A NEW COLLABORATION between two Western New York cancer research leaders will help oncologists learn whether Black and White patients with cancer respond differently to immunotherapy and seek to improve the safety and effectiveness of these newer drugs in diverse populations. Funded by a 2-year,...
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION for Cancer Research (AACR) has recognized Nima Sharifi, MD, with the 2021 AACR–Waun Ki Hong Award for Outstanding Achievement in Translational and Clinical Cancer Research. Dr. Sharifi is Director of the Center for Genitourinary Malignancies Research at Lerner Research...
THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION for Cancer Research (AACR) recognized Ton Schumacher, PhD, FAACR, with the 2021 AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology during the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021 in April. The award recognizes an active scientist whose outstanding and innovative research has made ...
STAND UP TO CANCER® (SU2C) has awarded $6 million to a multi-institutional team headed by Mount Sinai researchers to collaborate with other New York institutions in an initiative that addresses disparities in cancer clinical trials participation by patients who are Black, indigenous, and people of...
On January 15, 2021, the antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki was approved for treatment of adults with locally advanced or metastatic HER2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma who have received a prior trastuzumab-based regimen.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data...
In a perspective in The New England Journal of Medicine, Julia A. Beaver, MD, and Richard Pazdur, MD, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE), discussed issues surrounding “dangling” accelerated approvals of anti–PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies—ie, approvals for...
Breast cancer screening took a sizeable hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new research showing that the number of screening mammograms completed in a large group of women living in Washington state plummeted by nearly half. Published by Amram et al in JAMA Network Open, the study...
ASCO has issued a new guideline on the clinical management of dyspnea in adult patients with advanced cancer.1 Dyspnea—or breathlessness—is a common and distressing symptom affecting upward of 70% of patients with advanced cancer.2 “Dyspnea is a highly prevalent symptom, particularly when people...
Researchers, patient advocates, and global oncology leaders who have worked to reshape cancer care around the world are among the recipients of ASCO’s Special Awards—the Society’s highest honors—and the Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Awards from Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation. “The...
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with Deborah Watkins Bruner, RN, PhD, FAAN, noted for her work in patient-reported outcomes, symptom management, and comparative effectiveness of radiotherapy modalities. Her current research is focused on...
Although most patients with terminal cancer, 87%, have end-of-life conversations with clinicians about their goals and preferences for care, on average, these discussions happen just 1 month before death and most often occur in acute care settings with clinicians who are not their treating...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Andrew H. Wei, MB, BS, PhD, of the Australian Centre for Blood Diseases, Monash University, Melbourne, and colleagues, the phase III QUAZAR AML-001 trial has shown prolonged overall survival with oral azacitidine maintenance therapy vs placebo...
For patients with relapsed or refractory classic Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), salvage chemotherapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is the standard of care and can induce long-term remissions in at least 60% of patients.1,2 Patients with progression of disease after...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by John Kuruvilla, MD, of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, and colleagues, an interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-204 trial has shown significantly improved progression-free survival with pembrolizumab vs brentuximab vedotin in patients with...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On February 26, 2021, the peptide-conjugated alkylating...
In 1996, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) published its first set of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology®, covering eight tumor types. Guidelines are now published for more than 60 tumor types and topics. During the NCCN’s 26th Annual Conference, which was held virtually...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) presented Douglas R. Lowy, MD, FAACR, with the 2021 AACR–Margaret Foti Award for Leadership and Extraordinary Achievements in Cancer Research during the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021. Dr. Lowy is Chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology,...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) honored a number of cancer researchers, physician-scientists, advocates, and policymakers for their achievements during week 1 of the virtual AACR Annual Meeting 2021 (April 10–15, 2021). Several of these recipients were mentioned in previous...
“This study is interesting, and the results were a little surprising,” said Patrick Y. Wen, MD, Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Neuro-Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “The prognosis of these tumors in children and adolescents is so terrible...
Treatment with genetically engineered oncolytic herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) G207 alone or with radiation resulted in encouraging outcomes in a small study of pediatric patients with high-grade glioma. In a phase I trial, responses were observed in 11 of 12 children, and median overall...
Formal discussant of the -LIBRETTO-001 trial, Ezra E.W. Cohen, MD, Associate Director for Translational Science and Leader of the Solid Tumor Therapeutics Research Program at the Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, was encouraged by this trial and said that detection of genetic...
The selective RET inhibitor selpercatinib is now approved for RET fusion–positive lung and thyroid cancers. New evidence presented at the virtual edition of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021 shows that selpercatinib is active against other RET fusion–positive...
The invited discussant of the studies, Jamie N. Bakkum-Gamez, MD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Co-Lead of the Women’s Cancer Program at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, Rochester, Minnesota, first reminded attendees of the scope of the problem: an estimated 40% or so of women slated for...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, da Silva et al found that better outcomes were achieved with the combination of an anti–PD-1 agent plus ipilimumab vs ipilimumab alone in patients with advanced melanoma who were resistant to prior anti–PD-1 or anti–PD-L1 ...
Frailty is a better predictor than age of poor outcomes in patients with ovarian cancer, according to studies reported at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer. Researchers found that frail patients are less likely to undergo surgery, have more...
Data from a study published by Margaret von Mehren, MD, and colleagues in BMC Cancer showed that avapritinib, a platelet-derived growth factor receptor A (PDGFRA) inhibitor, has a “clinically meaningful benefit” for the treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) with PDGFRA D842V...
As President-Elect of ASCO, you are asked to choose a theme for your presidency. This can be a daunting task, as the theme will not only shape the discourse of your presidency, but also, more importantly, that of the Society. The subject should be one that reflects the needs of the cancer community ...
Internationally renowned for his pioneering research in combining high-dose radiation therapy and chemotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced head and neck cancer to improve patient survival, ASCO’s President-Elect Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, is dedicating his tenure as President to...
Early-onset colorectal cancer incidence rates in the United States have nearly doubled between 1992 and 2013—up from 8.6 to 13.1 per 100,000 individuals—with most of that increase due to early-onset cancers of the rectum. A new study published by Archambault et al in JNCI Cancer Spectrum focused on ...
On May 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved nivolumab (Opdivo) for patients with completely resected esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer with residual pathologic disease who have received neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. CheckMate 577 Efficacy was evaluated in CheckMate ...
The discussant of the fuzuloparib abstract at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology meeting was Thomas Herzog, MD, Deputy Director of the University of Cincinnati (UC) Cancer Center and Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UC College of Medicine. He said that these data have already led to...
An American Cancer Society (ACS) review of cancer prevention and early detection measures for 2018 and 2019 in the United States shows mixed progress. Smoking prevalence during this time was at an historic low, partly because most people who ever smoked have quit. However, obesity rates remained...
Up to 38.6% of people with colon cancer who have a hereditary cancer syndrome—including 6.3% of those with Lynch syndrome—could have their conditions remain undetected with current universal tumor-screening methods, and at least 7.1% of people with colorectal cancer have an identifiable inherited...
In a cohort of a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Assuntina G. Sacco, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of pembrolizumab and cetuximab produced durable responses in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who had received no prior PD-1, ...
Treatment with the anti–PD-1 therapy nivolumab plus the LAG-3–blocking antibody relatlimab extended time to disease progression for patients with previously untreated, unresectable, or metastatic melanoma. Findings from the RELATIVITY-047 trial were presented by Evan J. Lipson, MD, and colleagues...
Younger Black men undergoing frequent prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening appear to have both a lower risk of metastasis at the time of prostate cancer diagnosis and of fatal disease, according to data from an observational study by Qiao et al presented at a presscast in advance of the 2021...
A study investigating the association between state Medicaid income eligibility limits and long-term survival among newly diagnosed patients with cancer has found that patients living in states with lower Medicaid income eligibility limits had worse long-term survival compared with patients living...
Although the incidence of cervical cancer has decreased by 1.03% a year over the last 16 years—likely due to screening or human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination—other HPV-related cancers are increasing in both men and women, according to a study by Liao et al presented at a presscast in advance of...
Prompted by a rise in cases of colorectal cancer in people younger than 50, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has recommended that individuals at average risk for the disease begin screening exams at age 45 instead of the traditional age of 50. The guideline changes, published in...
A new study has found breast cancer survivors in general have higher risk of new cancer diagnosis compared to healthy individuals. The article, published by Hyuna Sung, PhD, and colleagues in the journal Cancer, stated that compared to the general population in the United States, the risk of new...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Willard et al found that improvements in cognitive and adaptive function were observed between ages 5 and 10 years in many children with retinoblastoma, with scores by age 10 generally being within normal limits. Poorer...
The combination of dabrafenib plus trametinib led to encouraging and durable responses in patients with low- and high-grade gliomas harboring BRAF V600E mutations, according to the results of the phase II basket study known as ROAR. Results were presented during the virtual edition of the American...
A research team has identified a receptor in cells that could play a role in preventing permanent hearing loss in childhood cancer survivors treated with the drug cisplatin. The researchers believe that by inhibiting the receptor, they may be able to better control otoxicity, according to findings...
In the phase II PATRICIA trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nancy U. Lin, MD, and colleagues found that pertuzumab plus high-dose trastuzumab produced central nervous system (CNS) objective responses and clinical benefit in 68% of patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast...
Melanocytic nevi are nonmalignant growths that arise from pigment-producing cells of the skin. They are mostly found in sun-exposed areas; however, they also can be found in sun-protected areas, such as the palms, soles of the feet, and nail beds, where they are known as acral nevi. While the...
In a single-institution retrospective study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Sinha et al found disparities in electronic health record (EHR) patient portal enrollment according to age, sex, race/ethnicity, and primary language among oncology patients. Study Details The study involved ...
In the phase II DESTINY-CRC01 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Salvatore Siena, MD, and colleagues found that trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki produced durable responses in patients with previously treated HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer. Study Details In the trial, 78 patients from...
A 20-year follow-up of premenopausal patients with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer and stratification by the molecular 70-gene risk signature suggested that patients at high risk of distant disease recurrence derive significant benefit from goserelin, while patients at low risk have...
The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) has released a clinical practice resource from a global team of specialists in cancer genetics that will help inform the clinical management of patients who harbor a PALB2 variant and may be at increased risk of developing breast,...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kim N. Chi, MD, and colleagues, the final overall survival analysis of the phase III TITAN trial showed significant benefit with apalutamide plus androgen-deprivation therapy vs placebo plus androgen-deprivation therapy in patients with metastatic...