al in Clinical Cancer Research....
Results from the randomized international phase III HIMALAYA trial showed that a combination of the anti–PD-L1 immunotherapy durvalumab plus the anti–CTLA-4 immunotherapy tremelimumab reduced the risk of death by 22% in patients with stage III or IV unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma compared to ...
Despite growing national awareness of health-care inequities, cancer care for many rural Americans remains inadequate. To shed some light on the challenges faced by patients with cancer in rural areas, The ASCO Post spoke with Mary Charlton, PhD, Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the...
Biliary tract cancer is a rare and often fatal disease comprised primarily of bile duct and gallbladder cancers; it is diagnosed in about 12,000 individuals each year in the United States. The cancer has a 5-year relative survival rate of 25% for localized intrahepatic bile duct cancers and just...
Steven J. Isakoff, MD, PhD, Director of Breast Cancer Clinical Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, found the TAMARISK study “interesting.” “Looking at genomic profiles of uterine cancer in both tamoxifen-associated uterine cancer, the researchers found a lower frequency of PIK3...
Even though it is infrequent, uterine cancer can develop in patients treated with tamoxifen. A study presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) suggests that the mechanism by which uterine cancers develop is tamoxifen-induced PI3K pathway activation.1 Patients treated with...
On February 4, 2022, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) will launch a new 3-year campaign for World Cancer Day that brings together individuals, organizations, and governments around the world in an effort to create awareness and help close the gap in cancer care. The campaign...
A study published by Deng et al in JAMA Network Open showed that chemotherapy after surgery for gastric adenocarcinoma was significantly associated with longer survival in patients with chemosensitive disease, but not in those with very sensitive or refractory disease. These findings suggest that...
Commenting on the update of RxPONDER presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium were Anne Blaes, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Minnesota and Co-Director of the Screening, Prevention, Etiology and Cancer Survivorship Program at the Masonic...
Updated results of the SWOG S1007 RxPONDER trial confirmed the key takeaway from the previous analysis: adjuvant chemotherapy benefits premenopausal women but not postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative disease, one to three positive lymph nodes, and a 21-gene Oncotype DX ...
A retrospective, registry-based multicenter study by Bazarbachi et al published in Clinical Cancer Research evaluated clinical outcomes in patients with relapsed Philadelphia chromosome–positive (Ph+) acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation over a...
In a study published by Charnita Zeigler-Johnson, PhD, MPH, and colleagues in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, gathering men at high risk for developing prostate cancer for discussion about prostate cancer or other health concerns increased their knowledge about prostate cancer...
Two recent studies correct a long-standing misconception about the origins of Barrett’s esophagus and, in doing so, may point to new avenues of treatment or prevention to lower the risk of esophageal cancer. The first study, published by Singh et al in the journal Gastroenterology, demonstrated...
A molecular feature in prostate cancer called endogenous retroviral (ERV) RNA has been found to have prognostic value and also distinguish differences between prostate tumors in men of African and European or Middle Eastern ancestry, according to a study published by Kumar et al in the journal...
Proteasome inhibitors, the therapeutic backbone of current treatments for multiple myeloma, are effective in treating newly diagnosed disease, but resistance or intolerance to these molecules often develops, leading to relapse. While studying a neglected tropical disease, Buruli ulcer, researchers...
A clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides guidance on the use of radiation therapy to treat adult patients with primary liver cancers using external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT). Evidence-based recommendations outline indications and optimal EBRT...
Invited discussant Ciara O’Sullivan, MB, BCh, BAO, of Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, commented on the DESTINY-Breast03 trial at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. “The treatment of HER2-positive disease is an evolving landscape, with eight approved agents. Despite this rapid...
Research published by Manjappachar et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network examined the impact of septic shock on people with hematologic malignancies. They found that the mortality rate was 67.8% at 28 days, and only 19.4% of patients remained alive after 90 days. The...
Less experienced radiologists are more likely to recommend additional imaging for women undergoing breast cancer screening when they read digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) images later in the day, according to a new study published by Bernstein et al in the journal Radiology. The results highlight ...
In a study published in the journal Gastroenterology, Trivedi et al described an increase in early-onset colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps, based on a large, nationally representative study of patients younger than 50 who underwent colonoscopy. It was the first large-scale study to look at...
By 2040, the number of cancer survivors in the United States is expected to climb from 17 million today to 26.1 million, with most living 5 years or more after their diagnosis. However, many of these survivors will need ongoing monitoring for treatment-related side effects and cancer recurrence...
Use of the first investigational oral selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) elacestrant significantly reduced the risk of death or disease progression and lengthened progression-free survival compared with standard-of-care endocrine therapy with fulvestrant or an aromatase inhibitor in...
In a pooled analysis of individual patient data from trials in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration database reported in JAMA Oncology, Anscher et al found that patients with cancer receiving radiotherapy within 90 days prior to the start of immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment were not at...
Although the incidence and mortality rates in colorectal cancer have dropped by 3.6% each year from 2007 to 2016 for people aged 55 and older—mainly because of increased colorectal cancer screening, advances in therapy, and reductions in smoking—these rates have increased by 2% each year during the ...
Research published by Hahn et al in JAMA showed depression screening for patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer was highly effective at identifying patients in need of behavioral health care. The new screening initiative was subsequently and successfully built into the patient care and daily...