Early in 2019, trastuzumab and the endoglycosidase hyaluronidase-oysk for subcutaneous injection was approved in the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer.1,2 The agent is indicated for adjuvant treatment of patients with HER2-overexpressing node-positive or node-negative (estrogen...
Multiple myeloma is a malignancy characterized by clonal proliferation of terminally differentiated plasma cells within the bone marrow. Although it leads to a host of different issues within the body, overall survival has steadily improved in recent years. “This is largely because of better...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the St. Baldrick’s Foundation announced the creation of the AACR–St. Baldrick’s Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pediatric Cancer Research. The award includes a grant to provide support for a junior faculty investigator to...
Dr. Smith called us on a Tuesday afternoon. “I have a patient who has an abnormal mammogram showing a large mass. I’m suspecting cancer and am referring her to you for diagnosis and treatment. She’s very anxious. I hope you can help.” We were able to get Dr. Smith’s patient in the next day for...
Steven J. Isakoff, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, commented on the results of the DESTINY-Breast01 trial. “These data are extraordinarily encouraging, suggesting we will have another new option for patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. The...
The novel antibody-drug conjugate [fam-] trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) achieved high response rates and durable responses in heavily pretreated patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, according to results of the phase II DESTINY-Breast 01 trial presented at the 2019 San Antonio...
In a statement from Gustave Roussy on December 16, 2019, the following news was released: “By an order, the Minister of Health and Solidarity, Madame Agnès Buzyn, appointed Professor Jean-Charles Soria as General Director of Gustave Roussy for a term of 5 years. He will assume his responsibilities...
Edmondo Robinson, MD, MBA, FACP, has joined Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa as the new Senior Vice President and Chief Digital Innovation Officer. This newly created position will be critical to Moffitt’s success and navigating a continually evolving health-care industry. Dr. Robinson brings over...
A year before my diagnosis of multiple myeloma, in 2010, my husband Paul and I moved with our six children to Monterrey, Mexico, where Paul was helping to create a venture capital industry. We were so busy settling into a new country and getting our children integrated into school that when I...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Reviews for treatments in extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), non–muscle invasive bladder cancer, and BRAF V600E–mutant colorectal cancer. The Agency also recently issued multiple Breakthrough Therapy designations and ...
A recent study found rising rates of squamous cell carcinoma of the anus, “particularly advanced-stage disease, and a similar rise in mortality.”1 The authors concluded: “Improved prevention strategies are urgently needed to mitigate the rising [squamous cell carcinoma of the anus] burden among a...
“Squamous cell carcinoma of the anus incidence has increased dramatically in elderly women and young black men,” according to a study of recent trends in incidence and mortality. “Advanced-stage [anal squamous cell carcinoma] incidence tripled with a prominent rise in … mortality,” researchers...
The text and photographs here are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Antiseptic Era: 1876–1900 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photographs appear courtesy of Dr. Burns and The Burns Archive. To ...
Robert Knoerl, PhD, RN, an Instructor in Medicine and Nurse Scientist in the Phyllis F. Cantor Center for Research in Nursing and Patient Care Services at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has been awarded the 2020 Oncology Nursing Society’s Victoria Mock New Investigator Award. Dr. Knoerl was...
In the Dutch DENSE study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bakker et al found that supplemental magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in women with extremely dense breast tissue and normal results on screening mammography was associated with the diagnosis of significantly fewer interval...
Only one in five people (22%) disagrees with the statement “generally, patients with lung cancer have caused their illness through their lifestyle choices and behaviors,” according to a global, omnibus survey conducted by Ipsos MORI and sponsored by the Lung Ambition Alliance. The results were...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Syed Ali Abutalib, MD, and L. Jeffrey Medeiros, MD, explore the updated World Health Organization (WHO) classification of hematopoietic and lymphoid ...
In early 2019, pembrolizumab was approved for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma with involvement of lymph node(s) following complete resection.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the double-blind EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier...
The Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance (MBCA), the largest coalition of nonprofit breast cancer organizations, pharmaceutical/biotech companies, and patient advocates in the United States, recently announced the release of MBC Connect 2.0. MBC Connect is an interactive, Web- and mobile-friendly...
Golden Valley Memorial Healthcare, a leading rural health-care organization, is proud to announce its new cancer center and partnership with Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute at HCA Midwest Health, a leader in world-class cancer care, and HCA Midwest Health, Kansas City’s largest health network and...
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has announced that J. Jack Lee, PhD, has been named a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Lee is Associate Vice President of Quantitative Sciences and Biostatistics at MD Anderson and a leader in the design ...
Ashwani Rajput, MD, a surgical oncologist and researcher, has been appointed Director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins for the Washington, DC, region. Dr. Rajput assumed his new role in November 1 and is based at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC. Dr. Rajput specializes in the ...
In the phase III Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup ICON8 trial reported in The Lancet, Clamp et al found that first-line weekly dose-dense chemotherapy did not improve progression-free survival vs standard 3-weekly chemotherapy in a predominantly European population with epithelial ovarian cancer....
ASCO and the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association (NCODA) have published recommended standards for medically integrated dispensing of oral anticancer therapies and supportive care medications in the oncology clinic.1 “The NCODA created quality standards 6 years ago and recognized the ...
As in the previous 2 years, the results from ASCO’s 2019 Cancer Opinion Survey revealed some startling answers about the public’s understanding of cancer, its risk factors, and strategies to prevent the disease. Although a majority of Americans (57%) said they were concerned about developing...
Emerging treatments for relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma include options beyond triplet regimens, including immunotherapy and mutation-driven therapy. Several exciting drugs are poised to be available in the clinic in 2020, according to speakers at the recent JADPRO Live, the annual...
In patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, two novel dual-target chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell strategies are yielding early and durable responses, with seemingly less cytokine-release syndrome and neurotoxicity than first-generation CAR T-cell products, according to the...
As many California residents continue to deal with the aftermath of past wildfires and the advent of new ones, CancerCare is now offering a patient assistance program for both emotional and financial support to patients with cancer affected by the California fires. As a leading national nonprofit...
Sherene Loi, MD, of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia, said that the BROCADE3 trial was positive because it met its primary endpoint. However, she expressed some reservations about adopting this combination as a new standard for HER2-negative BRCA-mutated advanced breast cancer....
A new clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides recommendations on the use of radiation therapy to treat patients diagnosed with the most common types of skin cancers. The guideline details when radiation treatments are appropriate as stand-alone therapy...
Glioblastoma multiforme, colorectal cancer, and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma represent some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers and collectively cause more than 114,000 deaths each year in the United States. A trio of recently published basic research studies in these cancers have found...
Although gene mutations are the primary drivers of carcinogenesis, an array of complex and tumor-specific molecular interaction networks determine cancer cell behavior. To learn more about this line of inquiry, The ASCO Post recently spoke with Andrea Califano, Dr., Professor of Chemical Biology...
ASCO membership has elected Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, to serve as its President for the 2021–2022 term. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in June 2020. Six new members were also elected to the ASCO Board of Directors and...
A new study finds that women who lost weight after age 50 and kept it off had a lower risk of breast cancer than women whose weight remained stable, helping answer a vexing question in cancer prevention.1 The reduction in risk increased with the amount of weight lost and was specific to women not...
On December 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved enzalutamide (Xtandi) for patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer. The FDA previously approved enzalutamide for patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer. ARCHES Trial Efficacy was investigated in...
Lung cancer specialist Julie R. Brahmer, MD, MSc, comes from a long line of Midwest farmers who still run a family operation. “I’m originally from what I would call the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. My father is a sixth-generation farmer, and my mother is a nurse. I was inclined toward medicine at ...
There is a new first-line treatment option for patients with newly diagnosed, recurrent, or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. As reported by Burtness et al in The Lancet, pembrolizumab improved overall survival vs the standard-of-care regimen of cetuximab and platinum-based...
First-line treatment with the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab was safe and provided encouraging overall survival results in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as well as in patients with NSCLC traditionally not eligible for clinical trials—such as those who had...
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses trial data on margetuximab plus chemotherapy, which improved progression-free survival in patients with previously treated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer when compared with trastuzumab...
Patients with metastatic breast cancer who received an oral formulation of paclitaxel had better response and survival and less neuropathy than patients who received intravenous paclitaxel, according to results of a phase III trial presented at by Umanzor et al at the San Antonio Breast Cancer...
Priyanka Sharma, MD, of the University of Kansas Medical Center, reviews new phase III data on adding oral fluoropyrimidine to adjuvant endocrine therapy, the current standard of care, in the setting of hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative primary breast cancer (Abstract GS1-09).
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and as adjuvant therapy increased the rates of pathologic complete response in patients with triple-negative breast cancer who had lymph node involvement, according to results from the KEYNOTE-522 trial, which were...
Data from the 6-year analysis of the APHINITY trial showed that adding pertuzumab to the previous standard treatment of trastuzumab plus chemotherapy after surgery continued to reduce the risk of recurrence and death in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer, according to findings...
A 10-year median follow-up analysis of the IBIS-II trial on the efficacy and safety of the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for healthy postmenopausal women at increased risk of developing breast cancer has found that the therapy reduced the likelihood of breast cancer incidence by 50% and had few...
Saad Z. Usmani, MD, of the Levine Cancer Institute, discusses phase III study findings suggesting that the combination of carfilzomib/dexamethasone/daratumumab represents an efficacious new regimen for patients with relapsed or refractory disease, including those refractory to lenalidomide...
Jerald P. Radich, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, discusses a gene-expression model that distinguishes patients with chronic myeloid leukemia who achieved a deep molecular response from those with a poor response to treatment. This work could yield new therapeutic targets that...
The addition of tucatinib to capecitabine and trastuzumab significantly improved progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, with or without brain metastasis. These findings—from the HER2CLIMB study—were presented by Murthy et al at the 2019 ...
A phase II clinical study investigating [fam-] trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) in patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer previously treated with trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) showed patients had an overall response rate of 60.9% with the treatment. The study by Krop et al was presented ...
Blinatumomab improved survival in children with relapsed B-acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) compared with standard chemotherapy, accordings to findings from a study presented by Brown et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract LBA-1)....
Researchers have completed the first comprehensive analysis combining full genomic sequencing and gene-expression profiles of more than 1,300 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). The research was presented by Iacobucci et al during the 2019 American Society...