In a retrospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Lord et al found that high-risk patients with rectal cancer treated with surgery alone who were more likely to benefit from preoperative radiotherapy were better selected using proven magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) prognostic...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Clarke et al found that hysterectomy-corrected rates of mortality from uterine corpus cancer overall and from nonendometrioid carcinomas have increased in recent years, with mortality rates being highest in Black women. The study involved data from the U.S....
In the phase III RATIONALE-302 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Shen et al found that the anti–PD-1 antibody tislelizumab significantly improved overall survival vs chemotherapy in the second-line treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell...
What is so dismaying to me is that the statistic on survival for Black women with breast cancer has not changed since I was diagnosed with breast cancer 17 years ago. In 2005, Black women were 41% more likely to die of the disease than White women, even though Black women are less likely to be...
Food insecurity, particularly as it affects cancer survivors, is a serious problem, according to a survey of oncology registered dietitian nutritionists (RDNs) published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.1 “Despite these concerns, most oncology RDNs interviewed are not using...
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 updated World Health Organization (WHO) classification of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissue...
In a phase II trial (DESTINY-Lung01) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, of the Thoracic Oncology and Early Drug Development Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed...
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 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Hear from select award...
Discussant of the PRIME trial, Barbara S. Norquist, MD, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Washington, Seattle, noted that although all subgroups in the PRIMA study appeared to derive benefit from niraparib maintenance therapy, patients with homologous...
A larger population of patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer may be able to benefit from niraparib maintenance therapy, with an improved safety profile, according to phase III data presented at the 2022 Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.1 Results ...
In the single-center phase II TUXEDO-1 trial of patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, fam-trastuzumab-deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed efficacy in patients with active brain metastases, yielding intracranial responses in 73.3% of the population and a median progression-free survival of...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) recently announced that Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center has joined the not-for-profit alliance of leading cancer centers as the 32nd member institution. NCCN was founded by 13 original Member Institutions in...
Robert H. Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, has been appointed to a second 5-year term as Director of the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) at the University of Pennsylvania, following a highly successful tenure that saw 17 U.S. Food and Drug Administration approvals in oncology for therapies based on studies...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has named Lee Ellis, MD, Professor of Colon and Rectal Surgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, as the 2022 recipient of the AACR Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in...
Julio Chavez, MD, of the Department of Malignant Hematology, Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, was cautiously enthusiastic about these findings in CD30-positive lymphoma. “This clinical trial is novel, as it engages cord blood derived-NK cells to attack CD30-positive tumor cells using a...
Natural killer (NK) cells derived from donated umbilical cord blood, activated with a novel bispecific antibody targeting CD16A and CD30 known as AFM13, have yielded responses in patients with pretreated and refractory CD30-positive lymphoma. The overall response rate was 89%, with 53% complete...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by David Palma, MD, PhD, and colleagues, enrollment in the phase II ORATOR2 trial, which was designed to evaluate overall survival after de-escalated treatment with primary radiotherapy vs transoral surgery in human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal squamous...
When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1996, I was given 3 years to live. At the time, there was little understanding of this disease, which was termed incurable. There were no new treatments, few drugs in the pipeline, hardly any clinical trials, and no multiple myeloma community or...
In a phase II trial (Hoosier Cancer Research Network GU16-260) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Michael B. Atkins, MD, and colleagues found that nivolumab monotherapy was active in previously untreated patients with advanced clear cell renal carcinoma, particularly among those with...
Ongoing evaluation of novel, targeted, and immunotherapies has led to exciting advances across the array of hematologic malignancies over the past year. The availability of new treatment options, along with emerging data on novel combinations and sequencing approaches, is rapidly changing...
Poor outcomes are observed in patients with myeloma who are refractory to multiple classes of therapies, with the average patient experiencing disease progression in up to 6 months and living no longer than 6 to 15 months. Patients often rapidly cycle through regimens that use less effective or...
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...
For the first-line treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, the percentage of patients achieving measurable residual disease (MRD, previously called minimal residual disease) negativity was significantly greater when the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody isatuximab was added to a standard...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Thierry Facon, MD, of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Lille, and colleagues, a prespecified interim analysis of overall survival in the pivotal phase III MAIA trial has shown a significant benefit with the addition of daratumumab to...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Philippe Moreau, MD, of the University Hospital Hôtel-Dieu, Nantes, and colleagues, an interim analysis of part 2 of the phase III CASSIOPEIA trial has showed significantly prolonged progression-free survival with maintenance daratumumab vs observation...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Meletios A. Dimopoulos, MD, of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and colleagues, the phase III APOLLO trial has shown significantly improved progression-free survival with the addition of subcutaneous (SC) daratumumab to oral...
In the phase Ib/II CARTITUDE-1 trial reported in The Lancet, Jesus G. Berdeja, MD, and colleagues found that ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel), a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with two B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-targeting single-domain antibodies, produced a high rate of...
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,...
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)...
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 ...
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...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Nathan H. Fowler, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues, a phase IIb trial (UNITY-NHL) has shown that the dual PI3Kδ/casein kinase (CK)1ε inhibitor umbralisib produced durable responses in patients with relapsed...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Matthew J. Matasar, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues, the phase III CHRONOS-3 trial has shown that the addition of the pan-class I PI3K inhibitor copanlisib to rituximab significantly improved progression-free survival vs rituximab ...
Administering time-limitedcombination regimens of venetoclax plus obinutuzumab or venetoclax plus obinutuzumab and ibrutinib was superior to chemoimmunotherapy in achieving undetectable measurable residual disease (MRD) in the peripheral blood at month 15 in fit patients with chronic lymphocytic...
Two different trials presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition found that fixed-duration treatment with ibrutinib and venetoclax achieved deep and sustained undetectable measurable residual disease (MRD) status when used as first-line therapy for...
Zanubrutinib, a second-generation Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, significantly improved response rates and delayed disease progression as compared with the standard of care, ibrutinib, in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma...
Invited study discussant Jacqueline C. Barrientos, MD, MS, of Northwell Health Cancer Institute, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Great Neck, New York, commented: “The BTK [Bruton’s tyrosine kinase] inhibitors ibrutinib and acalabrutinib, along with the BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax, are ...
Abstract discussant Deborah K. Armstrong, MD, of Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Baltimore, elucidated the rationale for intraperitoneal (IP) treatment, which is the peritoneal pharmacokinetic advantage for many drugs used in ovarian cancer, including carboplatin, as used in the iPocc trial.1 In ...
When compared with intravenous (IV) chemotherapy, the use of intraperitoneal (IP) carboplatin with dose-dense weekly paclitaxel improved progression-free survival in patients with ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal carcinoma, according to data presented at the 2022 Society of...
In an interim analysis of the phase II COAST trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, FACP, FASCO, and colleagues found that consolidation durvalumab in combination with the anti-CD73 antibody oleclumab or anti-NKG2A antibody monalizumab both improved objective...
In the Danish single-institution phase II CheckPAC study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chen et al found that the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab plus stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) improved the clinical benefit rate vs nivolumab plus SBRT in patients with refractory...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has made an impact on the treatment of certain blood cancers, but in clinical study, the cellular therapy has not been as successful for patients with solid tumors, due in part to the lack of tumor targets not expressed in vital tissues. In a new study ...
New findings published by Hyuna Sung, PhD, and colleagues in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute showed that 5-year survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer in the United States have a higher risk of developing—and nearly double the risk of dying from—a new primary cancer,...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Krishnansu S. Tewari, MD, of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, University of California, Irvine, and colleagues, the phase III EMPOWER-Cervical1/GOG-3016/ENGOT-cx9 trial has shown improved overall survival with cemiplimab-rwlc vs...
Immunotherapy has become a potential strategy in treating triple-negative breast cancer, though many questions remain to be answered before long-term survival is achieved by all patients. This exciting field of breast cancer research was explored at the 2022 Miami Breast Cancer Conference by...
In a scientific e-poster presented during the 2022 American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Peña et al noted that American Indian and Alaskan Native populations have nearly three times higher incidence rates of lung and colorectal cancer than other ethnic groups. These patterns...
Overall cancer rates in Canada are declining, but the number of cases and deaths are increasing slightly because of population growth and an aging population, according to a new study published by Brenner et al in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). The study is the result of a...
In a meta-analysis reported in JAMA Network Open, Farooq et al found that immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer was associated with a lower risk of neurologic adverse events compared with treatment with other agents overall in randomized trials comparing immune checkpoint inhibitors with...
Using whole-genome sequencing to contrast genomic alterations in patients with stable Barrett’s esophagus compared to patients whose Barrett’s progressed to esophageal adenocarcinoma, Paulson et al reported that DNA changes presaging esophageal cancer can be spotted years before cancer develops....
OCE Insights is an occasional column developed for The ASCO Post by members of the Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In this installment, Mirat Shah, MD, of the Office of Oncologic Diseases, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, FDA; Atiqur...