Analysis of more than 100,000 patients with cancer for gene CD274 (programmed cell death ligand 1 [PD-L1]) amplification may have implications for treatment with immune checkpoint blockade. Although shown to be rare in solid tumors, copy number alterations in PD-L1 genes were present in more than...
Although immunotherapy has improved outcomes across a growing number of cancers, its success in unselected cases of prostate cancer has been limited. According to data presented at the 2018 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium, however, investigators have identified a group of patients with ...
In a study of data from the National Cancer Database reported in JAMA Oncology, Joshi et al found that two-thirds of patients with node-positive nonmetastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the penis received lymph node dissection and approximately half received chemotherapy in recent years. ...
The combination of the poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) and the programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi) produced positive preliminary results in men with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer previously treated with...
The combination of axitinib (Inlyta) plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) can be added to the list of combination therapies that look promising in advanced renal cell carcinoma. In a phase Ib trial, almost three-quarters of patients with newly diagnosed advanced renal cell carcinoma treated with the...
Patients with recurrent urothelial cancer had sustained improvement in overall survival at 2 years after they received second-line treatment with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) vs chemotherapy, according to an updated survival analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-045 trial presented at the 2018...
This past January, ASCO published Clinical Cancer Advances 2018,1 its 13th annual report on the progress being made against cancer. The report names chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy as ASCO’s Advance of the Year. In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two ...
The moderator of the session, Francis P. Worden, MD, a medical oncologist at the University of Michigan Health System Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Ann Arbor, highlighted the number of poorly differentiated carcinomas, which is higher than reported in other previous, large studies. “In previous...
Cabozantinib (Cometriq) has demonstrated significant activity in the first-line setting for radioiodine-refractory differentiated thyroid carcinoma, according to data from a single-site phase II trial presented at the 2018 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancers Symposium.1 Treatment with...
An antibody that is present in the blood of women previously infected with the sexually transmitted infection chlamydia is associated with a doubling in ovarian cancer risk, according to data presented during a media preview for the 2018 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
People in Louisiana communities with cancer health disparities would be interested in participating in clinical trials or submitting samples to biobanks if provided information about these opportunities by a trusted physician—but physicians reported lacking appropriate information to give to...
In an analysis of two pooled studies reported in JAMA Oncology, O’Brien et al found that a complete response to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia was more likely in patients receiving the agent as first-line therapy and in those without bulky disease....
Survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer often have stronger social networks than their peers with no cancer history, according to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital researchers, who hope to translate that support into better health outcomes for the nation’s...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Tang et al, a Chinese phase III noninferiority trial has shown similar progression-free survival with nedaplatin- vs cisplatin-based chemoradiotherapy in patients with stage II to IVB nasopharyngeal carcinoma, with nedaplatin being associated with fewer severe...
Researchers at the University of California (UC), Davis, have shown that patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who received their care at a National Cancer Institute (NCI) cancer center in California had a dramatically reduced risk of early mortality. Using data from the California Cancer...
As reported at the 2017 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition and in The New England Journal of Medicine, Stephen J. Schuster, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues found that chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell...
The French phase III ALLOZITHRO trial, stopped early due to excessive hematologic relapse in the azithromycin group, showed worse airflow decline–free survival with azithromycin vs placebo after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) for hematologic malignancy. The study findings were...
BOOKMARK Title: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American MealAuthor: Eric SchlosserOriginal Publisher: Houghton MifflinOriginal Publication Date: January 2001Price: $23.95, paperback, 288 pages The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that about two-thirds of...
Breast cancer specialist Stacy L. Moulder, MD, was born and reared in Brookhaven, Mississippi, a small town southwest of the state capital of Jackson. “I was always interested in math and science, and I had a wonderful biology teacher in high school. It was when the advanced placement courses...
Law and Ethics in Oncology explores the legal and ethical issues oncologists must be aware of in this era of precision medicine and changing health-care policy, both to protect patients’ rights and to safeguard against potential legal jeopardy. For years, ASCO and other medical societies have...
Dr. Katz is a certified sexuality counselor at CancerCare Manitoba, Canada. SEXUALITY AND SEXUAL functioning are important to cancer survivors, and considering the significant number of survivors, this is an issue that should not be ignored. In a survey of cancer survivors who had completed...
TWO YEARS of treatment with celecoxib had no observed effect on 5-year outcomes of patients with early breast cancer in the large REACT trial presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “There was no overall benefit observed in disease-free survival or overall survival for...
EACH YEAR, The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute and Co-Director of the Cleveland Clinic Comprehensive Breast Cancer Program, to give his picks for the most important research presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer...
FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED patients with multiple myeloma considered to be at high risk of disease progression, double autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) significantly prolongs progression-free and overall survival, vs single transplant, according to the phase III EMN02/HO95 study. The findings...
Six years ago, I was 38 years old and, like many young people, took life for granted. I had two young daughters, ages 7 years and 4 months, and a wife I adored. And, except for a nagging pain on the left side of my abdomen, I was blessed with good health. Then, suddenly, the pain became so...
In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, the Children’s Cancer Association, Randall Children’s Hospital at Legacy Emanuel, and Legacy Research Institute, of Portland, Oregon, co-led a study to assess the impact of using live music as medicine on postoperative pediatric patients to reduce pain and...
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, Ting Bao, MD, DABMA, MS, reviews the current data on the use of acupuncture...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology, Huet et al have developed a 23-gene expression profile that predicts risk of follicular lymphoma progression. Study Details In a training cohort consisting of a subgroup of patients from the PRIMA trial (in which rituximab [Rituxan] maintenance was evaluated...
ADJUVANT CHEMOTHERAPY achieved robust improvements in disease-free survival and metastasis-free survival compared with surveillance in the phase III POUT study of patients with upper tract urothelial cancer.1 Further, there was an early trend toward improved overall survival with adjuvant...
FOR MANY adolescents and young adults (AYAs), the most distressing and troubling phase of the cancer continuum that began with diagnosis is survivorship, and among the toughest challenges are those involving sexual health and reproduction, Jessica Gorman, PhD, MPH, stated at the 11th Annual...
THE OPTIMAL treatment sequence for two approved agents in metastatic colorectal cancer may be regorafenib (Stivarga) before cetuximab (Erbitux), according to results from the small randomized Japanese REVERCE trial presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 Giving regorafenib...
AN INVESTIGATIONAL TOOL called ColotypeR classifies colon cancers by molecular subtype and creates a subtype-specific risk of recurrence, according to research. Developers of the tool say it will be able to guide treatment decisions. Colon cancer is highly heterogeneous in prognosis and response to ...
IN A PHASE I trial of patients with advanced solid tumors, the combination of pamiparib (BGB-290), a selective poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, and tislelizumab (BGB-A317), an agent targeting the programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) receptor, was well tolerated while demonstrating...
LISOCABTAGENE MARALEUCEL (Liso-cel; JCAR017), a CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with defined composition, has shown “potent and durable” responses in poor-prognosis patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in a phase I trial.1 According ...
PHILIP KANTOFF, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, was the formal discussant of both trials. “At first glance, these are two positive trials,” Dr. Kantoff said. Although he praised the results, he said that overall survival is the best demonstration of clinical benefit, and ...
IN TWO SEPARATE TRIALS presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, apalutamide and enzalutamide (Xtandi), respectively, reduced the risk of metastasis and prolonged metastasis-free survival in men with high-risk nonmetastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer. In the SPARTAN trial,1,2...
ON OCTOBER 17, 2017, Norman E. Sharpless, MD, became the 15th Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), succeeding Harold E. Varmus, MD, who stepped down as Director of the agency in March 2015, and replacing Douglas R. Lowy, MD, who had served as Acting Director for 2 years. The...
ASCO EXPERT Sumanta K. Pal, MD, of City of Hope, Duarte, California, commented, “IMmotion 151 is a positive trial and represents an important breakthrough. We have debated combination treatment strategies for advanced kidney cancer. This study looks at the combination of a programmed cell death...
THE TYROSINE KINASE inhibitor sunitinib (Sutent) has been the mainstay of treatment for first-line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma for about a decade. The IMmotion151 study reported at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium found that the combination of the immune checkpoint inhibitor...
FOR DECADES, the status of metastatic prostate cancer trials was not particularly exciting. With an absence of high-impact novel agents, the focus of cancer trial groups was on the improvement of standard care. Well-crafted, large trials of hormonal therapy demonstrated the utility of combined...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Lee et al found that measurement of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) can help distinguish between pseudoprogression (radiologic progression prior to response) and true progression in patients with metastatic melanoma receiving anti–programmed cell death ...
E. John Wherry, PhD, a cancer and immunology researcher at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the most highly cited investigators in his field, has been awarded a “Convergence 2.0” research grant by Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) to investigate immune system...
Biosimilars have rapidly proliferated in the cancer care landscape, leaving many providers unclear about the full impact these products will have on the care they deliver to patients. “American Society of Clinical Oncology Statement: Biosimilars in Oncology,” published in the Journal of Clinical...
ASCO congratulates pediatric oncologist Tara O. Henderson, MD, MPH, on being selected for the 2018 Presidential Leadership Scholars (PLS) program. This highly competitive and prestigious national program was created to help individuals from many professional backgrounds develop the practical...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies in melanoma. These studies focus on assessing response to checkpoint inhibitors; T-cell immunotherapy; combination therapies; adoptive cell therapy; combination therapy development; and...
Why wouldn’t you support a patient with a terminal illness the “right to try” any therapy that may save his or her life? The answer to this question—one engulfed in a political debate in Congress—seems simple. It is not. [Editor’s Note: On May 30, 2018, the President signed into law the Trickett...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, McQuade et al found that obesity was associated with improved outcomes in treatment of metastatic melanoma with targeted therapy or immunotherapy—but not chemotherapy—with a survival benefit appearing to be restricted to obese male patients....
People with stage III colon cancer who regularly eat nuts are at significantly lower risk of cancer recurrence and mortality than those who don’t, according to findings published by Fadelu et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Findings The study followed 826 participants in the CALGB...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by de Boer et al, the phase III PORTEC-3 trial has shown no significant improvement in 5-year overall survival with adjuvant chemoradiotherapy vs radiotherapy alone in women with high-risk endometrial cancer. Adjuvant chemoradiotherapy, however, was associated...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN) has released new NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) intended to help make sure people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who are diagnosed with cancer receive safe, necessary treatment. According to ...