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...
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...
On May 4, the FDA approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki for pretreated adult patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. We highlight findings from the DESTINY-Breast03 trial that led to the regular approval, and also hear from Dr. Sara Hurvitz, of the University of...
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...
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...
Over the past year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval to several novel drugs and new indications for older therapeutic agents used in hematologic oncology. Axicabtagene Ciloleucel: On April 1, 2022, axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) was approved for adult patients with...
The moderator of the session, Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, Clinical Professor at the BC Cancer Centre for Lymphoid Cancer and University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, called the results of the TRANSFORM trial “quite remarkable” and said chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has the...
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)...
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...
Acalabrutinib was equally efficacious with less toxicity when compared directly with ibrutinib in patients with previously treated relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to the results of an open-label, randomized, noninferiority phase III trial presented at the 2021...
A new study published by Ahmadian et al in the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering suggests how scientists may use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict how cancer may affect the probability of fractures along the spinal column. The report described how the...
On May 4, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) for pretreated adult patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. According to the approval, patients had to have received a prior anti-HER2–based regimen either in the...
Charles L. Sawyers, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the battle against treatment resistance and how to overcome it, as well as the power of observational clinical data in precision oncology, derived largely from his experience with Project GENIE, and the role of genetic...
Computed tomography (CT)-detected emphysema may be linked to a higher risk of lung cancer, a risk that increases with emphysema severity, according to a new study published by Yang et al in the journal Radiology. Lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer-related death worldwide. However, lung...
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,...
According to the results of a new study published by Drysdale et al in the Journal of Medical Screening, 51.4% of women preferred self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV)-based cervical cancer screening, compared to 36.5% who preferred being tested by a clinician. The findings came from a...
ASCO’s CancerLinQ® and Atropos Health announced today 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...
Radiologists and artificial intelligence (AI) systems yield significant differences in breast cancer screenings, a team of researchers has found. The case study by Makino et al, which appears in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, reveals the potential value of using both human and AI methods in ...
In an analysis from the ASCO Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Chen et al found that a high proportion of patients with rectal cancer do not receive guideline-recommended pretreatment staging transrectal ultrasound or pelvic magnetic resonance imaging...
Men who had a high body mass index (BMI) as children are at an elevated risk of obesity-related cancer later in life, even if their weight was normal in young adulthood, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Célind et al published their findings in the...
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...
Elective abdominal aortic aneurysm repair in patients with a cancer diagnosis is associated with several poor postoperative outcomes, according to a newly published study from researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Roush et al reported their findings in the Journal of...
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....
In the largest and most detailed population-based cohort study to date, researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm found that individuals with autism spectrum disorders, when present with comorbid intellectual disability and/or birth defects, were at a higher risk of cancer in early...
Recent findings with the use of sequencing technology have suggested that the gut microbiome may play a role in the treatment of cancer. A review paper published in JAMA Oncology by Liu and Shah captured the current understanding of the connection between the gut microbiome and therapeutic response ...
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...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has revolutionized the treatment of blood cancers, including certain leukemias, lymphomas, and multiple myeloma. However, Black and Hispanic patients were largely absent from the major clinical trials that led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has released the latest recommendations from the NCCN Advisory Committee on COVID-19 Vaccination and Pre-exposure Prophylaxis. The updated recommendations point to two booster vaccine doses for people who are immunocompromised (meaning three...
Matthew R. Smith, PhD, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses overall survival findings from the ARASENS trial, which assessed the efficacy of the androgen receptor inhibitor darolutamide vs placebo in combination with androgen-deprivation therapy and docetaxel for patients...
Priscilla K. Brastianos, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, talks about her efforts to better understand how brain metastases evolve genomically and to test such agents as abemaciclib, paxalisib, and entrectinib, which may stop their growth. Palbociclib, a CDK...
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...
Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses how research is building on the success of first-generation PARP inhibitors in the clinic and the potential of novel potent PARP1-selective inhibitors, which may lead to improved patient outcomes. Given...
Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses results from a phase Ib expansion trial of the safety and efficacy of the oral ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) inhibitor elimusertib in advanced solid tumors with DNA damage response defects....
Gulam A. Manji, MD, PhD, of Columbia University Medical Center, discusses phase II results on perioperative combination chemotherapy and pembrolizumab in patients with resectable gastric cancer. The combination appeared to result in many complete pathologic responses (Abstract CT009).
Lillian L. Siu, MD, of Canada’s Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, discusses biomarker-driven precision cancer medicine, the optimal sequencing of immunotherapy (IO) with standard treatments in curative settings, IO targets beyond PD-1/PD-L1 and combinatorial strategies, and next-generation adoptive...
Marcia R. Cruz-Correa, MD, PhD, of the University of Puerto Rico Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses a way to possibly transform cancer outcomes by teaming up basic scientists, clinical researchers, and community advocates to work together, decode the complexity of cancer, and find points at...
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...
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 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 ...
In the article “OlympiA Trial: Adjuvant Olaparib Significantly Improves Overall Survival in Germline BRCA-Mutated Breast Cancer,” which began on page 1 of the April 10 issue of The ASCO Post, a few unfortunate errors appeared, notably an incorrect P value for the overall survival comparison (after...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) awarded the 2022 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research to Tony Hunter, PhD, FAACR, Fellow of the AACR Academy, at its Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Dr. Hunter is the American Cancer Society Professor and Renato Dulbecco Chair at ...
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 ...
Amandeep Salhotra, MD, Associate Professor of Leukemia at City of Hope, in California, said this study should form the basis for a prospective phase III study in which older patients with AML (60–75 years) should have equal chance at randomization to either arm to remove bias on the part of...
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,...