In December 2015, I thought I was through with cancer. I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011 after a routine blood test showed that my prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was high. I underwent prostatectomy, and although it was clear the cancer had breached the capsule of the prostate, for ...
Tuya Pal, MD, Ingram Professor of Cancer Research and Associate Director for Cancer Health Disparities at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, has been named to two cancer research leadership posts. She is the incoming Editor-in-Chief of the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Daily Query (PDQ)...
Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, Donna S. Hall Professor of Breast Cancer Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been named Interim Director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology. Dr. Park is Associate Director for Translational Research, Co-Leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program,...
The number of first-year students in U.S. medical schools increased by 1.7% in the 2020 academic year, according to data released recently by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Although the increase was modest, the number of students applying to medical school for the upcoming...
Neuro-oncologist and medical oncologist Manmeet Ahluwalia, MD, FACP, MBA, has joined Miami Cancer Institute as Deputy Director, Chief Scientific Officer and Chief of Solid Tumor Medical Oncology. Board-certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, neuro-oncology and hematology, Dr. Ahluwalia...
The Lustgarten Foundation and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) have announced two new career development awards for early-career female and underrepresented pancreatic cancer researchers, representing a commitment of the Lustgarten Foundation of up to $1.8 million. The awards...
Linda G.W. Kerkmeijer, MD, PhD, of the University Medical Center Utrecht and Radboud University Medical Center, discusses results from the phase III FLAME trial, which explored the question of whether biochemical disease–free survival can be improved by adding a focal boost to the intraprostatic...
Jill Feldman, a patient advocate who has lost five family members to lung cancer and is herself a 12-year cancer survivor living with EGFR-positive disease, describes her family history of cancer, how she has worked with her physicians for more than a decade to survive her own diagnosis, and the...
Luis M. Montuenga, PhD, of the University of Navarra, discusses the potential contributions of biomarkers, promising biomarker panels being tested and published, the need to standardize biospecimen collection, and how to improve the sensitivity of these biomarkers (Abstract PL05.06).
Bruce E. Johnson, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, offers his expert perspective on single-arm drug approvals for targeted agents between 2016 and 2020, the need for biomarker testing, and the societal costs of drug development (Abstract PL04.03).
Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of Yale University, discusses two key abstracts from the ADAURA trial: the use of osimertinib as adjuvant therapy for resected EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer; and patient-reported outcomes, which showed a benefit in disease-free survival and maintenance of...
Justin F. Gainor, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses two key phase II studies on non–small cell lung cancer: nivolumab vs nivolumab plus ipilimumab in EGFR-mutant disease and the oral selective AXL inhibitor bemcentinib with pembrolizumab in advanced disease (Abstracts OA01.06 and...
Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of the LungenClinic, discusses findings of the KEYNOTE-598 study, which showed that pembrolizumab plus ipilimumab was more toxic and offered no more benefit in terms of efficacy than pembrolizumab plus placebo in first-line therapy for patients with metastatic high...
Treatment with the immunotherapy nivolumab with or without cisplatin-based chemotherapy following radical surgery significantly improved disease-free survival in patients with muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma, irrespective of their PD-L1 status, according to a study that will be presented by...
Reduced levels of screening for prostate cancer using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing correspond with recent increases in the diagnosis of metastatic disease in the United States, according to a study that will be presented by Vidit Sharma, MD, and colleagues at the 2021 Genitourinary...
The National ComprehensiveCancer Network® (NCCN) has released new guidance1 on vaccinating people with cancer against COVID-19. The nonprofit alliance of leading cancer centers created an NCCN COVID-19 Vaccine Committee, which includes hematology and oncology experts with particular expertise in...
Janet Woodcock, MD, current Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has been named acting FDA Commissioner, according to a report published in The New York Times.1Stephen M. Hahn, MD, who had been FDA Commissioner since December 17,...
Gene therapy pioneer Arthur W. Nienhuis, MD, the fourth Director of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, died on February 3 at age 79. Under his leadership, the hospital grew exponentially in both size and scientific stature. “At St. Jude, the nature of our work requires a bold, ambitious...
HERO-TOGETHER is an opportunity for people working in health care who receive a COVID-19 vaccine to help the public understand how people fare after vaccination. The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-generation challenge that health-care providers everywhere have worked together to face. On the...
Jill Feldman, a patient advocate and lung cancer survivor, discusses the current challenges and potential solutions to including more people of color and those in underserved communities in clinical trial research (Abstract PL04.06).
Information shared by women with metastatic breast cancer on social media platforms like Twitter may be a timely source of data for policymakers hoping to improve care and outcomes for these patients, according to a study published by Shimkhada et al in JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. Role of...
At-home tests, which measure blood in stool as a potential marker for colon cancer, are often used for colorectal cancer screening. Usage of these tests has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as patients try to avoid clinical visits. However, effectiveness of these screening tools, along with...
On February 5, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved lisocabtagene maraleucel (Breyanzi) for the 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 lymphoma (DLBCL) not...
On February 5, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to umbralisib (Ukoniq), a kinase inhibitor including PI3K-delta and CK1-epsilon, for the following indications: Adult patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma who have received at least one prior...
Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, of Mount Sinai Medical Center, discusses Lung-MAP studies in which a higher tumor mutation burden determined by next-generation sequencing was linked to overall and progression-free survival across two immunotherapy trials, and was independent of PD-L1 status (Abstract...
On February 4, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the scheduling of a meeting of its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee to discuss the request for emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine from Janssen Biotech Inc. Additionally, Acting...
A recent study found that long-term aspirin use before a diagnosis of colorectal cancer may be associated with lower colorectal cancer–specific mortality. The report, published by Figueiredo et al in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggests that the findings for prediagnosis...
Using a host immune classifier (HIC) test for patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) may provide better predictors of treatment response and improve outcomes, according to research presented by Akerley et al at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2020 World...
Administering colorectal cancer screening kits through a socially distant drive-by flu vaccination clinic increased access to colorectal cancer screening among Black Americans, according to results presented by Washington et al at the AACR Virtual Meeting: COVID-19 and Cancer (Abstract S02-04)....
Prasad S. Adusumilli, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses ongoing CAR T-cell therapy clinical trials for solid tumors, the key determinants of success for developing this treatment, and some study results to date (Abstract PL03.05).
A recent study has found that more than half (56.4%) of cancer survivors in the United States reported having additional underlying medical conditions associated with severe COVID-19 illness. The report, published by Jiang et al in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggested that...
More than a year since the new coronavirus crisis began, its impact on cancer care has been stark, with “50% of governments (having) cancer services partially or completely disrupted because of the pandemic,” said André Ilbawi, MD, of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department of...
A study presented by Nobuyuki Takahashi, MD, of the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute, at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2020 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) Singapore (Abstract OA11.05) demonstrated that there may be an inherited ...
Patient-reported outcomes from the phase III CROWN study showed that time to treatment deterioration in chest pain, dyspnea, and cough was comparable between those who received lorlatinib and patients who took crizotinib. The research was presented at the International Association for the Study of...
Silvia Novello, MD, PhD, of the University of Turin, discusses phase III results from the ITACA trial, which explored the notion of improving survival by customizing treatment and reducing toxicities for patients with completely resected stage II to IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract...
A study presented by researchers with the Ministry of Health and Welfare in Taiwan confirmed low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening may be feasible in a predefined, never-smoking, high-risk population. The research was presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer...
Two presentations based on data from the ADAURA clinical trial advanced previous research that demonstrated improved disease-fee survival outcomes for patients with surgically resected non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving osimertinib, while also maintaining quality of life. The data were...
On February 3, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to tepotinib (Tepmetko) for adult patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring mesenchymal-epithelial transition (MET) exon 14–skipping alterations. VISION Trial Efficacy was...
Dean Fennell, FRCP, PhD, of the University of Leicester, discusses phase III results from the CONFIRM trial, which sought a standard immunotherapy treatment to improve overall survival for patients with mesothelioma who have relapsed after taking pemetrexed and cisplatin. Globally, the incidence of ...
Molecular profiling allows clinicians to identify the molecular and genetic signatures that help to deliver treatments that are highly specific to a tumor. This tool has made possible a number of advances in the past year that are improving care for patients with gastrointestinal cancers. In...
On February 27, 2020, the Journal of Thoracic Oncology published a case study that described two patients from Wuhan, China, who had recently underwent lung lobectomies for adenocarcinoma and were retrospectively found to have had COVID-19 at the time of surgery. Eleven months later, the lung...
Emil J Freireich, MD, an oncologist who developed groundbreaking therapies for childhood leukemia and came to be recognized as a founding father of modern clinical cancer research, passed away on February 1. He was 93. Dr. Freireich was a faculty member at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer ...
Giorgio V. Scagliotti, MD, PhD, of the University of Torino, talks about why he believes that many more patients with lung cancer can be cured within the next 4 years, given decreases in mortality rates, widespread use of targeted treatments and immunotherapies, and earlier diagnoses as a result of ...
At a press briefing held by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), researchers presented new data that revealed factors relating to race, gender, sexual orientation, and income continue to be significant barriers to those living with lung cancer. The press briefing is...
Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, tobacco use remains a serious public health threat. In addition to tobacco-related death and disease, smoking also increases the risk of the most severe impacts of COVID-19. The American Lung Association has released its 19th annual “State of Tobacco Control”...
A study led by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found that shortening a traditional 45-day course of radiation to a 5-day course delivered in larger doses was safe and as effective as conventional radiation for men with high-risk...
A nationwide panel of experts has developed the first mammography guidelines for older survivors of breast cancer, providing a framework for discussions between survivors and their physicians on screening in survivors’ later years. The guidelines, published today by Rachel A. Freedman, MD, MPH, and ...
To mark World Cancer Day on February 4, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) will give voice to and say thank you to the nurses, doctors, researchers, volunteers, advocates, and other caregivers in oncology from around the world, as well as government agencies, who have worked through...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted Priority Review to nivolumab as either adjuvant or first-line therapy in several types of gastric cancers, as well as to a novel PD-1 inhibitor for locally advanced or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal. The FDA also...
A study published by Wang et al in JTO Clinical and Research Reports compared surgeries performed at one Chinese hospital in 2019 with a similar date range during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers found that routine thoracic surgery and invasive examinations were performed safely during the...