PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan is active in patients previously treated with chemotherapy or checkpoint inhibitor therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer. These results from a phase I/II basket study of this agent were presented at the 2019...
Adding enzalutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly prolonged radiographic progression-free survival in men with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, reducing the risk of disease progression or death by 61% compared with ADT plus placebo, according to the results of the ...
The poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor rucaparib holds promise as maintenance therapy for advanced, platinum-sensitive, BRCA- or PALB2-mutated pancreatic cancer, according to an interim analysis of an ongoing phase II clinical trial presented at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American...
“Older and frail adults with cancer are the types of patients we deal with every day,” said Armin Shahrokni, MD, a geriatric oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “The GO2 study is important, and I suspect it will be practice-changing,” he predicted. Older and frail...
A large randomized trial has found that frail and elderly patients with advanced gastroesophageal cancer may be safely and successfully treated with dose-reduced chemotherapy. In the GO2 phase III trial, low doses of oxaliplatin/capecitabine performed similarly to intermediate and high doses of the ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Olivier et al found that pediatric patients with severe sensorineural hearing loss associated with the treatment of embryonal brain tumors experienced greater reading difficulties over time. The study involved data from 260 children and...
In a multi-institutional international analysis reported in JAMA Surgery, Merath et al found that a textbook outcome was achieved in a minority of patients undergoing curative-intent resection of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Study Details The study involved data on 687 patients from 15 major...
A large study of postmenopausal women indicated that quitting cigarette smoking was associated with significantly reduced risk of bladder cancer. The most significant reduction in risk occurred in the first 10 years after quitting, with a modest but continued decline in later years. These results...
On May 16, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dalteparin sodium (Fragmin) to reduce the recurrence of symptomatic venous thromboembolism (VTE) in pediatric patients 1 month of age and older. This is the first FDA-approved therapy to treat VTE in pediatric patients....
A phase III randomized clinical study evaluating the optimum dose of a combination chemotherapy regimen of oxaliplatin and capecitabine in the treatment of advanced gastroesophageal cancer in frail and elderly patients has found that the patients prescribed the lowest dose tested experienced less...
A study investigating the frequency of targetable molecular alterations in pediatric cancer among patients enrolled in the National Cancer Institute–Children’s Oncology Group Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) trial has found that about one-quarter of patients with...
Recently, the American Urological Association (AUA) released a new clinical guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of early-stage testicular cancer. Testicular cancer is the most common cancer among men ages 20 to 40. Although it is a less common form of cancer, about 9,600 American men...
Elderly survivors of breast cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma face risk of brain metastasis later in life, and may require extra surveillance in the years following initial cancer treatment, according to results of a study published by Ascha et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, &...
Compared to surgery, percutaneous liver ablation interventions in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma were associated with lower in-hospital mortality, length of hospital stay, and hospitalization costs, according to a study presented by Sodagari et al at the American Roentgen Ray Society...
ALTHOUGH IMMUNOTHERAPIES have had limited success in pancreatic cancer to date, findings from a molecular analysis of the tumor microenvironment suggest that certain subtypes may be more responsive to treatment. According to data presented at the 2019 Society of Surgical Oncology Annual Cancer...
USE OF the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab after two or more prior lines of therapy led to responses in patients with advanced small cell lung cancer (SCLC) in a pooled analysis of two clinical trials: phase Ib KEYNOTE-028 and phase II...
THE 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting was held March 29 to April 3 in Atlanta. In addition to our regular coverage of news stories from the meeting, here are some brief highlights of additional noteworthy studies. Stage IV HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Surgery or No ...
UMBRALISIB—an investigational PI3K-delta inhibitor—produced impressive results as monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma, according to an interim analysis of the phase II UNITY-NHL trial presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual ...
COMBINING TWO established immunotherapy agents achieved tumor shrinkage in rare, aggressive, extrapancreatic high-grade neuroendocrine tumors, according to the results of SWOG S1609, a phase II clinical basket trial also known as DART (Dual Anti– CLTA-4 and Anti–PD-1 Blockade in Rare Tumors). The...
THE ADDITION of the MET inhibitor savolitinib to the EGFR inhibitor osimertinib led to activity in patients with MET-amplified, EGFR-mutated non–small lung cancer (NSCLC) with acquired resistance to previous therapies, according to interim results from two expansion cohorts of a phase Ib clinical...
A 12-year retrospective clinical study of patients who received peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) for malignant neuroendocrine tumors demonstrated the long-term effectiveness of this treatment, which also allows patients to maintain a high quality of life. The study was published by...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tota et al found that there has been a reduction in the increase of oropharyngeal cancer among young white men, with a high number of cases projected among older white men in coming years. As stated by the investigators, “Human...
In a research letter published in JAMA Oncology, Quach et al found that cutaneous toxicities related to anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) treatment—specifically, vitiligo and rash—were associated with improved clinical outcomes in advanced melanoma. Study Details The...
As reported in JAMA, Singal et al used a clinicogenomic database in routine clinical practice to identify associations between treatment outcomes and patient characteristics or tumor genomic profiles in the setting of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The study cohort of 4,064 patients...
On May 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded its approval of ivosidenib (Tibsovo) to include newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a susceptible IDH1 mutation, as detected by an FDA-approved test, in patients who are at least 75 years old or who have comorbidities that ...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Jairam et al found that emergency department visits for complications of systemic therapy or radiotherapy in patients with cancer increased at a 5.5-fold higher rate over 10 years compared with overall emergency department visits. Study Details The study...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Randall et al, the phase III Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG)-0249 trial showed similar outcomes with adjuvant pelvic radiation therapy vs vaginal brachytherapy plus paclitaxel/carboplatin in high-intermediate and high-risk early-stage endometrial...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Eric J. Chow, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that daunorubicin was associated with decreased cardiomyopathy risk vs doxorubicin among pediatric cancer survivors, with epirubicin being approximately isoequivalent to doxorubicin. Risk associated with the...
Sydney Brenner, MSc, MBBCh, DPhil, died on April 6, 2019, at age 92, according to The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore, where Dr. Brenner had served as a Senior Fellow. Dr. Brenner was conferred the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2002 for his pioneering...
A study examining trends in patient-reported physician-patient discussions about lung cancer screening and the association of these discussions with smokers’ attempts to quit and intent to quit has found that discussions about screening have declined since 2012. Moreover, they were not...
In 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended that all people born between 1945 and 1965 undergo one-time screening for the hepatitis C virus (HCV), because the rates of HCV infection are markedly higher for baby...
GUEST EDITORS Dr. Abutalib is Assistant Director, Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Director, Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Apheresis Service, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Zion, Illinois, Editor-in-Chief, Advances in Cell & Gene Therapy. Dr. Medeiros is Professor and...
Breast cancer in young women is characterized by more aggressive biologic features as compared to older patients, but outcomes are good when guideline-recommended treatments are given. European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) spokesperson Matteo Lambertini, MD, PhD, of IRCCS Policlinico San...
In a Scandinavian study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Albertsen et al found that use of intermittent vs intensive pegylated (PEG)-asparaginase was associated with similar efficacy and reduced asparaginase-related toxicity in pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The study...
In the phase III REACH-2 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Andrew X. Zhu, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues found that ramucirumab improved overall and progression-free survival vs placebo in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma and...
I’ve been in excellent physical shape my whole life. Growing up, it was my dream to play Division 1 soccer in college, and I trained hard throughout high school to achieve that goal. My dream came true, in 2005, when I was invited to play soccer at East Carolina University. I was eager to bond...
RADIATION THERAPY immediately following surgery in children with ependymoma, the third most common pediatric brain tumor, nearly tripled survival, in a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) clinical trial led by Thomas E. Merchant, DO, PhD, Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at St. Jude...
THE RISK FOR developing several obesity-related cancers is rising more rapidly in people aged 25 to 49 than in those older than 50, with the magnitude of the rise steepest in the youngest age group, according to a study published in Lancet Public Health.1 In an interview with The ASCO Post, the...
PHYSICIANS SHOULD routinely assess the body mass index (BMI) of their patients and offer counseling and/or referrals to a nutritionist or dietician to patients with a BMI of > 30 kg/m2, Ahmedin Jemal, DVM, PhD, told The ASCO Post. Those actions plus community-level policies designed to increase...
Immunosuppressed patients seem to have an increased risk of poor outcomes with multiple squamous cell carcinomas compared with those who are immunocompetent. Jessica L. Gonzalez, MD, of Tufts Medical Center in Boston, and colleagues published the results of a single-center case-control study...
Frailty and sarcopenia are common conditions among patients with lung cancer and are linked with decreased survival as well as increased surgical complications, chemotherapy toxicity, and cost of care. If a survey of oncologists at the 2019 Multidisciplinary Thoracic Cancers Symposium is any...
In a modeling study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Karen Canfell, DPhil, and colleagues detailed the preventive effects on cervical cancer that could be achieved by scaled-up human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination and cervical screening efforts with the aim of disease elimination. The major...
In the international phase III LION study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Philipp Harter, MD, and colleagues found that lymphadenectomy did not improve progression-free or overall survival vs no lymphadenectomy in women with advanced ovarian cancer. Study Details The trial...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
In the past, the role of the pathologist was primarily to present anatomic pathology findings on various specimens, particularly at tumor boards. However, in the emerging age of personalized medicine and molecular diagnostics, the responsibilities of pathologist have greatly expanded into...
A PERSONALIZED risk-prediction model for myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) has been developed through the use of a machine-learning approach that analyzes genomic and clinical data for an individual patient. According to lead investigator Aziz Nazha, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, the model provides...
In this installment of Living a Full Life, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, interviewed multiple myeloma pioneer Robert A. Kyle, MD, whose groundbreaking work has changed the practice of hematology. Among his many honors are the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award from ASCO and the Wallace H....
The addition of tumor-treating fields to standard-of-care chemotherapy has been found to be safe and effective in the treatment of unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma. Data presented at the 2019 Multidisciplinary Thoracic Cancers Symposium showed that patients receiving the combination of...
Previous research has suggested that specific factors about the doctor performing colonoscopy—for example, a gastroenterologist vs a surgeon, female vs male—were associated with different rates of detection of precancerous polyps. However, a Cleveland Clinic–led research team...
Treatment with gilteritinib, an oral type 1, FLT inhibitor, significantly improved overall survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with FLT3-positive relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to the final results of the phase III ADMIRAL trial.1 The longest survival for ...