A new study found that more than half (56.4%) of cancer survivors in the United States reported having additional underlying medical conditions associated with severe COVID-19 illness.1 The report, appearing in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggests that the prevalence of...
As reported in The Lancet by Sebastian Grosicki, MD, of the Medical University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland, and colleagues, the phase III BOSTON trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with once-weekly selinexor plus bortezomib/dexamethasone vs twice-weekly...
Frank Keller, MD, a pediatric hematologist/oncologist with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta–Egleston Hospital, and E. Anders Kolb, MD, Director of the Nemours Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, Nemours Children’s Health System in Delaware, provided comments on the studies for The ASCO Post....
Monotherapy with blinatumomab as consolidation therapy before allogeneic stem cell transplant appears to be the optimal treatment for children with high-risk first-relapse B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), according to an international phase III trial that compared this approach...
On January 14, 2021, crizotinib was approved for treatment of pediatric patients 1 year of age and older and young adults with relapsed or refractory systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) that is ALK-positive.1,2 The safety and efficacy of crizotinib have not been established in older...
“There is progress whether ye are going forward or backward! The thing is to move.” —Edgar Cayce To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are a few abstracts selected from the meeting...
The holistic benefits derived from exercise in preventing and ameliorating chronic health conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes are well documented. However, less is known about the salutary effects exercise may have across the cancer setting, especially during treatment....
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Jonathan W. Goldman, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California Los Angeles, and colleagues, updated results from the phase III CASPIAN trial show maintained improvement in overall survival with first-line durvalumab plus...
Today, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) published a final recommendation statement on screening for lung cancer in people who do not have signs or symptoms. Based on the evidence, the USPSTF recommends yearly screening using a low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan for people aged...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Rafal Dziadziuszko, MD, and colleagues, an updated integrated analysis of three phase I or II trials of entrectinib in patients with advanced ROS1-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) indicated that treatment continues to be associated with...
On March 5, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) for adult patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy. ZUMA-5 Approval in follicular lymphoma was based on a...
Invited discussant John C. Krauss, MD, Medical Oncology Director of the Multidisciplinary Colorectal Cancer Clinic, Rogel Cancer Center of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, said he was impressed by the “rapidity with which the NRG-GI002 trial accrued,” which was about 10 months.1 “Equally...
The addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy (ie, total neoadjuvant therapy) failed to improve a rectal cancer–specific surrogate for survival in patients with locally advanced disease in the phase II NRG-GI002 trial.1 As reported at the 2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers...
New guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the procurement of radiotherapy equipment could improve access to this life-saving cancer treatment option across the world. The new technical guidance aims to ensure that the selection of...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Fast Track designation to a novel immunotherapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer as well as Breakthrough Therapy designation to treatments for HRAS-mutant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and previously treated thyroid cancer....
A study by Salerno et al published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention investigating the association of a cancer diagnosis and poor ambulatory function of survivors and subsequent mortality has found that cancer survivors with poor ambulatory function had a two to three times...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Zhao et al found that 5-year adherence to adjuvant hormonal therapy was low among commercially insured women with breast cancer in the United States. The retrospective observational study used data from the IBM MarketScan Research Databases to identify...
Researchers have created a new technique that may help to uncover mechanisms cancer cells use to evade immunotherapies, which could lead to the development of more effective treatments. Investigators tested their new technique with cancer cells and matching immune cells from patients with melanoma...
Final analysis of a collaborative intergroup study confirmed the efficacy of adjuvant treatment with imatinib in patients with localized gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) in terms of prolonged relapse-free survival. In the high-risk subgroup, there was a trend toward a better long-term imatinib ...
“Cancer Alley,” located in Louisiana along the lower Mississippi River, serves as an industrial hub, with nearly 150 oil refineries, plastics plants, and chemical facilities. The ever-widening corridor of petrochemical plants has not only polluted the surrounding water and air, but also subjected...
A specific type of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that contains a rearrangement in the MLL gene (also known as KMT2A) might be made more sensitive to chemotherapy using an antibiotic currently available to treat diarrhea, according to new research published by Zeisig et al in Science Translational...
In a new study published by Merritt et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers demonstrated that sex hormones and insulin growth factors may be associated with recurrence risk in patients with endometrial cancer. The findings suggest endocrine-targeted therapies and an...
Regular mammography screening substantially reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer, according to a large study of over half a million women published by Stephen W. Duffy, MSc, and colleagues in the journal Radiology. Researchers said women who skipped even one scheduled mammography screening...
Patients with lymphoma hospitalized for severe COVID-19 infection were at higher risk for prolonged hospital stay and death if they were treated with B-cell–depleting therapies (eg, rituximab, obinutuzumab) within the previous 12 months. The risk of persistent COVID-19 infection was also higher in...
In 2020, ASCO established the Steering Group on Cancer Care Delivery and Research in a Post-Pandemic Environment to evaluate the changes made in oncology care delivery, clinical research, and regulatory oversight in response to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as to make recommendations on how to...
In the phase II SWOG 1500 study reported in The Lancet, Pal et al found that among three comparator MET kinase inhibitors, cabozantinib prolonged progression-free survival vs sunitinib in metastatic papillary renal cell carcinoma. Study Details In the open-label trial, 147 eligible patients from...
At the 2021 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, Motzer et al presented the clinical results of the CLEAR trial, adding a novel regimen, lenvatinib plus pembrolizu-mab, to the growing armamentarium of first-line treatments for patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The...
As reported in The Lancet by Sezer et al, the phase III EMPOWER-Lung 1 trial has shown improved overall and progression-free survival with cemiplimab-rwlc vs platinum doublet chemotherapy among patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with PD-L1 expression on ≥ 50% of tumor cells...
Each year, following the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, to offer his picks of the most important and most clinically relevant research presented at this meeting. The following are summaries of studies that caught Dr. Abraham’s attention from ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by McDermott et al, findings in a cohort of the phase II KEYNOTE-427 study showed that pembrolizumab monotherapy produced durable responses as first-line treatment for advanced non–clear cell renal cell carcinoma. In a separate cohort of the study,...
Every year, significant amounts of drugs left over and unused from single-dose vials are discarded, but because of the way drugs are priced and paid for in the United States, the cost of the discarded amount cannot be recouped, according to a new congressionally mandated report from the National...
In the days and weeks leading up to President Biden’s inauguration, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—under the prior administration—issued a number of rules and regulations that affect cancer care delivery. Many of those rules and regulations are now subject to review by the new...
In case you missed these while attending the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, below is a sampler of highlights that were not included in our first round of meeting coverage. Many of these reports are on early-phase clinical trials of agents that may raise...
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this occasional special focus on the worldwide cancer burden. In this issue, we feature a close look at the cancer incidence and mortality rates in Kenya. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the...
Invited discussant of KEYNOTE-598,1Yun Fan, MD, Director of Thoracic Tumor Center at Zhejiang Cancer Hospital in Hangzhou, China, suggested that patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with low PD-L1 expression and those with high tumor mutational burden may, in fact, derive the most...
The risk of developing or dying of a new primary cancer, particularly those cancers associated with smoking and obesity, was greater among survivors of adult-onset cancers than the expected risk in the general population, according to an analysis of data from more than 1.5 million cancer...
In the phase III KEYNOTE-598 study, the addition of ipilimumab to pembrolizumab increased toxicity without boosting efficacy as first-line therapy for metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with high expression of PD-L1. The findings were presented at the International...
An imposing painting of sailing ships graced the wall behind the desk in the office of Professor Gordon McVie, BSc (Hons), MBChB, MD, FRCP, FRCPEd, FRCPS (Glas), FMedSci, DSc. It was a gift from one of his patients with cancer, a long-term survivor who said the painting reminded her of him, walking ...
Legendary oncologist Emil J Freireich, MD, FASCO, died from COVID-19 on February 1, 2021, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where he had worked for 50 years. He was 93. During a career that spanned more than 6 decades, Dr. Freireich was relentless in pursuing cures...
Pooled results of two phase I studies, reported in The Lancet by Reuben Benjamin, MBBS, of the Department of Haematological Medicine, King’s College Hospital, London, and colleagues, indicate that the genome-edited donor-derived allogeneic anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapeutic approaches in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). For full...
Invited study discussant Rachna T. Shroff, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, University of Arizona, and Chief of GI Medical Oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, said the study presented by Dr. Javle1 showed the FGFR2 inhibitor infigratinib to be active in FGFR2 fusion–positive...
The novel targeted agent infigratinib (BGJ398) showed clinically meaningful activity against chemotherapy-refractory cholangiocarcinoma in patients with fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR2) fusions and rearrangements. The confirmed overall response rate was 23% (34% confirmed/unconfirmed), the ...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on the assessment and treatment of patients with B-cell and T-cell non-Hodgkin...
The invited discussant of CodeBreak 100 was Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a thoracic oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.1Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, Leslye M. Heisler Associate Professor for Lung Cancer Excellence at the University of...
The registrational phase II CodeBreak 100 trial has validated the power of KRAS inhibition with sotorasib (AMG 510) in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).1 In a follow-up to the groundbreaking findings of the phase I trial, the phase II cohort has now shown a durable response rate of...
In an analysis from the STAMPEDE trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Ali et al found that a lower number of bone metastases was associated with improved overall and failure-free survival in patients receiving prostate radiotherapy for newly diagnosed M1 metastatic prostate cancer. Study Details The...
In a phase II signal-seeking trial (ECOG-ACRIN E1412) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Grzegorz S. Nowakowski, MD, and colleagues found that the addition of lenalidomide (R) to R-CHOP (rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone; R2CHOP) improved outcomes...
Data from the TAILORx study and several National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) trials have been used to develop a new prognostic tool, RSClin, which aims to individualize the estimate of recurrence risk in early breast cancer and to more accurately predict the risk-reduction...
In the phase III MITO16b/MANGO–OV2/ENGOT–ov17 trial, investigators found that treatment with a carboplatin-based doublet plus bevacizumab beyond disease progression significantly improved progression-free survival vs a carboplatin-based doublet alone in women with platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer...