On April 23, Epizyme, Inc, announced that U.S.-based enrollment of new patients into tazemetostat clinical trials is temporarily on hold. Following a safety report of a pediatric patient who developed a secondary lymphoma, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a partial clinical hold...
Research from the Yale School of Public Health has found that the majority of published papers analyzing the cost-effectiveness of a widely used test for breast cancer used a study design that can increase bias. These findings were published by Wang et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology....
In a Swedish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jansson et al identified an increased risk of non–low-risk prostate cancer among men with prostate cancer who had with brothers diagnosed with non–low-risk disease. Study Details The study involved 4,262 pairs of...
A simple test of handgrip strength may be a good indicator of short- and long-term survival in patients with stage I non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to new findings presented at the European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology (ESTRO) 37 Conference (Abstract PV0041)....
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Ting Bao, MD, DABMA, MS, reviews the current data on the use of massage to...
A new study published by Banegas et al in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network has found that cancer care costs in the United States are higher for people under age 65—and that costs increase with disease stage. Despite the fact that nearly half of new cancer...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Abutalib and Landgren review the underlying data that shaped the updated International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) diagnostic criteria for...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends several screening tests for colorectal cancer (CRC) in adults aged 50 to 75, including fecal occult blood testing, sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy. According to the American Cancer Society, in 2017, there were an estimated 95,520 cases ...
The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) has released the 2018 Community Oncology Practice Impact Report, which tracks data on the changing landscape of cancer care in the United States. It details a decade-long trend of closure and consolidation in the U.S. cancer system that has resulted in a...
On April 12, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital launched the St. Jude Cloud, an online data-sharing and collaboration platform that provides researchers access to the world's largest public repository of pediatric cancer genomics data. Developed as a partnership among St. Jude,...
People with stage III colon cancer who regularly eat tree nuts are at significantly lower risk of cancer recurrence and mortality than those who don’t, according to findings published by Fadelu et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 Study Findings The study followed 826 participants in the...
On April 17, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved fostamatinib disodium hexahydrate (Tavalisse) for the treatment of thrombocytopenia in adult patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenia who have had an insufficient response to a previous treatment. Fostamatinib is an oral spleen ...
I’ll admit it. When I was first asked if I would chair the Cancer Control for Primary Care (CCPC) Course in Bhutan, I immediately exclaimed yes... and then sheepishly went to look up where exactly Bhutan was on a map. For the uninitiated, Bhutan is a country nestled between India and Tibet in the...
Glioblastoma, a grade 4 astrocytoma, is the most common and most aggressive form of primary brain tumors in adults. The most recent guidance on molecular profiling, diagnostic and prognostic factors, and treatments for newly diagnosed and recurrent diseases was described in the Journal of Oncology ...
For this installment in the Living a Full Life series of articles, Edith Peterson Mitchell, MD, was interviewed by Guest Editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP. Dr. Mitchell is Clinical Professor of Medicine and Medical Oncology in the Division of Medical Oncology at Thomas Jefferson University as well as ...
RESEARCHERS FUNDED by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have completed a detailed genomic analysis, known as the Pan-Cancer Atlas, on a data set of molecular and clinical information from over 10,000 tumors representing 33 types of cancer. The Pan-Cancer Atlas, published as a collection of...
It is a difficult task to include every notable presentation from the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. In addition to our more comprehensive coverage of the news from that meeting over the past several issues, below are summaries of additional key...
At a press conference where the findings by Chlebowski et al were presented, Marisa Weiss, MD, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Breastcancer.org and Director of Radiation Oncology at Lankenau Medical Center in Philadelphia, commended this study. “We could set a goal of losing 5 pounds for our...
In patients with BRCA-positive advanced breast cancer, talazoparib reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 46% vs chemotherapy, according to the phase III EMBRACA trial presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “We are very pleased that the EMBRACA trial—the largest...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Distress Thermometer and Problem List for Patients have been around since 1999,1 and in 2015, the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer mandated routine distress screening at cancer centers.2 So how successful has the cancer community...
Calcium channel blockers (CCBs)—specifically the short-acting form of CCBs, which are prescribed to treat high blood pressure—were associated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer in postmenopausal women, according to a study presented at the American Assocation for Cancer...
Initial findings from the Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas (CCGA) study showed that prototype sequencing assays tested in this analysis may facilitate the development of a highly specific blood test for early cancer detection, according to data presented at the American Association for Cancer...
Christopher J. Recklitis, PhD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, called the results “instructive.” He said the study highlights the need for integrating mental health care into survivorship medical care. “We’re going to have to think about suicide prevention...
FT819—an off-the-shelf, T-cell receptor–less CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product that could potentially be made more accessible to patients with cancer than conventional CAR T-cell therapies—showed positive results in preclinical specificity, functionality, and...
Among patients with inoperable, advanced, or metastatic ALK-positive inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor, 50% were confirmed to have partial or complete tumor shrinkage after treatment with the ALK-targeted anticancer therapeutic agent crizotinib (Xalkori), according to data from the phase II EORTC...
Children with nonchromosomal birth defects—such as congenital heart disease—had a significantly higher risk of developing childhood cancer than children who did not have birth defects, according to a study presented at the 2018 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
In a study among California residents reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Pham et al found that those designated as Asian/Pacific Islanders were at elevated risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) vs other racial/ethnic groups, with the highest risk observed among Southeast...
On April 6, an external data monitoring committee commented on results from the phase III ECHO-301/KEYNOTE-252 trial of the investigational IDO1 inhibitor epacadostat plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma. The committee determined that the study did not...
Investing in the continuity of care for lung cancer patients can bring tremendous benefits in terms of patient satisfaction and quality of life. In Quebec, this investment has taken the form of a dedicated role on the medical team: The Pivot Nurse in Oncology (PNO). A study presented by Kassouf et...
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have completed a detailed genomic analysis, known as the Pan-Cancer Atlas, on a data set of molecular and clinical information from over 10,000 tumors representing 33 types of cancer. “This project is the culmination of more than...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Cercek et al found evidence supporting the use of total neoadjuvant therapy as an effective option in locally advanced rectal cancer. Study Details The study involved data on 811 patients presenting with locally advanced rectal cancer (T3 ...
WHAT IF people with blood cancer—and their doctors—could learn whether a treatment is working in real time? Typically, it takes months to confirm whether cancer treatment is effective. For patients, this means months filled with worry and doubt: Am I getting better? What if the treatment isn’t...
ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2018 International Innovation Grants (IIG) and International Development and Education Awards (IDEA). Both the grant and award support oncology professionals in low-and middle-income countries, investing in either an innovative...
The Sarcoma Foundation of America (SFA) and Conquer Cancer have been working together for 13 years to fund cutting-edge sarcoma research. Most recently, the SFA joined forces with Conquer Cancer to support a 2018 Young Investigator Award (YIA) in sarcoma. This grant will provide 1 year of crucial...
Data presented at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition on the longer-term follow-up analysis of results from the ZUMA-1 trial investigating the effectiveness of axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) in patients with refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) showed...
THE INCIDENCE of cholangiocarcinoma is rising, and effective therapies are urgently needed. Several classes of experimental molecularly targeted agents might meet this challenge, according to Robin Kate Kelley, MD, Associate Professor of Medical Oncology and leader of the clinical trials program in ...
“IN THE PAST, patients were often told to rest and reduce their physical activity during treatment, but we now know that exercise is both safe and beneficial,” said Timothy Gilligan, MD, MSc, moderator of a presscast where these results were presented prior to the Cancer Survivorship Symposium....
WHETHER THEY are parents themselves or dealing with their own parents, patients with cancer often look to their health-care team to help guide these relationships, but data on how best to help are lacking, according to two poster presentations at the 2018 American Psychosocial Oncology Society...
AN OPTICAL CONTRAST agent composed of panitumumab (Vectibix), a humanized anti–epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibody, conjugated to the near-infrared fluorescent dye IRDye800, may aid in the real-time detection and surgical resection of squamous cell carcinoma, according to...
Dr. Collins is Director of the National Institutes of Health. Originally posted on March 19, 2018, to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Blog (https://directorsblog. nih.gov). OVER THE PAST couple of weeks, we’ve lost two legendary scientists who made major contributions to our...
The ASCO Post mourns the loss of ASCO Past President James F. Holland, MD, FASCO, on March 22, 2018. Dr. Holland was the Distinguished Professor of Neoplastic Diseases in the Department of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. His wife of many years, Jimmie C....
Physicians can be proactive in alerting patients to possible adverse effects of immunotherapy and in encouraging patients to report them. “It is important to emphasize that whenever a patient develops a new symptom, always considering that this might be an immune-related side effect. We need to...
“Immunotherapy has a completely different side-effect profile than chemotherapy, and that has caught physicians off guard,” noted Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD, in an article published earlier this year in The Washington Post.1 Since then, efforts have moved forward on several fronts to bring physicians,...
I’m sure every cancer survivor feels this way, but my diagnosis, in 1997, of stage III germ cell testicular cancer couldn’t have come at a worse time in my life. I was nearing the end of a 60-city tour with my figure skating show Stars on Ice, when a nagging pain in my abdomen became so severe I...
On March 23, 2018, ASCO President Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, issued the following statement: The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) applauds Congress for its bipartisan support of the omnibus spending bill that significantly boosts our nation’s investment in biomedical research. By...
Yale Cancer Center has launched the Yale Center for Immuno-Oncology. The new center will build on Yale Cancer Center’s international leadership in immunobiology, cancer immunology, and development of novel cancer immunotherapies. It is a partnership between Yale Cancer Center and the Department of...
The following essay by Elias Jabbour, MD, is adapted, with permission, from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and...
Participation in clinical trials may overcome health disparities in the treatment of advanced or recurrent ovarian cancer, according to a study presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 2018 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer (Abstract 6). The study evaluated the effect of ...
Sentinel lymph node biopsies may be safely avoided for some women, according to research presented at the 11th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-11). Two new studies show that women with either triple-negative or HER2-positive types of breast cancer, whose cancers respond well to chemotherapy ...
On March 27, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for nivolumab (Opdivo) in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of adults with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient...