Adding stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) to systemic therapy with sorafenib for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) may extend overall survival and delay tumor progression without compromising patients’ quality of life, findings from the randomized phase III NRG...
An artificial intelligence (AI) model developed by researchers may assist in predicting the likelihood that a patient may have an unplanned hospitalization during radiation treatments for cancer. The machine-learning model uses daily step counts as a proxy to monitor patients’ health as they go...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) chose Augusto Ochoa, MD, of Louisiana State University (LSU) Health, as the 2022 recipient of the Harry Hynes Award for Outstanding Contributions to Clinical Trials and Community Research. The award was presented during the NCI Community Oncology Research Program ...
New research confirmed the safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in individuals with cancer who are undergoing immunotherapy, according to a novel study published by Widman et al in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The researchers analyzed the frequency of immune-related...
A multicenter analysis of patients with invasive lobular carcinoma—the second most common histologic subtype of invasive breast cancer in the United States—showed that, despite its prevalence, invasive lobular carcinoma was detected later with worse outcomes vs invasive ductal carcinoma and had...
During chemotherapy, physical exercise intervention may be safe, improve long-term cardiorespiratory fitness, and alleviate some of the adverse effects of cancer treatment, according to a novel study published by van der Schoot et al in JACC: CardioOncology. The findings suggested that if exercise...
Patients with B-cell malignancies who had hypophosphatemia experienced a higher incidence and severity of neurologic side effects from chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, according to a study by Nowicki et al published in Cancer Immunology Research. The study results imply that...
In a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Jfri et al identified risk for cutaneous adverse events among patients with cancer receiving adjuvant phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor therapy. Study Details The analysis included 15 phase II or III randomized controlled...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by David Hui, MD, MSc, and colleagues, an interdisciplinary goals-of-care program instituted at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in response to anticipated COVID-19–related increases in need for intensive care unit (ICU) use resulted ...
Individuals who reported using chemical hair-straightening products may be at greater risk for uterine cancer compared to those who did not report using these products, according to a new study published by Chang et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI). The researchers found no ...
Female patients with cancer were less satisfied with the quality of their cancer care than male patients with cancer, according to the results of a survey conducted by the Survivor Views program of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). In addition, female patients were more...
Studies show that rural populations experience greater cancer disparities across the cancer control continuum—from prevention and incidence to survivorship and mortality—compared with their urban counterparts. Those living in rural parts of the United States also tend to have lower cancer screening ...
Samyukta Mullangi, MD, MBA, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses her findings showing that physicians’ prescribing behavior may be influenced by payer-led pathways. Pathway compliance was associated with higher medical costs during a 6-month baseline period but lower health-care...
In 2020, 4.4 million women died from cancer worldwide, leaving behind an estimated 1.04 million maternal orphans (defined as children aged 18 years and younger who have lost their mother), according to the results from a study by Guida et al presented during a press conference at the Union for...
In a Danish study (DaBlaCa-13) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lindgren et al found that short-term intensive chemoresection with mitomycin reduced the need for surgical procedures in patients with recurrent non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Study Details The trial was conducted at...
In a U.S. retrospective study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lerman et al found that half of patients with relapsed high-risk neuroblastoma had an objective response to a regimen comprising irinotecan, temozolomide, dinutuximab, and granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor...
Mepitel Film—a silicone-based polyurethane film dressing—may be beneficial in reducing skin toxicities caused by radiation treatment, according to data presented during the October 2022 session of the ASCO Plenary Series by Chow et al (Abstract 390226). Results of the phase III trial showed the...
In a preplanned analysis of the PALLAS trial, the addition of adjuvant palbociclib to standard endocrine therapy did not improve outcomes over endocrine therapy alone in patients with stage IIA breast cancer. Palbociclib offered no additional benefit in terms of invasive disease–free survival (the...
Commercially available noninvasive screening tests for colorectal cancer—the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) and the Cologuard multitarget stool DNA test—are equally effective for screening patients with early-stage colorectal cancer. However, FIT costs about one-fifth of the multitarget stool DNA...
Patients with colorectal cancer who have certain clinical characteristics may benefit from more frequent chest imaging to help identify and target cancer that has metastasized to the lungs, according to a new study presented at the 2022 Scientific Forum of the American College of Surgeons Clinical...
In a Swiss/German phase II trial (SAKK 01/10) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Papachristofilou et al found that a single dose of carboplatin followed by involved-node radiotherapy narrowly missed the target 3-year progression-free survival rate in patients with stage IIA or IIB seminoma. As...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kevin Harrington, MD, PhD, and colleagues, updated results of the phase III KEYNOTE-048 trial showed enduring survival benefits with first-line pembrolizumab alone and pembrolizumab/chemotherapy vs cetuximab/chemotherapy in patients with recurrent...
Researchers at the Barts Cancer Institute at the Queen Mary University of London, the Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine, and the University of Milan may have identified a novel role for a cancer-causing gene in controlling an important genetic process that underpins genetic variation in...
Researchers have discovered that the organization of different types of immune cells within pancreatic tumors may be associated with how well patients with pancreatic cancer respond to treatment, as well as how long they survive. This information could eventually lead to new ways of treating...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Julie R. Brahmer, MD, MSc, FASCO, and colleagues, a 5-year analysis of the phase III CheckMate 227 trial showed improvement in overall survival with first-line nivolumab/ipilimumab vs platinum-doublet chemotherapy, at ≥ 3 years after cessation of...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Veiga et al found that receipt of radiotherapy was the strongest risk factor for development of thoracic soft-tissue sarcomas in U.S. breast cancer survivors; both hypertension and diabetes were significant risk factors for...
In an analysis from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nathan et al found that adult survivors of childhood cancer were more likely to report financial hardship than siblings without cancer in the era following implementation of the Affordable Care...
In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and World Hospice & Palliative Care Day, ASCO and its partners—the International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care; Tómatelo a Pecho, A.C.; the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and Institute for Advanced Study of the ...
David Cescon, MD, PhD, Clinician Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, Canada, was the invited discussant of the two MONALEESA analyses.1,2 He noted that the most recent overall survival analysis, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2021,...
Further analyses of the MONALEESA metastatic breast cancer trials have shown that the benefit of ribociclib plus endocrine therapy in the first-line setting extends to most intrinsic molecular subtypes and is consistent across multiple subgroups. The studies were presented at the 2021 San Antonio...
Invited discussant of the MONALEESA-3 trial, Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, commented: “I totally agree with the authors when they say these results are ‘impressive.’” Among all the phase III trials evaluating...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial, which included postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer, first-line treatment with ribociclib plus fulvestrant added nearly 16 months of overall survival time vs fulvestrant...
Debu Tripathy, MD, Professor and Chair of Breast Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, shared his thoughts on TROPiCS-02 with The ASCO Post. He said the study is important because it addresses the needs of “a population with limited options, whose...
For advanced breast cancer that is hormone receptor–positive and HER2-negative, sacituzumab govitecan-hziy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression by 34% over physician’s choice of treatment, based on the results of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial.1 The heavily pretreated patients in...
The past year has seen an unprecedented number of practice-changing advances across all three major breast cancer subtypes. For patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab firmly entered the standard of care based on improvements in...
The final overall survival analysis of the phase III PALOMA-2 trial has shown no significant benefit for palbociclib given with letrozole, vs letrozole and placebo, as a first-line treatment in hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.1 The results were reported at the 2022 ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Javier Cortés, MD, PhD, of the International Breast Cancer Center, Barcelona, and colleagues, the phase III DESTINY-Breast03 trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) vs...
The invited discussant of the TUXEDO-1 trial1 was Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona. Dr. Oliveira noted that 40% of the 15 patients in TUXEDO-1 had symptomatic disease, and 60% had central nervous system metastases...
In the single-center phase II TUXEDO-1 trial of patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, fam-trastuzumab-deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed efficacy in patients with active brain metastases, yielding intracranial responses in 73.3% of the population and a median progression-free survival of...
Invited discussant Patricia LoRusso, DO, PhD, of Yale School of Medicine, said to the assembled audience at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting: “I see you are as excited about these data as I am,” after the applause ended following Dr. Modi’s presentation. “I want to thank our colleagues for helping to...
The antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) doubled progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with “HER2-low” metastatic breast cancer—ie, patients with low levels of HER2 expression. The agent also extended overall survival for patients with low ...
The ASCO Post asked Debu Tripathy, MD, Professor and Chair of Medical Breast Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine, Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education at the University of California San...
Datopotamab deruxtecan, an antibody-drug conjugate directed against trophoblast cell surface antigen-2 (Trop-2), is showing promise as a treatment for relapsed or refractory advanced triple-negative breast cancer, according to early findings from the phase I TROPION-PanTumor01 trial presented...
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, a preplanned interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial has shown improved event-free survival with the addition of pembrolizumab to...
The invited discussant of the BEGONIA trial,1 Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, called the activity of the combination of durvalumab and datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd) “notable,” with a 74% response rate overall,...
Preliminary results of the basket BEGONIA trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), paired with the immune checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, has strong activity in advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer among patients not biomarker-selected for...
Amy Tiersten, MD, Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, Director of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas,...
Switching from an aromatase inhibitor to fulvestrant upon early identification of the ESR1 mutation in plasma—before disease progression—doubled progression-free survival in the phase III PADA-1 trial, presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “PADA-1 is the first trial to...
Angela DeMichele, MD, MSCE, the Alan and Jill Miller Professor in Breast Cancer Excellence at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, commented on NIMBUS1 for The ASCO Post. She said obtaining information on tumor mutational burden is simple, as it is part ...
Patients with advanced HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer and high tumor mutational burden achieved responses—often durable—from treatment with the immunotherapy doublet of nivolumab and ipilimumab, according to results of the phase II NIMBUS trial reported at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer ...