As reported by Ganz et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, long-term follow-up of patients in the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Protocol B-31/NRG Oncology trial showed no worsening of cardiac function or quality of life with the addition of adjuvant trastuzumab...
The Conquerors Circle is the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s first-ever donor appreciation society. Donors who contribute $1,000 annually are members of the Conquerors Circle. In appreciation for their generous and loyal support of CCF, Conquerors Circle members receive exclusive benefits based on...
As one of the few organizations exclusively focused on funding research for metastatic breast cancer, Twisted Pink has a unique story to tell. Based in Louisville, Kentucky, the organization was founded in 2014 by breast cancer survivor Caroline Johnson. While Ms. Johnson fully recovered from her...
The treatment paradigm for multiple myeloma has changed dramatically in the past decade with the availability of several efficacious agents in various drug classes. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 13th Annual Congress: Hematologic Malignancies™, Shaji K. Kumar, MD, Professor...
New therapeutic agents for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) have led to dramatic improvement in remission rates, but questions concerning the proper sequencing and combination of these agents remain. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 13th Annual Congress: Hematologic...
Communicating effectively with patients with advanced cancer not only helps patients and their family members successfully transition to palliative and end-of-life care, it can prevent physicians from experiencing professional burnout, according to Robert M. Arnold, MD, Distinguished Service...
For potentially curable treatment of resectable pancreatic cancer, adjuvant therapy remains the standard “for now,” but evidence is growing that neoadjuvant therapy may be more beneficial, at least in certain patient subsets, according to Thomas Seufferlein, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at the...
In GEICAM 2006-10, the addition of fulvestrant at 250 mg/d to anastrozole did not improve 5-year disease-free survival over anastrozole alone (91.0% vs 90.8%). “Immune induction” with chemotherapy or radiotherapy appeared to enhance response to nivolumab in women with metastatic triple-negative...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress, held in Madrid, featured important news including at least seven practice-changing or potentially practice-changing trials, which are covered in recent issues of The ASCO Post. Here we present additional highlights of studies in breast ...
In updates of two important studies in metastatic gastric cancer reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress, nivolumab -(Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) demonstrated activity—but to varying degrees and with some nuances. “Anti-PD [programmed cell death protein]...
Early routine specialist palliative care for patients recently diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma did not impact quality of life, an international multicenter study has found.1 “Regular early specialist palliative care for patients was not associated with improved quality of life, as...
“At Microphone 1” is an occasional column written by Steven E. Vogl, MD, of Bronx, New York. When he’s not in his clinic, Dr. Vogl can generally be found at major oncology meetings and often at the microphone, where he stands ready with critical questions for presenters of new data. Here Dr. Vogl...
Low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer has become standard practice, mostly due to the results of the National Lung Screening Trial. Related evidence continues to evolve, informing the benefits and risks of low-dose CT in clinical practice. Mazzone et al presented new ...
IN PATIENTS with early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the use of expression of BRCA1 failed as an approach to customize chemotherapy, investigators from the Spanish Lung Cancer Cooperative Group reported at the 2017 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World...
In a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Soni et al reported reductions in the proportion of nonelderly adult cancer patients who were uninsured between 2010 and 2013 vs 2014, after institution of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Study Details The study used data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology,...
Results of the Pan-Canadian Early Detection of Lung Cancer (PanCan) study, reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tammemagi et al, indicate that the PanCan risk model is effective in identifying persons found to have early-stage lung cancer on low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening. Study Details ...
The results of a national cancer survey reveal a significant number of childhood cancer survivors are worried about keeping their health insurance, to the point of letting it affect their career decisions. The findings were published by Kirchhoff et al in JAMA Oncology. Anne Kirchhoff, PhD,...
Jamie Jacobs, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses study results that showed integrating oncology and palliative care early in the course of treatment helps people with incurable lung and gastrointestinal cancers cope better and have an improved quality of life and less...
Michael Hoerger, PhD, of Tulane University, discusses the effect on quality of life, depression, and end-of-life care when physicians focus on coping or on decision-making and advance care planning (Abstract 154).
The number of early-phase trials in oncology that adopted a seamless approach—as opposed to a traditional trial approach with defined phase I, II, and III plans—is rising, with data from the majority of them presented after 2014, according to a study presented by Barata et al at the...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) clinical trial has achieved the goal of screening nearly 6,000 patients in just under 2 years, according to data presented by Chen et al at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer...
An investigational test that screens for colorectal cancer could detect genetic mutations that are indicative of the disease with a high degree of sensitivity and specificity, according to results of a study presented by Powell et al at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular...
More than a quarter of patients with recurrent high-grade glioma treated with the retroviral vector Toca 511 (vocimagene amiretrorepvec) combined with Toca FC (an extended-release formulation of fluorocytosine, a prodrug of fluorouracil [5-FU]) were alive more than 3 years after...
In discovering how certain chemotherapy drugs cause peripheral neuropathy, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found a potential approach to preventing this common and troublesome side effect of cancer treatment. Their findings were published by Pease-Raissi et al in Neuron. The...
In the Dutch phase III DATA trial reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tjan-Heinjen et al, a nonsignificant disease-free survival advantage was found for 6 vs 3 years of adjuvant aromatase inhibitor therapy after 2 to 3 years of tamoxifen in hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer....
A study of 100 people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) receiving chemotherapy found that patient and physician perceptions of treatment risk and the likelihood of a cure varied widely. Overall, patients tended to overestimate both the risk of dying due to treatment and the likelihood of a cure....
An analysis from the phase III AZURE trial has shown that MAF-negative status was associated with a benefit and MAF-positive status, with a detriment of adjuvant zoledronic acid in early breast cancer. The analysis was reported by Coleman et al in The Lancet Oncology. Study Details The current...
In 1988, 38-year-old Rita Lawrence found herself in a desperate situation. The lymphoma she’d been battling had recurred after 2 years of remission. She’d endured multiple rounds of tough chemotherapy, but it couldn’t stave off the swiftly growing tumors. When she learned of a radioimmunotherapy...
APPLICATIONS ARE now being accepted for ASCO’s 2018 Health Policy Fellowship program. The Health Policy Fellowship aims to provide oncology fellows and early-career physicians with the necessary skills to shape cancer policy and to help increase the involvement of ASCO members in policy, advocacy,...
Oncology luminaries. Thought leaders. The soul of chemotherapy. These are just a few of the phrases used to describe Emil Frei, MD, FASCO, Emil J Freireich, MD, FASCO, James F. Holland, MD, FASCO, Georges Mathé, MD, and their historic contributions to the world of oncology. Inspired by these...
WOMEN WHO CONQUER CANCER (WWCC) funds the promising careers of the best and brightest women researchers through the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s Young Investigator Award (YIA) program. Thanks to the generosity of supporters, five awards were granted in 2017. Right now, gifts to the WWCC Endowment...
ASCO has created a series of clinical practice guidelines to benefit clinicians, public health leaders, and policymakers in all resource settings. These resource-stratified guidelines help medical professionals outline appropriate methods of treatment and care based on the level of health-care...
BerGenBio ASA announced that the randomized phase Ib/II clinical study of the Axl inhibitor BGB324 in combination with either the MAP kinase inhibitors trametinib (Mekinist) plus dabrafenib (Tafinlar) or the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with advanced melanoma is...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wang et al have developed a model for predicting risk of subsequent central nervous system (CNS) tumors in survivors of childhood cancer. Study Details In the study, matched childhood cancer survivors with (n = 82) and without (n = 228) subsequent...
WITH THE INCLUSION of proteasome inhibitors and immunomodulatory agents first into salvage and then as components of first-line, consolidation, and maintenance regimens, response rates, depth of response, and median progression-free and overall survival have all improved for patients suffering...
Honoring National Cancer Institute researchers Douglas R. Lowy, MD, and John T. Schiller, PhD, with the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for advances in technology that enabled the development of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines to prevent cervical cancer and other tumors caused by ...
IN A PHASE III trial reported by Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine, and colleagues in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the addition of first-line ipilimumab (Yervoy) to paclitaxel/carboplatin did not improve overall survival in patients with advanced squamous...
IN A RETROSPECTIVE pooled analysis of the CheckMate 069 and 067 studies reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dirk Schadendorf, MD, of the University Hospital Essen and the German Cancer Consortium, and colleagues found little difference in the efficacy of combined nivolumab (Opdivo) and...
In a retrospective analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Georgina V. Long, MBBS, PhD, of the Melanoma Institute Australia, North Sydney, and colleagues found that a substantial proportion of patients with advanced melanoma derived benefit from continued nivolumab (Opdivo) treatment after Response...
PRESS CONFERENCE MODERATOR Markus Joerger, MD, PhD, of St. Gallen Cancer Center, Switzerland, indicated that prior to the current study, it was unclear whether chemotherapy followed by surgery would be superior to chemoradiotherapy. “I think we all agree that it has been confirmed as the standard...
I’ve always had dense breasts and avoided doing breast self-exams because I couldn’t tell if the lumpiness I was feeling was something serious or merely normal fibrous tissue. Instead I relied on my yearly mammogram to spot any early signs of cancer. Four years ago, I was once again relieved to...
No matter what a person does in life, for good and bad, his or her inherited genetic makeup follows along the way. Such was the case with British journalist Sarah Gabriel, who inherited the BRCA1 mutation from her mother, who died of ovarian cancer when Ms. Gabriel was in college. Much of her...
IN THE TREATMENT of malignant melanoma, immune checkpoint inhibitors are no longer just for metastatic disease, and the best type may be agents targeting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1), according to results of CheckMate 238, presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)...
FOR PATIENTS with locally advanced, resectable melanoma harboring BRAF mutations, adjuvant treatment with BRAF/ MEK inhibition significantly improves overall survival, results of the COMBI-AD trial have shown. The study was presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017...
ABIRATERONE ACETATE (Zytiga) plus prednisone and docetaxel have moved up from the castrate-resistant metastatic setting to earlier in the course of disease as treatment of high-risk hormone-sensitive prostate cancer in men who are initiating androgen-deprivation therapy, based on level 1 evidence...
RAMUCIRUMAB (CYRAMZA) added to docetaxel improved progression-free survival and almost doubled the overall response rate compared with docetaxel alone in patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer that has progressed on platinum-based chemotherapy. These results of the phase III RANGE...
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR RADIATION ONCOLOGY (ASTRO) has awarded $275,000 in research awards to four early-career scientists as part of the Society’s efforts to retain and foster the intellectual research talent currently entering the field of radiation oncology. For 2017, the Research Grants...
“THESE PRELIMINARY STUDY RESULTS suggest that combining these modalities [immunotherapy and radiation therapy] can halt tumor growth in 30% to 57% of patients, with the radiation-induced tumor response acting as a sort of vaccine in combination with immunotherapy. This cutting-edge strategy...
THE NOVEL COMBINATION of immunotherapy with ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus radiation achieved a clinical benefit in up to 57% of patients with solid tumors and metastases to the lungs or liver, according to evidence from a phase II trial presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society for...
TWO STUDIES published this year examining the incidence of colorectal cancer in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) show an undeniable and sobering trend: Colorectal cancer rates are increasing in this age group, and younger people are dying of the cancer at slightly higher rates than in previous...