On October 16, 2018, the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor talazoparib (Talzenna) was approved for the treatment of patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated, HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.1,2 Patients must be selected for...
Investigators from Australia have identified a genetic mutation that causes resistance to the targeted drug venetoclax (Venclexta) in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to research presented by Blombery et al at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting...
On August 16, 2018, lenvatinib (Lenvima) was approved for the first-line treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the findings of a phase III open-label noninferiority trial (REFLECT), in which 954 patients with previously...
Interim results from a large international phase III clinical trial show that adding the immunotherapy daratumumab (Darzalex) to standard therapy significantly extended progression-free survival (PFS) in newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma who were ineligible for a stem cell transplant....
A new study suggests taking a direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) can reduce the risk of harmful blood clots in patients undergoing cancer treatments, without substantially increasing the risk of bleeding problems. Findings from the CASSINI trial were presented by Khorana et al at the 2018 American...
In a trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Manson et al, marine n-3 (omega-3) fatty acid supplementation was found to have no benefit in reducing the risk for invasive cancer vs placebo over 5 years of follow-up. Higher intake of n-3 fatty acids has been associated with a reduced ...
Researchers used machine learning to develop a new system to analyze genomic and clinical data to provide a personalized overall outcome that is patient-specific in myelodysplastic syndromes. In tests, the system outperformed the current standard prognostic tool, suggesting the new model may offer...
A single infusion of tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) in pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed or treatment-resistant acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) continues to be highly effective in most patients, without the need for additional therapies. This latest analysis of the ELIANA trial results...
A new study presented by Woyach et al at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 6) showed that older patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have a significantly lower rate of disease progression if treated with ibrutinib rather than...
A population-based study examining patient receipt of a surveillance colonoscopy 3 years after the removal of high-risk adeonomatous polyps has found that the procedure was underutilized and varied by health-care system, patient age, and number of adenomas found. Strategies to improve adherence to...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Voss et al found that adding the mutation status of prognostic genes to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) risk model improved the prognostic performance of the model in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma. The study involved...
In the phase III De-ESCALaTE trial reported in The Lancet, Mehanna et al found no difference in severe toxicity with cisplatin vs cetuximab (Erbitux) plus radiotherapy in low-risk human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer. Cetuximab was associated with poorer recurrence and survival...
YouTube videos on prostate cancer often offer misleading or biased medical information that poses potential health risks to patients, an analysis of the social media platform published by Loeb et al in European Urology showed. For the latest analysis, researchers, which included social...
In a pharmacovigilance study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Salem et al found that immune checkpoint inhibitors can cause “severe and disabling inflammatory cardiovascular immune-related adverse events” that need to be considered in patient care and clinical trial design. Study...
In a study using linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare data reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Quyyumi et al found that 21% of women with early-stage breast cancer discontinued follow-up care within 5 years after diagnosis. Study Details The study involved...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved gilteritinib (Xospata) for the treatment of adult patients who have relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a FLT3 mutation as detected by an FDA-approved test. The FDA also approved an expanded indication for a companion ...
New results from the long-running I-SPY 2 trial, which aimed to identify which new drugs or combinations of drugs are most effective in which types of breast cancer, demonstrated the usefulness of two genomic tests. Laura van ‘t Veer, PhD, leader of the Breast Oncology Program at the...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Dimopoulos et al, the phase II ELOQUENT-3 trial has shown that the addition of elotuzumab (Empliciti) to pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone significantly prolonged progression-free survival in patients with relapsed and/or refractory...
A therapeutic vaccine may boost antibodies and T cells, helping them infiltrate human papillomavirus (HPV)-related head and neck cancer tumors. Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania tested the immunotherapy in two groups of patients with advanced head and...
Elisha Waldman, MD, is a pediatric oncologist and Associate Chief in the Division of Palliative Care at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. He grew up in a Connecticut suburb, the son of a conservative rabbi. Early on, Dr. Waldman majored in religious studies and felt...
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. Shelly Latte-Naor, MD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, explore some of the beneficial effects attributed ...
ON AUGUST 16, 2018, nivolumab (Opdivo) was granted accelerated approval for treatment of patients with metastatic small cell lung cancer (SCLC) with disease progression after platinum-based chemotherapy and at least one other line of therapy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data APPROVAL WAS BASED on...
Formed in 1991, the Rocky Mountain Oncology Society (RMOS), a Chapter Member of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) and State Affiliate of ASCO, serves as the voice for Colorado’s multidisciplinary cancer care teams and the patients they serve. Representing the common interests of...
Lung cancer researcher Melissa Johnson, MD, is a self-described “military brat,” whose father was a career officer in the Marine Corps, serving for more than 35 years. She was born in Oklahoma City and moved nine times during her childhood. When Dr. Johnson was in high school, her father was...
“‘Sickness’ is what is happening to the patient. Listen to him. Disease is what is happening to science and to populations.” —Lawrence Weed, MD, 1978 America’s massive health-care system is highly complex, with its own unique language, methods, technologies, and scientific approaches, developed and ...
THE INTRODUCTION of the electronic health record (EHR) was supposed to lead us to a utopian world for health-care delivery in America. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law on March 23, 2010, promoted its implementation by providing financial incentives.1 The Centers for...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, ASCO’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his current position, Dr. Hudis served in a variety of roles at ASCO, including President during ASCO’s 50th anniversary...
For the past 50 years or more, oncologists have designed their treatment plans around the three pillars: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Now, with a series of recent successes, immunotherapy is rapidly reemerging as the fourth pillar in the oncologic armamentarium. Despite major advancements...
ON JULY 30, 2018, the radiotherapeutic agent iobenguane I-131 (Azedra) was approved for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients (aged ≥ 12 years) with iobenguane scan–positive, unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic pheochromocytoma or paraganglioma who require systemic anticancer...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved glasdegib (Daurismo) tablets to be used in combination with low-dose cytarabine for the treatment of newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in adults who are 75 years of age or older or with comorbidities that may preclude the use of ...
On September 28, 2018, cemiplimab-rwlc (Libtayo) was approved for the treatment of patients with metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma or locally advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma who are not candidates for curative surgery or curative radiation.1 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval...
Despite growing national awareness of health-care inequities, the plight of rural Americans diagnosed with cancer has persistently remained inadequate. Speaking with The ASCO Post, Jan Probst, PhD, Professor at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, noted, “We...
As reported in Blood by Ian W. Flinn, MD, PhD, Director of the Lymphoma Research Program at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, and colleagues, the phase III DUO trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-δ/γ inhibitor duvelisib...
In response to the opioid-overdose epidemic, several measures have been put in place, such as the reclassification of hydrocodone as a Schedule II opioid and new requirements for physician review of prescription drug–monitoring program databases in most states. Moreover, the Surgeon General and...
The link between inflammation and cancer is a field of growing interest in the oncology community. Biologists have theorized that simultaneous DNA damage and cell division during inflammation could lead to cancer. To shed light on this important issue, The ASCO Post recently spoke with Jennifer...
On September 27, 2018, dacomitinib (Vizimpro) received approval for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletion or exon 21 L858R substitution mutations, as detected by a test approved by the...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On August 27, 2018, ibrutinib (Imbruvica) was approved...
Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, knew from the start of his medical career that if treatments for cancer were to become curative, research in new therapies would have to move away from the mainstay one-size-fits-all approach of systemic chemotherapy to an innovative, personalized strategy that...
Invited discussant Jean-Pascal Machiels, MD, PhD, Head of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc, UCLouvain, Brussels, called the study “very important,” especially for showing that in patients with high expression of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1),...
An overall survival advantage has now been shown for first-line immunotherapy in recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer, researchers reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress.1 In the phase III KEYNOTE-048 trial, treatment with the anti–programmed cell death...
In previously untreated patients with metastatic colorectal cancer and tumors demonstrating microsatellite instability–high (MSI-high) or mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR), immunotherapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) and low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) produced a durable clinical benefit in the...
For patients with prostate cancer who have persistent or rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels after radical prostatectomy, the addition of short-term androgen-deprivation therapy and radiotherapy to the pelvic lymph nodes demonstrated increased rates of freedom from disease progression,...
In a global phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Solomon et al found that lorlatinib (Lorbrena) showed high overall and intracranial activity in patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were treatment-naive or who had received crizotinib (Xalkori)...
In 2010, the long-awaited findings from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) revealed that participants who received low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) scans had a 15% to 20% lower risk of dying of lung cancer than participants who received standard chest x-rays. In response, the U.S....
Serving as European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) expert at a press briefing, Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD, Head of the Breast Center at the University of Munich, called the findings “practice-changing” in some parts of the world and “practice-reinforcing” in others. She said the 10-month...
Patients with thyroid cancer whose disease is at low risk of returning can be treated safely with a smaller amount of radiation following surgery, according to results from the HiLo trial presented by Wadsley et al at the 2018 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference (Abstract...
Men who have been newly diagnosed with prostate cancer say they would trade some improvement in their odds of survival for improvements in side effects and quality of life, according to research presented by Ahmed et al at the 2018 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference...
The rate of men dying from malignant melanoma has risen in populations around the world, whereas in some countries, mortality rates for the disease are steady or falling for women, according to research presented by Yang et al at the 2018 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference...
In a randomized phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Siu et al found that the combination of the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) plus the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) inhibitor tremelimumab and durvalumab alone showed evidence ...
In the phase II PERSIST-5 study reported in JAMA Oncology, Raut et al found that 5 years of adjuvant imatinib therapy was associated with little risk of recurrence in patients with resected intermediate- or high-risk primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). As noted by the investigators, 3...