In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, ASCO’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his current position, Dr. Hudis served in a variety of roles at ASCO, including President during ASCO’s 50th anniversary...
RESEARCHERS AT LA JOLLA INSTITUTE for Immunology and University of California (UC), San Diego, have been awarded $4.5 million as part of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Moonshot initiative. The funding will support research to develop new and improved immunotherapeutic options for patients...
ON JULY 30, 2018, the radiotherapeutic agent iobenguane I-131 (Azedra) was approved for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients (aged ≥ 12 years) with iobenguane scan–positive, unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic pheochromocytoma or paraganglioma who require systemic anticancer...
ON NOVEMBER 6, 2018, following Priority Review, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved elotuzumab (Empliciti) injection for intravenous use in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at...
Despite growing national awareness of health-care inequities, the plight of rural Americans diagnosed with cancer has persistently remained inadequate. Speaking with The ASCO Post, Jan Probst, PhD, Professor at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, noted, “We...
The phase III DUO trial, reported by Flinn et al and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, has led to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a novel B-cell receptor (BCR) kinase inhibitor, duvelisib (Copiktra), which targets phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-δ/γ in patients...
As reported in Blood by Ian W. Flinn, MD, PhD, Director of the Lymphoma Research Program at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, and colleagues, the phase III DUO trial has shown significantly prolonged progression-free survival with the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-δ/γ inhibitor duvelisib...
Amar Kishan, MD, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and a member of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, will receive the 2018 Publication Award from the Radiation Oncology Institute in recognition of a study highlighting the value of...
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society recently announced a $1,175,000 commitment by the Schwartz Ward Family Foundation of Chicago to support two research initiatives. These funds will support two grants in the society’s Career Development Program: Christiane Querfeld, MD, PhD, of City of Hope, is...
New research by Lichtensztajn et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network examined disparities in care for Latino men with prostate cancer. A team of researchers from UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, Stanford Cancer Institute, and...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Vergote et al, a pooled analysis of individual patient data in long-term follow-ups of the phase III EORTC 55971 and CHORUS trials indicated that overall survival is similar with neoadjuvant therapy vs upfront debulking surgery in advanced tubo-ovarian cancer....
Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, knew from the start of his medical career that if treatments for cancer were to become curative, research in new therapies would have to move away from the mainstay one-size-fits-all approach of systemic chemotherapy to an innovative, personalized strategy that...
In a 2-year follow-up of the phase III SUPREMO trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Galina Velikova, PhD, of the Leeds Cancer Centre, St. James’s University Hospital, United Kingdom, and colleagues found worse chest wall symptoms in women with intermediate-risk breast cancer who did vs did not...
Telemedicine—the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients via telecommunications technology—has changed the way oncology care is delivered in rural parts of the world. Patients in rural areas are now able to connect remotely with their physicians without having to deal with the time, expense, and ...
Randomized clinical trials have been providing high-quality evidence for decades, but there are limitations to the traditional design. At the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, George J. Chang, MD, MS, FACS, FASCRS, discussed the need to modernize clinical trials, so they continue to provide...
For patients with recurrent ovarian cancer who receive platinum-based retreatment, the more suitable partner for bevacizumab (Avastin) may be carboplatin plus pegylated liposomal doxorubicin, rather than carboplatin and gemcitabine, according to the results of a phase III ENGOT/GCIG Intergroup...
The paper’s invited discussant, Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, of the Institut de Cancérologie Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France, said OpACIN-neo attained its goal of reducing toxicity and maintaining efficacy. The regimen of two courses of ipilimumab (Yervoy) at 1 mg/kg plus nivolumab (Opdivo) at 3...
In patients with stage III melanoma, a reduced-dose neoadjuvant immunotherapy combination was well tolerated and led to high pathologic response rates, in the phase II OpACIN-neo trial presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress.1 “Neoadjuvant ipilimumab (Yervoy) at...
The combination of radium-223 plus AAP (abiraterone acetate [Zytiga] and prednisone) was not superior to placebo plus AAP in the phase III ERA 223 trial, which enrolled men with asymptomatic bone-predominant metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.1 Patients treated with the combination had ...
In the United States and European countries, many oncologists are using cetuximab (Erbitux)/radiotherapy instead of cisplatin/radiotherapy in the treatment of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer, based on the belief that cetuximab is equally effective with less toxicity than...
An overall survival advantage has now been shown for first-line immunotherapy in recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer, researchers reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress.1 In the phase III KEYNOTE-048 trial, treatment with the anti–programmed cell death...
The invited discussant for the CheckMate-142 findings was Julien Taieb, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at Paris Descartes University in France. Dr. Taieb called the findings “impressive” but said longer follow-up is needed, especially since median outcomes have not yet been reached. After a...
In a global phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Solomon et al found that lorlatinib (Lorbrena) showed high overall and intracranial activity in patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were treatment-naive or who had received crizotinib (Xalkori)...
The opioid drug problem in the United States is a crisis, with unprecedented numbers of overdose deaths. The reaction to this has resulted in new federal laws and regulations aimed at restricting overuse and overprescribing of opioids. However, these well-intentioned actions, along with other...
Patients with thyroid cancer whose disease is at low risk of returning can be treated safely with a smaller amount of radiation following surgery, according to results from the HiLo trial presented by Wadsley et al at the 2018 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference (Abstract...
Men who have been newly diagnosed with prostate cancer say they would trade some improvement in their odds of survival for improvements in side effects and quality of life, according to research presented by Ahmed et al at the 2018 National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference...
ME STRONG, a nonprofit public charity in Deland, Florida, is one of the newest supporters of Conquer Cancer. Linda Ryan, ME STRONG co-founder and 16-year cancer survivor, understands the importance of research: it saved her life decades ago, and she’s relying on experimental treatment as she...
Elderly patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC) showed similar survival and toxicity compared to younger patients when treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy. These study findings were published by Christodoulou et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. SCLC constitutes ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kluger et al, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed activity in brain metastases in patients with melanoma enrolled in a phase II study. The study included 23 patients with melanoma with one or more asymptomatic untreated 5- to 20-mm brain metastasis...
New research by Family et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network identifies risk factors for chemotherapy-induced febrile neutropenia, a dangerously low white blood cell count that increases the risk of serious infection and fever. The study was led...
In a randomized phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Siu et al found that the combination of the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) plus the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) inhibitor tremelimumab and durvalumab alone showed evidence ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued the following new approvals and designations: Approval for Pegfilgrastim Biosimilar The FDA recently approved a pegfilgrastim biosimilar, pegfilgrastim-cbqv (Udenyca). The biosimilar has been approved to decrease the incidence...
Squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) are malignancies arising from squamous epithelium of various organs, such as esophagus, head and neck, lung, and skin. Previous studies demonstrated that two master transcription factors, TP63 and SOX2, effect genomic activation in SCCs. Now, researchers from...
In the phase II PERSIST-5 study reported in JAMA Oncology, Raut et al found that 5 years of adjuvant imatinib therapy was associated with little risk of recurrence in patients with resected intermediate- or high-risk primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST). As noted by the investigators, 3...
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 Medeiros explore the recently updated World Health Organization (WHO) classification of hematopoietic and lymphoid tissue...
FIRST-LINE TREATMENT options for advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) include single- agent immunotherapy for patients with a programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumor proportion score of at least 50% or in combination with chemotherapy in unselected patients.1-3 Single immunotherapy is...
In December, The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School will launch an innovative cancer care model called the CaLM (cancer life re-imagined) Clinic as part of its new cancer center, the Livestrong Cancer Institutes. The goal of the Livestrong Cancer Institutes and the CaLM Clinic is to...
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY of Hematology (ASH) will honor Alan D. D’Andrea, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Neal S. Young, MD, of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health, with the 2018 Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize for...
ATEZOLIZUMAB (TECENTRIQ), an anti–program cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody, combined with carboplatin/ etoposide as first-line treatment for extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) improved overall and progression-free survival and may represent a new standard of care, according to...
THE ANTI–PROGRAMMED cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to have antitumor activity in patients with high-risk non–muscle invasive bladder cancer who were nonresponsive to bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), according to the preliminary results of the ...
MEN WITH newly diagnosed metastatic prostate cancer do not typically receive treatment to the primary tumor with radiation or surgery. A new analysis of the STAMPEDE trial found that radiation administered to the prostate can improve overall survival in men with newly diagnosed metastatic prostate...
TWO-YEAR MAINTENANCE therapy with olaparib (Lynparza), a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor, achieved a significant improvement in progression-free survival in patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer and a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation, according to results of the phase III SOLO-1...
THE FIRST-LINE USE of brigatinib (Alunbrig) was superior to standard-of-care crizotinib (Xalkori) in patients with advanced anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the first report of the phase III ALTA-1L trial presented at the International...
A review and analysis of randomized clinical trials published by Kovic et al in JAMA Internal Medicine questioned whether interventions that prolong progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with cancer improve their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The systematic review and quantitative...
On November 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved elotuzumab (Empliciti) injection for intravenous use in combination with pomalidomide (Pomalyst) and dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies,...
In the Italian phase II PURE-01 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Necchi et al found that neoadjuvant pembrolizumab (Keytruda) before radical cystectomy in muscle-invasive bladder carcinoma produced complete pathologic response (pT0) in 42% of patients, with pT0 being more common...
The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) recently issued a statement on lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) based on the results of the Dutch-Belgian NELSON lung cancer screening trial presented at the IASLC 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer...
In an Australian phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Suzanne K. Chambers, PhD, of the Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Gold Coast, and colleagues found similar functional outcomes at 2 years with robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy and open radical...
The extreme fatigue I experienced during the winter of my fourth year in medical school, in 2003, was easily attributable to the rigors of my medical training and the lack of sleep that comes from trying to keep up with an intensely busy schedule. I was looking forward to resting and recuperating...
BOOKMARK Title: The Trail to Tincup: Love Stories at Life’s EndEditors: Joyce Lynnette HockerPublisher: She Writes PressPublication date: May 2018Price: $23.95, hardcover, 288 pages Human mortality is embedded in the day-to-day challenges of clinical oncology; a cancer diagnosis is a reality...