On January 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved avapritinib (Ayvakit) for the treatment of adults with unresectable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) that harbors platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA) exon 18 mutation. This approval includes...
A novel off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor natural killer cell (CAR-NK) product called FT596 may prove to be an active therapy for B-cell malignancies. This agent is designed to overcome several challenges inherent in CAR T-cell therapy, including CD19-antigen escape, which leads to relapse in ...
New research published by Nina N. Sanford, MD, and colleagues in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network has found most cancer survivors reported that they are current alcohol drinkers, with a subset of those survivors self-reporting excessive drinking behaviors. “We recommend...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Ambrosone et al, an analysis of the SWOG S0221 trial population suggests that use of antioxidant and nonantioxidant dietary supplements, but not multivitamins, before and during adjuvant chemotherapy may be associated with poorer treatment outcomes ...
Pelvic examinations and cervical cancer screenings are no longer recommended for most females under age 21 during routine health visits, but a new study has found that millions of young women are undergoing the tests, which can lead to false-positive testing, overtreatment, anxiety, and needless...
A report by Wang et al in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics described the use of acoustofluidics, a noninvasive method that analyzes saliva for the presence of human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16), the pathogenic strain of the disease associated with oropharyngeal cancers. This novel technique...
Amid the epidemic levels of youth use of e-cigarettes and the popularity of certain products among children, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a policy prioritizing enforcement against certain unauthorized flavored e-cigarette products that appeal to children, including fruit...
Sponsors of clinical trials conducted under investigational new drug (IND) applications are required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to report serious adverse events that are unexpected and suspected to be related to the drug. However, contrary to FDA guidance, investigators often...
Medical oncologists in Brazil are being encouraged to take advantage of a new measure set for assessing the quality of care they provide to patients with lung cancer. Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent and deadly types of cancer in Brazil.1 Providing a platform for health-care providers to...
Early in 2019, trastuzumab and the endoglycosidase hyaluronidase-oysk for subcutaneous injection was approved in the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer.1,2 The agent is indicated for adjuvant treatment of patients with HER2-overexpressing node-positive or node-negative (estrogen...
V. Craig Jordan, CMG, OBE, PhD, DSc, was presented with his Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (CMG) for services to women’s health. Prince William presented the award on November 5. Dr. Jordan was recognized for his discovery and development of selective...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Late in 2018, rituximab-abbs was approved as the first...
Multiple myeloma is a malignancy characterized by clonal proliferation of terminally differentiated plasma cells within the bone marrow. Although it leads to a host of different issues within the body, overall survival has steadily improved in recent years. “This is largely because of better...
Primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma is an uncommon but distinct clinicopathologic variant of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) that typically presents with an aggressive mediastinal mass and invasion of local structures. Most patients are young, typically in their 20s and 30s, and there is a...
A year before my diagnosis of multiple myeloma, in 2010, my husband Paul and I moved with our six children to Monterrey, Mexico, where Paul was helping to create a venture capital industry. We were so busy settling into a new country and getting our children integrated into school that when I...
“Squamous cell carcinoma of the anus incidence has increased dramatically in elderly women and young black men,” according to a study of recent trends in incidence and mortality. “Advanced-stage [anal squamous cell carcinoma] incidence tripled with a prominent rise in … mortality,” researchers...
The text and photographs here are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Antiseptic Era: 1876–1900 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photographs appear courtesy of Dr. Burns and The Burns Archive. To ...
Robert Knoerl, PhD, RN, an Instructor in Medicine and Nurse Scientist in the Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care Services at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has been awarded the 2020 Oncology Nursing Society’s Victoria Mock New Investigator Award. Dr. Knoerl was...
In the Dutch DENSE study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bakker et al found that supplemental magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in women with extremely dense breast tissue and normal results on screening mammography was associated with the diagnosis of significantly fewer interval...
Late in 2018, the FLT3 inhibitor gilteritinib was approved for the treatment of adult patients who have relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a FLT3 mutation, as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test.1,2 The FDA also approved an expanded indication...
In early 2019, pembrolizumab was approved for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma with involvement of lymph node(s) following complete resection.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the double-blind EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier...
Among the highlights at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium in October was the keynote address by Thomas J. Smith, MD, FACP, FASCO, FAAHPM, the Harry J. Duffey Family Professor of Palliative Medicine and Director of Palliative Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medicine and Professor of Oncology ...
Following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, cyclophosphamide significantly reduced grades II to IV acute and chronic extensive graft-vs-host disease compared with conventional immunosuppression, investigators reported during the Plenary Session at the 2019 American Society of...
After receiving acupuncture treatment 3 days a week during the course of radiation treatment, patients with head and neck cancer experienced less dry mouth, according to study results published by Garcia et al in JAMA Network Open. The results are from the first randomized, placebo-controlled,...
ASCO and the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association (NCODA) have published recommended standards for medically integrated dispensing of oral anticancer therapies and supportive care medications in the oncology clinic.1 “The NCODA created quality standards 6 years ago and recognized the ...
As in the previous 2 years, the results from ASCO’s 2019 Cancer Opinion Survey revealed some startling answers about the public’s understanding of cancer, its risk factors, and strategies to prevent the disease. Although a majority of Americans (57%) said they were concerned about developing...
Emerging treatments for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma include options beyond triplet regimens, including immunotherapy and mutation-driven therapy. Several exciting drugs are poised to be available in the clinic in 2020, according to speakers at the recent JADPRO Live, the annual...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Emily Stamell Ruiz, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that rising drug costs and use accounted for 56% and 44%, respectively, of increased Medicare Part D spending on oral anticancer drugs between 2013 and 2017. Study Details The analysis...
A study examining the differences in gene expression between African American and European American men with prostate cancer for three commercially available prostate cancer prognostic biomarker panels—Oncotype DX Prostate Score, Prolaris, and Decipher—has found that these tests may not accurately...
Giving an effective scientific presentation, like all public speaking, is an acquired skill that takes practice to perfect. When delivered successfully, an oral presentation can be an invaluable opportunity to showcase your latest research results among your colleagues and peers. It can also...
A new clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides recommendations on the use of radiation therapy to treat patients diagnosed with the most common types of skin cancers. The guideline details when radiation treatments are appropriate as stand-alone therapy...
Glioblastoma multiforme, colorectal cancer, and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma represent some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers and collectively cause more than 114,000 deaths each year in the United States. A trio of recently published basic research studies in these cancers have found...
Although gene mutations are the primary drivers of carcinogenesis, an array of complex and tumor-specific molecular interaction networks determine cancer cell behavior. To learn more about this line of inquiry, The ASCO Post recently spoke with Andrea Califano, Dr., Professor of Chemical Biology...
Madeleine M.A. Tilanus-Linthorst, MD, PhD, of Erasmus University, reports data from the first randomized trial comparing MRI breast cancer screening with mammography in women with a familial risk. Because MRI screening detected cancer at an earlier stage, it might reduce the use of adjuvant...
Joseph Sparano, MD, of the Montefiore Medical Center, discusses three challenges: How can gene-expression profiles and other diagnostic tests be used to guide the use of adjuvant systemic therapy? Is it time to reappraise active surveillance? Are there diagnostic and therapeutic strategies that ...
A study investigating the long-term influence of estrogen plus progestin compared with estrogen alone on breast cancer incidence in postmenopausal women has found that the menopausal hormone therapies had opposite effects on breast cancer incidence. While estrogen alone decreased breast cancer...
A 10-year median follow-up analysis of the IBIS-II trial on the efficacy and safety of the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for healthy postmenopausal women at increased risk of developing breast cancer has found that the therapy reduced the likelihood of breast cancer incidence by 50% and had few...
The postoperative combination of S-1, an oral fluoropyrimidine-based drug, with endocrine therapy improved invasive disease–free survival and 5-year invasive disease–free survival estimates in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, according to results from the...
Blinatumomab improved survival in children with relapsed B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) compared with standard chemotherapy, accordings to findings from a study presented by Brown et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract LBA-1)....
In the pilot phase of an ongoing randomized trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Partha Basu, MD, and colleagues found that thermal ablation and cryotherapy produced similar treatment success rates in Zambian women positive for cervical precancer on visual inspection with acetic acid. The...
On November 14, 2019, the oral Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor zanubrutinib was granted accelerated approval in the treatment of adult patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) who have received at least one prior therapy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data The approval was based on findings from...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sven Borchmann, MD, of the German Hodgkin Study Group, University Hospital of Cologne, and colleagues found that pretreatment vitamin D deficiency was associated with significantly poorer progression-free and overall survival in patients...
Recent studies show that at least one-quarter of our nation’s health-care expenditures are being consumed by waste, fraud, and abuse. Moreover, since 2004, annual reports from the Commonwealth Fund have consistently rated the performance of our health-care system last among high-income countries,...
In a new effort to improve early breast cancer detection and reduce false-positive exams in women with dense breasts, the American College of Radiology (ACR), the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), and GE Healthcare are partnering to support the Contrast-Enhanced Mammography Imaging...
Earlier this month, the American Society of Hematology (ASH) published new state-of-the-art guidelines on the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia. The guidelines were published in the journal Blood Advances.1 The 2019 ASH Clinical Practice Guidelines on Immune Thrombocytopenia, developed in...
Although pancreatic cancer survival rates have slowly improved over the past few decades for all stages of pancreatic cancer combined, the 1-year rate is 20%, and the 5-year rate is about 9%. There is no single diagnostic test to detect pancreatic cancer, and less than 20% of tumors are confined to ...
Despite the unprecedented improvement in clinical outcomes with the advent of immune checkpoint blockade for cancer,1,2 robust biomarkers for therapeutic success as well as novel strategies to increase their efficacy are urgently needed. In addition to exploring novel immune checkpoints and other...
In a study presented in a brief report in JAMA Oncology,1 David J. Pinato, MD, PhD, of the Imperial College London, and colleagues found that past—but not concurrent—use of broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy was associated with poorer treatment outcomes in patients receiving immune checkpoint...
Multiple myeloma expert Nina Shah, MD, was born and reared in the Northeast. During grade school, she developed a passion for science that would lead to an early decision to pursue a career in medicine. “My ninth-grade biology class really got me interested in human biology, and that’s when I...
On April 19, 2019, pembrolizumab was approved for use in combination with the small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the open-label phase III...