Researchers have, for the first time, identified genes that may predict response to a therapy for a blood cancer that can have serious side effects for some patients. The therapy, selinexor, is part of the treatment armamentarium for multiple myeloma, but the ability to target its use to patients...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tachibana et al found high recurrence-free survival rates among patients with pathologic stage II nonseminomatous germ cell tumors who underwent primary retroperitoneal lymph node dissection and who did not receive adjuvant ...
In the phase III ANCHOR study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Palefsky et al found that treatment of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions was successful in preventing anal cancer vs active monitoring in persons infected with HIV. Study Details In the multicenter trial, 4,446 ...
Representing a total investment of $100 million, the following teams are the first to be funded through the partnership between Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the United States. These teams join the Cancer Grand Challenges community, which now unites more than 700...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with surgical oncologist Héctor Martínez-Said, MD, of the Melanoma Clinic at NCI Mexico. Dr. Martínez-Said’s maternal grandfather was part of a Lebanese immigration movement...
According to a study published by DuMontier et al in the journal Blood Advances, frailty assessments—geriatric exams considered essential to predicting health outcomes in older adults with cancer—are both safe and feasible when conducted virtually for patients with blood cancers. While providers...
In a single-institution study reported in JAMA Surgery, Shoucair et al found that matrix metalloproteinase 7 (MMP-7) expression in fine-needle aspiration biopsy specimens was associated with pathologic response to neoadjuvant therapy in patients undergoing resection for pancreatic ductal...
William Catalona, MD, Professor of Urology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, and past Principal Investigator on the Northwestern-based prostate SPORE, explained the evolution of his views regarding active surveillance in men with low-risk prostate cancer. Although...
Most men with low-risk prostate tumors now opt for active surveillance, but overtreatment remains a problem, according to data presented during the 2022 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting.1 A retrospective analysis of more than 20,000 patients with low-risk prostate cancer showed...
Telemedicine stepped up to the plate when the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe. Oncology providers—and practitioners in all specialties—had to rapidly adapt to a telemedicine format when face-to-face visits were severely limited. This scenario had its benefits for both patients and providers (and...
On June 17, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized emergency use of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine and the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 to include use in children as young as 6 months of age. For the Moderna vaccine, the FDA amended the emergency...
In a phase II trial (HOVON141/VISION) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Arnon P. Kater, MD, PhD, and colleagues found a high rate of 12-month progression-free survival among patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who stopped venetoclax/ibrutinib after achieving...
This is Part 4 of Updates in Lymphoma, a four-part video roundtable series. Scroll down to watch the other videos from this Roundtable. In this video, Drs. Alison J. Moskowitz, Andrew M. Evens, and Ann S. LaCasce discuss the management of relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma. The patient is a...
This is Part 3 of Updates in Lymphoma, a four-part video roundtable series. Scroll down to watch the other videos from this Roundtable. In this video, Drs. Alison J. Moskowitz, Andrew M. Evens, and Ann S. LaCasce discuss Hodgkin lymphoma in patients age ≥ 60 years. The patient is a 65-year-old man...
This is Part 2 of Updates in Lymphoma, a four-part video roundtable series. Scroll down to watch the other videos from this Roundtable. In this video, Drs. Alison J. Moskowitz, Andrew M. Evens, and Ann S. LaCasce discuss the management of bulky early-stage Hodgkin lymphoma. The patient is a...
This is Part 1 of Updates in Lymphoma, a four-part video roundtable series. Scroll down to watch the other videos from this Roundtable. In this video, Drs. Alison J. Moskowitz, Andrew M. Evens, and Ann S. LaCasce discuss the management of advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma. The patient is a...
Apar Kishor Ganti, MD, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, discusses results from the CALGB 30610 study, which showed a similar clinical benefit for once- and twice-daily radiotherapy administered to patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer. While both regimens were well...
Optimizing oncology care in the United States will require making state-of-the-art care more accessible to all. Delivering quality, equitable cancer care is undoubtedly a challenge in a country as large, diverse, and disparate as the United States, but if it is to be achieved, it will entail the...
Androgen receptor (AR) signaling may affect response to BRAF/MEK inhibitor therapy in both male and female patients with melanoma, according to findings from a study published by Vellano et al in Nature. The report provides a new target to combat therapeutic resistance and one possible answer to...
In a prespecified analysis from the phase III monarchE trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Miguel Martín, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the addition of adjuvant abemaciclib to endocrine therapy was associated with improved outcomes among women with high-risk hormone receptor–positive,...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Sanjay Popat, FRCP, PhD, and colleagues found that among patients initiating first-line pembrolizumab for EGFR and ALK wild-type advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), ever-smokers had significantly better overall survival vs...
In an Italian phase II trial (AtezoTRIBE) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Antoniotti et al found that the addition of atezolizumab to FOLFOXIRI (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, irinotecan) and bevacizumab improved progression-free survival in the first-line treatment of patients with...
Adults who survive childhood cancer have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease than the general population, yet they are 80% more likely to be undertreated for several cardiovascular risk factors, such as hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol, according to new research published by Eric J. ...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Liu et al found that hypomethylating therapy was associated with upregulation of the oncogene SALL4 in a high proportion of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome. They also identified the gene region that is demethylated and responsible...
In a study reported in JAMA Network Open, Burgess et al found that the 2012 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) Grade D recommendation against prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening for all men appeared to be associated with ending of a trend of annual reductions in prostate...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Nimgaonkar et al found that less than half of patients with urothelial cancer who had received first-line platinum-based therapy underwent testing for FGFR alterations and that less than half of patients with susceptible alterations...
Gilberto de Lima Lopes, Jr, MD, MBA, of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami, and Karen L. Reckamp, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, discuss phase II findings from substudy S1800A of the Lung-MAP protocol. The data showed that ramucirumab and pembrolizumab...
In the phase I/II MajesTEC-1 trial presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 8007) and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Philippe Moreau, MD, and colleagues found that the bispecific antibody teclistamab produced responses in nearly two-thirds of patients...
In a study presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 103) and simultaneously reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lipsyc-Sharf et al found that personalized circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) testing was successful in detecting measurable residual disease (MRD) prior to late clinical...
In a study presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 10502) and simultaneously published in JCO Precision Oncology, Veda N. Giri, MD, and colleagues found that Black men with prostate cancer exhibited a lower frequency and narrower spectrum of germline pathogenic or likely pathogenic...
ASCO and the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) jointly released recommendations that address the lack of equity, diversity, and inclusion in cancer clinical trials. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 their recommendations detail specific actions to engage the entire cancer ...
A new ASCO guideline update provides further recommendations on the use of biomarkers to guide decision-making on adjuvant endocrine therapy and chemotherapy in patients with early-stage breast cancer.1 The update includes clarification of the use of certain genomic tests, based on age or...
ASCO’s CancerLinQ® and Atropos Health announced a new collaboration that will provide oncology clinicians with the latest real-world evidence available to help inform personalized care and treatment of an individual patient. Atropos Health and CancerLinQ will work together to provide a “digital...
The Ralph Lauren Corporate Foundation recently announced it will provide $25 million in new grant funding to expand or establish five Ralph Lauren cancer centers, aimed at reducing disparities in cancer care and access across underserved communities in the United States. The funding will benefit...
The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, which actively partners with scientists, research institutions, and philanthropic organizations around the world to accelerate research in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, recently announced that Ryan Schoenfeld, PhD, has been appointed...
The Cleveland Clinic-Taussig Cancer Center recently announced two new appointments and updates to the Center’s staff and faculty. Sophia Balderman, MD, has joined the leukemia group at Taussig Cancer Institute. Prior to her new role, Dr. Balderman was Assistant Professor in the Department of...
Patients who underwent robotic-assisted radical cystectomy with intracorporeal diversion spent fewer days in the hospital and experienced fewer complications compared with those who underwent open radical cystectomy, according to data presented at the 2022 American Urological Association (AUA)...
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center recently announced that Tong Joo (TJ) Gan, MD, FRCA (UK), has been named Division Head of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. Dr. Gan will join MD Anderson’s faculty on September 1. Dr. Gan will lead a division composed of 117 faculty...
The Moroccan Cancer Society (MCS; Société Marocaine de Cancérologie/https://smc.ma) was created in 1992 by a group of Moroccan medical and radiation oncologists, surgeons, and pathologists who had led the field in the 1980s. To date, this scientific society has more than 350 members practicing in...
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...
On May 4, 2022, fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) was granted regular approval for patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received a prior anti-HER2–based regimen in the metastatic setting or in the neoadjuvant or adjuvant setting and have developed...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Eugenie Spiguel, MSN, ANP-BS, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus on Ma Zi Ren...
The COVID-19 pandemic and the confluence of events that followed—including the rapid development of vaccines, the mixed messaging on mitigation efforts to prevent coronavirus infection, and the growing political polarization—helped spark public mistrust and skepticism toward science. This mistrust...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) recently announced the recipients of 2022 awards for both internal and external champions advancing NCCN’s mission and helping all people with cancer to live better lives. The annual awards include the Rodger Winn Award for expert judgment and...
It is estimated that globally, more than 600,000 women per year are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and more than 300,000 die annually of the disease.1 Many women continue to be diagnosed with cervical cancer at an advanced stage, with a high risk of recurrence. To date, the most effective...
Preliminary results of the basket BEGONIA trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), paired with the immune checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, has strong activity in advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer among patients not biomarker-selected for...
Since the introduction of trastuzumab in the late 1990s, overall survival for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer has substantially improved. Median overall survival in the pivotal first-line trial was only 20.3 months in the chemotherapy arm, and 25.1 months in the...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial, which included postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer, first-line treatment with ribociclib plus fulvestrant added nearly 16 months of overall survival time vs fulvestrant...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Javier Cortés, MD, PhD, of the International Breast Cancer Center, Barcelona, and colleagues, the phase III DESTINY-Breast03 trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) vs...
On June 9, Foundation Medicine, Inc., announced that it has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for FoundationOne CDx to be used as a companion diagnostic for the two indications of the tyrosine kinase inhibitor entrectinib (Rozlytrek). As a companion diagnostic,...