On May 5, 2021, pembrolizumab was granted accelerated approval for use in combination with trastuzumab and fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal...
“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.” —Khalil Gibran The Combined Annual Meetings of the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT) and the Center for International Blood & Marrow Transplant Research (CIBMTR) were held virtually...
On July 9, 2021, enfortumab vedotin-ejfv, an antibody-drug conjugate targeting nectin-4, was granted regular approval. The agent is indicated for the treatment of adults with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who have received a PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor and platinum chemotherapy or...
Patients coping with lung cancer treated at one hospital in Mexico reported high levels of anxiety and saw their treatment delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study presented by Oscar Arrieta, MD, at the 2021 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World...
Five European countries rank highest for lung cancer risk attributable to air pollution among those aged 50 to 69 years, according to research presented by Berg et al in the Presidential Symposium Plenary Session at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2021 World...
In a letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine, Keehner et al describe a marked resurgence of COVID-19 infections among fully vaccinated members of the University of California San Diego Health (UCSDH) workforce in July 2021. The resurgence appears to be driven by the confluence...
In a Canadian single-institution phase II study (ERASE) reported in JAMA Oncology, Kang et al found that increased exercise in the form of high-intensity interval training was associated with increased cardiorespiratory fitness and reductions in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, PSA velocity,...
I read with great interest the results from the phase II ZUMA-12 study of axicabtagene ciloleucel, presented during the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 But the results raised several questions for me. Axicabtagene ciloleucel, an autologous anti-CD19...
A genomic analysis of lung cancer in people with no history of smoking has found that a majority of these tumors arise from the accumulation of mutations caused by natural processes in the body. This study was conducted by an international team led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute...
A retrospective analysis of large data sets of biomarkers from tumors and healthy tissue by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Convergence Institute suggests that older patients with cancer may benefit as much from cancer immunotherapies as younger patients. The findings,...
In a population-based age-period-cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Zhang et al estimated that current human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates will have a limited impact on overall oropharyngeal cancer incidence through 2045, due to a high risk of oropharyngeal cancer in unvaccinated...
In a study of Quest Diagnostics data reported as a research letter in JAMA Network Open, Kaufman et al found significant decreases in monthly new cancer diagnoses during the first full year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with the prepandemic period. As stated by the investigators, “We previously ...
Four independent studies published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology demonstrate that rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T), a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate directed against delta-like protein 3 (DLL3), is not effective against small cell lung cancer (SCLC). An accompanying editorial by...
In a single-center study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Jiang et al found an overall high level of satisfaction with teleoncology care during the COVID-19 pandemic among veterans with cancer in the United States, although a preference for in-person visits was commonly expressed. Teleoncology...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Robert H.I. Andtbacka, MD, and colleagues found that intratumoral injection of the oncolytic RNA virus Coxsackievirus A21 (V937) was well tolerated and produced responses in some patients with unresectable stage III or stage IV...
In a Canadian population-based cohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Abdel-Qadir et al found that ibrutinib treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is associated with increased risks of atrial fibrillation, bleeding, and heart failure, but not ischemic stroke or acute...
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the tragedy of patients dying in isolation, separated from family and friends to limit infection in hospital settings. The process has altered the experience of serious illness for patients and their loved ones, including their ability to grieve, share important...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tracy L. Rose, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that neoadjuvant therapy with pembrolizumab, gemcitabine, and primarily split-dose cisplatin resulted in pathologic downstaging (< pT2N0) in more than half of patients undergoing...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Mangum et al found that focal deletions in chromosome 22q11.22 were associated with poor outcomes in pediatric patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) with IKZF1 alterations. As stated by the investigators, “Alterations in the IKZF1 gene drive...
In the Chinese phase II MIRACLE trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Fan et al found that the addition of everolimus to letrozole significantly improved progression-free survival among premenopausal women with advanced hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer whose disease had...
Chloe Atreya, MD, PhD, was born and reared in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her mother is a poet, and her father is a planetary physicist and a professor at the University of Michigan. “Some of my early memories that influenced my decision to go into medicine stem from conversations I had with my father...
In the phase II PEMDAC study, researchers showed that the combination of the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab and the histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor entinostat resulted in durable responses in a small group of patients with metastatic uveal melanoma. These findings were published by Ny et al in...
In a Global Registry of COVID-19 in Childhood Cancer cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Mukkada et al found that approximately one-fifth of children with cancer infected with COVID-19 worldwide had severe illness, with an associated mortality rate exceeding that reported in the general...
On August 31, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revised the label for the anti–PD-1 therapy pembrolizumab for its indication in first-line advanced urothelial carcinoma. The FDA converted the indication from an accelerated approval to a full approval. In addition, as part of the label...
Infants whose mothers were obese during pregnancy may have a heightened risk of developing colorectal cancer later in life, according to new research published by Murphy et al in the journal Gut. Obesity is already a well-established risk factor for colorectal cancer, and several studies suggest...
In a phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Sumanta K. Pal, MD, FASCO, and colleagues found that the addition of the ATR inhibitor berzosertib to cisplatin/gemcitabine provided no benefit in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma. The triplet did not prolong progression-free survival, and ...
In the phase II GROINSS-V II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oonk et al found that inguinofemoral radiotherapy is a safe alternative to inguinofemoral lymphadenectomy in women with early-stage vulvar cancer and sentinel node micrometastasis but was associated with a higher...
As reported in The Lancet by Sun et al, the phase III KEYNOTE-590 trial showed that the addition of first-line pembrolizumab to chemotherapy resulted in improved overall and progression-free survival in patients with advanced esophageal and Siewert type 1 gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancers....
A recent study published by Ronden et al in JTO Clinical and Research Reports highlights the gap between treatment guidelines and real-world care with the monoclonal antibody durvalumab for patients with non–small cell lung cancer. Researchers studied treatment decision-making by three Dutch...
Patients with lymphoma or other lymphoid cancers should continue to take steps to protect themselves from COVID-19 even if they have been vaccinated against the disease, a new study by Jennifer Crombie, MD, and colleagues published in Blood Advances suggests. The study found that patients who had...
In an interim analysis of the Italian phase III SAFE trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Livi et al found that a cardioprotective strategy using ramipril and/or bisoprolol reduced the risk of myocardial dysfunction in women with nonmetastatic breast cancer receiving anthracycline-based chemotherapy....
Advances in molecular imaging are having a big impact on prostate cancer management and outcomes, according to Ashesh B. Jani, MD, the James C. Kennedy Professor in Prostate Cancer, Department of Radiation Oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta. Dr. Jani described his ...
Today, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) announced significant updates to the NCCN: Cancer and COVID-19 Vaccination guidance. This is the fourth version of NCCN’s COVID-19 vaccination guide and incorporates the latest data plus recent approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug...
In a letter to the editor published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bagchi et al describe the course of treatment in a 3-year-old child with an intracranial tumor and his response to therapy with the kinase inhibitor lorlatinib. Key Points Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the head in a...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Aziz Nazha, MD, and colleagues have developed a model for predicting the risk of disease progression for individual patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). To develop the prediction model for overall survival and leukemic transformation,...
Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, announced that it has made the decision to voluntarily withdraw the U.S. accelerated approval for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in combination with nab-paclitaxel for the treatment of adults with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast...
The measurement of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is changing the way gastrointestinal cancers are managed, according to Bassel F. El-Rayes, MD, Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Research in the Department of Hematology and Oncology, Emory University, and Associate Cancer Center Director,...
Communication between patients and their primary care providers is key to ensuring effective cancer care, both before diagnosis and after treatment, according to two recent papers authored by University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center researchers. Although each study analyzed different stages of...
In a Swedish prostate cancer screening trial (STHLM3-MRI) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Nordström et al found that use of the Stockholm3 screening test together with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-guided biopsy reduced overdetection of disease while preserving the ability to detect clinically...
In a phase I/II trial (HOVON124/ECWM-R2) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kersten et al found that the combination of oral ixazomib with subcutaneous rituximab and dexamethasone showed efficacy in patients with relapsed or refractory Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia, with a manageable...
In a Canadian study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cullinan et al found that the McGill Interactive Pediatric OncoGenetic Guidelines (MIPOGG) tool provided predictive value for risk of subsequent malignant neoplasms in childhood cancer survivors beyond risk associated with treatment...
Cancer is a leading cause of mortality in patients with mental illnesses. Although individuals with mental illnesses are equally as vulnerable to cancer as the general population, they are at a much higher risk of cancer-related mortality. Owing to a lack of early screening in most cases, such...
Commonly used blood pressure drugs may improve survival for patients with colorectal cancer, a recent study published by Balkrishnan et al in Cancer Medicine suggests. After reviewing outcomes of almost 14,000 patients with colorectal cancer, researchers determined that angiotensin-converting...
In an analysis of long-term outcomes from the phase III NRG/RTOG 9804 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Beryl McCormick, MD, and colleagues found that whole-breast irradiation vs observation was associated with reduced risk of all and invasive ipsilateral breast recurrence at 15...
When added to regular screening and guidelines, evidence-based interventions implemented at the patient, health professional, and service levels did not significantly improve cancer pain, according to research led by Melanie Lovell, MBBS, PhD, Medical Head of Palliative Care at HammondCare and...
A new joint ASCO guideline offers clinicians updated evidence-based recommendations for the prevention and treatment of salivary gland hypofunction and xerostomia caused by nonsurgical cancer therapies.1 The guidance was developed together by ASCO and the Multinational Association of Supportive...
With COVID-19 case counts rising amid the spread of the Delta variant, ASCO has joined more than 50 health-care professional societies and organizations that represent millions of workers throughout health and long-term care in calling for all health-care employers to require their employees to be...
Talk to anyone who knew Leland Chung, PhD, and you’ll hear the same descriptions of the famed scientist: warm, humble, gracious, brilliant, innovative. Dr. Chung, who served as Director of the Urologic Oncology Research Program at Cedars-Sinai Cancer in Los Angeles for 12 years and was Professor in ...
Even before my breast cancer diagnosis in early 2002, the year was shaping up to be life-altering for me and my family. We had moved from Seattle to Houston for a new career opportunity for my husband and were just settling into our new home when I felt a pea-sized nodule in my left breast during a ...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with Pamela Kunz, MD, Director, Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Kunz is an international leader in the clinical care of patients with neuroendocrine...