OBESE PATIENTS with metastatic melanoma who are treated with targeted or immune therapies live significantly longer than those with a normal body mass index (BMI), according to a study published in The Lancet Oncology of 1,918 patients in 6 independent clinical cohorts.1 This effect—referred to as ...
AS REPORTED in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Arlene A. Forastiere, MD, of The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline update on the use of larynx-preservation strategies in the treatment of laryngeal cancer.1...
A DETAILED quality-of-life analysis of the phase III EF-14 trial of tumor-treating fields (Optune) in combination with temozolomide for the treatment of newly diagnosed glioblastoma was published by Taphoorn et al in JAMA Oncology.1 This secondary endpoint analysis showed the addition of...
FEBRUARY 4 was World Cancer Day, which raises awareness for the millions of people worldwide facing unequal access to cancer detection, treatment, and care services. Oncology leaders, health-care professionals, and supporters across the world are pushing for urgent action to reduce the rate of...
Combining ultrasound imaging with a blood test for high alpha fetoprotein levels may improve detection of early-stage liver cancer by as much as 40%, researchers at UT Southwestern’s Simmons Cancer Center found. Their findings were presented by Tzartzeva et al in Gastroenterology....
At the heart of every ASCO program—every clinical practice guideline, every policy statement, every scientific meeting—is evidence. What do the data say? Evidence informs decision-making across the spectrum of cancer care, from the question a bench researcher will investigate to the treatment a...
When Yelak Biru was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1995, he and his physicians had one main posttreatment goal: to detect and treat any relapse early and to prolong survival as long as possible with the limited drugs available. Then, in the early 2000s, came newer treatments. Myeloma survival...
Temporary ovarian suppression during chemotherapy as a means of preserving ovarian function and fertility in young women with early breast cancer is controversial. An eagerly awaited meta-analysis including individual patient data from five randomized controlled trials found that the use of...
Matthew J. Ellis, MB, PhD, Director of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, commented on the POETIC trial for The ASCO Post. “This is a wonderful study that validates a point that our research team has also made over the years—that Ki67 is much more...
Updated analysis from the United Kingdom’s POETIC trial found no evidence that perioperative aromatase inhibitor therapy slows or prevents time to recurrence of breast cancer. However, the study did show that tumor Ki67 levels after 2 weeks of perioperative aromatase inhibitor therapy are...
We have covered many of the important presentations from the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in the pages of The ASCO Post and in our online Evening News. Here are summaries of additional noteworthy studies presented at the meeting. We hope you will find them of interest. Predicting...
“To what extent do treatments for prostate cancer impact sexual functioning? To a great extent,” Christian Nelson, PhD, Chief, Psychiatry Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, told participants at the 11th Annual Oncofertility Consortium Conference in Chicago.1 Most men with...
An international group of clinicians and scientists representing the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium (CPIC) published the first-ever clinical practice guidelines for using CYP2D6 genotype to guide tamoxifen therapy. Their research was published by Goetz et al in Clinical...
In a discussion of the study, Douglas Corley, MD, PhD, of the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco Medical Center, California, said it remains unclear whether blood tests can improve the early detection of cancer, though such an approach would be welcomed. “We are getting closer ...
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood had an accuracy of up to 88% in detecting colorectal cancer and 84% in identifying adenomas, in a study from Taiwan presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium by Wen-Sy Tsai, MD, of Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei.1 “The study ...
Following the publication of two landmark studies in the United States,1,2 laryngeal preservation with combined chemoradiotherapy has become standard practice as opposed to laryngectomy for patients with locally advanced laryngeal cancer. The Department of Veterans Affairs Laryngeal Cancer Study...
Immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors is the first of a new generation of immunotherapy treatments, revolutionizing treatment for many different types of cancer. By unleashing the body's immune system to attack cancer, these treatments can send even the most hard-to-treat cancers into...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pivot et al found equivalence of the trastuzumab biosimilar SB3 and the reference trastuzumab (Herceptin) in producing breast pathologic complete response in the neoadjuvant treatment of patients with HER2-positive early breast...
In a study of National Cancer Database data reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Neuman et al found that synchronous distant recurrence was identified in 27% of women with stage II or III breast cancer experiencing locoregional recurrence. Study Details The study—an American...
Data on CB-839, a first-in-class glutaminase inhibitor, will be presented by Tannir et al at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco (Abstract 603). The data are from the CX-839-001 study, which includes cohorts evaluating the safety, efficacy and recommended phase II dose of ...
Combining the antiangiogenic agent axitinib (Inlyta) with the immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to have promising antitumor activity and no unexpected side effects in an early-phase clinical trial in patients with advanced kidney cancer who had not been previously treated. The full...
In Clinical Cancer Advances 2018: ASCO’s Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer, which highlights the most impactful cancer research progress and the importance of federally funded research, ASCO recognized a type of adoptive cell immunotherapy—chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy—as...
In a Danish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lænkholm and colleagues found that the PAM50-based Prosigna risk of recurrence score could identify lower risk of 10-year distant recurrence in subgroups of postmenopausal women who received 5 years of endocrine therapy alone for ...
TWO IMPORTANT STUDIES, both updates of earlier findings and presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, provided different findings as to the relative benefit of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane), vs solvent-based paclitaxel in breast cancer. “The two studies...
JULIE GRALOW, MD, FASCO, Director of Breast Medical Oncology for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, commented on the findings of the SUCCESS A trial in an interview with The ASCO Post. The Oxford meta-analysis...
THE PHASE III SUCCESS A trial, presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, found no benefit for extending the use of intravenous zoledronic acid from 2 years to 5 years.1 “At this time point, our study showed no difference in disease-free survival or overall survival between 5 years ...
ANOTHER TRIAL has validated that 1 year of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) remains the standard in HER2-positive breast cancer, but the margin of difference, compared with just 9 weeks of the drug, was slim, based on the findings of the phase III SOLD trial reported at the 2017 San Antonio Breast...
SESSION MODERATOR Dan Vogl, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, told The ASCO Post that the results with 11-1F4 were “very impressive” adding “everyone is excited” about the investigational amyloid-targeting monoclonal antibodies. “These drugs don’t ...
IN PREVIOUSLY treated patients with amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis, the chimeric fibril-reactive monoclonal antibody 11-1F4 (CAEL-101) produced organ responses in about two-thirds of patients in a phase Ia/b trial reported at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting &...
KEN SHAIN, MD, Assistant Member of the Department of Malignant Hematology and Tumor Biology, Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, and Scientific Director of the Moffitt Myeloma Working Group, moderated the session where the study was presented and offered comments to The ASCO Post. “Professor...
IN PATIENTS undergoing treatment of multiple myeloma, the prophylactic use of levofloxacin significantly reduced febrile episodes and deaths, without increasing healthcare-associated infections or carriage of key nosocomial pathogens, in a large multicenter study from the United Kingdom.1 The...
As reported by Hedy L. Kindler, MD, of the University of Chicago, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma. The guideline was informed by a systematic literature search and expert panel review ...
In a European phase III trial (ETNA) reported in JAMA Oncology, Gianni et al found no significant difference in pathologic complete response rate with nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) vs paclitaxel followed by an anthracycline regimen in neoadjuvant treatment for HER2-negative breast cancer. Study...
Patients with esophageal cancer who refuse surgery when it is recommended are less likely to survive long term than similar groups of patients who undergo an operation, according to research presented by Ghaly et al at the 54th Annual Meeting of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (P78). ...
Patients with breast cancer may be at an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure, and may benefit from a treatment approach that weighs the benefits of specific therapies against potential damage to the heart, according to a new scientific statement from the American...
THE NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Oncology Research Program in collaboration with Pfizer Global Medical Grants announced they have awarded funding to nine projects that use clinical care pathways to implement quality improvement initiatives along the continuum of care for...
In a phase III clinical trial of patients with previously untreated metastatic renal cell cancer combining the immunotherapy atezolizumab (Tecentriq) with the targeted therapy bevacizumab (Avastin) delayed cancer growth by about 3 months longer than sunitinib, another targeted therapy. The benefit...
STEPHEN LEONG, MD, of the University of Colorado Comprehensive Cancer Center, Aurora, discussed the RAINFALL findings at the symposium, commenting, “The study did meet its primary endpoint of progression-free survival; however, it was disappointing not to see a benefit in overall survival or...
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and RWJBarnabas Health welcome Howard S. Hochster, MD, an internationally recognized leader in the development of cancer clinical trials, gastrointestinal oncology, and early-phase cancer drugs. In January, Dr. Hochster assumed the role of Associate Director...
“For patients with early-stage breast cancer, we’ve seen a significant decline in chemotherapy use over the past few years without a real change in evidence,” or in national guidelines and recommendations, reported Allison W. Kurian, MD, MSc, lead author of a study on chemotherapy recommendations ...
The use of chemotherapy to treat women with early-stage breast cancer “declined markedly over time,” according to analysis of data from 2,926 women between the ages of 20 and 79. The trends documented “are remarkable for their steepness of decline, independent of clinical factors and despite no...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stokes and colleagues found lower posttreatment mortality rates with stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) vs surgery in early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), with the difference in rates increasing as a function of age....
On July 11, 2017, blinatumomab (Blincyto) was approved for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in adults and children.1,2 Blinatumomab received accelerated approval in December 2014 for the treatment of Philadelphia chromosome (Ph)-negative...
In an analysis of more than 120,000 women diagnosed with and treated for early-stage breast cancer, researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center determined the rate of additional breast biopsies needed for these patients during their follow-up care. The findings, reported by...
This past September, Olivier Elemento, PhD, Associate Director of the Institute for Computational Biomedicine and Director of the Laboratory of Cancer Systems Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, was named Director of Weill Cornell’s Englander Institute for Precision Medicine. In this...
Updated results from the ELIANA clinical trial of tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah), formerly CTL019, in relapsed or refractory pediatric and young adult patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have been published by Maude et al in The New England Journal of Medicine. New data include...
A new and unique new way to treat cancer—chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy—is poised to transform the outlook for children and adults with certain otherwise incurable cancers. ASCO named this type of adoptive-cell immunotherapy the Advance of the Year in its annual...
Linda Mileshkin, MBBS, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses phase Ib trial findings on the anti–PD-1 monoclonal antibody BGB-A317 in combination with the PARP inhibitor BGB-290 in advanced solid tumors.
Jeffrey M. Lemons, MD, of the University of Chicago, discusses early safety and efficacy findings from a small study on pembrolizumab and multiorgan-site ablative stereotactic body radiotherapy in patients with advanced solid tumors (Abstract 20).
James L. Gulley, MD, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute, discusses combined treatment approaches showing early evidence of clinical activity: agents such as vaccines or PARP inhibitors that can initiate an immune response, paired with agents such as checkpoint inhibitors that can facilitate the...