As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Bumma et al, the phase II portion of a first-in-human phase I/II trial (LINKER-MM1) showed strong activity with the B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) x CD3 bispecific antibody linvoseltamab in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma....
The Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has serious concerns about the impact of the Supreme Court’s rulings in Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v Department of Commerce on cancer care. These decisions overturned the “Chevron deference” or “Chevron doctrine,” a legal...
ASCO will recognize Ethan Basch, MD, MSc, FASCO, a medical oncologist and Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina, with the Joseph Simone Quality Care Award and Lecture at the 2024 ASCO Quality Care Symposium. This year’s meeting will be held in San Francisco and online on...
Recent phase III findings support the antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin-blmf as a treatment option for patients with multiple myeloma in early relapse. Belantamab mafodotin is an antibody-drug conjugate targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) expressed on multiple myeloma cells,...
Early palliative care can be integrated into the course of treatment for patients with advanced lung cancer via delivery by telehealth with outcomes similar to when palliative care is delivered via in-person visits, according to results of the REACH PC trial presented by Joseph Greer, PhD, of...
As reported at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract 9500) and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the final, 8-year follow-up analysis of the phase III COMBI-AD trial has shown continued improvements in relapse-free and distant metastasis–free...
On June 18, the first patient was randomized into the PRISM-MEL-301 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT06112314), which is assessing the efficacy and safety of brenetafusp (also known as IMC-F106C; PRAME-A02) in combination with nivolumab in the first-line setting of advanced or metastatic...
Suppression of the estrogen receptor has proven to be an effective treatment for hormone receptor–positive breast cancer, but standard endocrine therapies have liabilities that are not limited to their pharmacokinetics or toxicity profiles, which allow for ligand-independent estrogen receptor...
Craig Jordan, CMG, OBE, PhD, DSc, FMedSci, a pioneering scientist whose innovative work in breast cancer research has saved countless lives and will continue to impact the field for generations to come, died on June 9, according to a news release from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...
An ASCO guideline update offers new recommendations on systemic treatment for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), based on promising findings from several recent randomized controlled trials as well as the approval of new first- and second-line immunotherapy combinations.1 “This guideline...
The highly anticipated ENGOT-en9/LEAP-001 trial in endometrial cancer has missed both its primary endpoints. At the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2024 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer, the study investigators reported no significant benefit in progression-free survival or overall survival...
Georgina V. Long, MD, PhD, of the Melanoma Institute Australia and The University of Sydney, discusses final results with up to 10 years’ follow-up data of the COMBI-AD study of patients with stage III BRAF-mutated melanoma who received adjuvant dabrafenib plus trametinib (Abstract 9500).
On behalf of 2024 International Development and Education Award (IDEA) awardees, we received the decision of our acceptance in this outstanding training program offering mentorship and educational opportunities for early-career oncologists and cancer researchers with great interest. This will...
New research findings have highlighted the importance of personalized treatment approaches with the monoclonal antibody durvalumab based on mismatch repair (MMR) status in newly diagnosed patients with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer, according to data presented during the Society of...
Saruparib, a first-in-class PARP1-selective inhibitor, was reported to have favorable safety and anticancer activity in heavily pretreated patients with breast cancer harboring homologous recombination–repair (HRR) mutations, according to the results of the phase I/II PETRA study presented at the...
In a single-center phase II trial reported in JAMA Network Open, Schaverien et al found that a strategy of premastectomy radiotherapy and immediate breast reconstruction was feasible in patients undergoing surgery for breast cancer. Study Details A total of 49 patients with cT0–T3, N0–N3b breast...
The recent approval of mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx is a testament to the emerging benefit of antibody-drug conjugates in recurrent ovarian cancer. Other agents of this class are now eliciting excitement as they demonstrate high response rates in a population with unmet clinical needs, according...
Although so-called liquid biopsies are now helping to determine the need for adjuvant therapy for a number of malignancies, oropharyngeal carcinoma is not yet one of them, according to a prospective pilot study from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The investigators evaluated the use of...
Although KRAS was once considered an untargetable mutation, KRAS inhibitors are now approved for the treatment of KRAS-mutated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and are emerging as a potential option for the treatment of KRAS G12C–mutated colorectal cancer in combination with other therapies....
There is much debate about the necessity of treating women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) with surgery or radiotherapy.1,2 It is disconcerting to many that patients with DCIS are treated in the same way as are women with early-stage invasive breast cancer. Many patients with DCIS have...
“The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade….” —Sir William Osler Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) accounts for approximately 5% to 7% of all lymphomas; the median age of patients with MCL is between 60 and 70 years. This lymphoma is generally considered incurable. Median survival in retrospective...
Adding the multikinase inhibitor lenvatinib to the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab as initial therapy for recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma improved response rates and progression-free survival but did not lead to an overall survival advantage over pembrolizumab...
Investigators used low recurrence scores on a genomic assay as guidance for selection of favorable-risk patients, and they found most postmenopausal patients (aged 50–69) with stage I hormone receptor–positive breast cancer who omitted adjuvant radiation therapy but continued endocrine therapy for...
Investigators used low recurrence scores on a genomic assay as guidance for selection of favorable-risk patients, and they found most postmenopausal patients (aged 50–69) with stage I hormone receptor–positive breast cancer who omitted adjuvant radiation therapy but continued endocrine therapy for...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will award Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, Fellow of the AACR Academy, with the 2024 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research during the AACR Annual Meeting, to be held April 5–10 in San Diego. His award lecture will be presented on...
Harry P. Erba, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Leukemia Program in the Division of Hematologic Malignancies and Cellular Therapy at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, North Carolina, told The ASCO Post he was not surprised by one of the key findings reported by Smith et ...
A novel blood test may accurately detect neuroendocrine prostate cancer and differentiate it from castration-resistant prostate adenocarcinoma, according to a recent study published by Franceschini et al in Cancer Discovery. Background Approximately 10% to 15% of patients with metastatic prostate...
A rare subset of T cells called V-delta 1 gamma-delta (Vd1-gd) T cells could help predict which patients with advanced skin cancer may be responsive to immunotherapy, according to a novel study published by Davies et al in Nature Cancer. The new findings may lead to the development of new and more...
Among patients newly diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who were treated with two targeted agents and whose duration of treatment was determined by high-sensitivity testing for residual cancer cells in the blood, 97.2% were free of cancer progression and 2% had died at 3 years. By...
Investigators have found that in the past decade, a majority of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) active R01 grants related to classical, nonmalignant hematology were led by male investigators, according to new findings presented by Khan et al at the 2023 American Society of Hematology...
Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a heterogeneous group of clonal hematopoietic stem cell disorders that are characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis, resulting in cytopenias, and they carry a risk of progression to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In 2022, the fifth edition of the World Health ...
Greater understanding of biological disease factors in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) has led to more effective and personalized treatment options. At the 2023 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Congress: Hematologic Malignancies,1 Rebecca Olin, MD, MSCE, of UCSF Helen Diller Family...
Real-world outcomes often fall short of those achieved in clinical trials, but this is apparently not so for patients receiving chemoradiotherapy plus consolidation with durvalumab in unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The robust results achieved in the phase III PACIFIC...
In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the Association for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) joined with 25 stakeholders for a series of advocacy activities in Washington, DC, during the week of September 18. During meetings with lawmakers on September 20, ASCO and the Alliance for Childhood Cancer...
In December 2023, the British Pharmacological Society will present the Sir Henry Wellcome Gold Medal to Prof. V. Craig Jordan, CMG, OBE, DSc, PhD, FMedSci, FBPhS. This is the highest award for lifetime contributions to pharmacology by the British Pharmacological Society of Great Britain. Dr. Jordan ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by John V. Heymach, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the phase III AEGEAN trial has shown that perioperative durvalumab improved event-free survival and pathologic complete response (pCR) rate in patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer ...
More attention is being paid to the topic of cardio-oncology, where the focus is on patients with cancer who may be at risk for developing cardiovascular diseases as a result of anticancer treatments. However, a less well-known but related clinical area is now garnering some interest. Referred to...
Gender diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in medicine has long been acknowledged as more than “the right thing to do,” with clear evidence of benefits in innovation, collaboration, and workplace culture.1 Yet the data continue to showcase challenges in achieving these goals despite women...
In an analysis of data from two clinical trials and a soft-tissue sarcoma registry reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Koscielniak et al identified which patients aged ≤ 21 years with localized rhabdomyosarcoma appeared to derive benefit from radiation therapy. Study Details The study...
The past year has been an exciting time for breast oncologists and patients with all stages of breast cancer, with new agents approved and long-term results from pivotal trials showing improved survival for patients with metastatic disease. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights in early-stage ...
Elacestrant—an investigational oral selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD)—achieved longer progression-free survival vs standard-of-care endocrine monotherapy as second- or third-line therapy in patients with estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer in the ...
A guideline update on systemic treatment for melanoma offers new guidance in several areas, including the selection of front-line therapy for patients with metastatic disease with and without BRAF mutations, treatment of patients with earlier-stage disease in the adjuvant setting, and emerging...
Friends of Cancer Research recently announced its 2023 Cancer Leadership Awards honorees: Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Robert Califf, MD, and Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI). Dr. Califf, recognized for his work in the field of cardiology and the broader medical ...
The management of sarcoma presents several challenges because of its rarity and diverse subtypes, making accurate diagnosis and specialized treatment crucial. A multidisciplinary approach involving various experts from different cancer specialties is the optimal strategy to improve survival and...
In a phase II trial (KEYNOTE-B61) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Laurence Albiges, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, Paris–Saclay University, Villejuif, France, and colleagues found that first-line pembrolizumab plus lenvatinib produced durable responses in patients with advanced non–clear cell renal...
Novel treatments beyond the current chemoimmunotherapies are offering more treatment options in small cell lung cancer (SCLC), though real breakthroughs remain elusive, according to Ticiana Leal, MD, Associate Professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Emory University School...
The 3-year follow-up of the phase III CheckMate 9ER trial demonstrates superior outcomes with the combination of nivolumab plus cabozantinib vs the former standard-of-care sunitinib as first-line treatment of advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma.1 These benefits were achieved with the...
It is an exciting time in the development of new treatments for urologic cancers. There have been a number of major changes both in advanced disease and in the perioperative setting over the past year. Urothelial and Bladder Cancers In urothelial cancer, at last, we have randomized data supporting...
Researchers have identified a novel parameter of T cells that may help oncologists anticipate which patients are most likely to develop immunotherapy toxicity. The findings, published by Ostmeyer in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, could lead to improved treatments for a variety of ...
The probability of obtaining a HER2-low test result increases with the number of biopsies performed, according to a study of more than 500 biopsy samples in patients with triple-negative breast cancer. For patients originally labeled as having no HER2 expression (HER2 0), each successive biopsy...