In a phase III trial (DFCI 11-001) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vrooman et al found that the novel pegylated asparaginase formulation calaspargase pegol (calaspargase) given every 3 weeks was associated with similar serum asparaginase activity nadir values, survival outcomes, and...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Marcia S. Brose, MD, and colleagues, the phase III COSMIC-311 trial has shown that cabozantinib produced a numerically higher objective response rate and significantly prolonged progression-free survival vs placebo in patients with previously treated,...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, John Mascarenhas, MD, and colleagues found that treatment with the telomerase inhibitor imetelstat at a dose of 9.4 mg/kg produced clinical benefit in patients with relapsed or refractory myelofibrosis after Janus-associated kinase...
In an analysis from an international consortium reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Shern et al identified genomic characteristics and associated outcomes in pediatric rhabdomyosarcoma. Among the findings were that MYOD1 and TP53 mutations were associated with poorer outcomes. As stated...
On July 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj (Darzalex Faspro) in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone for adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least one prior line of therapy including lenalidomide and a...
The past 2 decades have seen so many advances in the treatment of multiple myeloma; in addition, median patient survival has grown from just 3 years in the late 1990s to between 8 and 10 years today,1 with some patients exceeding that prognosis by many years. Although still considered a stubbornly...
India has witnessed a major paradigm shift in the field of breast cancer and its management over the past 4 decades. The discipline of medical oncology has evolved exponentially over this period—a growth that few other scientific disciplines have experienced. Interventions at the individual,...
Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, is pleased to announce the recipients of its awards supporting researchers with projects spanning across many areas in cancer care, including immunotherapy, precision medicine, breast cancer, and palliative care. This year, Conquer Cancer is funding the largest...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ellen K. Chang, MD, of the Division of Hematology/Oncology, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and colleagues found that atrial fibrillation occurs in a substantial proportion of patients who have undergone allogeneic...
Invited discussant of the BOOSTER trial,1 Edward B. Garon, MD, MS, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Thoracic Oncology Program, David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles, said the study’s research question is appropriate, since osimertinib was established...
For the second-line treatment of advanced EGFR T790M–mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the performance of osimertinib alone was not found to be different from that of osimertinib plus bevacizumab in the phase II ETOP 10-16 BOOSTER trial, reported at a European Society for Medical...
EA1131 study discussant, Melinda Telli, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, Director of the Breast Cancer Program at the Stanford Cancer Institute, and Associate Director of the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, commented: “At this point,1 capecitabine remains preferred as...
In patients with triple-negative breast cancer who have residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, adjuvant capecitabine remains the standard of care. In the multicenter randomized noninferiority EA1131 trial, which included primarily basal tumors, noninferiority of adjuvant platinum over...
Combination targeting of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) with amivantamab/lazertinib achieved durable responses in more than one-third of chemotherapy-naive patients with EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that had progressed on osimertinib, according to a cohort analysis of the ...
The invited discussant of the phase I trial of lisaftoclax (APG-2575), Jacqueline C. Barrientos, MD, of Hofstra/Northwell, Great Neck, New York, commented on the positive findings: “The 15 patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia [CLL] had an objective response rate of 80% and a median time to...
“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.” –Kahlil Gibran To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting &...
The novel, selective BCL2 inhibitor lisaftoclax (APG-2575) has shown activity in the treatment of relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in a phase I study reported at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Preliminary data suggest that lisaftoclax stands out for its favorable safety...
The combination of fixed-duration, first-line treatment with ibrutinib plus venetoclax achieved complete responses in more than half of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic leukemia (SLL), based on the primary analysis of the fixed-dose cohort of the phase II CAPTIVATE ...
Invited discussant of the C-144-01 study,1 Jason J. Luke, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Cancer Immunotherapeutics Center, University of Pittsburgh Hillman Cancer Center, Pittsburgh, noted that lifileucel is “clearly an active regimen in the post–PD-1/CTLA-4 setting and one ...
Despite the fact that we have made significant progress in metastatic melanoma with immune checkpoint inhibitors—now the standard of care—most patients experience disease progression and are left without approved treatments. There is a need for newer treatments with clinical benefit. Lifileucel, an ...
Although we are just halfway through 2021, the outlook for improvements in global cancer trends looks grim. According to new estimates by the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s Global Cancer Observatory, the global cancer burden rose to 19.3 million cases and 10 million deaths in 2020...
The first overall survival analysis of the WGS-ADAPT HER2+/HR– study, which evaluated neoadjuvant therapy in patients with hormone receptor–negative, HER2-positive disease, showed that treatment with pertuzumab and trastuzumab plus paclitaxel—or with the chemotherapy-free regimen of...
The results of Cohort 1 of the phase II trial TROPHY-U-01 (IMMU-132-06; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03547973), published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Tagawa et al and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, led to the recent accelerated U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)...
In a cohort of the phase II TROPHY-U-01 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Scott T. Tagawa, MD, MS, of Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, and colleagues, found that the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan-hziy produced durable responses in patients with metastatic...
The first known clinical trial report of an antibody-drug conjugate was a phase 0/I pharmacodynamic and safety study of a conjugate that targeted carcinoembryonic antigen and delivered a payload of vinca alkaloid in eight patients with ovarian or colorectal cancer.1 This work built on the work of...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Thomas Powles, MD, of Barts Cancer Centre, Queen Mary University of London, and colleagues, a prespecified interim analysis of the phase III EV-301 trial has shown improved overall survival with the antibody-drug conjugate enfortumab...
In a study reported in TheNew England Journal of Medicine, Leila Dorling, PhD, of the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, Departments of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and colleagues in the international Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC),...
On May 20, 2021, nivolumab was approved for adjuvant treatment of patients with completely resected esophageal or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer with residual pathologic disease after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings from the...
Study findings presented by Perrott et al at the ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer (Abstract SO-25) showed that the use of antibiotics may be linked to colon tumor formation across all patient age groups, especially in those younger than 50 years. These results raise fresh concerns...
In the phase Ib/II CARTITUDE-1 trial reported in The Lancet, Jesus G. Berdeja, MD, and colleagues found that ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel), a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with two B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-targeting single-domain antibodies, produced a high rate of...
For patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, molecular imaging may improve staging and clinical management of the disease, according to research published by Röhrich et al in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. In a retrospective study of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas, the...
In a Chinese phase II/III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Qin et al found that donafenib, a multikinase inhibitor and deuterated sorafenib derivative, improved overall survival vs sorafenib in the first-line treatment of unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma. As...
In a Chinese study (CCLG-APL2016) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Zheng et al found that the combination of arsenic with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) was associated with good survival outcomes in pediatric patients with acute promyelocytic leukemia. Study Details The multicenter...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Osama E. Rahma, MD, and colleagues, initial results of the phase II NRG-GI002 trial showed no improvement in mean neoadjuvant rectal score with the addition of pembrolizumab to chemoradiotherapy in total neoadjuvant therapy for patients with locally advanced rectal...
In a first-in-human phase I trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Fares et al found that neural stem cell delivery of an oncolytic adenovirus (NSC-CRAd-S-pk7) was safe and feasible in patients with newly diagnosed malignant glioma, with immunologic and histopathologic findings supporting continued ...
In a retrospective analysis reported by researchers from the International Esodata Study Group (IESG) in JAMA Surgery, D’Journo et al developed a model for predicting risk of 90-day mortality following esophagectomy for patients with esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer. As stated by the...
On July 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an expanded label for pembrolizumab, an anti–PD-1 agent, as monotherapy for patients with locally advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma that is not curable by surgery or radiation. This approval is based on data from the second...
In a prospective analysis from the phase III Lymphoma Study Association AHL2011 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Demeestere et al found that patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma receiving a positron-emission tomography (PET)-adapted regimen had a reduced risk of gonadal...
In a pilot study reported by Myers et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a humanized CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product developed by the investigators (huCART19) was found to produce durable remissions and prolonged CAR T-cell persistence in CAR-naive and CAR-exposed...
Answers to questions about first-line treatment of metastatic melanoma are “going to be shifting,” Jason J. Luke, MD, told The ASCO Post, with the change coming on the heels of the phase III RELATIVITY-047 trial reported at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 That abstract reported that using two...
Despite new and effective treatments for melanoma with checkpoint inhibitors and targeted therapies, patients with metastatic melanoma who progress on frontline treatment generally do very poorly. “We really need to make sure we give these patients access to drugs that we know have some efficacy,”...
In a single-institution study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Hsiehchen et al found that replacement of in-person with telehealth visits among patients with cancer initiating systemic therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic was not associated with poorer efficiency in components of oncology care or ...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Alison J. Moskowitz, MD, and colleagues found that second-line therapy with pembrolizumab plus gemcitabine, vinorelbine, and liposomal doxorubicin (GVD) in relapsed or refractory classic Hodgkin lymphoma produced responses in all...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Garaventa et al, the phase III International Society of Pediatric Oncology European Neuroblastoma Group (SIOPEN) HR-NBL1.5 trial showed no significant differences in metastatic complete response rate or event-free survival with the Memorial Sloan...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Desai et al found that the addition of the myeloid progenitor cell product romyelocel-L to granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) reduced the incidence of infection and antimicrobial use vs G-CSF alone during induction...
Although breast cancer continues to be the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the United States, and remains the second-leading cause of cancer death, over the past several decades, the disease has affected Black and White women differently. According to the findings of a large retrospective...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Beyer et al found that redlining (mortgage lending bias on the basis of property location) was associated with overall survival among older U.S. women with breast cancer, with an increasing redlining index (higher likelihood of mortgage loan...
In the treatment of borderline resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the Alliance A021501 trial established neoadjuvant treatment with modified FOLFIRINOX (fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, irinotecan, oxaliplatin) as a new benchmark. However, it failed to show the benefit of adding...
With several pivotal trials providing evidence for the escalation and de-escalation of anti-HER2 therapy in certain early breast cancer scenarios, personalized treatment is possible. How can clinicians optimize treatment by applying the studies’ findings? Debu Tripathy, MD, Professor and Chair of...
In the German phase III SUCCESS A trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Friedl et al found no differences in disease-free or overall survival with 5 vs 2 years of zoledronate treatment following adjuvant chemotherapy for early breast cancer. Study Details In the multicenter, open-label, 2 × 2 factorial...