The following essay by Howard A. (Skip) Burris III, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org....
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology Tumors & Treatment: A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The X-Ray Era: 1901–1915.” The photograph appears...
A comparative analysis of outcomes with two different trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based adjuvant regimens in older women with early HER2-positive breast cancer found little difference in safety and efficacy between treatments. The study was reported by Reeder-Hayes et al in the Journal of Clinical...
GUEST EDITOR Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology explores the unique physical, psychosocial, social, emotional, sexual, and financial challenges adolescents and young adults with cancer face. The column is guest edited by Brandon Hayes-Lattin, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine and Medical Director...
INVESTIGATORS AT Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) have received a $17 million program project grant renewal from the National Cancer Institute to study the effectiveness of different breast cancer screening and surveillance strategies using digital mammography, digital breast...
The oncology community has now conducted several prospectively designed, hypothesis-driven randomized clinical trials among women with breast cancer to address this question: Do adjuvant bisphosphonates decrease the risk of breast cancer bone metastases and other recurrence? A meta-analysis1 by...
WITHIN THE SPECTRUM of breast cancer subtypes, triple-negative disease is “particularly troubling,” but better scientific understanding of this malignancy is leading to advances in its treatment, according to breast cancer expert Nancy Davidson, MD. Triple-negative breast cancer does not express...
THE 22ND CONGRESS of the European Hematology Association (EHA) was held in June in Madrid, drawing hematologists and allied professionals from every subspecialty of hematology from around the world. Among the extensive educational and scientific program, the EHA Congress provides a forum for...
A RANDOMIZED head-to-head comparison in patients with advanced colorectal cancer found that a regimen of FOLFOXIRI (fluorouracil/leucovorin, oxaliplatin, irinotecan) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) was more effective than a regimen of FOLFOX (fluorouracil/leucovorin, oxaliplatin) plus bevacizumab as...
DURING JULY, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) made a number of approvals and recommendations on a variety of oncology products. Neratinib ON JULY 1 7, the FDA approved neratinib (Nerlynx) for the extended adjuvant treatment of adult...
THE BODY OF EVIDENCE supporting the use of cell-cycle inhibitors in combination with endocrine therapy for estrogen receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer now has another agent in the spotlight. The phase III MONARCH 2 trial—reported at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting and by Sledge et al in the...
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this special feature on the worldwide cancer burden. Each installment focuses on a country from one of the six regions of the world, as defined by the World Health Organization (ie, Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, and...
New recommendations on the use of the MammaPrint genomic test issued on July 10 will help guide decisions on adjuvant systemic therapy for women with early breast cancer. The recommendations update the ASCO 2016 clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers in these patients. The guideline ...
Since the founding of the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1847, Barbara L. McAneny, MD, is the fourth woman and first oncologist to be elected President of the venerable medical association. “I’m a generic Midwesterner. I was born in Missouri and raised in Madison County, Illinois, and went...
The 10-year follow-up of the phase III TEAM trial has shown that exemestane alone and sequential tamoxifen/exemestane provide similar outcomes as adjuvant endocrine therapy in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer. The findings were reported in The Lancet...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation for acalabrutinib for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) who have received at least one prior therapy. Acalabrutinib is a highly selective, potent Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK)...
On July 28, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for venetoclax (Venclexta) in combination with low-dose cytarabine for elderly patients with previously untreated acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who are ineligible for intensive chemotherapy. FDA...
On July 31, AstraZeneca and MedImmune (AstraZeneca’s global biologics research and development arm) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for durvalumab (Imfinzi) for the treatment of patients with locally advanced,...
A West German Study Group phase II trial, reported by Harbeck et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, has shown a higher pathologic complete response rate with neoadjuvant ado-trastuzumab emtansine (formerly known as T-DM1; Kadcyla) with or without endocrine therapy vs trastuzumab (Herceptin)...
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR RADIATION ONCOLOGY (ASTRO) has announced the 2017 ASTRO Gold Medalists. Søren M. Bentzen, DSc, PhD; Louis B. Harrison, MD, FASTRO; and Michael L. Steinberg, MD, FASTRO, have been awarded the annual honor given to ASTRO members who have made outstanding lifetime...
THE OREGON Health & Science University (OHSU) Knight Cancer Institute announced that bioengineering and technology expert Mike Heller, PhD, will join the Institute’s Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center (CEDAR) to lead its technology efforts. A leader with more than 53 issued...
WITH THE RECENT efficacy findings, improvements in survival, and resultant U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint inhibitors across multiple solid tumor indications, the publication of yet another positive trial adds to the...
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 was the first federal law to mandate that group health insurance plans and state-licensed insurance issuers provide coverage of standard-of-care costs for patients enrolled in approved clinical trials, effective on January 1, 2014. Under...
IN THE PHASE III KEYNOTE-045 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) significantly improved overall survival vs investigator choice of chemotherapy as second-line treatment ...
DIGITAL TOMOSYNTHESIS is rapidly replacing full-field digital mammography, because “it allows a more efficient diagnostic workflow and leads to a more confident interpretation,” according to Elizabeth A. Morris, MD, FACR, Chief of the Breast Imaging Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, ...
CHECKPOINT INHIBITION was effective against malignant pleural mesothelioma in the MAPS-2 study of the French Cooperative Thoracic Intergroup. At the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting, researchers reported a disease control rate of up to 50% when patients were treated with immunotherapy after relapse in a...
CHECKPOINT INHIBITORS have dramatically changed the landscape of the treatment of melanoma, lung, bladder, and other cancers. Researchers are focusing on exploring ways to extend the use of checkpoint inhibitors to other disease states and to combine them with novel agents and improve outcomes. At ...
STEVEN J. COHEN, MD, Director of the Rosenfeld Cancer Center at Jefferson Health/Abington Hospital, Abington, Pennsylvania, and Vice Chair of Medical Oncology at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, and Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, Head of Medical Oncology and the Gastrointestinal Tumors and...
SPINAL CORD COMPRESSION associated with metastatic cancer can be effectively treated with a single dose of radiotherapy, according to the results of a phase III British study that showed multiple radiotherapy doses to be no better than one treatment.1 Up to 10% of all patients with cancer will...
UPDATED RESULTS from the ELIANA clinical trial of CTL019 (tisagenlecleucel)—an investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy—found that remission rates are maintained at 6 months in relapsed/refractory pediatric and young adult patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia....
DISCUSSANT LYNN SCHUCHTER, MD, the C. Willard Professor of Medicine at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, said the findings herald “a new era on two fronts…. Systemic therapy as initial treatment for patients with asymptomatic central nervous system (CNS)...
CONGRESS RECENTLY passed its fiscal year (FY) 2017 spending bill, which contains an additional $2 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This marks the first time in more than a dozen years that Congress funded back-to-back increases for the NIH, demonstrating the bipartisan...
As reported by Sivendran et al in the Journal of Oncology Practice, half of patients in a large community-based cancer institute did not know their stage of cancer, and one-third did not know of their cancer-free/in-remission status. Study Details The study involved 208 adult patients treated at...
“Strong evidence suggests that using a tanning bed during adolescence or young adulthood can increase the risk of early-onset melanoma by over 40%,” Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, MD, wrote in an opinion piece for Newsweek.1 Dr. Gershenwald is Professor of Surgical Oncology, Medical Director of the...
“If minors don’t tan, then they may never become adult tanners,” Jeffrey E. Gershenwald, MD, said in explaining the emphasis on teaching sun safety behaviors to young children as part of the Melanoma Moon Shot Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Dr. Gershenwald is ...
A Japanese phase III trial has shown no survival benefit of prophylactic cranial irradiation vs observation in patients with extensive-disease small cell lung cancer who had any response to platinum-based doublet chemotherapy and no brain metastases at baseline. These findings were reported in The...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, authors Karen Popkin, LCAT, MT-BC, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, present the case ...
There are few data to guide the management of nonmetastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in patients who are elderly or have a poor performance status. Although most such patients are offered supportive care or gemcitabine alone, the addition of stereotactic body radiotherapy may improve...
Although I was officially diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1997, the first sign of the cancer was evident 2 years earlier, when a single lesion (a plasmacytoma) was found in a bone in my lower back. The bone was replaced with two thin stainless steel rods, and after a course of radiation therapy, ...
Today’s brave new world of digital technology has both enhanced and compromised the day-to-day operational efficiency of ultrabusy oncologists who are struggling to balance patient care with the rapid evolution of technology. Like all scientific advances, health-care technology is a double-edged...
When Amy Berman, BSN, LHD (aged 58), stood in front of the mirror to perform a routine breast self-exam and saw redness and dimpling on her right breast, she feared they were the telltale signs of inflammatory breast cancer. “I have never self-diagnosed myself before, but I had recently read an...
Following early reports associating favorable outcomes in cancer patients with the use of statins,1,2 further observational studies in this area have provided mixed findings.3 As recently reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Seckl and colleagues ...
In a UK phase III study (LUNGSTAR) reported in the Journal of Clinical -Oncology, Michael J. Seckl, MD, PhD, of Imperial College London, and colleagues found that adding pravastatin to first-line standard chemotherapy did not improve overall survival in patients with small cell lung cancer...
Moffitt Cancer Center researchers conducted a first-of-its-kind study comparing the long-term benefits of radiation therapy in women with breast cancer in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant settings. Their study, published by Poleszczuk et al in Breast Cancer Research, found that patients who have...
Over the past decade, there has been renewed interest in developing immunologic therapies in cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved several new biologic agents that target a patient’s immune system, some of which have produced profound clinical responses. However, the...
In a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) study (AALL06N1) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hardy et al found that age < 10 years at diagnosis was associated with poorer neurocognitive function in patients with high-risk B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia regardless of...
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved neratinib (Nerlynx) for the extended adjuvant treatment of adult patients with early-stage HER2-overexpressed/amplified breast cancer, to follow adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin)-based therapy. ExteNET Trial Approval was based on the ExteNET...
The Danish phase III DBCG 07-READ trial has shown no difference in disease-free survival with adjuvant docetaxel/cyclophosphamide vs epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, and docetaxel in patients with early TOP2A-normal breast cancer. These trial results were reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology...
Despite decreases in cancer death rates nationwide, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows slower reduction in cancer death rates in rural America (a decrease of 1.0% per year) compared with urban America (a decrease of 1.6% per year), according to data...
On July 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for blinatumomab (Blincyto) to include overall survival data from the phase III TOWER study. The approval converts blinatumomab's accelerated approval to a full approval. The sBLA...