Cynthia X. Ma, MD, PhD, was born in a small village in Hebei, a province in the Central China region. “I grew up in a poor village with less than 1,000 people. We had no medical services in our village, so we had to travel to the city to see a doctor, which was quite some distance away. In the...
The human epidermal growth factor (HER) family of receptors are a well-established therapeutic target. Indeed, seminal studies conducted nearly 2 decades ago identified a key association between activating mutations in the kinase domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR, also known as...
In a phase II trial (DESTINY-Lung01) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, of the Thoracic Oncology and Early Drug Development Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed...
ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, will recognize researchers, patient advocates, philanthropists, teachers, and global oncology leaders who have reshaped cancer care around the world with the Society’s highest honors at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. Hear from select award...
A larger population of patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer may be able to benefit from niraparib maintenance therapy, with an improved safety profile, according to phase III data presented at the 2022 Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.1 Results ...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial, which included postmenopausal patients with advanced/metastatic hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, first-line treatment with ribociclib plus fulvestrant lengthened overall survival by approximately 16 months vs...
J. Paul Taylor, MD, PhD, has been named Scientific Director and Executive Vice President of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Taylor steps into the role during a pivotal time of growth for the hospital. Under its $11.5 billion, 6-year strategic plan, the institution’s scientific...
In the Dutch CONCERVE study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kremer et al found that the absence of FAM19A4/miR124-2 DNA methylation was associated with a high rate of clinical regression of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia over 24 months among women treated with a...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has named Lee Ellis, MD, Professor of Colon and Rectal Surgery at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, as the 2022 recipient of the AACR Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in...
Natural killer (NK) cells derived from donated umbilical cord blood, activated with a novel bispecific antibody targeting CD16A and CD30 known as AFM13, have yielded responses in patients with pretreated and refractory CD30-positive lymphoma. The overall response rate was 89%, with 53% complete...
When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1996, I was given 3 years to live. At the time, there was little understanding of this disease, which was termed incurable. There were no new treatments, few drugs in the pipeline, hardly any clinical trials, and no multiple myeloma community or...
“In the past decade, major improvements in treating lung cancer have come from identification of mutations and development of drugs to target those mutations: EGFR, ALK, RET, HER2, and others. Finally, we can add KRAS as a druggable target,” stated invited discussant Mark Awad, MD, PhD, Clinical...
Sotorasib, the first KRAS G12C inhibitor approved for the treatment of KRAS G12C–mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), continues to demonstrate meaningful and durable efficacy at 2-year follow-up in the phase II CodeBreaK 100 trial. At a median follow-up of 24.9 months, the 2-year overall...
On May 4, the FDA approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki for pretreated adult patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. We highlight findings from the DESTINY-Breast03 trial that led to the regular approval, and also hear from Dr. Sara Hurvitz, of the University of...
Ongoing evaluation of novel, targeted, and immunotherapies has led to exciting advances across the array of hematologic malignancies over the past year. The availability of new treatment options, along with emerging data on novel combinations and sequencing approaches, is rapidly changing...
Poor outcomes are observed in patients with myeloma who are refractory to multiple classes of therapies, with the average patient experiencing disease progression in up to 6 months and living no longer than 6 to 15 months. Patients often rapidly cycle through regimens that use less effective or...
For the first-line treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, the percentage of patients achieving measurable residual disease (MRD, previously called minimal residual disease) negativity was significantly greater when the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody isatuximab was added to a standard...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Thierry Facon, MD, of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Lille, and colleagues, a prespecified interim analysis of overall survival in the pivotal phase III MAIA trial has shown a significant benefit with the addition of daratumumab to...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Philippe Moreau, MD, of the University Hospital Hôtel-Dieu, Nantes, and colleagues, an interim analysis of part 2 of the phase III CASSIOPEIA trial has showed significantly prolonged progression-free survival with maintenance daratumumab vs observation...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Meletios A. Dimopoulos, MD, of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and colleagues, the phase III APOLLO trial has shown significantly improved progression-free survival with the addition of subcutaneous (SC) daratumumab to oral...
Over the past year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval to several novel drugs and new indications for older therapeutic agents used in hematologic oncology. Axicabtagene Ciloleucel: On April 1, 2022, axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) was approved for adult patients with...
The autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel failed to improve event-free survival vs standard-of-care treatment strategies in patients with aggressive, relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), according to results of the phase III BELINDA trial,...
The moderator of the session, Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, Clinical Professor at the BC Cancer Centre for Lymphoid Cancer and University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, called the results of the TRANSFORM trial “quite remarkable” and said chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has the...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with lisocabtagene maraleucel could prove to be the new standard-of-care treatment for patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma in the second-line setting, according to data presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
Press conference moderator, Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, noted, that her center participated in the single-arm trial of mosunetuzumab. “We witnessed first-hand the tremendous capacity bispecific antibodies have to make a real difference in...
The bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab achieved deep and durable remissions as monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, according to the results of a pivotal phase II trial presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 In ...
As a first-line treatment of inter-mediate- or high-risk diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, the addition of the antibody-drug conjugate polatuzumab vedotin-piiq to standard-of-care therapy resulted in a 27% reduction in the relative risk of disease progression, relapse, or death, with a similar safety...
Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, Clinical Professor with the BC Cancer Centre for Lymphoid Cancer and University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, and Alex Herrera, MD, Associate Professor in Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope,...
In the primary analysis of the phase III ZUMA-7 trial, examining second-line therapy for relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, the CAR T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel led to a fourfold increase in event-free survival over the standard of care. These findings were presented at the...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Nathan H. Fowler, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues, a phase IIb trial (UNITY-NHL) has shown that the dual PI3Kδ/casein kinase (CK)1ε inhibitor umbralisib produced durable responses in patients with relapsed...
Administering time-limitedcombination regimens of venetoclax plus obinutuzumab or venetoclax plus obinutuzumab and ibrutinib was superior to chemoimmunotherapy in achieving undetectable measurable residual disease (MRD) in the peripheral blood at month 15 in fit patients with chronic lymphocytic...
Joshua Brody, MD, Director of the CLL/Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, who was not involved in these trials, commented: “CLL is an extremely prevalent disease affecting nearly 200,000 patients in the United States. Most patient do not require...
Two different trials presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition found that fixed-duration treatment with ibrutinib and venetoclax achieved deep and sustained undetectable measurable residual disease (MRD) status when used as first-line therapy for...
Zanubrutinib, a second-generation Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, significantly improved response rates and delayed disease progression as compared with the standard of care, ibrutinib, in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma...
Invited study discussant Jacqueline C. Barrientos, MD, MS, of Northwell Health Cancer Institute, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, Great Neck, New York, commented: “The BTK [Bruton’s tyrosine kinase] inhibitors ibrutinib and acalabrutinib, along with the BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax, are ...
Abstract discussant Deborah K. Armstrong, MD, of Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Baltimore, elucidated the rationale for intraperitoneal (IP) treatment, which is the peritoneal pharmacokinetic advantage for many drugs used in ovarian cancer, including carboplatin, as used in the iPocc trial.1 In ...
When compared with intravenous (IV) chemotherapy, the use of intraperitoneal (IP) carboplatin with dose-dense weekly paclitaxel improved progression-free survival in patients with ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal carcinoma, according to data presented at the 2022 Society of...
On May 4, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu) for pretreated adult patients with unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. According to the approval, patients had to have received a prior anti-HER2–based regimen either in the...
Computed tomography (CT)-detected emphysema may be linked to a higher risk of lung cancer, a risk that increases with emphysema severity, according to a new study published by Yang et al in the journal Radiology. Lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer-related death worldwide. However, lung...
In an Austrian phase III trial reported in The Lancet, Trutnovsky et al found that topical imiquimod was noninferior to surgery as measured by complete clinical response in patients with vulvar high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions. Study Details In the multicenter trial, 107 evaluable...
New findings published by Hyuna Sung, PhD, and colleagues in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute showed that 5-year survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer in the United States have a higher risk of developing—and nearly double the risk of dying from—a new primary cancer,...
Immunotherapy has become a potential strategy in treating triple-negative breast cancer, though many questions remain to be answered before long-term survival is achieved by all patients. This exciting field of breast cancer research was explored at the 2022 Miami Breast Cancer Conference by...
According to the results of a new study published by Drysdale et al in the Journal of Medical Screening, 51.4% of women preferred self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV)-based cervical cancer screening, compared to 36.5% who preferred being tested by a clinician. The findings came from a...
ASCO’s CancerLinQ® and Atropos Health announced today a new collaboration that will provide oncology clinicians with the latest real-world evidence available to help inform personalized care and treatment of an individual patient.Atropos Health and CancerLinQ will work together to provide a...
Radiologists and artificial intelligence (AI) systems yield significant differences in breast cancer screenings, a team of researchers has found. The case study by Makino et al, which appears in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, reveals the potential value of using both human and AI methods in ...
Men who had a high body mass index (BMI) as children are at an elevated risk of obesity-related cancer later in life, even if their weight was normal in young adulthood, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Célind et al published their findings in the...
In a scientific e-poster presented during the 2022 American Roentgen Ray Society Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Peña et al noted that American Indian and Alaskan Native populations have nearly three times higher incidence rates of lung and colorectal cancer than other ethnic groups. These patterns...
In a meta-analysis reported in JAMA Network Open, Farooq et al found that immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer was associated with a lower risk of neurologic adverse events compared with treatment with other agents overall in randomized trials comparing immune checkpoint inhibitors with...
Elective abdominal aortic aneurysm repair in patients with a cancer diagnosis is associated with several poor postoperative outcomes, according to a newly published study from researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Roush et al reported their findings in the Journal of...
Using whole-genome sequencing to contrast genomic alterations in patients with stable Barrett’s esophagus compared to patients whose Barrett’s progressed to esophageal adenocarcinoma, Paulson et al reported that DNA changes presaging esophageal cancer can be spotted years before cancer develops....