In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the combination of bendamustine and dexamethasone showed activity in patients with relapsed/refractory systemic light-chain amyloidosis. As stated by the investigators, there...
In the phase II CALGB 40903/Alliance trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, E. Shelley Hwang MD, MPH, and colleagues found that preoperative letrozole was associated with beneficial imaging and biomarker changes in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive ductal...
Now in its seventh year, the Haploidentical Transplant Symposium (HAPLO) continues to explore advances in haploidentical and other novel cellular therapies. The most recent of these meetings—HAPLO2019—met in Orlando, Florida, 2 days before the start of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
In a single-center Dutch phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Braat et al found that holmium Ho-166 radioembolization produced responses in patients with neuroendocrine tumor liver metastases who had received peptide receptor radionuclide therapy with lutetium Lu-177 dotatate. Study...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Daniel W. Lin, MD, and colleagues found that the 17-gene Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score was not associated with the finding of adverse pathology among men with prostate cancer undergoing radical prostatectomy after initial active...
In the Dutch phase III PREOPANC trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Versteijne et al found that preoperative chemoradiotherapy did not improve overall survival vs immediate surgery in patients with resectable and borderline resectable pancreatic cancer. Benefits of preoperative...
On March 10, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with sorafenib. CheckMate 040 Efficacy of the combination was...
Ilixadencel is a cell-based, allogeneic, off-the-shelf product aimed at priming the anticancer immune response when injected intratumorally. The phase II MERECA study evaluated this allogeneic dendritic cell product given with sunitinib in 88 patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The study ...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Ahdoot et al found that combined use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-targeted biopsy and 12-core systematic prostate biopsy led to enhanced detection of prostate cancers vs either approach alone in men with MRI-visible prostate...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Robert J. Kreitman, MD, and colleagues found that achievement of minimal residual disease–free complete remission for patients with hairy cell leukemia was enhanced by adding concurrent rituximab to first-line cladribine; a lesser...
Thirty-three practices received the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) certification in the fourth quarter of 2019. The Association for Clinical Oncology applauds the work of these practices to ensure a better and healthier future. The following practices achieved QOPI certification or...
The work of nine researchers who have previously received funding from Conquer Cancer is featured in ASCO’s Clinical Cancer Advances 2020. Visit CONQUER.ORG for more details. Advance of the Year: Refinement of Surgical Treatment At Massachusetts General Hospital, Janet Murphy, MD, is expanding...
When the landmark report from the Institute of Medicine, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition, was published in 2006, there were 10 million cancer survivors in the United States.1 Meant to raise awareness of the medical, functional, and psychosocial consequences of a cancer...
On January 23, 2020, tazemetostat was granted accelerated approval for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients aged 16 and older with metastatic or locally advanced epithelioid sarcoma not eligible for complete resection.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the finding of...
A scientific team has been awarded a $9.1 million grant by the National Cancer Institute to study liver metastasis. The co-lead investigators, Neil Bhowmick, PhD, Director of the Cancer Biology Program, and Shelly Lu, MD, Women’s Guild Chair in Gastroenterology and Director of the Division of...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapies for newly diagnosed and relapsed or refractory acute...
On January 9, 2020, avapritinib was approved for treatment of adults with unresectable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) harboring a platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (PDGFRA) exon 18 mutation, including D842V mutations.1,2 It is the first therapy approved for...
In addition to our regular coverage of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the following reports from the meeting include studies you may have missed. We hope you find them of interest. Ribociclib/Letrozole as Neoadjuvant Therapy As neoadjuvant therapy in women with high-risk hormone...
Updated results of the phase II CAPTIVATE trial continue to show high response rates as well as high rates of undetectable minimal residual disease (MRD) with ibrutinib plus venetoclax as front-line treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in patients under the age of 70 years. The...
With the availability of a number of effective targeted agents for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the question arises whether chemotherapy still has a role in treating this malignancy. At the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, CLL...
Ibrutinib was the first Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor to dramatically transform the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and other hematologic malignancies. The second-generation BTK inhibitor acalabrutinib is a more selective BTK inhibitor designed to have an...
In an interview with The ASCO Post, Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, expounded on the results of the COSMIC-021 trial. Dr. Drake is Division Director for GU Oncology, Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Program, and Co-Leader of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment Program at the Herbert Irving...
The combination of the small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor cabozantinib (inhibits VEGF, AXL, MET, and others), plus the immune checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab achieved encouraging activity in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, according to the results of...
New data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium are validating the purpose of ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study, a multibasket trial that matches patients’ genomic alterations to commercially available targeted therapies. The aim is to learn...
ASCO and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have jointly published an update to a clinical practice guideline on estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor testing in breast cancer.1 The guideline for immunohistochemistry testing of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptors in patients...
A novel approach using a drug called MK-6482 showed activity in a phase I/II study in patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma, according to a presentation at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.1 MK-6482 is an oral, first-in-class selective small-molecule inhibitor that...
Vitamin D supplementation prior to starting immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may significantly reduce the odds of developing colitis, according to a study conducted at Harvard Medical School. Although this was a retrospective chart review, the association was relatively strong in the...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a combination therapy in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL); gave Fast Track designations for treatments in T-cell lymphoma and adenoid cystic carcinoma; granted Orphan Drug designation to an agent for the ...
Scott Gottlieb, MD, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), had some advice for attendees of the 37th Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference in his keynote address at the meeting. While his formal presentation pertained to innovations in oncology drug development and...
In the phase III POUT trial, reported in The Lancet, Alison Birtle, MD, and colleagues found that adjuvant gemcitabine/platinum chemotherapy was associated with improved disease-free survival vs surveillance in patients with locally advanced urothelial carcinoma of the upper urinary tract. As...
“In the 10-year analysis of the NSABP B-42 trial, the effect of extended treatment with 5 years of letrozole on disease-free survival persisted and reached statistical significance. There was no significant improvement in overall survival with letrozole, but letrozole continued to provide a...
Investigators in Brazil are seeking to explore the efficacy and safety of adjuvant biosimilar trastuzumab in a real-world study of patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer. In 2019, biosimilar trastuzumab became the first biosimilar approved in Brazil for the treatment of patients with...
In the phase II KEYNOTE-890 trial, patients with inoperable advanced triple-negative breast cancer who received one intratumoral tavokinogene telseplasmid injection followed by electroporation and pembrolizumab, several patients with skin or subcutaneous tumors saw metastatic lesions disappear,...
The second interim analysis of the phase III SOPHIA trial demonstrated a significant though modest improvement in progression-free survival, response rate, and clinical benefit with the addition of margetuximab to chemotherapy vs trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER2-positive...
In patients with triple-negative breast cancer, the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy achieves higher rates of pathologic complete response compared with placebo, according to results of the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial presented at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer ...
Capecitabine improves disease-free and overall survival for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, but only when it is added to other systemic therapies, not when it is used as a substitute, according to a large meta-analysis of the effects of capecitabine in early breast cancer, The results...
A. Jo Chien, MD, Associate Professor at UCSF’s Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, was the formal discussant of this abstract. Dr. Chien said that a median follow-up of 3-years is relatively short for this trial, considering about 75% of patients had hormone receptor–positive...
Results of the randomized, phase II ATEMPT trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) failed to demonstrate improved safety when compared with paclitaxel plus trastuzumab as adjuvant therapy in patients with stage 1 HER2-positive breast cancer. These results of...
In heavily pretreated patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer [fam-]trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd), a novel antibody-drug conjugate, achieved high response rates and durable responses, according to results of the phase II DESTINY-Breast01 trial presented at the 2019 San Antonio...
The investigational oral agent tucatinib added to trastuzumab/capecitabine reduced the risk of death by one-third and reduced the risk of disease progression or death by one-half in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, including those with untreated or previously ...
More than 7,500 specialists in breast oncology from over 90 countries attended the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) held last December. Researchers convened to present a wide-ranging array of abstracts and posters featuring important new data in the treatment of breast cancer....
An international team of clinicians and researchers have described the pathology of the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, for the first time. Their findings were published by Tian et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. The article’s senior author, Shu-Yuan Xiao, MD, from the University of Chicago ...
A monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) inhibitor in use for decades as an antidepressant demonstrated activity in patients with recurrent prostate cancer, with most toxicities seen with the treatment being reported as mild. These findings were published by Gross et al in Prostate Cancer and Prostatic...
In a pooled analysis of phase I/II trials reported in The Lancet Oncology, Hong et al found that the tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) inhibitor larotrectinib produced a high response rate in pediatric and adult patients with advanced TRK fusion–positive solid tumors. Larotrectinib received...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Delaloge et al, a second randomized component of the phase III EORTC 10041/BIG 3-04 MINDACT trial, though underpowered, suggested no benefit of docetaxel/capecitabine vs standard anthracycline-based adjuvant therapy for patients with early breast...
In a phase Ib/II trial (BTRC-GU14-003) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dudek et al found that the combination of pembrolizumab and bevacizumab showed activity in patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma. As stated by the investigators, “Anti-angiogenic treatment has...
In patients with metastatic seminoma, the early use of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)–positron-emission tomography (PET) to risk-stratify patients enabled the de-escalation of chemotherapy, avoiding treatment with bleomycin—one of the most toxic drugs used to treat this cancer—and excessive doses of...
Richard E. Champlin, MD, Chairman of the nation’s largest Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, was born in Milwaukee and spent his formative years in Chicago. After high school, Dr. Champlin followed an early ambition in...
In a phase I trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Jabbour et al found that the use of pembrolizumab concurrently with chemoradiotherapy in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) was tolerable, and that progression-free survival with the combination therapy was 69.7% at 12 months. As stated by the...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Talia Golan, MD, and colleagues identified geographic and ethnic heterogeneity of germline BRCA1/2 mutation prevalence among patients screened for entry into the phase III POLO trial, which examined the efficacy of olaparib maintenance...