Ruben A. Mesa, MD, of UT Health San Antonio Cancer Center, discusses new findings on momelotinib, a potent JAK1, JAK2, and ACVR1 inhibitor with clinical activity against hallmark features of myelofibrosis such as anemia and splenomegaly. Results showed that transfusion independence was associated...
Claire Harrison, MD, of Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital, discusses survival results from the JAKARTA and JAKARTA2 trials, which showed that fedratinib, an oral JAK2 inhibitor, significantly improved progression-free survival vs placebo as a first-line treatment for patients with myelofibrosis...
Martin Hutchings, MD, PhD, of Copenhagen University Hospital, discusses a 5-year update of the phase III ECHELON-1 study, which suggested brentuximab vedotin plus doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine benefits patients with previously untreated stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma...
Philippe Moreau, MD, of University Hospital Hôtel-Dieu, discusses findings from the CASSIOPEIA trial, Part 1, on daratumumab maintenance vs observation in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who have been treated with bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone, with or without...
Martin Kaiser, MD, of The Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital, discusses findings from the UK OPTIMUM/MUKNINE trial on the depth of response and minimal residual disease status in patients with ultra-high–risk newly diagnosed multiple myeloma and plasma cell leukemia who were...
Gaurav Goyal, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, reports on findings from a large multi-institutional database study, which showed there was no apparent difference in overall survival between R-CHOP and R-EPOCH among patients with advanced-stage MYC-rearranged, double-hit, or...
Most survivors of head and neck squamous cell cancers report that their sense of taste is dulled, changed, or lost during radiation treatment. In a study of taste and smell dysfunction in 40 cancer survivors, scientists found that the tips of these individuals' tongues were significantly less...
A study published by Strother et al in BJU International found that patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer can safely receive cisplatin-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy, even when their tumors are blocking their kidneys. The findings suggest that patients with the most serious type of this...
Over the past month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Priority Review to therapies for multiple myeloma, cervical cancer, chemotherapy-induced neutropenia, and myelofibrosis. The FDA also granted a number of Breakthrough Therapy designations, including those for treatments in ...
Neeraj Agarwal, MD, of Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, discusses three studies that examined real-world treatment patterns and utilization of advanced therapies in men with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer, which served to highlight the ways in which Black men...
Bijal D. Shah, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses phase II results of the ZUMA-3 study, which evaluated brexucabtagene autoleucel (KTE-X19), an anti-CD19 CAR T-cell therapy, in adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Abstract 7002).
Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of LungenClinic, discusses a 2-year update of the CheckMate 9LA study, which sought to determine whether nivolumab plus ipilimumab combined with two cycles of chemotherapy is more effective than four cycles of chemotherapy alone as a first-line treatment for patients with...
Priya Rastogi, MD, of the University of Pittsburgh, discusses results from the NRG Oncology/NSABP B-42 trial, which evaluated the utility of the 70-gene MammaPrint assay in predicting the benefit of extended letrozole therapy in patients who had completed 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy...
Peter H. O’Donnell, MD, of The University of Chicago, discusses response and survival results from the phase II KEYNOTE-052 study, which showed that after up to 5 years of follow-up, pembrolizumab continued to elicit clinically meaningful, durable antitumor activity in cisplatin-ineligible patients ...
Brian K. Link, MD, of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, reviews three abstracts on state-of-the-art therapies for mantle cell lymphoma: bendamustine, rituximab, lenalidomide and bortezomib; treatment patterns and outcomes for previously untreated patients; and venetoclax,...
Paolo Ghia, MD, PhD, of the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, discusses phase II results from the CAPTIVATE study, which examined ibrutinib plus venetoclax as a fixed-duration first-line treatment in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (Abstract 7501).
Matt D. Galsky, MD, of the Tisch Cancer Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discusses results from a phase II trial designed to test gemcitabine and cisplatin plus nivolumab as neoadjuvant therapy in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer and to better predict benefit in...
Non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 80% to 85% of cases of lung cancer; when it is diagnosed early, there is a 5-year survival rate of 50% to 80%. Black patients have a lower overall incidence of NSCLC than White patients but are more likely to be diagnosed at later stages. They also...
Individuals with cancer or a history of cancer should be eligible for clinical trials—including COVID-19 vaccine trials—unless there is safety justification for exclusion, ASCO and Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) asserted in a joint position statement released today. To date, clinical trials...
A study published by Sharp et al in The Breast Journal suggests that some patients with breast cancer may be able to forgo certain testing procedures after neoadjuvant chemotherapy without increasing their risk of cancer recurrence. Prior studies on detecting whether breast cancer has spread to...
New research has uncovered substantial differences in the rates of childhood cancers when considering a single year of age rather than grouping several years together. The study, published by Marcotte et al in the journal Cancer, also found that minority children seem to have different risks than...
Neeraj Agarwal, MD, of Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, discusses phase III data from the SWOG S1216 trial, which evaluated the clinical benefit of using androgen-deprivation therapy with either orteronel (or TAK-700, a CYP17 inhibitor) or bicalutamide in patients with newly...
Sibylle Loibl, MD, PhD, of the German Breast Group, discusses results from the phase III GeparNUEVO study, which investigated neoadjuvant durvalumab in addition to anthracycline/taxane-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with early triple-negative breast cancer (Abstract 506).
Arnon P. Kater, MD, PhD, of the University of Amsterdam, discusses a primary analysis of the phase III GLOW study, which, for the first time, compared the efficacy and safety of fixed-duration ibrutinib plus venetoclax with chlorambucil plus obinutuzumab for first-line treatment of older patients...
Peter C. Black, MD, of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, University of British Columbia, reviews three studies on early detection and treatment of Black patients with prostate cancer: a large-scale analysis of genomic profiling; the use of PSA screening; and integrating a patient-specific genomic...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) has announced its inaugural National Black Family Cancer Awareness Week, which is taking place from June 17 through June 23, 2021. Throughout the week, the agency’s social media platforms will serve as the hub for...
Keith W. Pratz, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the outcomes of patients with acute myeloid leukemia who took part in the VIALE-A trial and were treated with venetoclax and azacitidine. The patients had achieved both composite complete remission and measurable residual disease of...
Efstathios Kastritis, MD, of the University of Athens, discusses updated phase III results from the ANDROMEDA study of patients with newly diagnosed light chain amyloidosis. The trial further supports the use of daratumumab plus VCd (bortezomib, cyclophosphamide, and dexamethasone), which was shown ...
A new ASCO guideline update recommends offering 1 year of adjuvant olaparib to patients with high-risk, early-stage, HER2-negative breast cancer and germline BRCA mutations after completion of (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy and local treatment, including radiation. The recommendations update the 2020...
On June 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the tyrosine kinase inhibitor avapritinib (Ayvakit) for adult patients with advanced systemic mastocytosis, including patients with aggressive systemic mastocytosis, systemic mastocytosis with an associated hematologic neoplasm, and...
In a new study designed to provide a more comprehensive picture of how a diverse cohort of patients with gynecologic cancer are affected by financial distress, nearly half reported financial toxicity, which was associated with economic cost-coping strategies. These findings were reported by Esselen ...
Geoffrey J. Lindeman, MBBS, PhD, of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses results from the phase II VERONICA study, which compared venetoclax plus fulvestrant with fulvestrant alone in women with estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative, locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer who...
Nicholas J. Short, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses early results from a phase II study which showed that combining ponatinib and blinatumomab in patients with Philadelphia chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia may prove to be an effective...
Ann S. LaCasce, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses results from the CALGB 50801 Alliance study, which showed that a PET scan–adapted approach may reduce the need for radiation treatment and may improve progression-free outcomes in patients with stage I/II bulky classic Hodgkin lymphoma...
Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD, of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, discusses first phase III results from a prospective high-risk cohort of patients with luminal breast cancer, which showed a good prognosis in some women with more than four positive lymph nodes and low recurrence scores. The study...
Sumanta K. Pal, MD, of City of Hope, discusses results from a phase II study that sought to determine whether adding berzosertib, a selective ATR inhibitor, to the standard upfront chemotherapy regimen of cisplatin with gemcitabine may improve outcomes in patients with metastatic urothelial...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting by Ingrid A. Mayer, MD, and colleagues, the phase III ECOG-ACRIN EA1131 trial investigated the use of adjuvant platinum vs capecitabine in patients with basal subtype triple-negative breast cancer and residual...
A mathematical tool may help to examine how doctors may coordinate available treatments for high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Published by Gu et al in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the new analysis showed that patients who can have complete debulking surgery first, with...
Henry Kuerer, MD, PhD, FACS, a cancer surgeon and researcher at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, told The ASCO Post that although this study is not practice-changing, it does offer a potential option for patients. “The advantage of this technique is that the procedure takes just...
The combination of ibrutinib and venetoclax was found to provide lasting disease remission in patients with newly diagnosed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Findings from a single-institution phase II study were published by Nitin Jain, MD, and colleagues in JAMA Oncology and provide the longest ...
The Lymphoseek (technetium Tc 99m tilmanocept) injection—a radiopharmaceutical agent specifically designed for targeted lymphatic mapping and guiding sentinel lymph node biopsies—has been approved for pediatric use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "This new indication opens the door...
By now, most health-care workers have been vaccinated against COVID-19.* Physical immunity would appear to last for at least 6 months and probably longer. The physical pandemic for most oncologists is declining, with an end in sight. We are protected from the serious physical consequences of...
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) recently announced that Larry Norton, MD, Senior Vice President, Office of the President; and Medical Director of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center, has been elected to the American Academy of the Arts & Sciences, an honorary society that recognizes ...
In recent years, immune checkpoint inhibitors in the treatment of mesothelioma have been a keen area of investigation for this immunogenic solid tumor. With recent publications, principally findings from CheckMate 743 by Baas et al1 (reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post), combination immune...
In a letter recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Rousseau and colleagues reported data on the spectrum of benefit from immune checkpoint blockade in hypermutated tumors.1 Indeed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) presented Carol L. Prives, PhD, FAACR, with the 2021 AACR–G.H.A. Clowes Award for Outstanding Basic Cancer Research during the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021. Dr. Prives, the Da Costa Professor of Biology in the Department of Biological Sciences ...
Although once again, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 2021 Annual Conference could not take place on site in Orlando, researchers presented their work virtually in the form of almost 100 posters. The ASCO Post has summarized some that we found particularly interesting. Many...
The Brooklyn Cancer Center has named hematologist-oncologist Maxim Shulimovich, DO, as its new Chief of Hematology and Medical Oncology. His recruitment promises to lead the cancer center as a unified division to provide expert care and culturally sensitive services for patients with all types of...
Following a national search, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has promoted Pawel Kalinski, MD, PhD, to Jacobs Family Endowed Chair of Immunology, Chief of the Division of Translational Immuno-Oncology, and Senior Vice President for Team Science. On staff at Roswell Park since 2017, Dr....
The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance has announced the winners of the 2021 Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research, awarded annually to cancer research scientists and physician-scientists based in the greater New York City area. The prize, totaling $3.6...