This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three scientists who have made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world. Harvey J. Alter, MD; Michael Houghton, ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kater et al, 4-year progression-free and overall survival were significantly greater with venetoclax plus rituximab vs bendamustine plus rituximab in the phase III MURANO trial in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia....
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, and colleagues found differences in patient reports of acute toxicities according to fractionation scheme of whole-breast radiotherapy for breast cancer, with pain being reported more frequently in Black vs White...
Findings from ASCO’s fourth annual National Cancer Opinion Survey showed the toll the COVID-19 pandemic is taking on patients with cancer and the concerns over delays in scheduling cancer screenings. In addition, a majority of survey respondents acknowledged that racism can impact the care a person ...
In an analysis of long-term data from NRG Oncology’s RTOG 9408 trial reported in JAMA Network Open, Zumsteg et al found that patients with favorable vs unfavorable intermediate-risk prostate cancer had improved overall survival, and that androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) vs no ADT was associated...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Gallamini et al, the final analysis of the phase III GITIL/FIL HD0607 trial has shown that consolidation radiotherapy did not improve progression-free survival vs no further treatment in patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma and a baseline large...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dores et al found that patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma continue to be at elevated risk for mortality from causes other than lymphoma, despite advances in treating this disease. As stated by the investigators, “Mortality for patients...
In a National Cancer Database analysis reported in JAMA Network Open, Amin et al found that among patients with brain metastases who underwent definitive surgery for primary tumors, the combination of immunotherapy and radiotherapy prolonged overall survival compared with radiotherapy alone. Study...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Alexander M.M. Eggermont, MD, PhD, and colleagues, adjuvant pembrolizumab maintained a significant recurrence-free survival benefit vs placebo in patients with high-risk stage III melanoma after a median 3-year follow-up in the phase III EORTC...
In a quality-of-life analysis from the phase IV CARD trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Karim Fizazi, MD, and colleagues found that cabazitaxel was associated with improved pain response, time to pain progression, and time to symptomatic skeletal events vs abiraterone or enzalutamide in...
A large cohort study with close to 160,000 men and women reported that “recent-onset diabetes accompanied by weight loss was associated with a substantial increase in risk for pancreatic cancer and may represent a high-risk group in the general population for whom early detection strategies would...
In 2019, ASCO launched an Asia-Pacific Regional Council, a group of distinguished oncology leaders from countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The Council’s purpose is to advise ASCO on the needs of members in the region and facilitate and encourage member involvement in ASCO’s global activities....
Christopher Anker, MD, a radiation oncologist at The University of Vermont Medical Center and Associate Professor at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, Burlington, told The ASCO Post that although the benefit to overall survival disappeared with time likely due to a power ...
Liquid biopsies using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) have the potential to personalize medicine for patients with lymphoma, going beyond traditional markers and risk factors to provide dynamic assessments over time. Expanded applications of ctDNA liquid biopsy beyond diagnosis include early response ...
Commenting on this presentation, session moderator Christopher Flowers, MD, Chair of the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said: “The treatment of adolescent and young adult patients with lymphoma remains a considerable challenge. The...
“Good morning! I’m Dr. Saksena. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I wave my introduction as I enter the room. Two women sit beside each other. One of them wears a mask that reads “lipstick optional,” and the other dons a surgical mask. This is a new visit for breast cancer, but I haven’t yet deciphered ...
A review of the 2019 Drug Trials Snapshots Report1 from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that although female participation in clinical trials grew to 72% from 56% in the FDA’s 2018 Drug Trials Snapshots Report,2 ethnic minority participation in clinical trials actually declined...
In an exploratory analysis of the phase IIIb/IV CheckMate 153 trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, David M. Waterhouse, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that continuing nivolumab beyond 1 year of treatment vs stopping at 1 year of treatment was associated with better outcomes in...
In the phase IIa plasmaMATCH platform trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Nicholas C. Turner, MD, and colleagues found that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) provided accurate genotyping that permitted selection of directed therapies in patients with advanced breast cancer. Study Details The...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has released the 10th edition of its annual Cancer Progress Report. The report highlights how cancer research, largely supported by federal investments in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), is...
Long-term findings from the phase III CheckMate 238 study showed that nivolumab improved 4-year recurrence-free survival compared with ipilimumab in patients with resected stage IIIB to C or IV melanoma in the overall population as well as across subgroups of patients stratified by disease stage...
No significant difference was observed in the risk of recurrence, local recurrence, or death between patients with cervical cancer in whom a radical uterine procedure (mostly radical hysterectomy) was completed or abandoned upon intraoperative detection of positive pelvic lymph nodes. These...
Combined use of aspirin, metformin, and statins may be associated with decreased lung cancer incidence and mortality, according to a study published by Kang et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. Study Methods The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of the three agents with...
In a single-institution retrospective analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Weinstein et al identified the prevalent cancer detection rate associated with supplemental abbreviated breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) screening among average-risk women with dense breasts who had...
A prospective biomarker analysis of the multicohort phase II KEYNOTE-158 trial reported by Marabelle et al in The Lancet Oncology found that patients with previously treated advanced solid tumors were more likely to respond to pembrolizumab monotherapy if they had high tissue tumor mutational...
In a single-center Indian phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Naik et al found that the addition of olanzapine to standard antiemetic treatment significantly increased the rate of complete response (CR; defined as no vomiting or use of rescue medication) among children and ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine and during the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 (Abstract 610O) by Maha Hussain, MD, FACP, FASCO, and colleagues, an overall survival analysis from the phase III PROfound trial has shown a significant benefit with olaparib vs physician’s choice of...
Patient advocates and medical professionals in more than 20 countries have come together for the second annual World Gynecologic Oncology Day (World GO Day), taking place today, September 20. A project of the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO) and the European Network of...
In a phase I clinical trial for patients with advanced solid cancers marked by KRAS G12C mutations, the KRAS G12C inhibitor sotorasib (AMG 510) showed manageable toxicities and durable clinical benefits. Results from the trial were published in The New England Journal of Medicine, and data from the ...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kyriakopoulos et al found that use of quantitative total bone imaging with fluorine-18 (F-18)–sodium fluoride (NaF) positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) helped identify heterogeneity of response in bone lesions...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Kohei Shitara, MD, and colleagues, the phase III KEYNOTE-062 trial showed no significant improvement in overall or progression-free survival with first-line pembrolizumab with or without chemotherapy vs chemotherapy alone in patients with PD-L1–positive advanced...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, van Roessel et al found that adjuvant chemotherapy after pancreatic cancer resection and neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan, and oxaliplatin) was associated with an improvement in overall survival. The benefit was...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hong et al found that mandatory twice-weekly evaluations reduced the need for unplanned acute care visits among patients undergoing outpatient radiotherapy or chemoradiation who were identified as being at high risk for...
In individual participant data and trial-level meta-analyses reported in JAMA Network Open, Gulia et al found that disease-free survival with adjuvant trastuzumab given for less than 1 year was noninferior to 1 year of trastuzumab therapy in patients with early breast cancer. In addition, the...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mlecnik et al found that high Immunoscore values were associated with reduced risk of disease recurrence and better outcomes with chemotherapy vs no chemotherapy in patients with stage III colon cancer. Study Details The international...
In a letter to the editor published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Brandon A. Mahal, MD, and colleagues described genomic differences in prostate cancer in Black, White, and Asian men. Study Details The study involved next-generation sequencing data from patients who had been treated for...
In a German Intergroup phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Grünwald et al found that progression-free survival with first-line pazopanib was noninferior to doxorubicin in patients aged 60 years or older with inoperable metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma. Pazopanib was also...
Pediatric hematologist-oncologist Theodore Laetsch, MD, has joined the Division of Oncology at Children’s Hospital ofPhiladelphia (CHOP), where he will launch a cutting-edge Very Rare Malignant Tumors Program that will seek to develop new treatments for children with rare and complex tumors. In...
In 2013, at the ASCO Annual Meeting Plenary Session, it was both surprising and encouraging in the era of personalized medicine for cancer care to hear about a simple low-tech intervention delivered by women in the community that cut the rate of death from cervical cancer in India by about...
On January 1, 2021, significant changes to the office and outpatient Evaluation and Management (E&M) services Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) codes (99202-99215) will go into effect. Practices, physicians, and staff must prepare in advance for these changes to ensure a successful...
Doctor after doctor recommended different treatment options for Marlene Portnoy’s husband, Steve, after he was diagnosed with a desmoid tumor. Desmoid tumors are rare, and each doctor admitted uncertainty about treatment plans. “Let me tell you, that’s a really scary thing when doctors can’t...
Global oncology refers to the application of the concepts of global health to cancer and implies an approach to the practice of oncology that acknowledges the reality of limited resources in parts of the world. The Global Oncology Young Investigator Award (YIA) from ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new study that specifically examines how COVID-19 is affecting American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN), one of the racial and ethnic minority groups at highest risk from the disease. The CDC found that in 23 selected states, the...
The ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program was a landmark year for the field of geriatric oncology, featuring more than 300 research abstracts that presented data on older adults with cancer. Here, we discuss several high-impact studies investigating interventions that modify outcomes for this patient...
Recognizing the COVID-19 crisis “as an opportunity to mobilize the organization to rise in the most difficult challenges” allowed The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, to keep mortality rates low for COVID-19–positive patients with cancer and its employees. So said Peter WT...
A potent, a next-generation ALK inhibitor has demonstrated promising efficacy in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to data presented during the 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer’s World Conference...
Earlier this year, as the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading across the United States, federal health officials and cancer societies urged Americans to delay routine cancer screenings and other elective procedures to keep them out of clinics to avoid potential exposure to the coronavirus and to...
The American College of Surgeons Cancer Programs recently launched the Cancer Surgery Standards Program (CSSP), a new initiative that aims to improve the quality of surgical care provided to patients with cancer by implementing standards for cancer surgery and standardizing the way operative data...
In a retrospective analysis reported in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics, Jaoude et al found that a radiation boost did not reduce the risk of local recurrence among women with HER2-positive breast cancer receiving breast-conserving surgery, whole-breast...
In an exploratory post hoc analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Amit M. Oza, MD, and colleagues found superior quality-adjusted progression-free survival (QA-PFS) and quality-adjusted time without symptoms or toxicity (Q-TWiST) in patients with platinum-sensitive, recurrent...