On March 22, 2021, pembrolizumab was approved for use in combination with platinum- and fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy for patients with metastatic or locally advanced esophageal or gastroesophageal junction (tumors with epicenter 1 to 5 cm above the gastroesophageal junction) carcinoma who...
Created more than a decade ago, the Office of Minority Health (OMH) and the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities have a mission to advance the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through policies, programs, and partnerships at the Centers for Medicare and...
The COVID-19 pandemic may have put the world on pause, but it also showed the medical community that rapid progress is possible with focus and collaboration. During the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Virtual Oncology Policy Summit, “Defining the ‘New Normal’ 2021 and the State of...
According to George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology at Stanford University Medical Center, by the beginning of the next decade, clinicians will be aided by the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in many facets of care and by the approval of a wave of new ...
The Division of Oncology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has appointed Sarah Tasian, MD, as Chief of the Section of Hematologic Malignancies. Dr. Tasian succeeds Richard Aplenc, MD, PhD, MSCE, who served in this role for 13 years. Dr. Tasian will oversee a group of faculty,...
Fabrice André, MD, PhD, Director of Research and Professor of Medical Oncology at Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France, commented on the two studies that used the MammaPrint 70-gene signature to identify patients for de-escalation or escalation of endocrine therapy.1,2 The push to...
Patients with ultra-low–risk breast cancer, as classified by the MammaPrint 70-gene assay, had “excellent” long-term outcomes regardless of clinical risk or receipt of adjuvant therapy, a new analysis of the MINDACT trial has shown.1 In a separate study, a retrospective analysis of the National...
The following letter is adapted from comments made to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) by the American College of Radiology, the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons. “The American College of Radiology, the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, and the...
Woe to the child who tastes salty from a kiss on the brow” was a forbidding prophecy from Medieval Europe, presaging unknown disease. Today, we know that salty skin is a telltale sign of cystic fibrosis in children, a disease that eluded medical identification until 1938, when an American...
Prostate cancer experts have often stated it is important to add a bone-protecting agent for patients on treatment for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Recent evidence in support of this recommendation comes from a study presented during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, confirming a...
On March 10, 2021, the VEGF tyrosine kinase inhibitor tivozanib was approved for treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory advanced renal cell carcinoma following at least two prior systemic therapies.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the open-label, phase III...
Invited study discussant Jaishri O. Blakeley, MD, Director of the Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Neurofibromatosis Center, Baltimore, changed the title of her talk to “Finding Needles in Haystacks,” “because this is what we do with CNS [central nervous system] tumors,” she told listeners. “ALK...
Targeting mutations appears to be bearing fruit in the treatment of some difficult-to-treat tumors. For instance, in one study of adult-onset neuroblastoma, targeting ALK mutations in ALK-positive tumors demonstrated activity, even in patients who had not responded to their first ALK inhibitor. Of...
On April 22, 2021, the PD-1 inhibitor dostarlimab-gxly was granted accelerated approval for treatment of adults with mismatch repair–deficient recurrent or advanced endometrial cancer, as determined by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test, that has progressed on or following 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, Eugenie Spiguel, MSN, ANP-BC, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus on American...
Canada’s publicly funded health-care system has a complex drug approval and funding process. Due to multiple assessment steps and bureaucratic processes, newly developed cancer drugs can often experience long delays before oncologists may use them to treat their patients with cancer. Several...
Invited discussant of the FORWARD II trial,1Amit M. Oza, MD, MBBS, concluded that bevacizumab and mirvetuximab soravtansine was a “very well tolerated and effective” combination with “encouraging activity,” even in patients previously treated with bevacizumab and weekly paclitaxel. Dr. Oza is Head ...
On March 5, 2021, the CD19-directed genetically modified autologous T-cell immunotherapy axicabtagene ciloleucel was granted accelerated approval for treatment of adults with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy.1,2 Axicabtagene ciloleucel is...
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” —Leonardo da Vinci To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on treatments under study ...
In patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, the antibody-drug conjugate mirvetuximab soravtansine, given with bevacizumab, showed antitumor activity leading to durable responses in platinum-agnostic patients with strong expression of folate receptor alpha (FRα), researchers reported at the 2021 ASCO ...
Fixed-duration ibrutinib and venetoclax as a first-line treatment yielded superior outcomes compared with chlorambucil plus obinutuzumab in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), based on the primary analysis of the phase III GLOW trial presented during the European Hematology...
Oncologist Angelo Di Leo, MD, PhD, recently died after a long struggle with neurodegenerative disease. He was 58 years old. Dr. Di Leo was devoted to breast cancer research for more than 25 years. He first trained with Gianni Bonadonna, MD, in Milan, followed by postdoctoral research at Jules...
Women account for a growing proportion of the oncology workforce. Multiple studies, however, show that women oncologists are underrepresented in leadership positions, may have significantly lower salaries than men, and may be subjected to discriminatory practices stimulated by a medical culture...
On June 16, 2021, avapritinib was approved for the treatment of adult patients with advanced systemic mastocytosis, including patients with aggressive systemic mastocytosis, systemic mastocytosis with an associated hematological neoplasm, and mast cell leukemia.1,2 Avapritinib is not recommended...
Commenting on the updated results of the MAIA trial1 for The ASCO Post was Philip McCarthy, MD, Professor of Oncology and Internal Medicine and Director of the Transplant and Cellular Therapy Center at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, New York. Dr. McCarthy described how the...
As reported by Fowler et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology1—and summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post—the international phase IIb UNITY-NHL trial of 208 patients with marginal zone lymphoma (MZL; n = 69), follicular lymphoma (FL; n = 117), and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL; n = 22)...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MAIA trial, the addition of the monoclonal antibody daratumumab to the immunomodulatory agent lenalidomide and the corticosteroid dexamethasone (D-Rd) significantly improved overall survival over lenalidomide/dexamethasone alone in patients newly diagnosed...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Nathan H. Fowler, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues, a phase IIb trial (UNITY-NHL) has shown that the dual PI3Kδ/casein kinase (CK)1ε inhibitor umbralisib produced durable responses in patients with relapsed...
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women of reproductive age. Approximately 10% of breast cancers are diagnosed in this age group.1 Young age at diagnosis is an adverse prognostic factor, and most young women will be offered chemotherapy and/or endocrine therapy, both of which ...
From a dramatic drop in caseloads to missed screenings and diagnoses as well as the emergence of telemedicine, COVID-19 turned the world of oncology upside down. During the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Virtual Oncology Policy Summit, “Defining the ‘New Normal’ 2021 and the State of...
Evidence shows that early detection and treatment of cancer can significantly improve health outcomes. However, women in Mississippi—particularly in underserved populations—experience high rates of late-stage cancer diagnoses. A report published by Michelle Williams, PhD, and colleagues in the...
“The phase III ENGOT/GCIG study1 proved to be negative, with no advantage seen with the extension of bevacizumab treatment,” said the abstract’s invited discussant, Carol Aghajanian, MD, Chief of the Medical Gynecologic Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York. Dr....
A study published by D. Ross Camidge, MD, PhD, and colleagues in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology has helped to define MET amplification as a rare but potentially actionable driver for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Dr. Camidge said many of the major developments in the treatment of NSCLC have ...
In a Swedish cohort study reported in JAMA Surgery, de Boniface et al found that breast-conserving surgery plus radiation therapy for women with breast cancer was associated with better survival vs mastectomy with or without radiotherapy in analysis adjusting for comorbidities and socioeconomic...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sant P. Chawla, MD, and colleagues found that the addition of the heterologous prime-boost vaccination regimen CMB305 to atezolizumab did not improve survival outcomes in patients with soft-tissue sarcomas expressing the...
A phase II study published by Kanwal Raghav, MBBS, MD, and colleagues in Cancer Discovery found that combination treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab and the VEGF inhibitor bevacizumab was well tolerated and resulted in a 40% objective response rate in patients with advanced malignant...
A study from the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (HPDP) estimates that annual costs associated with metastatic breast cancer treatment among women in the United States will total $152.4 billion in 2030—nearly two and a half times the estimate for 2015 costs—due to an increase ...
In this video, Drs. Matthew R. Smith, Xin Gao, and Alicia K. Morgans discuss the emerging role of PSMA (prostate-specific membrane antigen)-targeted therapy in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Dr. Smith presents a case of a 67-year-old man with metastatic castration-resistant...
In this video, Drs. Matthew R. Smith, Xin Gao, and Alicia K. Morgans discuss the role of PARP inhibitors in the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and homologous recombination repair deficiency, focusing on data from the PROfound trial. Dr. Smith presents a case of a...
Locoregional delivery of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells has resulted in objective responses in adults with glioblastoma, but the approach has not been evaluated in pediatric patients with brain and central nervous system tumors. The innovative, ongoing phase I BrainChild-01 trial is...
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, elective medical procedures, including screenings for breast cancer, were curtailed to prioritize urgent medical needs and reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus in health-care settings. A study showed that, as of May 2020, preventive...
In a Canadian population-based retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Ethier et al identified real-world survival outcomes among women receiving pertuzumab and trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) for stage IV HER2-positive breast cancer, observing that outcomes appeared to be poorer than...
On July 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved belumosudil (Rezurock), a kinase inhibitor, for adult and pediatric patients aged 12 years and older with chronic graft-vs-host disease after failure of at least two prior lines of systemic therapy. KD025-213 Efficacy was evaluated in ...
Invited discussant of the Short-HER trial, Evandro de Azambuja, MD, PhD, Head of the Medical Support Team at the Institut Jules Bordet, Brussels, acknowledged the good outcomes in low- and intermediate-risk patients treated with either a short or long duration of trastuzumab but said 1 year of the...
Long-term analysis of the Short-HER trial showed that 9 weeks of adjuvant trastuzumab conveyed benefits comparable to a 1-year course in patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer deemed to be at low or intermediate risk for recurrence. High-risk patients, however, derived considerably more...
Researchers have found that specific intestinal microbiota signatures may correlate with high-grade adverse events and response to combined CTLA-4 and PD-1 blockade treatment. The study, published by Andrews et al in Nature Medicine, also identified a potential new strategy to treat toxicity—while...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in a research letter in JAMA Surgery, Stokes et al found that risk of minor bleeding events during central venous catheter placement in pediatric patients with cancer was significantly increased among those with platelet counts < 50 × 103/μL at the time...
In a U.S. and Swiss study, nearly all patients with cancer developed an immune response to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines 3 to 4 weeks after receiving their second dose. However, a small group of the patients exhibited no response, raising questions about how their protection against the virus will be...
In a German prospective cross-sectional study reported in JAMA Oncology, Bartels et al found that a high proportion of patients with lung cancer had neuronal antibodies that may be associated with increased risk of cognitive impairment. As stated by the investigators, “Paraneoplastic neurological...
Longer follow-up of the LEAP-004 trial in metastatic melanoma upheld the benefit seen with the VEGF kinase inhibitor lenvatinib plus the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab for patients experiencing disease progression on prior checkpoint blockade, investigators reported at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 ...