A new special series in JCO Oncology Practice explores the causes of disparities in cancer care and outcomes for Black people in the United States and examines potential solutions to begin to achieve health equity for this population. The “Disparities in Cancer Care for Black People in the United...
Although death rates for adolescent and young adults (AYAs) with cancer have been dropping 0.8% a year from 2009 to 2018, cancer remains a leading disease-related cause of death among this patient population. This year, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) estimates that 88,260 AYAs, defined by the...
Patients with colorectal cancer and unresectable liver metastases and KRAS wild-type disease experienced better responses to hepatic arterial infusion pump chemotherapy than did patients with KRAS mutations, a retrospective cohort study found. At a median follow-up of 14.6 months, “KRAS-positive...
Invited discussant Kemi Doll, MD, MSCR, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, University of Washington, Seattle, commented on the results of the survey on workplace bullying and harassment reported by Dr. Temkin. Dr. Doll is also Project Lead of the...
David Cunningham, MD, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Head of the Gastrointestinal and Lymphoma Unit, and Director of Clinical Research at The Royal Marsden in London and Surrey in the United Kingdom, discussed CheckMate 6481 as well as the ESCORT-1st study of the PD-L1 inhibitor camrelizumab in...
As first-line treatment of advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, nivolumab-containing regimens improved overall survival over standard-of-care chemotherapy, according to the first results of the global phase III CheckMate 648 trial presented at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting by Ian Chau, MD,...
Comments on the OUTBACK trial were provided by invited discussant Kunle Odunsi, MD, PhD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Dean for Oncology, and Director of the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center. Lilian T. Gien, MD, MSc, Associate Professor of Oncology at the...
In 2016, 2 years before I was diagnosed with stage III estrogen and progesterone receptor–positive, HER2-negative, invasive ductal carcinoma in situ in my left breast, I had felt a mass in my right breast that turned out to be a benign fibroid. When I felt a mass in my left breast one morning while ...
Multiple studies have shown that sexuality and intimacy problems are common among patients with cancer, often beginning at the time of diagnosis and persisting through the continuum of care into the survivorship setting. Although these problems have been well documented, many patients and survivors ...
“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.” —Mark Twain To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on...
On April 23, 2021, loncastuximab tesirine-lpyl, a CD19-directed antibody and alkylating agent conjugate, was granted accelerated approval for treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy, including diffuse large B-cell...
In women with locally advanced cervical cancer, adjuvant chemotherapy adds no benefit to standard cisplatin-based chemoradiation, results of the international phase III OUTBACK study have shown,1 as reported at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting by Linda R. Mileshkin, MD, Professor of Medical Oncology at ...
Adjuvant pembrolizumab following surgery significantly improved disease-free survival compared with placebo among patients with high-risk clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC), according to the international phase III KEYNOTE-564 study presented at the Plenary session during the 2021 ASCO Annual...
Morocco is an Arab country in North Africa. It covers 716,550 square kilometers and has a population of nearly 36 million. The median age is 29.3 years. Morocco’s estimated gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 was $122 million. As of 2019, Morocco’s health budget was equivalent to 4.5% of the total ...
When I interviewed for my current post as a first-time consultant in medical oncology in the United Kingdom, I was asked about my 5-year career plan. I remember some detail of my reply, but I don’t think it even remotely encompassed the depth of insight I would gain from the patients I’ve treated...
This past October, in a virtually held ceremony of the General Assembly of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), Anil K. D’Cruz, MBBS, MS, DNB, FRCS (Hon), Director of Oncology at Apollo Hospitals in Mumbai, Chennai, and Delhi, India, began his 2-year tenure as President of the global...
The breakthrough KRAS-specific inhibitor sotorasib achieved responses in patients with KRAS G12C–mutated non–small lung cancer (NSCLC) who had experienced disease progression on platinum-based chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or both treatments. The objective response rate was 37.1%, and responses...
Although both incidence and mortality rates in colorectal cancer have been declining among people older than 65 by 3.3% and 3% annually, respectively, among individuals younger than age 50, the incidence rate has risen about 2% annually, and death rates have increased by 1.3% annually.1 Colorectal...
The role of vaccines in mitigating the significant morbidity and mortality associated with infections in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is a developing field of study, punctuated by the advent of novel therapeutic agents and pressing questions regarding the global SARS–CoV-2 vaccination...
Adjuvant therapy with the PARP inhibitor olaparib for 1 year extended disease-free survival in patients with high-risk early-stage HER2-negative breast cancer with BRCA1/2 germline (inherited) mutations, according to a prespecified interim analysis of the phase III OlympiA trial presented at the...
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...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Paul G. Richardson, MD, and colleagues, the final overall survival analysis of the phase III TOURMALINE-MM1 trial showed no overall survival benefit with the addition of ixazomib to lenalidomide/dexamethasone (Rd) in relapsed or refractory multiple ...
In a prospective study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Frank et al found that monitoring of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) improved detection of early relapse after axicabtagene ciloleucel infusion in patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma. Study Details A total of...
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...
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...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Eric Pujade-Lauraine, MD, and colleagues, the phase III JAVELIN Ovarian 200 trial showed no significant improvement in progression-free or overall survival with avelumab alone or in combination with pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD) vs PLD alone in patients ...
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...
In a prospective cross-sectional study reported in JCO Global Oncology, Gupta et al found that women with ovarian cancer in India had a high prevalence of pathogenic or likely pathogenic BRCA variants. As stated by the investigators: “There are deficient data on prevalence of germline mutations in...
Patients with early-stage breast cancer may be at low risk of dying of their disease, but they experience a high burden of physical and psychological symptoms long after their treatment has ended, according to data presented during the 2021 American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting.1...
In a retrospective cohort study reported by Win et al in The Lancet Oncology, researchers in the International Mismatch Repair Consortium found marked variation in the risk of colorectal cancer in families with Lynch syndrome carrying the same pathogenic variant in DNA mismatch repair genes. The...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Gao et al found that use of a polygenic risk score (PRS) modified the estimated risk of breast cancer among both carriers and noncarriers of established pathogenic variants in breast cancer predisposition genes. Study Details The study...
The invited discussant of the JUPITER-02 study was Anthony TC Chan, MD, the Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation Professor of Clinical Oncology at Hong King Cancer Institute and Sir YK Pao Centre for Cancer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He noted that anti–PD-1/L1 therapies are at the forefront...
A new first-line standard of care may be emerging for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma, based on the findings of the global phase III JUPITER-02 trial presented at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting by investigators from China.1 In the study, toripalimab, an anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody, ...
The association between the consumption of red and processed meats and the development of colorectal cancer, as well as pancreatic and prostate cancers, has been known since 2015, when the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified the consumption of red meat as probably...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Pollard et al, a subgroup of pediatric patients with KMT2A-rearranged acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in the phase III Children’s Oncology Group AAML0531 trial had improved outcomes with the addition of the CD33-targeting agent gemtuzumab ozogamicin...
From routine axillary lymph node dissection to sentinel lymph node surgery, the use of axillary surgery continues to evolve in breast cancer. Recently, surgical oncologists have begun to consider avoiding axillary surgery completely in patients with a low risk of node-positive disease as well as in ...
On February 12, 2021, the cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor trilaciclib was approved for use to decrease the incidence of chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression in adult patients when administered prior to a platinum/etoposide–containing regimen or topotecan-containing regimen for...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tilki et al found that adjuvant radiotherapy was associated with reduced risk for all-cause mortality vs early salvage radiotherapy among men at high risk for disease recurrence following radical prostatectomy. As stated...
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 ...
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...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MAIA trial, the addition of daratumumab to lenalidomide and dexamethasone resulted in a statistically significant overall survival benefit over lenalidomide/dexamethasone alone in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are ineligible for...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Justin F. Gainor, MD, and colleagues, an interim analysis of the phase I/II ARROW trial has shown that the oral RET inhibitor pralsetinib produced high response rates in previously treated and treatment-naive patients with advanced RET fusion–positive non–small ...
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...
Cryoablation is emerging as a new alternative to surgical excision for smaller early-stage, low-risk breast cancers in appropriately selected patient populations, according to data presented during the 2021 American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting.1 Early 3-year results of the multicenter ...
The invited discussant of EMPOWER-Cervical 1 was Mansoor Raza Mirza, MD, Chief Oncologist at Copenhagen University Hospital and Chairman of the European Network of Gynaecological Oncology Trials group (ENGOT). Dr. Mirza called the findings “amazing” and predicted they will “usher in a new era” in...