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 ...
ASCO RECENTLY launched ASCO Practice Central, a new website that serves as an online information hub to help oncology professionals navigate a complicated and ever-changing practice environment— while providing high-quality patient care. The first ASCO website dedicated to the business of oncology, ...
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...
When it comes to helping patients with cancer manage pain, education and communication are critical. ASCO University® has developed two resources for providers to help facilitate educated clinical decision-making skills for pain management and feedback from patients in the forms of the Pain...
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...
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 ...
LONG-TERM SURVIVORS of pancreatic cancer display evidence of enhanced tumor-specific T-cell responses that are associated with unique neoepitope quality but not quantity, according to Steven D. Leach, MD, Director of the Norris Cotton Cancer Center and the Preston T. and Virginia R. Kelsey...
ON MARCH 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris), an antibody-drug conjugate, to treat adult patients with previously untreated stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma in combination with chemotherapy. Brentuximab vedotin combines an antibody and...
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...
In a preplanned interim analysis of a phase II trial (JAVELIN Merkel 200 part B) reported in JAMA Oncology, D’Angelo et al found that avelumab was active in the first-line treatment of metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma. Avelumab was approved in March 2017 for treatment of patients aged ≥ 12 ...
CIRCULATING TUMOR DNA (ctDNA) assays are now commercially available for use in lung cancer and melanoma, where they can identify the presence of specific mutations that drive treatment selection. In breast cancer, ctDNA remains more of a research tool, but this is poised to change. At the 2018...
“FOR THIS RARE tumor with a paucity of data, all we have are phase II trials to make treatment selection,” said invited discussant Aaron Richard Hansen, BSc, MBBS (Hon), FRACP, of the Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto. “For patients with de novo metastatic disease or relapse after definitive...
THE 2018 GENITOURINARY Cancers Symposium hosted an international audience of oncologists and other stakeholders to hear about the latest advances in the field. We have included coverage of many of the top news stories from the meeting in previous issues of The ASCO Post. Here are summaries of a few ...
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...
DELAYS IN RADIATION THERAPY after surgery for head and neck cancer were associated with decreased survival in a large population of U.S. patients, according to data presented at the 2018 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium and reported online recently in JAMA Otolaryngology Head & ...
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...
On March 30, Foundation Medicine announced that FoundationOne CDx, the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved comprehensive genomic-profiling assay for all solid tumors incorporating multiple companion diagnostics, is now available in the United States. FoundationOne CDx is a...
Extensive surgery involving mastectomy and removal of several lymph nodes may be safely avoided for more women with some types of breast cancer if they receive targeted drugs before surgery, according to research presented at the 11th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-11) (Abstract 19). The...
In the international PRECISION trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Kasivisvanathan et al found that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-targeted biopsy resulted in a significantly higher rate of diagnosis of clinically significant prostate cancer and a lower rate of diagnosis of...
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...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Oncology Research Program (ORP) announced the selection and implementation of the iEnvision medical affairs platform, developed by Envision Technology Solutions. The NCCN ORP supports research through collaborations with pharmaceutical companies...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies focused on preventing cancer. These studies are investigating a multitude of methods, including educational interventions; imaging devices; dietary changes/supplements; weight management;...
The average number of moderate or marked side effects reported by patients with breast cancer is lower if they are treated with radiotherapy to part of the breast or a reduced dose to the whole breast, rather than with standard whole breast radiotherapy (WBRT), according to new findings presented...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Michalski et al, long-term follow-up in the NRG Oncology/RTOG 0126 trial showed no significant difference in overall survival with dose-escalated vs standard-dose radiotherapy in patients with intermediate-risk prostate cancer. High-dose radiotherapy was associated...
In an Asian phase III noninferiority trial (AXEPT) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Xu et al found that modified XELIRI (mXELIRI, capecitabine plus irinotecan) was noninferior in overall survival vs standard FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, and irinotecan), both given with or without bevacizumab...
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...
According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of death among men and women, killing about 84,000 men and 71,000 women each year. Although lung cancer–related death rates in the United States have declined steadily since 1990 in men, they did not start to decline...
Parents are less likely to vaccinate adolescent boys than girls with the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, and they are twice as likely to report their main reason as a lack of provider recommendation, according to a study presented at the 2018 Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting ...
A team of researchers led by Naruihiko Ikoma, MD, MS, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, analyzed outcomes in 316 patients with gastric cancer to determine whether patients who had clinically positive nodal disease before preoperative therapy have...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Hoverman et al found that a Texas Oncology–Aetna Medicare Advantage collaboration resulted in cost savings, good adherence to treatment pathways, and high patient satisfaction over 3 years. Study Details The collaborative...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Rathkopf et al, sensitivity analyses of radiographic progression-free survival in the PREVAIL trial comparing enzalutamide vs placebo in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer support use of the measure as a clinically meaningful endpoint in trials in this...
When I was 15, and just 6 weeks into my sophomore year in high school, I heard a loud sound similar to a gunshot in my head and minutes later I was engulfed in a grand mal seizure, now called tonic-clonic seizure, and rushed to the hospital. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan found a small...
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;...
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...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Unger et al linked data from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT) with Medicare claims and found that finasteride treatment was associated with a maintained reduction in prostate cancer risk after discontinuation of the...
A large international study has shown that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can reduce the number of invasive prostate biopsies by up to 28%. The PRECISION trial showed that using MRI to target prostate biopsies leads to more harmful and fewer harmless prostate cancers being diagnosed. The results...
On March 19, a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for enzalutamide (Xtandi) was accepted for filing and granted Priority Review designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). If approved, the sNDA would expand the indication of enzalutamide to include men with nonmetastatic...
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...
ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation is pleased to announce the recipients of its Merit Awards in gastrointestinal cancers, clinical immuno-oncology, genitourinary cancers, and cancer survivorship. The following 70 researchers— oncology fellows and trainees honored for the quality and scientific merit...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN) has released new NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) intended to help make sure people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who are diagnosed with cancer receive safe, necessary treatment. According to a...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Gary Deng, MD, PhD, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present information on...
Physical inactivity among adult survivors of gastrointestinal cancers was tied to poor health-related quality of life, according to researchers at the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) Annual Meeting.1 Also, physical inactivity (Chi-square = 5.605, P = .018) and alcohol use (Chi-square ...
A new study found many men receiving prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing do so without a comprehensive shared decision-making process, contrary to current guidelines. The American Cancer Society study, published by Fedewa et al in Annals of Family Medicine, found that in both 2010 and 2015,...
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 ...
Discussant for the abstract, Malcolm K. Brenner, MD, PhD, of Baylor College of Medicine Texas Children’s Hospital, underscored the need to make chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy both safer and more effective. He also noted that overcoming antigen loss with multiple CARs is the next...
A novel approach to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy seems to effectively target acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells with varying antigen profiles and may help to overcome antigen escape, seen with CD19-targeted therapy. According to data presented at the 2018 ASCO-SITC Clinical...