In a typical year, the new participants in ASCO and Conquer Cancer’s International Development and Education Awards (IDEA) and International Development and Education Awards–Palliative Care (IDEA-PC) program would arrive at the McCormick Place Convention Center just ahead of the ASCO Annual...
It is incredible to reflect upon the scientific advances in the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer over the past 23 years. Once considered the worst subtype of breast cancer, HER2-positive disease is now associated with the best long-term outcomes in this age of targeted treatments. With a...
Taofeek K. Owonikoko, MD, PhD, will join the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UMPC) Hillman Cancer Center and Department of Medicine as Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology. A physician-scientist board-certified in medical oncology, hematology, and internal medicine, Dr. Owonikoko...
The Robert Larner, MD, College of Medicine at The University of Vermont (UVM), in collaboration with the UVM Health Network and the UVM Medical Center, has announced that Randall F. Holcombe, MD, MBA, has been appointed Director of the UVM Cancer Center and Chief of the Division of Hematology and...
The expected surge of patients, some with advanced cancers, wanting and needing oncology care as the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs, underscores the need for more oncologists, according to Barbara L. McAneny, MD, MACP, FASCO, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer, New Mexico Oncology Hematology...
Late this past year, a group of oncologists led by Philippe E. Spiess, MD, MS, FRCS(C), FACS, Assistant Chief of Surgical Services and Senior Member in the Department of Genitourinary Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center and Professor in the Department of Urology at the University of South Florida;...
Pent up demand for cancer screenings, diagnostic workups, and treatments delayed or curtailed since the start of the pandemic is expected to result in a surge of patients—some with more advanced disease as a result of delays—seeking appointments with oncologists. “We are starting to see the...
Formal discussant of CheckMate 915, Alexander Eggermont, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer at the Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology, Utrecht, Netherlands, suggested that the lower doses of ipilimumab used in the current study may explain the lack of effect on relapse-free survival. The...
Kieron Dunleavy, MD, was appointed Director of Hematology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University, in Washington, DC. He is now also Chief of the Lymphoma Program at Georgetown University. Dr. Dunleavy joined Lombardi/Georgetown earlier this year. He is former Professor...
Living with a genetic disorder that calls for regular monitoring, appropriate treatment, and emotional support calls for a multidisciplinary team that works together to coordinate patient care. Those diagnosed with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease have a resource for complete and coordinated care in ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) welcomed David A. Tuveson, MD, PhD, FAACR, as President of the organization for 2021–2022. He was inaugurated during the AACR Annual Business Meeting, held virtually on April 12. Dr. Tuveson is Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this article, Nirupa Raghunathan, MD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus on the increasing use...
“With current therapies, the median survival for people with follicular lymphoma [FL] is about 20 years. Most people with FL will live as long as the general population, as it is a disease of morbidity more than mortality. That said, there is still room for improvement,” said formal CHRONOS-3...
The combination of the PI3K inhibitor copanlisib plus the monoclonal antibody rituximab reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 48% compared with placebo plus rituximab in patients with relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), according to the results of the phase III CHRONOS-3...
City of Hope has announced the renaming of its diabetes research center as the Arthur Riggs Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute, in honor of its long-time director and research pioneer. Arthur Riggs, PhD, is known for scientific achievements that include developing the technology leading...
Dana-Farber Cancer Instituterecently announced a major expansion with the opening of a hospital facility in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, to provide increased cancer care and outpatient services for adult patients in the region. The new 140,000–square foot, state-of-art outpatient facility is...
By way of her family lineage, Aparna Parikh, MD, seemed destined for a career in medicine. “Both of my parents are physicians, as well as my maternal grandfather. I have two other siblings, all of whom are in the medical field. Medicine has always been part of my life since childhood. My parents...
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital are using a type of machine learning to put a new twist on an established technique. The researchers created MethylationToActivity (M2A), a framework for using DNA methylation data to reveal promoter activity and gene expression. The results were...
A team of researchers from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has been awarded two research grants totaling $6 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify new ways to treat pancreatic cancer. “Pancreatic cancer is one of the ...
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey has appointed Michael E. Salacz, MD, as Director of its Neuro-Oncology Program. The Associate Professor of Medicine at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School joins Rutgers Cancer Institute from the University of Kansas Medical Center, where he served as...
In patients with BRCA-mutated, advanced, relapsed ovarian cancer, treatment with the PARP (poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase) inhibitor rucaparib led to a significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with standard-of-care chemotherapy, according to results of the international phase III ...
Although head and neck cancers include multiple histologies and primary sites, squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) originating in the oropharynx, oral cavity, larynx, or hypopharynx are the most common. Today, we recognize several different types of head and neck diseases, primarily those that are human ...
Cardio-oncology represents the intersection of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Cancer therapies can result in cardiovascular complications, and some patients become less attentive to their chronic disease management after a diagnosis of cancer. As cancer patients are living longer, for some,...
In a study reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Emily S. Lau, MD, of the Cardiology Division, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues found that the presence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors was significantly associated with an increased risk of future...
In 2020, the 8th Annual Beirut Breast Cancer Conference (BBCC) was our last in-person meeting. The first cases of COVID-19 started in Lebanon around the end of February 2020, and the pandemic continues into its second year, with waves of rising cases following superspreader events and other likely...
Yale School of Medicine recently announced a gift to establish the Chênevert Family Brain Tumor Center at Yale Cancer Center. The Center will be a leading institution in worldwide neuro-oncology research, bringing groundbreaking solutions and hope to patients with brain tumors. The gift will...
This week, The ASCO Post sat down with Dr. John Marshall, of the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University, and his wife, Liza Marshall, a former lawyer, active advocate for patients with cancer, and a breast cancer survivor. The Marshalls are the coauthors of a new book entitled Off Our...
Futibatinib—a selective, fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitor—demonstrated anticancer activity in patients with advanced intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements. These findings are based on the primary results of the phase II FOENIX-CCA2 trial, which were...
A study designed to enroll an equal number of Black and White men with advanced prostate cancer confirmed key findings that have been evident in retrospective analyses and suggest potential new avenues for treating Black patients who disproportionately die of the disease. Researchers at Duke Cancer ...
Recent clinical trials have been encouraging for the neoadjuvant or adjuvant use of immune checkpoint inhibitors in triple-negative breast cancer, but is this approach ready for the clinic? This question was addressed at PER’s Miami Breast Cancer Conference, held virtually this year, by Adam M....
“It is possible that within the next several years, perhaps 75% of cancers can be detected by screening,” Bert Vogelstein, MD, PhD, projected at the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) 2021 International Conference on Surgical Cancer Care.1 “I anticipate that perhaps 50% of cancers can be detected...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review designation to treatments for surgically resected, high-risk, muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma and epidermal growth factor receptor exon 20 insertion mutation–positive metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)....
A phase II trial has found found that BK virus (BKV)-specific T cells from healthy donors were safe and effective as an off-the-shelf therapy for BKV-associated hemorrhagic cystitis, a painful complication that is common after allogeneic stem cell transplants for patients with leukemia or lymphoma. ...
This week, we’ll discuss the findings of a trial that examined the efficacy of intensified therapy for patients with newly diagnosed locally advanced rectal cancer. Then, we’ll talk about the FDA’s approval of a new agent for advanced endometrial cancer.
As reported by Martin Reck, MD, PhD, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the 5-year follow-up of the pivotal phase III KEYNOTE-024 trial shows maintained overall survival benefit in patients treated with pembrolizumab vs chemotherapy—despite substantial crossover to the...
Concerns about fertility often influence how young women with breast cancer approach treatment decisions and are a reason for forgoing or delaying hormone-blocking therapy, according to findings from a recent study published by Sella et al in the journal Cancer. The findings reinforce the need for...
Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act was associated with significant increases in breast reconstruction among non-Hispanic Black women, achieving parity at times with non-Hispanic White women, according to a new study presented by Sharon Lum, MD, and colleagues at the American Society...
Survivors of low-risk breast cancer may experience wide-ranging and significant physical and psychological symptoms after cancer treatment, according to a new study presented by Jessica Schumacher, PhD, and colleagues at the American Society of Breast Surgeons (ASBrS) Annual Meeting. Researchers...
The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly altered breast cancer treatment approaches, with a significant rise in neoadjuvant endocrine therapy for estrogen receptor–positive tumors, enabling immediate evidence-based treatment of women with an extremely common form of breast cancer, while delaying surgery and...
Amgen has announced that it agreed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's proposed postmarketing requirement to conduct, as part of the ongoing development program, a multicenter randomized clinical trial to compare the safety and efficacy of sotorasib at 960 mg once daily vs a lower daily...
In an analysis of health-related quality of life and patient-centered outcomes in the phase III SOLO-1 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Friedlander et al found no clinically meaningful difference in health-related quality of life—and improved quality-adjusted progression-free survival and...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Aditya Bardia, MD, of the Division of Medical Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, and colleagues, the phase III ASCENT trial has shown prolonged progression-free and overall survival with the Trop-2–directed antibody-drug...
Using data from the 2010–2018 National Health Interview Surveys, Chen et al found that just 16% of men who were 18 to 21 years old had received at least one dose of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine at any age. In comparison, 42% of women in the same age bracket had gotten at least one shot of ...
Disease regression was observed in 82% of women with endometrial hyperplasia with atypia and 43% of women with endometrial cancer after treatment for 6 months with a hormonal intrauterine device in a phase II study reported during the virtual edition of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO)...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research recently announced five grants to support innovative research focused on understanding the influence of a patient’s biology on the genesis, development, treatment, and survivorship of cancer. Each...
On March 2, 2021, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) issued the following statement: As one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the NIH [National Institutes of Health], the National Cancer Institute stands with [NIH Director] Dr. Francis Collins and the entire NIH in supporting UNITE. “I ...
Autism spectrum disorder refers to a group of conditions characterized by difficulty in navigating normal social situations and having all-absorbing repetitive behaviors or stereotyped interests. At the milder end of the spectrum is Asperger’s syndrome, generally confined to people with higher...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will present Distinguished Public Service Awards to three individuals whose extraordinary work has exemplified the AACR’s mission to prevent and cure all cancers through research, education, communication, collaboration, science policy, advocacy,...
The top two barriers to accessing complementary and integrative therapies, according to a survey of 576 patients with cancer and caregivers, were cost, cited by 56%, and a lack of knowledge about the therapies, cited by 52.1%. “Other barriers included a lack of time (29.2%), location of the...
Located on the northeast coast of Central America, Belize is a small, upper middle–income country bordered by Mexico, Guatemala, and the Caribbean Sea. Belize has a population of about 405,000 people (Table 1), of which about 15% are immigrants. Belize is considered to be one of the most...