Press conference moderator, Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, noted, that her center participated in the single-arm trial of mosunetuzumab. “We witnessed first-hand the tremendous capacity bispecific antibodies have to make a real difference in...
Jane N. Winter, MD, Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and the 2022 President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and Christopher R. Flowers, MD, MS, Chair of the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...
Computed tomography (CT)-detected emphysema may be linked to a higher risk of lung cancer, a risk that increases with emphysema severity, according to a new study published by Yang et al in the journal Radiology. Lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer-related death worldwide. However, lung...
Immunotherapy has become a potential strategy in treating triple-negative breast cancer, though many questions remain to be answered before long-term survival is achieved by all patients. This exciting field of breast cancer research was explored at the 2022 Miami Breast Cancer Conference by...
Priscilla K. Brastianos, MD, of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, talks about her efforts to better understand how brain metastases evolve genomically and to test such agents as abemaciclib, paxalisib, and entrectinib, which may stop their growth. Palbociclib, a CDK...
The Iranian revolution of 1979 transformed Iran from an absolute monarchy under Shah Mohammad Pahlavi to an Islamist republic under Ayatollah Khomeini. The author of a new book called The Magic of Normal, Maky Zanganeh, PhD, was born in Iran in 1970. As a young woman, she experienced the war in her ...
Editor’s Note: The following is adapted from Dr. Hrynkiv’s presentation at the March 18 ASCO/ECO Briefing: Cancer Care During the War in Ukraine. Find resources for impacted patients and providers at asco.org/ukraine and onco-help.org. Official statistics regarding damage and losses in Ukraine are...
In the treatment of advanced endometrial cancer, maintenance therapy with oral selinexor after response to first-line chemotherapy may result in a significantly reduced risk of disease progression, according to the results of the global phase III ENGOT-EN5/GOG-3055/SIENDO trial, presented at the...
Elizabeth Plimack, MD, MS, has been appointed to Deputy Director at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, according to Jonathan Chernoff, MD, PhD, Cancer Center Director at Fox Chase. Dr. Plimack is Chief of the Division of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Professor in the Department of...
Alana L. Welm, PhD, of the University of Utah Huntsman Cancer Institute, discusses her findings of a new pathway that regulates the antitumor immune response during metastatic outgrowth. Interfering with a particular isoform of RON kinase may cause metastatic tumors to be swarmed by T cells and...
In 1999, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) President Paul Marks, MD, recruited Barrie Cassileth, PhD, to establish an Integrative Medicine Service that “provided evidence-based complementary therapies that improve patients’ quality of life by alleviating physical and emotional symptoms...
Nothing can really prepare you for cancer, but it helped that I have dedicated my life in service to others as a minister and advocate for social justice and health equity in breast cancer survivorship. Before my own breast cancer diagnosis in 2016, I had spent years as a volunteer for several...
“Prior to these two studies, smaller studies showed a lack of response to PARP [poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase] inhibitors in previously treated patients with urothelial cancer, both as monotherapy and in combinations,” said formal discussant of the BAYOU and ATLANTIS trials, Sandy Srinivas, MD,...
Guideline-directed medical therapy for the prevention and treatment of cardiotoxicity is improving quality of life and oncologic outcomes associated with breast cancer treatment, according to Jean-Bernard Durand, MD, FACP, FCCP, FACC, FHFSA, Professor of Medicine at The University of Texas MD...
Black patients with cancer experienced significantly worse outcomes after a COVID-19 diagnosis than non-Hispanic White patients, according to findings published by Fu et al in JAMA Network Open. Investigators from the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium (CCC19) studied the electronic health records of...
New research has found that the weakened immune systems of patients with lymphoma may improve after they receive a third COVID-19 vaccination. Patients with lymphoma have defects in their immune system that restrict its response to vaccination; despite this, a study published by Lim et al in Nature ...
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, the number of attacks on health-care facilities continues to mount. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of March 16, there have been 43 attacks on health facilities, including 34 attacks that have directly impacted health facilities and...
Nilofer Azad, MD, Professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Co-Director of Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, was invited to discuss the results of the phase III TOPAZ-1 study, which found an overall survival...
Rona Yaeger, MD, Assistant Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, offered her thoughts on the findings of Morris et al for the combination regimen of encorafenib, cetuximab, and nivolumab in microsatellite-stable BRAF V600E–mutated metastatic colorectal cancer...
Invited discussant of the two studies, Elena Élez, MD, PhD, of the Colon Cancer Program, Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, Spain, discussed the challenge of treating BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer and what the new data bring to that effort. Dr. Élez noted: “BRAF V600E–mutant...
Gynecologic oncologist and surgeon B.J. Rimel, MD, recently was named Medical Director of the Cedars-Sinai Cancer Clinical Trials Office. She will serve as a medical liaison between clinical trial principal investigators and Cedars-Sinai Cancer leadership to ensure the quality of services provided...
Today, ASCO and the European Cancer Organisation (ECO) held a virtual briefing with oncologists in Ukraine, Poland, and Romania to address the impact the war is having on patients with cancer displaced within Ukraine and those fleeing to neighboring countries. The briefing also included remarks...
We are all following the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine with surprise and horror. I’m sure few readers of The ASCO Post imagined the invasion of a European country by its European neighbor was possible again, naively thinking wars like this ended with the Allied victory in World War II. But...
Black and Hispanic people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in the greater Chicago area were more likely to die from the disease than their non-Hispanic White counterparts, with a 59% and 25% greater risk, respectively, according to a new study led by University of Illinois Chicago researchers. In...
I still remember having to sit down with her three siblings on that afternoon. It was drizzling, cloudy, and cool—Mother Nature in agreement with the heaviness of what had just taken place. I held them tight. I knew the words I would utter next would change their lives forever. I paused for 10...
Advances over the past 3 decades in improvements in cancer prevention and screening strategies and more effective diagnostics and therapies in cancer care have led to unprecedented declines in death rates from all cancers, including prostate, gynecologic, and colorectal/anal cancers. The fastest...
Breast cancer specialist Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, FACP, grew up in the East Bay area of Northern California, the youngest of five children. “My mother was a traditional stay-at-home mom, and my father was a probation officer. I come from a long line of artists; my great-grandfather on my mother’s side...
Margaret von Mehren, MD, Chief of the Division of Sarcoma Medical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center, was recently appointed the new Vice Chair of the Department of Hematology/Oncology. “It is an honor to serve the Department of Hematology and Oncology, which I have been a member of since 1993,...
Laura Bukavina, MD, MPH, a Urologic oncology fellow at Fox Chase Cancer Center, has been awarded the ASCO Genitourinary Conquer Cancer Merit Award. She presented the winning abstract, which characterizes the gut microbiome of patients with bladder cancer, at the 2022 ASCO Genitourinary (GU) Cancers ...
About 5 years ago, I began experiencing some digestive issues that I initially blamed on the stress from coping with my mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. But after 2 weeks of unrelenting symptoms, including abdominal pain, a change in my bowel habits, and rectal bleeding, I saw my primary...
In this installment of Living a Full Life, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with Gerardo Colón-Otero, MD, Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Past Chair of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Florida, and Vice Dean at Mayo Clinic Alix School of...
Linda Fleisher, PhD, MPH, Associate Research Professor in the Cancer Prevention and Control research program at Fox Chase Cancer Center, was recently appointed Co-Chair of the American Cancer Society’s National Navigation Roundtable. Patient navigators act as intermediaries between patients and...
"One of the great advocates for the poorest and sickest of our planet.” —Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu “Our mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care. By establishing long-term relationships with sister organizations ...
Karen E. Knudsen, PhD, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of the American Cancer Society, discusses ways to address the inequities in genitourinary screening, treatment, and outcomes. Her suggestions focus on increasing awareness of screening, identifying risk factors, the dramatic rise in incidence...
The antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) lengthened progression-free survival and improved the objective response rate compared with the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) after trastuzumab and taxane therapy in women with HER2-positive metastatic...
Precursors to multiple myeloma were identified by population screening in two studies reported at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The prevalence of monoclonal gammopathies was determined in the PROMISE trial using cutting-edge technology in a high-risk ...
The bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab achieved deep and durable remissions as monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, according to the results of a pivotal phase II trial presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 In ...
Jane N. Winter, MD, Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and 2022 President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and Christopher R. Flowers, MD, MS, Chair of the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center,...
Patricia L. Turner, MD, MBA, FACS, formally assumed the role of Executive Director of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) on January 1, 2022, ushering in a new era of leadership for the educational and professional society for surgeons. Dr. Turner succeeds David B. Hoyt, MD, FACS, MAMSE, who led ...
“My doctor has not told me to get the vaccine.” That was the number one reason patients with cancer gave in a survey at an outpatient infusion therapy clinic for not having received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Rivalling that reason were concerns about safety and fear of vaccine side...
The University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC) has appointed renowned cancer researcher M. Eileen Dolan, PhD, as its Deputy Director. Dr. Dolan, Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, has spent the past 8 years working as UCCCC’s Associate Director for Cancer...
COVID has upended our world, and medical conferences have had to adapt to ever-shifting sands depending on the behavior of the variants of the virus that emerge. The 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition was no exception, offering a hybrid meeting for in-person...
Rona Yaeger, MD, Associate Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, discussed the results of the GALAXY trial,1 first putting them into context with previous studies. As she pointed out, the finding of an 11-fold increase in risk of recurrence in patients who...
Jane N. Winter, MD, moderator of the press conference on late-breaking abstracts at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exhibition, commented on the BELINDA study in the context of two investigations that had been previously reported at the same meeting. These two...
The moderator of the press briefing on COVID-19 in patients with blood disorders, held during the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, was Laura C. Michaelis, MD, a clinician and clinical researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Dr. Michaelis...
In 2015, an unprecedented phenomenon occurred in the United States: according to the World Bank Group, the nation’s average life expectancy fell from 78.8 years in 2014 to 78.7 years in 2015, then to 78.5 years in 2017. The last time our life expectancy registered a similar decline was in the years ...
A woman with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who received a cord blood stem cell transplant to treat acute myeloid leukemia has had no detectable levels of HIV for 14 months, despite cessation of antiretroviral therapy, according to research presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and...
Jaye Gardiner, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at Fox Chase Cancer Center, has received an inaugural Black in Cancer postdoctoral fellowship, which is funded by Emerald Foundation Inc. Dr. Gardiner will receive $75,000 annually for 3 years, which will fund her research into pancreatic ductal...
Barbara Pro, MD, an internationally recognized expert in lymphoma research and care, has been named Clinical Director of the Lymphoma Program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Pro is also Professor of Medicine in ...
The start of January 2014 was filled with excitement. I was undergoing fertility treatments to have a second child and was living my professional dream. I was a network news anchor and medical news reporter for a national broadcast network. Although I was exhausted from my grueling early morning...