According to the World Health Organization, approximately 70% of cervical cancers worldwide are caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18. In 2006, the HPV vaccine was introduced in the United States to prevent HPV-associated morbidity and mortality. A study analyzing data on the...
INVESTIGATORS FROM Australia have identified a genetic mutation that causes resistance to the targeted drug venetoclax in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to research presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition1 and...
IN A PHASE III TRIAL reported during the Plenary Session at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, single-agent ibrutinib and ibrutinib/rituximab were associated with superior progression-free survival vs...
SOME PATIENTS with advanced head and neck cancer may achieve durable responses with immunotherapy, and recent trial results suggest first-line immunotherapy may increase survival among patients with recurrent or metastatic disease. However, concerns remain about selecting patients most likely to...
AXICABTAGENE CILOLEUCEL (also known as CAR19) is an anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat selected hematologic malignancies.1 To appreciate the clinical trial findings summarized here, from selected abstracts presented at the ...
CARLOS L. ARTEAGA, MD, Director of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology Programs at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, expressed some caution about the overall applicability of the findings of the PADDY trial. Primarily, he...
IN THE PADDY TRIAL, involving more than 10,000 women with early invasive breast cancer, the presence of disseminated tumor cells at diagnosis or primary surgery was an independent prognostic factor for overall, disease-free, and distant disease–free survival. The study findings were presented at...
REPORTERS FOR The ASCO Post captured the following summaries of noteworthy studies presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. In HER2-Negative Metastatic Disease, CTCs Frequently HER2-Positive ALMOST HALF of all patients with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer have circulating...
THERE IS little doubt that the U.S. health-care system is under assault from many directions.1 It is clear that the costs of health management are no longer sustainable, and the United States has one of the highest per capita health costs among the 36 member nations of the Organisation for...
SEVERAL STUDIES presented 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...
Initial findings from a first-in-human trial have provided proof of principle for a groundbreaking approach to gene therapy for sickle cell disease, according to data presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 Early results of genetic targeting of...
The results of a recent pilot study suggest that low-dose rituximab provides similar efficacy to standard-dose rituximab for the treatment of acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a finding that could point to potential cost savings for patients in the nonlymphoma setting. According...
In interviews with The ASCO Post, Kenneth Shain, MD, PhD, Director of the Myeloma Working Group at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, and Vincent Rajkumar, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, commented on the findings of the MAIA trial. “The study shows that...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Stephanie B. Wheeler, MPH, PhD, of the Department of Health Policy and Management, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and colleagues found that black women reported nonadherence to endocrine therapy for breast cancer more ...
Northwestern Medicine has received a $10 million gift to fund the creation of a new multidisciplinary institute dedicated to urologic cancers. The Polsky Urologic Cancer Institute of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Polsky ...
Women diagnosed with breast cancer at age 50 or younger had twice the risk of developing either osteoporosis or osteopenia after adjuvant treatment than did women of the same age who did not have cancer, according to a study led by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,...
Younger women who have been treated for breast cancer have a higher risk for osteopenia and osteoporosis than do their cancer-free peers, and that risk seems to rise when treatment involves chemotherapy plus hormone therapy or aromatase inhibitors alone. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. In this installment of the Living a Full Life series of articles, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, interviewed Norman E. ...
Annual screening for women aged 35–39 who have a family history of breast cancer may be highly effective in detecting tumors earlier, according to findings published by Evans et al in The Lancet’s online journal EClinicalMedicine. The FH02 trial found that annual mammograms for...
In a patient-level meta-analysis reported in The Lancet, the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG) found that an increased dose intensity of adjuvant taxane and anthracycline chemotherapy in early breast cancer was associated with a decreased risk of recurrence and death ...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wen et al found minimal activity of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor buparlisib in patients with recurrent glioblastoma with PI3K pathway activation. The study included 2 cohorts. In cohort 1, 14 evaluable patients ...
Some patients with metastatic prostate cancer respond to a combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors after treatment with hormonal therapy and chemotherapy has not been successful in treating their disease, according to early results from the phase II CheckMate 650...
The idea of team-based cancer care most often focuses on involving primary care physicians in the care of cancer survivors, but research has shown patients are also discussing initial cancer treatment options with their primary care doctors. Now, a new study by Wallner et al in Cancer has...
In the phase II TBCRC026 study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Connolly et al found that early changes in tumor maximum standardized uptake values corrected for lean body mass (SULmax) on [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) were...
Results from a study published by Cykert et al in Cancer Medicine showed that a pragmatic system-based intervention within cancer treatment centers may eliminate existing disparities in treatment and outcomes for black patients with early-stage lung cancer. “These results show ...
In a study reported by Arrillaga-Romany et al in the Journal of Oncology Practice, a team at Massachusetts General Hospital found that implementation of a hospital pathway consisting of a dedicated admission protocol for patients with newly identified single brain masses and no history of cancer...
In the phase III Lumiere trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, O’Connor et al found that the Aurora A kinase inhibitor alisertib did not improve outcomes vs investigator’s choice of single-agent treatment in relapsed or refractory peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL). Study...
The latest U.S. estimates indicate that since 1989, hundreds of thousands of women's lives have been saved by mammography and improvements in breast cancer treatment. In a study published by Hendrick et al in Cancer, findings point to progress made in the early detection and management of...
A single-arm, phase II trial in men with prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-positive, metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer that progressed despite standard therapies found that a majority of men treated with a novel, targeted radiation therapy called lutetium-177 PSMA-617...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Stephanie Tuminello, MPH, and colleagues found that video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) was less likely than open resection to be associated with long-term opioid use in patients undergoing surgery for early-stage lung cancer....
Neoadjuvant combination checkpoint blockade showed activity among patients with high-risk stage III melanoma in a small study. However, a high incidence of side effects caused the trial to be closed early. These results were published by Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, Assistant Professor of Melanoma...
Five years ago, I was living my dream life. I was under contract as a commentator on Fox News, which necessitated commuting weekly from my home in Los Angeles to New York, and was building a new home in Palm Springs with my partner, Matt Lashey. Not only was my career and personal life going well,...
Discussions of benefits and harms from screening of high-risk populations for lung cancer have missed the point. The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed an early and statistically significant major benefit in all-cause mortality from computed tomography (CT) screening.1 Those referred for...
AS PART of The ASCO Post’s continued coverage of the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here is an update on seven different studies on new therapeutics in myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). Among the treatments highlighted here are the erythroid maturation...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted the following designations and applications and also issued a statement: Priority Review for Pexidartinib in Tenosynovial Giant Cell Tumor The FDA has accepted a new drug application (NDA) and granted Priority Review for pexidartinib...
Although colorectal cancer rates in older adults have been decreasing in the United States since the mid-1980s, incidence rates for the cancer have been increasing among young and middle-aged adults, according to a study by the American Cancer Society (ACS). Based on the new data, in 2018, the ACS...
Leading health-care companies and organizations representing patients, providers, academic medical centers, laboratories, and diagnostic manufacturers urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to revise its interpretation of the National Coverage Determination (NCD) for...
In a Dutch-Belgian study (CYPTAM) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sanchez-Spitman et al found no associations between CYP2D6 genotypes or levels of endoxifen (active metabolite of tamoxifen) and clinical outcomes in patients receiving adjuvant tamoxifen for early-stage breast cancer....
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Ganju et al found that implementation of a cancer care network–wide peer review process aimed at standardizing treatment resulted in increasing use of hypofractionated radiotherapy in early-stage breast cancer at community-based...
In a Singaporean study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lai et al found that tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment outcome did not differ according to mesenchymal epithelial transition factor (MET)-high vs MET-low status in treatment-naive, EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer...
A new study has found rates are increasing for 6 of 12 cancers related to obesity in younger adults in the United States, with steeper increases in progressively younger ages and successively younger generations. The study, published by Sung et al in The Lancet Public Health, also looked at rates...
ASCO recently published standards on the safe handling of hazardous drugs in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 ASCO’s standards largely endorse best practices issued by other stakeholder groups for safely handling hazardous drugs but offer alternatives in several key areas where more research is...
The benefit of adding venetoclax to a hypomethylating agent or low-dose cytarabine in the front-line treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was evident from a number of studies reported at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (see Table 1). For elderly...
The burgeoning pipeline of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) in multiple myeloma was on full display at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. A bispecific antibody also made its debut in this busy...
Partial-breast irradiation delivered over 5 to 10 days did not meet noninferiority criteria compared with whole-breast irradiation given over 5 to 7 weeks, according to 10-year results of the large NRG (NSABP B-39/RTOG 0413) trial presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 However, ...
Pancreaticoduodenectomy, or the Whipple procedure, is one of the most complex abdominal surgeries, and is commonly prescribed as a first line of therapy for cancer located within the pancreatic head. Investigators reported that following a 5-day accelerated recovery pathway after surgery helped to...
Each year, The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, to offer his picks for the most important research presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer ...
World Cancer Day 2019—February 4—highlights the need for urgent action to increase early-stage cancer detection, screening, and diagnosis to significantly improve patients’ chances of survival. Taking place with the theme of “I Am and I Will,” World Cancer...
As reported by Solomon et al in The Lancet Oncology1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, results from a global phase II study of the third-generation ALK inhibitor lorlatinib showed a high overall response rate and high intracranial response rate for patients with advanced ALK-positive...
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),...