The novel antibody-drug conjugate mirvetuximab soravtansine could become the new standard of care for patients with folate receptor alpha–positive, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to data presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2022 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.1...
In the PRADA study—reported by Thiruchelvam et al in The Lancet Oncology—researchers found that a strategy of preoperative radiotherapy and deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap reconstruction was feasible and safe in women requiring mastectomy for breast cancer. As stated by the...
Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses results from the PETRA study, a first-in-class, first-in-human trial of the next-generation PARP1-selective inhibitor AZD5305 in patients with BRCA1/2, PALB2, or RAD51C/D mutations in advanced or metastatic...
Contrary to what has been assumed, all recurrences of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are not genetically the same, according to a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022.1 Almost 20% of ipsilateral recurrences found in the study were genetically...
Two new, large studies led by researchers at the American Cancer Society showed an increase in the use of proton-beam therapy for patients with cancer in the United States during the past decade. However, Black patients were less likely to receive proton-beam therapy than White patients, and the...
Breast density is one factor in assessing a person’s risk of developing breast cancer. Existing breast density notification laws have increased awareness among patients and providers, but clinical records had not been incorporated in studies to confirm the accuracy of personal breast density...
In a phase Ib study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fu et al found that the combination of navicixizumab (a bispecific antiangiogenic antibody to VEGF and delta-like ligand 4) and paclitaxel showed activity in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Delta-like ligand 4 is a...
In a pivotal phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Samer K. Khaled, MD, and colleagues found that narsoplimab, an inhibitor of mannan-binding lectin-associated serine protease-2, showed efficacy in the treatment of adult patients with hematopoietic stem cell...
The risk of self-harm after incident psychiatric disorder diagnosis in patients with 26 cancer types and the risk of unnatural deaths after self-harm were examined in 459,542 individuals in a study published by Chang et al in Nature Medicine. Patients with cancer may experience substantial...
In a phase III trial (Ewing 2008R3) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Koch et al found that the addition of treosulfan and melphalan high-dose chemotherapy (TreoMel-HDT) followed by reinfusion of autologous hematopoietic stem cells to consolidation did not improve event-free survival vs ...
In a small multi-institutional study, an artificial intelligence (AI)-based system improved providers’ assessments of whether patients with bladder cancer had complete response to chemotherapy before a radical cystectomy. These findings were published by Sun et al in Tomography. Yet the researchers ...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Zapatero et al, 10-year results of the Spanish phase III DART 01/05 trial did not support the 5-year findings of significantly improved biochemical disease–free, metastasis-free, and overall survival with long-term vs short-term androgen deprivation plus...
In a Dutch study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Heesterbeek et al found that results of noninvasive prenatal testing for fetal aneuploidy screening using cell-free DNA derived from maternal plasma raised suspicion of maternal malignancy in a very small proportion of pregnant women....
The Iranian revolution of 1979 transformed Iran from an absolute monarchy under Shah Mohammad Pahlavi to an Islamist republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. The author of a new book called The Magic of Normal, Maky Zanganeh, PhD, was born in Iran in 1970. As a young woman, she experienced the war in her ...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies are a significant advance, but they require careful patient selection, dependency on patients’ own T cells, lymphodepleting chemotherapy, possible bridging therapy, manufacturing timelines with extensive health-care coordination and cost, in...
In an analysis of data from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) reported in Chest, Paul F. Pinsky, PhD, of the Division of Cancer Prevention, National Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that incidental respiratory disease–related findings on low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening...
The oral targeted small-molecule inhibitors of mutant IDH1 and IDH2 appear to be active in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) harboring these mutations, according to two phase II trials by the Groupe Francophone des Myélodysplasies (GFM) and its German colleagues in the European MDS...
The “holy grail” of triple-negative breast cancer therapy has been effective incorporation of drugs to improve outcomes in the early nonmetastatic setting. Although outcomes have improved with better chemotherapy drugs and schedules, triple-negative breast cancer still carries the worst prognosis...
As summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post, the highly anticipated results of the GOG 281/LOGS study, which randomly assigned patients with recurrent low-grade serous ovarian cancer to the MEK inhibitor trametinib vs standard-of-care chemotherapy or endocrine therapy, have now been reported by...
On March 9, 2022, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) issued a new report, Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation, recommending the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implement new guidelines to standardize the collection of data on sex, gender,...
Editor’s Note: The following is adapted from Dr. Hrynkiv’s presentation at the March 18 ASCO/ECO Briefing: Cancer Care During the War in Ukraine. Find resources for impacted patients and providers at asco.org/ukraine and onco-help.org. Official statistics regarding damage and losses in Ukraine are...
The theme of the 2022 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium was “Accelerating Access to Precision Care Through Innovation.” Several studies presented at this meeting focused on older patients, who represent the majority of patients with gastrointestinal malignancies. Data reviewed at the meeting...
Norman E. Sharpless, MD, has announced that he has decided to step down from his position as Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a position he has held since 2017. Dr. Sharpless will continue as NCI Director through April 29, 2022, to...
Taking aspirin daily does not prevent breast cancer recurrence, according to research presented during the February ASCO Plenary Series Program.1 Results of the double-blind phase III study of more than 3,000 patients with high-risk, HER2-negative breast cancer showed no improvement in invasive...
Adjuvant pembrolizumab improves disease-free survival compared with placebo in patients with early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following complete resection and adjuvant chemotherapy when indicated. These findings from the PEARLS/KEYNOTE-091 trial were reported in a European Society for ...
Andrew Chapman, DO, FACP, has been named Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, with locations in Philadelphia and nearby areas in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He has also been named the Center’s Executive Vice President for Oncology Services. He has served as the Center’s...
Elizabeth Plimack, MD, MS, has been appointed to Deputy Director at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, according to Jonathan Chernoff, MD, PhD, Cancer Center Director at Fox Chase. Dr. Plimack is Chief of the Division of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Professor in the Department of...
Over the past 15 years, public health authorities have downgraded recommendations for the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test as a screening tool to reduce the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of men with low-grade prostate cancer. Researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine have found that while these ...
Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, discussant of the CHOICE-01 trial, underscored the “tremendous progress” that’s been made over the past 2 decades in the management of metastatic non–small cell lung cancer, with overall survival increasing from less than 1 year with the use of combination chemotherapy to...
Genetics and other factors that can determine if a woman is at risk for a recurrence of breast cancer have been identified by investigators at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, providing new research avenues for preventing a new tumor from developing. The discovery was made possible...
Julie A. Margenthaler, MD, FACS, Professor of Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, told The ASCO Post that routine clinical examination may not be enough to properly identify lymph node involvement in patients with triple-negative breast cancer. “Given that we now have...
Neoadjuvant pembrolizumab has been approved in combination with chemotherapy for high-risk, early-stage, triple-negative breast cancer, but not all patients with node-positive disease have been able to receive the regimen, according to data presented during the Society of Surgical Oncology 2022...
Imagine this. You are a large pharmaceutical company that launches an international randomized phase III trial to assess whether one of your drugs improves the outcome of patients with a common type of cancer. The trial was solidly backed by preclinical evidence that the drug target was essential ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Forde et al, the phase III CheckMate 816 trial has shown improved pathologic complete response rate and event-free survival with the addition of nivolumab to platinum-based chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant treatment of resectable non–small cell...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Thorsen et al, 15-year follow-up of the Danish Breast Cancer Group Internal Mammary Node study indicates continued survival benefit with internal mammary node irradiation in women with right breast tumors vs without such therapy in those with left...
A novel immunotherapeutic combination that targets PD-1 and the LAG-3 pathway significantly delayed disease progression as a first-line treatment of advanced or unresectable melanoma. Updated results of the global phase III RELATIVITY-047 trial validated the study’s initial findings and were...
New findings from a large national study led by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS) show cancer survivors in the United States who reported medical financial hardship had a higher mortality risk than cancer survivors without financial hardship. Medical financial hardship was measured...
In a German trial (WSG-ADAPT-HR1/HER2–) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nitz et al found no difference in invasive disease-free survival between women with early hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer with zero to three positive nodes who had a 21-gene recurrence score ...
In patients with myeloid or lymphoid neoplasms with FGFR1 rearrangements, pemigatinib produced high and durable response rates, despite patients’ extensive use of prior treatments or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), according to the early results of the multicenter phase II FIGHT-203 ...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor tislelizumab to first-line chemotherapy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50% and, despite a 49% crossover rate, numerically boosted overall survival in patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal cancer, Zhang et al...
In the German TOSYMA trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Heindel et al found that screening with digital breast tomosynthesis plus synthesized mammography was superior in detecting invasive breast cancer vs standard digital mammography. As stated by the investigators, “Two-dimensional (2D)...
The next-generation inhibitor of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) may be effective in mantle cell lymphoma for patients previously treated with an older BTK inhibitor, according to results from the phase I/II BRUIN trial. These findings were reported at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
In an International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership study reported in The Lancet Oncology, McPhail et al identified the proportions of cancer diagnoses made within 30 days after emergency presentation and hospital admission. They also analyzed risk factors and outcomes for such diagnoses in a group ...
In a Norwegian study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fosså et al identified factors associated with increased mortality and second cancer risk among testicular cancer survivors, including treatment factors and modifiable adverse health outcomes. Study Details The study included data...
Today, 1 year after its founding, Break Through Cancer announced $50 million in grants to support several cutting-edge research projects using a novel “TeamLab” structure—designed to maximize interdisciplinary collaboration among researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Sidney Kimmel...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology: Colorectal Cancer Screening have recently incorporated significant changes, reflecting recommendations that will spare some patients unnecessary interventions and, in other cases, detect cancer earlier. The ...
Results from two early-stage clinical trials show two drugs that target the DNA damage response (DDR) pathway in cancers—the ATR inhibitor elimusertib and the PARP inhibitor AZD5305—are safe and clinically beneficial in treating patients with advanced solid tumors. Principal investigator Timothy...
A new study published by Englisch et al in the journal Blood Advances suggests that people with cancer and non-O blood types—such as types A, B, and AB—may face an increased risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE) 3 months after their initial diagnosis. Scientists have long strived to...
In an analysis from the prospective cohort Pathways Heart Study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Heather Greenlee, ND, PhD, and colleagues found that breast cancer survivors were at increased risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality compared with women without breast cancer, with...
Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have developed a new bioinformatics platform that predicts optimal treatment combinations for a given group of patients based on co-occurring tumor alterations. In retrospective validation studies, the tool selected combinations that...