The highly anticipated final analysis of the phase III LEAP-002 trial failed to meet expectations, as first-line treatment with lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab did not significantly improve outcomes in unresectable advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. Both progression-free survival and overall survival ...
After nearly a year-long search, the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) has announced its new Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI), and Professional Integrity: Don S. Dizon, MD, who is currently Chair of the organization’s Digital Engagement Committee. Dr. Dizon is Director of the Pelvic...
A new resource-stratified ASCO guideline update provides new evidence-based recommendations for the secondary prevention of cervical cancer in various resource settings.1 In the updated guideline, the screening recommendations cover basic, limited, enhanced, and maximal resource settings. Since...
In a post hoc analysis of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial, sacituzumab govitecan-hziy improved efficacy outcomes in HER2-negative immunohistochemistry (IHC) subgroups.1 Results were consistent with those of the intent-to-treat population of hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative advanced breast...
Overall survival results from two trials of abemaciclib in advanced breast cancer were reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022. Both MONARCH 3 and monarcHER previously met their primary endpoints of progression-free survival. The current results for overall...
Erica Huelsmann, MD, a gynecologic oncology fellow at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, has been awarded a 2022 Conquer Cancer Merit Award by Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation. The award, given at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting, supports researchers with projects that span many areas of...
With out-of-pocket costs of cancer care exceeding $21 billion in 2019, financial toxicity among patients and their families in the United States has become too prevalent to ignore. In fact, more than 50% of working-age survivors now report at least one material, psychological, or behavioral domain...
To achieve its goal of eliminating cervical cancer, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on all countries “to reach and maintain an incidence rate of below 4 per 100,000 women.” Doing so would depend on the following: A total of 90% of girls being fully vaccinated against human...
Which is the preferred second-line treatment option for patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL): high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy? This was the subject of a debate at the...
Pain is highly prevalent in people with cancer throughout the disease trajectory. Often persisting for years after initial diagnosis and undertreated, it is associated with poor functional, mental, and cancer-related outcomes.1 Consequently, the need for effective pain management strategies has...
When Stephanie L. Walker, RN, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2015, she was not given information about an appropriate clinical trial or help navigating her way through the financial difficulties she was having after a stroke from complications of the cancer forced her to leave her...
Among the topics discussed at the 4th Global Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Congress held online in December 2021 was the urgent need for clinicians, researchers, and advocates in adolescent and young adult (AYA) oncology to join forces to eradicate racist approaches to patient engagement in...
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Low-intensity therapy for older or unfit patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was introduced in the early 2000s in the form of low-dose cytarabine or hypomethylation therapy (azacitidine or decitabine). Recent studies...
As reported in The Lancet by Kamdar et al,1 and summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post, the international phase III TRANSFORM trial was completed in 184 patients with primary refractory or early (≤ 12 months) relapsed large B-cell lymphoma (LBCL). Patients were randomly assigned to receive...
In the NCI-MATCH trial, which matches new treatments to patients with cancer based on the genetic makeup of their tumors, 22% of patients with AKT1 E17K–mutant metastatic tumors treated with the AKT inhibitor ipatasertib saw their tumors shrink, according to a novel study published by Kalinksy et...
Researchers have found that a new drug may be able to target—and for the first time, inhibit—the function of the MYC gene. Until now, no other drug has been able to do this safely and effectively, according to findings from a phase I clinical trial published by Garralda et al in the European...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Ann S. LaCasce, MD, MMSc, and colleagues, the phase II CALGB 50801/Alliance trial has shown that a positron-emission tomography (PET)-adapted treatment strategy allowed many patients with bulky stage I/II classical Hodgkin lymphoma to avoid...
In a prespecified analysis from the Australian phase II TheraP trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Buteau et al found that higher gallium-68–labeled PSMA-11 positron-emission tomography (PSMA-PET) mean standardized uptake values (SUVmean) were associated with a greater likelihood of...
The results of SWOG S18011 were met with enthusiasm by attendees at the Presidential Symposium of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022. The ASCO Post captured the thoughts of several melanoma experts, who had somewhat different ideas about the immediate clinical...
In resectable stage III to IV melanoma, three cycles of neoadjuvant pembrolizumab followed by adjuvant pembrolizumab was significantly more beneficial than adjuvant pembrolizumab alone, based on the results of the phase II SWOG S1801 trial presented in a Presidential Symposium at the European...
Robin Kate Kelley, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, was invited to discuss the results of LEAP-002.1 She said the main take-away is that lenvatinib monotherapy is active as a preferred first-line agent for fit patients who have contraindications to ...
The highly anticipated final analysis of the phase III LEAP-002 trial failed to meet expectations, as first-line treatment with lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab did not significantly improve outcomes in unresectable advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. Both progression-free survival and overall survival ...
Three negative phase III trials presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 may dampen enthusiasm for immunotherapy as adjuvant therapy for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). None of the three trials—CheckMate 914, IMmotion010, and PROSPER—met its primary endpoint.1-3 The...
At this year’s European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, we experienced an eagerly awaited return to normality (or almost), and the quality of the science on display was anything but disappointing: from molecular medicine to treatment de-escalation, from early cancer detection and...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Bryant et al found that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening rates at Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities declined between 2005 and 2019—and that diagnoses of metastatic prostate cancer increased over the same time period....
In a U.S.-based cross-sectional study reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Sarju Ganatra, MD, of Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Burlington, Massachusetts, and colleagues found that mortality from comorbid cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) was significantly higher in counties with higher...
In the European phase IIIb PRESIDE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Merseburger et al found that treatment with docetaxel and continuing enzalutamide vs placebo improved progression-free survival in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who had disease progression on...
Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, Professor of Internal Medicine, staff member at Netherlands Cancer Institute, Professor at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and founding member of the International Neoadjuvant Melanoma Consortium, was the invited discussant of the MD Anderson study of...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and ASCO have released a joint policy statement outlining the latest research on the use of e-cigarettes and other electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) and recommendations for regulating these products to protect public health. The...
The Republic of Austria is a high-income, landlocked country in south-central Europe and has been a member of the European Union since 1995.1 Vienna, the capital city of nearly 2 million people, is regularly ranked among the most livable cities in the world.2 The total population of Austria is more ...
Endocrine therapy is the foundation of first-line therapy in most patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. Many of these patients respond to endocrine therapy but eventually become resistant to it through both intrinsic and acquired resistance mechanisms....
Richter transformation, usually a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma developing in a person with CLL, remains a challenging entity, but novel regimens look promising, as described at the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference by Matthew S. Davids, MD, MMSc, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard...
Three negative phase III trials presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 may dampen enthusiasm for immunotherapy as adjuvant therapy for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). None of the three trials—CheckMate 914, IMmotion010, and PROSPER—met its primary endpoint.1-3 The...
I continue to be struck by the creativity of medical oncologists. The reimagining of dosing, duration, or regimen composition to respond to patient symptoms or preferences is like a master chef in the kitchen. Although standardization has, with good reason, become the paragon, delivering...
Patients with B-cell malignancies who had hypophosphatemia experienced a higher incidence and severity of neurologic side effects from chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, according to a study by Nowicki et al published in Cancer Immunology Research. The study results imply that...
In a Danish study (DaBlaCa-13) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lindgren et al found that short-term intensive chemoresection with mitomycin reduced the need for surgical procedures in patients with recurrent non–muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Study Details The trial was conducted at...
Researchers have discovered that the organization of different types of immune cells within pancreatic tumors may be associated with how well patients with pancreatic cancer respond to treatment, as well as how long they survive. This information could eventually lead to new ways of treating...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial, which included postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer, first-line treatment with ribociclib plus fulvestrant added nearly 16 months of overall survival time vs fulvestrant...
For advanced breast cancer that is hormone receptor–positive and HER2-negative, sacituzumab govitecan-hziy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression by 34% over physician’s choice of treatment, based on the results of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial.1 The heavily pretreated patients in...
The past year has seen an unprecedented number of practice-changing advances across all three major breast cancer subtypes. For patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab firmly entered the standard of care based on improvements in...
The invited discussant of the TUXEDO-1 trial1 was Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona. Dr. Oliveira noted that 40% of the 15 patients in TUXEDO-1 had symptomatic disease, and 60% had central nervous system metastases...
In the single-center phase II TUXEDO-1 trial of patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, fam-trastuzumab-deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed efficacy in patients with active brain metastases, yielding intracranial responses in 73.3% of the population and a median progression-free survival of...
The antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) doubled progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with “HER2-low” metastatic breast cancer—ie, patients with low levels of HER2 expression. The agent also extended overall survival for patients with low ...
The ASCO Post asked Debu Tripathy, MD, Professor and Chair of Medical Breast Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, and Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine, Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education at the University of California San...
The invited discussant of the BEGONIA trial,1 Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, called the activity of the combination of durvalumab and datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd) “notable,” with a 74% response rate overall,...
Angela DeMichele, MD, MSCE, the Alan and Jill Miller Professor in Breast Cancer Excellence at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, commented on NIMBUS1 for The ASCO Post. She said obtaining information on tumor mutational burden is simple, as it is part ...
Patients with advanced HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer and high tumor mutational burden achieved responses—often durable—from treatment with the immunotherapy doublet of nivolumab and ipilimumab, according to results of the phase II NIMBUS trial reported at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer ...
“OlympiA is clearly a practice-changing trial, and olaparib should be offered to patients meeting the entry criteria for the study,” said Mark E. Robson, MD, Chief of the Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Dr. Robson was invited to discuss the findings of...
New drugs for HER2-positive breast cancer are able to overcome some of the obstacles that have made brain metastases challenging to treat, according to Mark Pegram, MD, the Susy Yuan-Huey Hung Professor of Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, who described the promising ...
Use of the first investigational oral selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) elacestrant significantly reduced the risk of death or disease progression and lengthened progression-free survival compared with standard-of-care endocrine therapy with fulvestrant or an aromatase inhibitor in...