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...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to blinatumomab (Blincyto) to treat adults and children with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who are in remission but still have minimal residual disease (MRD). In patients who have achieved remission after...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stanulla et al found that a gene profile including somatic deletions in the lymphoid transcription factor–coding gene IKZF1 and deletions in other genes was associated with minimal residual disease (MRD)-dependent very-poor prognosis...
One in five women diagnosed with cervical cancer in the United States will be diagnosed after the age of 65, suggesting that the recommended age to stop cervical cancer screening should be reconsidered, according to research presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 2018 Annual ...
Healthy women who carry a breast cancer–causing mutation in the BRCA1 gene not only reduce their risk of developing the disease but also their chances of dying from it if they have both breasts removed, according to new research presented at the 11th European Breast Cancer Conference...
On March 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to enfortumab vedotin, an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who were previously treated with checkpoint inhibitors. Breakthrough Therapy ...
The risk of a second breast cancer in patients with high-risk BRCA gene mutations can be more precisely predicted by testing for several other genetic variants, each of which are known to have a small impact on breast cancer risk, according to new research presented at the 11th European Breast...
In 2017, more than 63,000 women in the United States were diagnosed with in situ breast cancer. The overwhelming majority of those women, about 83%, were diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a condition characterized by the presence of abnormal cells confined to the breast milk ducts;...
“At Microphone 1” is an occasional column written by Steven E. Vogl, MD, of the Bronx, New York. When he is not in his clinic, he can generally be found at major oncology meetings and often at the microphone, where he stands ready with critical questions for presenters of new data. The opinions...
“THE GOOD NEWS is cancer survivors are living longer. The bad news is they’re living long enough to experience the late consequences of curative treatment,” said Julia Rowland, PhD, formerly of the National Cancer Institute and now with Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, Washington, DC, at the ...
Prevention in Oncology is guest edited by Jennifer Ligibel, MD, Chair of ASCO’s Energy Balance Working Group and a member of ASCO’s Cancer Survivorship and Cancer Prevention Committees. Dr. Ligibel is Director of the Leonard P. Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer...
OLDER WOMEN residing in U.S. territories are less likely to receive recommended or timely care for breast cancer compared with similar women residing in the continental United States, according to Yale researchers, whose findings were published in Health Affairs.1 “Inferior breast cancer care in...
The population of bacteria in the pancreas increases more than a thousandfold in patients with pancreatic cancer and becomes dominated by species that prevent the immune system from attacking tumor cells. These are the findings of an early study conducted on pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma,...
A major international survey has found that around a quarter of patients with penile cancer are not receiving the recommended treatment, and that these patients had half the survival rate of those who were treated according to guidelines. The study, presented at the European Association of Urology...
A major UK survey has shown that patients with urologic cancer—such as prostate, bladder, or kidney cancer—are five times more likely to commit suicide than people without cancer. The analysis also shows that patients with cancer generally are around three times more likely to commit...
On March 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) to treat adult patients with previously untreated stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma in combination with chemotherapy. “Today’s approval represents an improvement in the initial...
In late 2016, ASCO announced further expansion of its robust portfolio of international programs, and significant progress toward this expansion was achieved in 2017. All of these accomplishments reflect the hard work and commitment of many ASCO member volunteers, ASCO staff, and organizations...
Robin Zon, MD, FACP, FASCO, the current Chair of ASCO’s Government Relations Committee and this past year’s ASCO Advocate of the Year, joins ASCO CEO Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, to discuss Congressional advocacy and the role it plays in shaping cancer-related policies. She explains how...
Along with full coverage of key presentations from the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, The ASCO Post brings our readers this additional news roundup. Side Matters in Colon Cancer One of the studies included in the global IDEA trial, which compared 3 vs 6 months of adjuvant chemotherapy in ...
Testicular cancer is the most common cancer in young men. The majority of patients are cured of their disease, but a newly published study shows many remain at risk for later complications from chemotherapy or other treatments. The study, published by Zaid et al in JNCCN –Journal of the...
Why wouldn’t you support a patient with a terminal illness the “right to try” any therapy that may save his or her life? The answer to this question—one engulfed in a political debate in Congress—seems simple. It is not. [Editor’s Note: [Editor’s Note: On May 30, 2018, the President signed into...
This past January, ASCO published Clinical Cancer Advances 2018,1 its 13th annual report on the progress being made against cancer. The report names chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy as ASCO’s Advance of the Year. In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two ...
The moderator of the session, Francis P. Worden, MD, a medical oncologist at the University of Michigan Health System Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Ann Arbor, highlighted the number of poorly differentiated carcinomas, which is higher than reported in other previous, large studies. “In previous...