In a recently published study by Needle et al in JAMA Network Open, University of Minnesota researchers and colleagues say adolescents with cancer deserve a voice in medical decisions made for and about them. “Adolescents with cancer should be given the opportunity to participate in their own...
Children in Pennsylvania living near unconventional oil and gas developments at birth were two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with leukemia between the ages of 2 and 7 years than children who did not live near this oil and gas activity, after accounting for other factors that could...
For many patients who have received chemotherapy for breast cancer, cancer-related fatigue is a persistent side effect—and one that contributes to ongoing balance problems, suggests a recent paper published by Weschler et al in Rehabilitation Oncology. The new research by Stephen Wechsler, PT, DPT, ...
In a single-institution phase II trial (Smart Start) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jason Westin, MD, MS, and colleagues found that initiating treatment with rituximab, lenalidomide, and ibrutinib (RLI) followed by the sequential addition of chemotherapy resulted in high response...
Two ASCO guideline updates provide new evidence-based recommendations for the systemic treatment of stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with and without driver alterations.1,2 Among several other updates, these new guidelines add the ALK and ROS1 inhibitor lorlatinib and the PD-L1 immune...
On June 27, 2022, the Biden Administration, through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced a new model aimed at improving cancer care for Medicare patients and lowering health-care costs. CMS’ Center for Medicare...
In an English retrospective cohort study reported in JACC: Cardio-Oncology, Helen Strongman, PhD, of the Department of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and colleagues found that cardiovascular mortality ultimately exceeded mortality from common...
On June 24, 2022, lisocabtagene maraleucel was approved for adults with large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL) who have (1) refractory disease to first-line chemoimmunotherapy or relapse within 12 months of first-line chemoimmunotherapy; or (2) refractory disease to first-line chemoimmunotherapy or relapse...
The invited discussant of the updated APHINITY data was Javier Cortés, MD, PhD, Head of the International Breast Cancer Center in Barcelona. “I think we clearly learned two things from the data. One is that estrogen receptor positivity does not matter in terms of benefit from the addition of...
The steepest annual rise in new cases of advanced cervical cancer in the United States from 2001 to 2018 was among White patients, who were significantly less likely to receive the preventive human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine or to be screened for the disease, according to research published by...
Updated results from the adjuvant APHINITY trial in HER2-positive early breast cancer, now with a median follow-up of 8.4 years, confirmed the benefit of adding pertuzumab to trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in preventing invasive disease recurrences, but as yet no statistically significant overall...
Katrina S. Pedersen, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, said while the results of the phase II -SEQUENCE trial1 are encouraging and the drugs are available to translate into the clinic without delay, phase III validation would be needed...
In a retrospective study reported in a research letter in Blood Advances, Rejeski et al found that a stem cell boost was successful in treating severe hematologic toxicity in patients who had received CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for refractory B-cell malignancies. Study...
In the first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer, the sequencing of nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine with FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin) resulted in a significant improvement in overall survival at 12 months and in all other efficacy endpoints as compared with the standard ...
The 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting was filled with important science, engaging data, and several practice-changing abstracts, many of which have been covered in detail on other pages or in earlier issues of The ASCO Post. There were numerous high-impact studies and attendees, whether present at the...
As a nonpartisan organization, the American Cancer Society has an overarching goal to improve the lives of patients with cancer and their families. We believe all individuals should have an equitable opportunity to prevent, find, detect, and survive cancer, irrespective of geography. The June 24...
About 3 years ago, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute launched PROMISE (Predicting Progression of Developing Myeloma in a High-Risk Screen Population; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03689595), a large, ambitious screening study to identify individuals at high risk of developing...
According to Alexey V. Danilov, MD, PhD, Professor and Co-Director, Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center, City of Hope, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) refractory to chemotherapy represents an unmet medical need, with data from the SCHOLAR-1 study demonstrating a median overall survival of...
Subcutaneous epcoritamab, a bispecific antibody, has demonstrated deep and durable responses in a large expansion cohort of patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL), according to late-breaking data presented during the European Hematology Association (EHA) 2022 Congress in...
In locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), immunotherapy consolidation with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab improved overall survival in the PACIFIC trial,1 thus leading to its use after chemoradiotherapy as a standard of care. Real-world evidence of durvalumab’s effect on overall and...
An online tool developed by researchers and physicians at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute may accurately and rapidly identify people who should undergo testing for inherited genetic changes that raise the risk of developing certain cancers, according to findings reported by Yurgelun et al in the...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, de Vries et al developed risk models for predicting the development of coronary heart disease and heart failure in patients treated for Hodgkin lymphoma. Study Details The prediction models were developed in a Dutch cohort of 1,433 5-year...
An article in The New York Times earlier this year crystallized the dilemma facing health-care providers when they are presented with a patient in a life-threatening situation: Should they rely on advance care directives written years prior to the current medical situation to accurately determine...
Exposure to a synthetic chemical found widely in the environment may be linked to the development of nonviral hepatocellular carcinoma, according to a new study published by Goodrich et al in JHEP Reports. The chemical—called perfluorooctane sulfate, or PFOS—is one of a class of man-made chemicals...
In the investigator-initiated, prospective, open-label, single-arm phase II TUXEDO-1 study conducted among patients with newly diagnosed or progressive brain metastases from HER2-positive breast cancer, the antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) yielded responses according...
As reported in NEJM Evidence by Sasaki et al, extended follow-up of a phase II trial showed good outcomes with low doses of the hypomethylating agents decitabine and azacitidine in previously untreated patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Study Details The study included 113...
On August 17, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved betibeglogene autotemcel (Zynteglo), the first cell-based gene therapy for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with beta-thalassemia who require regular red blood cell transfusions. “[This] approval is an important...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Ahmad Bashir Barekzai, MD, FACS, Consultant Surgical Oncologist at Ali Abad Teaching Hospital, an affiliated hospital to Kabul University of Medical Science, Kabul,...
In a Swedish population-based cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Lin et al found that men with type 2 diabetes receiving gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists for prostate cancer were more likely to have an increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease compared with those...
A new study published by Hshieh et al in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network suggests a new way for hematologic oncologists to protect older patients from the risks of medication interactions. As part of the Older Adult Hematologic Malignancies Program, gerontology...
The human monoclonal antibody sugemalimab is a safe and effective consolidation therapy for patients with unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without disease progression after either concurrent chemoradiotherapy (cCRT) or sequential chemoradiotherapy (sCRT), according to...
Young people with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who received doses of tisagenlecleucel, a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, at the higher end of the approved dosing range had significantly better survival rates at 1 year compared with those who received lower doses within...
Sexual dysfunction is highly prevalent in women with lung cancer, with most participants in a survey reporting little to no interest in sexual activity, according to research led by Narjust Florez (Duma), MD, presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World...
Using data from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), researchers found that the incidence of second primary lung cancer was approximately 4% among the entire cohort of patients with lung cancer and was as high as 8% among patients undergoing surgery for stage IA disease. The research was...
The repercussions of overturning Roe v Wade—and the failure of the Supreme Court to provide any guidance on exceptions related to the life and health of the mother—are potentially catastrophic for a subset of women who face a life-threating diagnosis of pregnancy-associated cancers. In a...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by de Wild et al, 5-year follow-up from a Dutch prospective registry study (RAPCHEM, BOOG 2010-03) showed low rates of locoregional recurrence with de-escalation of adjuvant radiotherapy according to predefined risk levels in women receiving primary chemotherapy...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Bauer et al, the phase III INTRIGUE trial showed no significant progression-free survival benefit with second-line ripretinib vs sunitinib in imatinib-pretreated patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), including among patients with KIT ...
Researchers from Japan recently reported that the first phase II study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of durvalumab and concurrent curative radiation therapy for PD-L1–positive unresectable locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without chemotherapy met its primary endpoint with...
In an analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Zhong and Mao found that a higher daily insulin dose was associated with an increased risk of cancer diagnosis in patients with type 1 diabetes. Study Details The analysis used data from the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) and the...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Aggarwal et al identified the impact of several models of centralization of specialist cancer services in England, using rectal cancer surgery as an example. As stated by the investigators, “Centralization of specialist cancer services is occurring in...
On August 11, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd; Enhertu) for adult patients with unresectable or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have activating HER2 mutations, as detected by an...
Researchers from Vancouver, British Columbia examined the effect of duration of past exposure to air pollution with lung cancer diagnosis in new research presented by Myers et al at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer 2022 (Abstract...
Younger patients with lung cancer are significantly more likely than older patients to be diagnosed with later stages of disease, illustrating the need to develop strategies to increase the early detection of lung cancer among younger patients who are currently ineligible for lung cancer screening. ...
On August 11, Roche announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a label expansion for the Ventana MMR RxDx Panel. The Ventana MMR RxDx Panel is the first immunohistochemistry (IHC) companion diagnostic test to aid in identifying patients whose solid tumors are deficient in DNA ...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Sherer et al found that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening was associated with reduced prostate cancer mortality among both non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White U.S. veterans who developed prostate cancer. Annual vs some screening was associated...
In a report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Schoot et al provided findings from the European Paediatric Soft Tissue Sarcoma Study Group MTS 2008 and pooled findings of MTS 2008 with those of the concurrent BERNIE study, both of which evaluated strategies for the treatment of pediatric...
Although considered a rare occurrence in adolescents and young adults (AYAs), aged 15 to 39 years, the incidence of cancer in this age group has been increasing by approximately 30% since the 1970s. This year, it is estimated that nearly 90,000 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in this...
About 7 years ago, I had emergency hernia surgery and soon after began experiencing severe constipation and abdominal bloating. I had started to have minor symptoms leading up to the surgery, but now the pain and exhaustion of trying to have a bowel movement became unbearable. I met with a...
Irene Ghobrial, MD, Director of the Clinical Investigator Research Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, has received the William Dameshek Prize. This award is given annually by the American Society of Hematology (ASH) to an individual younger than age 50 who has made outstanding...
Jaye Gardiner, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, is among 10 recipients of the 2022 Dr. Eddie Méndez Award. This honor recognizes underrepresented postdoctoral researchers across the United States who have demonstrated research expertise in cancer, infectious...