LUNGevity Foundation, a nonprofit organization, recently announced three recipients of its 2020 Career Development Awards for lung cancer research. These awards were presented to Kathyrn Arbour, MD, Assistant Attending at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center; Carl Gay, MD, PhD, of The University...
Cancer geneticist Stephen Gruber, MD, PhD, MPH, has joined City of Hope as Director of its newly founded Center for Precision Medicine. He will lead a team of more than 14 researchers who will work across the institution to pioneer personalized cancer prevention and treatment plans. As a medical...
The Eighth Annual Giants of Cancer Care class of inductees was recently announced by OncLive, a multimedia resource focused on providing oncology professionals with relevant information on patient care. The virtual awards ceremony will be held on November 5 at 7.30 PM EST and will be available...
Colorectal cancer is more prevalent among Black people, a group with the highest rates of death for an illness that is curable if caught early. “The unfortunate reality is that minorities, especially Black people, have a much lower chance of getting life-saving cancer treatment. Health care works...
The text and photographs here are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Anesthesia Era 1845–1875 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photograph appears courtesy of Stanley B. Burns, MD, and The Burns...
Ruth O’Regan, MD, Chief of Hematology, Medical Oncology and Palliative Care at the University of Wisconsin, has been named the next Charles A. Dewey Professor and Chair of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center’s (URMC) School of Medicine and Dentistry, pending approval by the...
In a news release issued earlier this month, Dan Theodorescu, MD, PhD, Director of Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center in Los Angeles, welcomed several new researchers and physicians to the faculty of the institution. “I am very grateful to the institutional leadership that our efforts to expand the breadth ...
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the face of U.S. health-care services in such rapid fashion that many providers were caught off guard, learning and preparing on the fly. Patients with cancer, given their multiple physical and emotional challenges, were especially vulnerable. To get a sense of the...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Cristina Saura, MD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, and colleagues, the phase III NALA trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with the irreversible pan-HER tyrosine kinase inhibitor neratinib plus...
City of Hope scientists have combined two immunotherapies—an oncolytic virus and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy—to target solid tumors that are otherwise difficult to treat with CAR T-cell therapy alone, according to a recent study in Science Translational Medicine.1 In preclinical...
For patients with progressing HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer previously treated with trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1), no single regimen is an established standard of care. More than 50% of these patients will develop brain metastasis, and thus far, treatments...
In honor of a transformational $10 million gift from Kimberly and Joseph Wesley, University Hospitals is establishing the Wesley Center for Immunotherapy at University Hospitals (UH) Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland. This gift will further enable physician-scientists to engage in groundbreaking...
Deirdre J. Cohen, MD, MS, an expert in pancreatic and other gastrointestinal cancers as well as an accomplished clinical trial leader, has joined Mount Sinai Health System as Director of the Gastrointestinal (GI) Oncology Program and Medical Director of the Cancer Clinical Trials Office at The...
Although most patients with breast cancer are considered to have an overall excellent prognosis, 600,000 people still die annually of the disease around the world. Even in HER2-positive breast cancer, a subtype that has seen a transformation of outcomes in the past 2 decades, there’s still room for ...
Robert Knoerl, PhD, RN, Instructor in Medicine and Nurse-Scientist at 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. This prestigious award is ...
A consortium of 17 cancer centers in the United States, including the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), have come together to better understand the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in delaying cancer detection, care, and prevention. The cancer ...
On October 7, 2020, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2020 would be awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier, PhD, and Jennifer A. Doudna, PhD, “for the development of a method for genome editing,” the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors. “There is enormous power...
A long-term study of women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) has shown that surgery to remove the tissue followed by radiotherapy may lower the risk of subsequent cancer compared to surgery alone. The study, presented at the 12th European Breast Cancer Conference by van Seijen et al (Abstract...
Patients receiving care for advanced cancer based on the recommendations of a molecular tumor board were more likely to survive or experience a longer period without disease progression, according to results from a study published by Kato et al in Nature Communications. Razelle Kurzrock, MD,...
Benign breast disease is known to increase the chances of subsequent breast cancer. According to Spanish researchers, the way benign breast disease is detected may be an indication of how likely it is to become cancerous. The findings from the team led by Xavier Castells, MD, PhD, Head of the...
Andreas du Bois, MD, PhD, of Kliniken Essen Mitte, discusses the NORA and INOVATYON studies of patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, detailing the findings for women in China with platinum-sensitive disease and women internationally who received trabectedin and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin...
Black and Hispanic patients with cancer were more likely to be infected with COVID-19 than White patients, based on the findings of a study of more than 477,000 patients to be presented by Potter et al at the upcoming virtual 2020 ASCO Quality Care Symposium (Abstract 84). About the Study...
A study of more than 500 patients with cancer infected with COVID-19 at a large cancer center in Boston found that Black patients with cancer and COVID-19 were twice as likely to be hospitalized due to complications related to the virus as compared to White patients. Black patients were also more...
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, fewer Black and Hispanic patients with cancer used telehealth (including phone encounters and video visits) compared to White patients, according to findings from an analysis of data from New York City hospitals. Significant disparities in the use of...
Over the past year (December 2019–September 2020), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted approval to several novel drugs and new indications for therapeutic agents used in breast cancer. Pertuzumab/Trastuzumab/Hyaluronidase-zzxf On June 29, 2020, the FDA approved a new fixed-dose...
In the post-trastuzumab era, a number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved targeted agents for metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer are available, but there is no preferred option for third-line treatment and beyond. At the 2019 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium, Shanu Modi, MD,...
In an analysis of the pivotal phase III HER2CLIMB trial reported at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, Nancy U. Lin, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues found that tucatinib, a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is highly selective for HER2, plus...
In a retrospective analysis reported in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics, Joseph Abi Jaoude, MD, of the American University of Beirut Medical Center, and colleagues found that a radiation boost did not reduce the risk of local recurrence among women with...
New agents for the treatment of advanced HER2-positive breast cancer should be coming soon to your clinic, according to Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, Director of the Breast Cancer Clinical Research Program and Associate Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of...
Here we present summaries of several additional clinical trials in HER2-positive breast cancer reported over the past year. Jame Abraham, MD, Chair of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Taussig Cancer Center, Cleveland Clinic, shared his perspective on several of these trials presented ...
The second interim analysis of the phase III SOPHIA trial demonstrated a significant, though modest, improvement in progression-free survival, response rate, and clinical benefit with the addition of margetuximab to chemotherapy vs trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER2-positive...
In the phase II monarcHER trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Sara M. Tolaney, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues, found that the combination of abemaciclib, fulvestrant, and trastuzumab prolonged progression-free survival vs trastuzumab plus standard-of-care...
This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three scientists who have made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world. Harvey J. Alter, MD; Michael Houghton, ...
A pilot study comparing liquid biopsy with tissue-based testing showed that liquid biopsy delivered results approximately 10 days faster than tissue biopsy, according to research presented by Nir Peled, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC)...
Next-generation sequencing of cell-free DNA (cfDNA) obtained from blood samples may improve diagnostic testing in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and may also be faster and less expensive than standard tissue profiling, according to research presented by Natasha B. Leighl, ...
On October 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) as first-line treatment for adult patients with unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma. CheckMate 743 Efficacy was investigated in CheckMate 743, a randomized,...
Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, of the Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Langone, discusses the 4-year recurrence-free and overall survival results from the CheckMate 238 study, which showed adjuvant nivolumab continues to be an effective treatment, vs the comparator ipilimumab, for patients with resected...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to therapies for pretreated patients with multiple myeloma and pediatric patients with ALK-positive anaplastic large cell lymphoma; granted Fast Track designation to novel agents in gastric/gastroesophageal junction...
Residents of counties that experience persistent poverty face a disproportionately high risk of cancer mortality, according to a study published by Jennifer L. Moss, PhD, and colleagues in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Persistent Poverty Areas of persistent poverty are defined...
Five years ago, as Rachel B. Issaka, MD, MAS, was beginning her second year as a gastroenterology fellow and feeling proud of the progress she was making in her training, she was suddenly confronted with an all-too-familiar slight that underrepresented minority providers may often experience. As...
In a paper published by Banerjee et al in JAMA Network Open, researchers reported that genetic testing is cost-effective and beneficial for newly diagnosed patients with metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST), a type of soft-tissue sarcoma that develops in specialized nerve cells in the...
Monika K. Krzyzanowska, MD, MPH, of the Princess Margaret University Health Network, discusses study findings on remote proactive telephone-based toxicity management for patients with breast cancer receiving chemotherapy. Although the telehealth program was associated with fewer grade 3 toxicities...
Lisa A. Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina, discusses phase III results from two IMpassion trials, 130 and 131, which explored, respectively, atezolizumab plus nab-paclitaxel vs placebo plus nab-paclitaxel in previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast...
MK-4830—a novel, first-in-class human IgG4 monoclonal antibody targeting the myeloid-specific anti–immunoglobulin-like transcript 4 (ILT4) receptor—administered either as a single agent or in combination with pembrolizumab was well tolerated and showed activity in heavily pretreated patients with...
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis is a minimally invasive genomic assessment tool utilizing targeted next-generation sequencing of peripheral blood. At the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020, Zengin et al reported genomic results from a large cohort of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma...
Alexander M. Eggermont, MD, PhD, of the Princess Maxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, discusses final results of the phase III EORTC 1325-MG/Keynote 054 trial, which confirmed a sustained recurrence-free survival benefit of pembrolizumab vs placebo in patients with resected high-risk stage III...
Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses results from the phase III ASCENT trial, which showed the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan-hziy improved progression-free and overall survival more than standard single-agent chemotherapy in patients...
Upon hospital admission for cancer, many patients already demonstrated a high prevalence of malnutrition per Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria, which was associated with the risk of developing a nosocomial infection, according to findings presented by Nuñez Abad et al at...
Pralsetinib (also known as BLU-667) showed activity in patients with advanced RET mutation–positive medullary thyroid cancer, including high rates of durable response, disease control, and 18-month progression-free survival. These findings were presented by Hu et al at the ESMO Virtual Congress...
In response to studies showing that between 30% and 60% of patients with blood cancer are at risk of death if infected with COVID-19 compared with patients who are cancer-free, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has announced its launch of the first clinical trial dedicated solely to this...