Two nonprofit organizations serving the lung cancer community—the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (ALCF) and Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA)—have announced they are joining forces as the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer. With more than 3 decades of combined expertise, a...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Kim and colleagues found that higher levels of stromal tumor–infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) were associated with better outcomes in patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy or trastuzumab plus chemotherapy for early-stage...
ASCO recently announced that it is seeking applications for research grants for projects that use data from CancerLinQ Discovery®—an offering of ASCO’s CancerLinQ® initiative—as a source. CancerLinQ Discovery provides curated sets of deidentified data from patients with cancer to academic...
Carson Leslie was a kind, popular, lively teen who loved sports and spending time with his family and friends. He was a devoted student at The Covenant School of Dallas, where he was quarterback on the school’s football team, and he was an active member of Grace Bible Church. He shared a special...
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION for Cancer Research (AACR) recently recognized Raymond N. DuBois, MD, PhD, FAACR, with the 13th Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research during the 2019 AACR Annual Meeting in Atlanta. Dr. DuBois is Dean of the College of...
BREAST CANCER SCREENING is no longer “just mammography” but involves a growing list of ever more sophisticated techniques that are improving detection, according to Elizabeth Morris, MD, Professor of Radiology, the Larry Norton Chair, and Chief of the Breast Imaging Service at Memorial Sloan...
Biologic age—a DNA-based estimate of a person’s age—may be associated with the development of breast cancer, according a report published by Jacob K. Kresovich, PhD, of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), and colleagues in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.1...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the Lung Cancer Initiative at Johnson & Johnson (LCI) recently announced the inaugural recipients of the AACR–Johnson & Johnson Lung Cancer Innovation Science Grants. The grants represent a new funding opportunity to support research...
IN HIGH-RISK patients with breast cancer and low expression of HER2 (HER2 low), a peptide vaccine targeting HER2, combined with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), and given concurrently with trastuzumab, may help to prevent recurrence. Final analysis of a randomized phase...
FORMAL DISCUSSANT of the abstract presented by Harding et al, Michael Morse, MD, Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, in Durham, North Carolina, noted that the authors should be commended on a complex dose-escalation strategy that surely required a lot of collaboration among...
The early debate over the social and ethical implications of gene therapy led the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee in 1974. However, the risks of human gene therapies were largely unknown until 1999, when a patient died of a massive immune...
THE EMERGENCE of anticancer agents that block immune checkpoints has transformed the field of oncology, leading to durable responses and improvements in overall survival in melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, head/neck squamous cell carcinoma, urothelial bladder cancer, and non–small cell lung cancer....
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...
The American Association for the Advancement of Science and Science Translational Medicine announced that Cigall Kadoch, PhD, has been chosen for the 2019 Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer Research Prize. Dr. Kadoch is Assistant Professor of Pediatric Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute;...
IN THE GLOBAL phase III KEYNOTE-181 trial, pembrolizumab as second-line therapy for advanced esophageal cancer did not improve overall survival in the whole population, vs chemotherapy, but did improve survival for patients with strong expression of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1),...
ON JANUARY 14, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cabozantinib, an orally available receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with sorafenib. The FDA’s approval was based on the results of the phase III...
SEVERAL STUDIES at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium evaluated the benefits of neoadjuvant treatment in patients with pancreatic cancer—and in patients deemed fully resectable, not just “borderline” resectable.1-3 Although the standard of care for resectable pancreatic ductal...
PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan is active in patients previously treated with chemotherapy or checkpoint inhibitor therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer. These results from a phase I/II basket study of this agent were presented at the 2019...
SOME PATIENTS with metastatic prostate cancer may respond to a combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors after treatment with hormonal therapy and chemotherapy is not successful, according to early results from the phase II CheckMate 650 trial. Principal Investigator Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD,...
TREATMENT WITH stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) results in a similar safety profile to conventionally fractionated, or moderately hypofractionated external-beam radiotherapy, in men with low- or intermediate- risk prostate cancer, according to preliminary results of the Prostate Advances ...
THE FORMAL discussant of the ARAMIS trial, Ian Davis, MBBS (Hons), PhD, FRACP, FAChPM, of Monash University and Eastern Health, Melbourne, commented: “ARAMIS is a positive trial with encouraging early results. It has a meaningful endpoint of metastasis-free survival with acceptable toxicity....
THE INVESTIGATIONAL androgen receptor inhibitor darolutamide significantly improved metastasis-free survival in men with high-risk nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer vs placebo in the large phase III ARAMIS trial.1 Men treated with darolutamide had a median metastasis-free survival...
THE COMBINATION of pembrolizumab and cabozantinib demonstrated antitumor activity in patients with previously treated metastatic renal cell carcinoma and both drugs were tolerable at their approved doses, according to data from a dose-escalation cohort of a phase I study.1 Among eight patients with ...
IN A RETROSPECTIVE analysis of median overall survival from the phase III METEOR trial,1 Ignacio Duran, MD, PhD, and colleagues sought to determine whether early tumor shrinkage following therapy with cabozantinib or everolimus could be an early indicator of prognosis for patients with metastatic...
THE PROGRAMMED cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor, avelumab, was combined with the multitargeted vascular growth endothelial factor (VEGF) agent, axitinib, and compared to monotherapy with sunitinib in the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. Toni K. Choueiri,...
THIS YEAR saw a huge turnout and a large number of scientific abstracts presented at both the 2019 Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancers Symposium, held on January 17–19, and the 2019 Genitourinary (GU) Cancers Symposium, held on February 14–16, both in San Francisco. The GU Cancers Symposium attracted...
The experimental oncolytic adenovirus telomelysin in combination with radiotherapy was safe and showed early clinical efficacy in vulnerable patients with esophageal cancer, according to results from a phase I clinical trial presented by Fujiwara et al at the American Association for ...
The investigational anticancer therapeutic LOXO-195, which targets a family of proteins called tropomyosin receptor kinases (TRKs), was safe, tolerable, and showed signs of clinical activity in patients who had solid tumors that harbored NTRK gene fusions and had become resistant to other...
Surgery was associated with higher survival rates for patients with HER2-positive stage IV breast cancer compared with those who did not undergo surgery, according to results presented by Mudgway et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting (Abstract 4873). Between...
New research presented by Gu et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2019 found that administering radiation treatments in the morning as opposed to later in the day may significantly reduce the severity of mucositis and its related impacts (Abstract 4860). ...
A higher body mass index (BMI) before age 50 may be more strongly associated with pancreatic cancer mortality risk than excess weight at older age, according to the results of a study presented by Jacobs et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2019 (Abstract...
An interim analysis of a small phase Ib study by O’Hara et al evaluating the CD40 agonistic monoclonal antibody APX005M in combination with gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel with or without the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor nivolumab in untreated patients with metastatic...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) has issued its 2018 Annual Report, including updates on regulatory reviews and initiatives, OCE programs, guidances, and more. Regulatory Reviews The OCE is tasked with clinical medical oncology reviews, irrespective...
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced policy changes to modernize mammography policies and issued a Breakthrough Therapy designation, an Orphan Drug designation, and an investigational new drug application. FDA Advances Policy Changes to Modernize Mammography Services...
In a phase Ib/II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wei et al found that the combination of venetoclax and low-dose cytarabine produced a high response rate in previously untreated older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who were ineligible for intensive chemotherapy. In...
ASCO’S CONQUER CANCER FOUNDATION is pleased to announce the recipients of the Gastrointestinal Cancers, Genitourinary Cancers, and Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium Merit Awards. Conquer Cancer Merit Awards recognize oncology fellows’ and trainees’ high-quality research submitted in abstracts to...
ASCO HAS PUBLISHED a new guideline, “Safe Handling of Hazardous Drugs: ASCO Standards,” to promote the safety of pharmacists, nurses, and all staff who handle potentially dangerous medicines, such as chemotherapy compounds.1 Safety is pivotal in the entire drug workflow, including drug mixing and...
THE MANAGEMENT of localized prostate cancer remains controversial. Although the widespread use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing has resulted in a dramatic increase in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer, many men do not benefit from intervention because the disease is either...
DARATUMUMAB APPEARS to be the “gift that keeps on giving” to the myeloma community. “It seems we can add daratumumab to almost anything and make the regimen better. It’s got good activity and a good safety profile,” said Kenneth Shain, MD, PhD, Director of the Myeloma Working Group at Moffitt...
A NEW ASCO guideline, “Management of the Neck in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oral Cavity and Oropharynx: ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline,” aims to clarify issues in lymph node management.1 “This guideline represents a true multidisciplinary synthesis of some important new information about...
CITY OF HOPE announced recently that it received its third lymphoma Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The grant covers a 5-year period and totals $12.5 million. SPORE grants involve both basic as well as clinical and applied...
PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan is active in patients previously treated with chemotherapy or checkpoint inhibitor therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer. These results from a phase I/II basket study of this agent were presented at the 2019...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Radhakrishnan et al found that the level of involvement of medical oncologists and primary care physicians during initial cancer care in women with early-stage breast cancer affected patients’ preference for provider roles after initial ...
Melinda L. Telli, MD, of the Stanford Cancer Institute, discusses the various systemic therapies for patients with early-stage hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative disease.
Frederick L. Locke, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, discusses recent approvals of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies in leukemia and lymphoma, and how clinicians are using infrastructure, navigation, and early referrals to maximize response and minimize...
In a Danish study reported in JAMA Surgery, Jørgensen et al found that the nationwide introduction of minimally invasive robotic surgery for early-stage endometrial cancer was associated with a reduction in the incidence of severe complications. The nationwide prospective cohort study...
Susan Y. Wu, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, discusses how patient exposure to treatment guidelines improved smoking cessation counseling and the use of molecular testing, and decreased the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with early-stage disease (Abstract 5).
Ruqin Chen, MB, of the Mayo Clinic Florida, discusses early study findings that show molecular profiling with NF1, CD79a, and AKT3 could potentially improve prediction of progression-free survival in patients with lung cancer who are receiving immunotherapy.
In a French phase III trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Stéphane Oudard, MD, PhD, of Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, and colleagues found that the addition of docetaxel to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) did not improve prostate-specific antigen (PSA) progression-free survival in men with...
As reported by Bertrand Tombal, MD, of the Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc, Université Catholique de Louvain, and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology, treatment with enzalutamide was associated with clinically meaningful delays in pain progression, symptom worsening, and deterioration in...