Shaji Kumar, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, discusses findings from the ENDURANCE trial, which showed bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone should remain the standard of care in patients with newly diagnosed standard- or intermediate-risk multiple myeloma, for whom early autologous stem cell...
In an analysis of the pivotal phase III HER2CLIMB trial to be reported at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, Nancy U. Lin, MD, and colleagues found that tucatinib, a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is highly selective for HER2, plus trastuzumab/capecitabine significantly improved...
The first trial of immunotherapy for gestational trophoblastic tumors proved effective in almost 50% of patients resistant to single-agent chemotherapy, French investigators reported in an abstract presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program.1 The results of the phase II TROPHIMMUN trial ...
A large cohort study by the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on patients with cancer has found that all-cause 30-day mortality and severe illness were significantly higher in this population than previously reported in the general population. Mortality and severe...
Data from the global TERAVOLT Consortium, which is investigating the impact of COVID-19 infection on patients with thoracic cancers, have found that these patients are at high risk for hospitalization and death. Prior use of chemotherapy was associated with an increased risk of mortality, as was...
Adjuvant osimertinib significantly improved disease-free survival compared with placebo in patients with stage IB to IIIA EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who underwent complete resection of primary tumor and received chemotherapy if indicated. These results from the first interim...
The successful treatment of malignant lymphoma has been one of the great achievements in medical oncology, but certainly more work is needed to define key biologic targets as well as molecular markers for a more accurate definition of prognosis following therapy. In day-to-day practice, unanswered...
For the first time, upfront treatment with immunotherapy has improved—in fact, doubled—median progression-free survival in a subset of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. The findings are from the interim analysis of the randomized open-label phase III KEYNOTE-177 trial comparing the...
Maintenance therapy with avelumab and best supportive care significantly prolonged overall survival vs best supportive care alone in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma that did not progress on first-line platinum-based chemotherapy, according to an interim analysis of the phase III...
As reported by Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology, the phase III ClarIDHy trial has shown that the isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) inhibitor ivosidenib improved progression-free survival vs placebo in patients with advanced IDH1-mutant chemotherapy-refractory...
Final analysis of the LOTUS trial has shown numerically longer overall survival with ipatasertib plus paclitaxel vs placebo plus paclitaxel in patients with inoperable locally advanced/metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. In all biomarker-defined subgroups (PTEN normal or low, PIK3CA/AKT1/PTEN ...
Patients with breast cancer younger than 40 generally present with a characteristic profile—later-stage disease and more aggressive tumors with poorer prognosis—according to findings from a new study analyzing one of the largest patient data sets compiled to investigate age-related breast cancer...
Telephone outreach coupled with scheduling assistance significantly increased screening mammography setup and follow-through in a population characterized by low rates of screening mammography and high rates of advanced breast cancer at diagnosis. These are findings from a new study conducted by...
The symptoms of low-grade oligodendroglioma first appeared in the summer of 2003, when I was 12, but they were vague enough—mild headaches and occasional weird sensations on my right side—to ignore. In the fall, I tripped and fell during a game of rollerblade hockey with my classmates and started...
As part of a series of interviews with cancer experts during the COVID-19 pandemic, The ASCO Post spoke with Hagop Kantarjian, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, about the impact of the pandemic on treatment of...
On April 17, 2020, tucatinib was approved for use in combination with trastuzumab and capecitabine for treatment of adult patients with advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. These patients included those with brain metastases and those who have received one or more prior...
On April 3, 2020, luspatercept-aamt was approved in the treatment of anemia failing to respond to an erythropoiesis-stimulating agent and requiring 2 or more red blood cell (RBC) units over 8 weeks.1,2 The treatment is geared toward adult patients with very low– to intermediate-risk myelodysplastic ...
Pulling together the 2020 American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting in less than 1 month was a Herculean task, and an important component was producing a session on COVID-19 and cancer care. This special session involved researchers from the front lines of the pandemic...
Thomas J. Herzog, MD, Deputy Director, University of Cincinnati Cancer Center, who presented a distillation of the PRIMA trial data along with updated results of the phase III PAOLA-1 trial of olaparib plus bevacizumab maintenance, called the data “practice-changing.” “We’ve suspected for a while...
Making sense of maintenance therapy in advanced ovarian cancer has been a tall order since the publication of impressive data for not one but three PARP inhibitors at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2019 Congress.1 The picture became a little clearer on April 29, 2020, however,...
As the worldwide cases of the coronavirus started to mount in February and March, medical societies and organizations monitoring the escalating COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on international and domestic travel made the difficult decision to postpone or cancel their scientific conferences. On...
When I chose my Presidential theme for the 2020 ASCO Annual Meeting, “Unite and Conquer: Accelerating Progress Together,” in early 2019, I never imagined it would take on a new meaning 12 months later. The world is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, and, even as we practice social distancing, I...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Richard S. Finn, MD, and colleagues, the phase III IMbrave150 trial has shown that anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) plus anti-VEGF therapy with atezolizumab plus bevacizumab improved progression-free and overall survival vs sorafenib ...
ASCO has released the ASCO Special Report: A Guide to Cancer Care Delivery During the COVID-19 Pandemic, which provides detailed guidance to oncology practices on the immediate and short-term steps that could be taken to help protect the safety of patients and health-care staff before resuming more ...
People who quit smoking at any time—even 2 years before a lung cancer diagnosis—improve their chances of survival after being diagnosed with the disease, according to the results of a large international study presented by Fares et al in a press briefing in advance of the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific...
According to the National Alliance for Caregiving, the number of adult individuals in the United States providing care for patients with cancer ranges between 2.8 million and 6.1 million. Caregivers for patients with cancer who live more than 1 hour away report having higher levels of anxiety and...
For the first time, overall survival has been improved with maintenance therapy involving a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor in patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer associated with BRCA1/2 mutations. In the final, preplanned, overall survival analysis in the...
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed cancer care, seemingly overnight, as practices scrambled to ensure a safe environment for caregivers and patients. Although regulatory burdens have been relaxed to allow patients to continue on trial treatment and telemedicine has expanded its competency and reach, ...
In the phase III REACH2 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Zeiser et al found that the JAK1/2 inhibitor ruxolitinib improved response rate vs investigator’s choice of therapy in patients with glucocorticoid-refractory acute graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) following allogeneic stem...
On March 27, 2020, durvalumab (Imfinzi) was approved for use in combination with etoposide and either carboplatin or cisplatin as first-line treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the findings of the open-label phase III ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
On April 8, 2020, encorafenib was approved for use in combination with cetuximab for the treatment of previously treated adult patients with metastatic colorectal cancer with a BRAF V600E mutation detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test.1,2 Encorafenib is not indicated...
Patient-reported outcomes are measures used in clinical trials to capture aspects of a patient’s health condition, reported directly by the patient, without introduction of bias from third parties. They are distinct from the physical toxicities reported by clinicians1 and are collected using a...
The 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition featured a cornucopia of sessions. It was impossible to attend all the lectures, symposia, oral presentations, poster presentations, and special events because many were concurrent. Below, we have selected some...
In the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Schmid et al1 found that the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in stage II or III triple-negative breast cancer significantly improved the pathologic...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, and colleagues, analyses in the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial have shown that the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and the use of adjuvant...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Isabelle Ray‑Coquard, MD, PhD, of the Centre Leon Berard, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and Groupe d’Investigateurs Nationaux pour l’Etude des Cancers Ovariens (GINECO), Paris, and colleagues, the phase III PAOLA-1 trial has shown a...
Several novel strategies for the treatment of patients with stage III or IV melanoma showed promise in studies presented at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.1,2 Vaccine for High-Risk Patients After Resection A tumor lysate, particle-loaded, dendritic cell (TLPLDC) vaccine was...
Systemic treatment of melanoma has changed rapidly since the introduction of ipilimumab in 2011. Newer therapies approved for melanoma since that time include immunotherapy, targeted therapy for mutation-bearing tumors, and injectional therapy for cutaneous or palpable lesions. ASCO has released...
Based on multiple phase III prospective trials, there is evidence that both PARP inhibitors and antiangiogenic therapies such as bevacizumab provide benefit when utilized in a maintenance strategy in the first-line treatment of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (GOG 218, ICON7, SOLO-1, PRIMA,...
Grant A. McArthur, MBBS, PhD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses phase III results from a study of previously untreated patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive advanced melanoma. His team evaluated whether combining vemurafenib and cobimetinib with atezolizumab improved the...
Alexandra Leary, MD, PhD, of the Gustave Roussy Institute of Oncology, Paris, underscored the controversy surrounding the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer, suggesting the discord may be “more cultural and emotional than scientific” to some degree. “Some countries, such as ...
In the single-arm phase III OLYMPUS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kleinmann et al found that primary chemoablation of low-grade upper tract urothelial carcinoma using a mitomycin-containing reverse thermal gel (UGN-101) resulted in disease eradication in more than half of patients. As...
As reported in The Lancet by Brunt et al, 5-year findings from the phase III FAST-Forward trial indicated that adjuvant radiotherapy with 26 Gy in 5 fractions over 1 week was noninferior to 40 Gy in 15 fractions over 3 weeks in preventing local tumor relapse in women with early-stage breast ...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to two targeted therapies (the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib) as initial therapy improved outcomes compared with the two targeted therapies plus placebo in patients with newly diagnosed BRAF V600E/K–mutant advanced ...
The treatment of colorectal cancer has always been something of an art—but never more so than during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ASCO Post asked three experts in this malignancy to share their concerns and their approaches to achieving good patient outcomes while minimizing the risk of COVID-19...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Johann de Bono, MB, ChB, PhD, and colleagues found that olaparib significantly improved progression-free survival vs hormonal therapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who had alterations in the...
Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, of Yale Cancer Center, discusses study results on durvalumab in combination with olaparib and paclitaxel as neoadjuvant treatment in patients with high-risk HER2-negative stage II/III breast cancer. Compared with patients who received chemotherapy alone, the combination...
Over the past 2 weeks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML); Fast Track designations for agents in pancreatic cancer and pancreatic/nonpancreatic neuroendocrine tumors; approvals for companion diagnostic tests;...
Black patients with stage I to III melanoma are likely to experience a longer delay from diagnosis to surgery than non-Hispanic white patients, according to a study published by Tripathi et al in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. “We already knew that black patients with melanoma...