Lawrence J. Solin, MD, FACR, FASTRO, a champion of breast-conserving therapy for women with breast cancer, died unexpectedly on March 3 at the age of 66. At the time of his death, Dr. Solin was Professor Emeritus, Department of Radiation Oncology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of...
When Narjust Duma, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and a thoracic oncologist at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center in Madison, presented the findings from her study, “Evaluating Unconscious Bias During Speaker Introductions at an International Oncology Conference,” during the...
An abstract presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting titled “Evaluating Unconscious Bias During Speaker Introductions at an International Oncology Conference,” by Narjust Duma, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Thoracic Oncologist at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center in...
Each year, The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, Chairman of the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, to offer his picks for the most important research presented at 2019 San...
Physician-scientist, Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, was encouraged by her parents to become a politically active, socially conscious citizen of the world. “As a young woman, my mother traveled from Africa on a scholarship to the United States, where she attended the University of Wisconsin. It was in the ...
Discussant of the abstract on antibiotic exposure, Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, Assistant Professor of Oncology and Attending Physician at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, said that Mr. Chu and colleagues have added to the recent literature examining concurrent use of...
Treatment with antibiotics prior to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may confer poorer overall survival and an increased risk of colitis in patients with advanced melanoma, according to data presented at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.1 The largest institutional...
The loosening of restrictions on genetic testing would mean that all health-care providers could help move this needle to where it should be, according to Kevin S. Hughes, MD, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and Medical Director of the...
Abstracts from posters that would have been presented at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 2020 Annual Conference are now available online. Although NCCN officials were compelled to postpone the conference in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, in order to ...
Moderator of the session, Tanguy Y. Seiwert, MD, Director of the Head and Neck Cancer Oncology Disease Group and Assistant Professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, underscored the “dramatically good” preclinical data supporting the use of mTOR inhibitors in advanced...
The mTOR inhibitor everolimus, used to treat breast and kidney cancers, may benefit patients with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, according to data presented at the 2020 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1 The results of an investigator-initiated, phase II...
Immunotherapeutics in breast cancer will likely not be limited to late-stage triple-negative breast cancer. Earlier lines, combination regimens, and expansion into different disease subtypes should become part of this emerging landscape, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine...
Attendees gathered at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco to hear the latest news about treating patients with cancers of the prostate, bladder, kidneys, and testicles. In addition to the comprehensive coverage of the meeting in The ASCO Post, here are some brief highlights...
Improving care for children with cancer worldwide could bring a triple return on investment and prevent millions of deaths, according to a new Commission report published by Atun et al in The Lancet Oncology. Without additional investment in childhood cancer care, new estimates produced for the...
The partners in the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator—a large-scale initiative launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard—awarded $20 million in initial grants to three institutions. The University of Washington, the University of Oxford, and La Jolla Institute...
Thyroid dysfunction following treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors is more common than previously thought, according to research that was accepted for presentation at ENDO 2020, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting (Abstract SAT-418), and that will be published in Journal of the Endocrine...
In an effort to expedite research for agents with potential activity against symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is evaluating and/or has approved a number of randomized clinical trials seeking to determine whether a drug has...
In 2014, three undergrads at Columbia University had a crazy idea for a hackathon challenge: colorize bleach so health-care workers could spot missed areas on the surfaces and personal protective equipment they are trying to disinfect. Five years later, the result is a product called Highlight®,...
For patients with cancer, the oral blood thinner apixaban is at least as effective as dalteparin, a low–molecular-weight heparin given by injection, in preventing a repeat venous thromboembolism (VTE), with no excess in major bleeding events. These findings from the phase III Caravaggio study were...
In an article published by Kutikov et al in Annals of Internal Medicine, practitioners from Fox Chase Cancer Center reviewed the challenges faced in cancer care during the COVID-19 crisis and suggested measures that may help to maintain standards of care while reducing risk of transmission as well...
A major casualty of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is the dramatic decrease in the number of blood donations across the United States. As more people are urged to shelter-in-place and avoid social contact, the number of cancellations in blood drives has been dramatic. According to ...
In a correspondence published in The Lancet Oncology, Rishi S. Kotecha, MB, ChB, of the Government of Western Australia Department of Health, identified challenges in protecting children with cancer from COVID-19 infection and stressed that some measures proposed to protect adults with cancer may...
Bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) antibodies, such blinatumomab, may be the most appealing type of bispecific antibodies, a class of manufactured constructs that is expected to expand into the solid tumor space, according to Hermann Einsele, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Würzburg,...
In a European trial (PET-Plan) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Nestle et al found that the use of reduced radiotherapy target volumes determined by 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (FDG-PET) alone may achieve improved local control vs conventional target planning with...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Fishman et al found no significant difference in the use of optimal evidence-based anticancer drug regimens in physician offices vs hospital-based outpatient departments. However, the investigators found significantly higher costs of treatment in the...
As reported by You et al in The Lancet Oncology, a representative group of French medical and radiation oncologists formulated guidelines to protect patients with cancer against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Guideline development was overseen by the French...
In the novel Blindness, Portuguese author José Saramago describes an epidemic that quickly and inexorably causes nearly all inhabitants of an unnamed city to lose their sight. The Nobel Laureate writes in long uninterrupted sentences, making the reader experience the fears and anxieties of the...
The Association for Clinical Oncology, ASCO's affiliated 501(c)(6) organization, is urging the White House and leaders in Congress to swiftly work together to meet the needs of patients and health-care professionals in response to the COVID-19 crisis. In a letter to the President, Vice President,...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Chambers et al found that use of molecular testing across tumor types often varied widely in several countries, sometimes reflecting regional differences in the incidence of cancer types. Study Details The study involved the use of aggregated results of ...
A new study in JCO Oncology Practice (JCO OP) highlights an effective effort to increase the use of evidence-based state smoking cessation programs among patients with cancer and survivors who use tobacco. In Michigan, state agencies and the Michigan Oncology Quality Consortium partnered to create...
ASCO applauds the Office of the Surgeon General for releasing its first report on smoking cessation in 30 years. The report provides the latest evidence-based information on the public health consequences of tobacco use and effective ways to help people quit smoking. Smoking rates in the United...
The parker institute for cancer immunotherapy (PICI) recently announced awards for six early-career researchers through the Parker Scholars, Parker Bridge Fellows, and Parker Senior Fellows programs. They are receiving a total of up to $2.75 million in funding to advance their research in profound...
Although more transgender patients are presenting to breast centers for imaging, many “report significant social stigma when seeking care,” according to a study in the Journal of Breast Imaging.1 Reported verbal abuse and other forms of harassment “can lead to transgender patients concealing their...
An analysis of breast imaging center websites and a literature search for research articles on transgender breast health found that “issues related to transgender breast imaging are not well addressed in the radiology literature or in the radiology community, even though more transgender patients...
The history of drug addictions and epidemics in the United States dates back to the Civil War, when morphine was introduced as a pain medication for wounded soldiers. Regular off-label use of morphine quickly spread from war hospitals to the general public. It is estimated that more than 400,000...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapies for newly diagnosed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and...
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) recently appointed Sergio Giralt, MD, and Miguel-Angel Perales, MD, as Deputy Division Head of the Division of Hematologic Malignancies and Chief of the Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Service, respectively. Dr. Giralt: New Roles and Old Former Chief of...
On February 25, 2020, neratinib (Nerlynx) was approved for use in combination with capecitabine for treatment of adult patients with advanced or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have received two or more prior anti–HER2-based regimens in the metastatic setting.1,2 Supporting Efficacy ...
Tanguy Y. Seiwert, MD, moderator of the session on the phase II trial of neoadjuvant nivolumab with or without ipilimumab in patients with oral cavity cancer, underscored concerns about differences in outcome measures. Dr. Seiwert is Director of the Head and Neck Cancer Oncology Disease Group and...
It may be possible to use a platinum-free combination as first-line treatment for advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma in cisplatin-ineligible patients, if results of the phase Ib/II EV-103 trial hold up. The combination of the newly approved antibody-drug conjugate (enfortumab vedotin) and...
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is dramatically affecting health-care systems. This is the first in a series of interviews The ASCO Post will conduct with oncologists, to learn what they and their cancer centers are doing to deal with the crisis. In this article, we talk with John Cole, MD, a...
The survival benefit of pembrolizumab in advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) tumors or a combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 10 was established in post hoc subanalysis of three KEYNOTE trials. Findings were presented at the 2020...
Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of ASCO, called the 74% response rate to cisplatin/gemcitabine “remarkable.” “What’s impressive to me is the high response rate, as well as the progression-free and overall survival data—these data are...
In patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and a germline BRCA/PALB2 mutation, first-line therapy with cisplatin plus gemcitabine yielded high response rates and encouraging survival, according to Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, who presented the findings...
Routine genetic counseling and multigene testing of patients with pancreatic cancer result in the detection of mutations that are actionable, not only for patients, but also for at-risk family members. At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, the use of a systemized, automated referral system ...
Positive findings on the potential benefit of molecularly targeted drugs in patients with advanced colorectal cancer were presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, validating the purpose of ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study.1-3 TAPUR, the first...
A. Craig Lockhart, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, applauded the study for making patient-reported outcomes a prespecified endpoint and described the value of having this information. Dr. Lockhart was the invited discussant. “The U.S. Food and...
This past January, the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium was held in San Francisco. More than 3,600 individuals attended and more than 900 abstracts and posters were presented. Among the highlights presented at the meeting and reported in the pages of The ASCO Post, several studies in...
A special feature in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network by Ueda et al highlighted the unique circumstances and challenges of providing treatment to patients with cancer during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Physicians from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Fred Hutchinson...
Prostate cancer experts speaking at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium alluded to the fact that prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) positron-emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) scanning is more sensitive than conventional imaging for the detection of occult lesions in men ...