For Patients Patients undergoing active treatment for cancer and cancer survivors may be at increased risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus because of their compromised immune system and their susceptibility to other illnesses. ASCO has developed information on Cancer.Net on how patients...
Over the past month, medical societies worldwide have been monitoring the escalating outbreak of the novel coronavirus and its effect on international and domestic travel and making difficult decisions to cancel or postpone their scientific conferences or make them available digitally. On March...
On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) took the step it had been avoiding for weeks and declared that the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the virus that causes it, now identified as SARS-CoV-2, had reached global pandemic levels, the first pandemic sparked by a...
The ASCO Post has reported on the pivotal trials presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in several issues. Featured here are the findings of several additional abstracts worthy of mention. Intermittent Oxaliplatin in Stage II or III Colon Cancer As adjuvant treatment for stage II...
New research from the American Cancer Society published by Zheng et al in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network found that younger cancer survivors are more likely to experience significant financial strain for daily living necessities—such as food, housing, and monthly...
Patients who used copper intrauterine devices (IUDs) were found to have a lower risk of high-grade cervical neoplasms vs users of the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system, according to a study published by Spotnitz et al in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. The study notes that more...
THE ANNUAL INCIDENCE of male breast cancer in the United States is dwarfed by the rate among women. Yet, for the estimated 2,670 men who will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, life-extending and life-enhancing treatments are crucial.1 To help reduce knowledge gaps and improve mortality and ...
Although bacteria are predominant in the gastrointestinal tract, they also reside on and in other parts of the body, including some unexpected places, such as malignant tumors. There are numerous reports of this phenomenon, but most have not identified a functional role for the microbes. In the...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to a bispecific antibody for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations; granted approval to a test for human...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yadav et al found that many women with breast cancer with germline pathogenic genetic variants do not qualify for genetic testing on current National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) hereditary testing criteria....
The combination of the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab and definitive radiation therapy appears to be a safe and feasible option for patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer who are not eligible for cisplatin, according to data presented at the 2020 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck...
Now in its seventh year, the Haploidentical Transplant Symposium (HAPLO) continues to explore advances in haploidentical and other novel cellular therapies. The most recent of these meetings—HAPLO2019—met in Orlando, Florida, 2 days before the start of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD, of the University of Chicago Medical Center and Biological Sciences, emphasized the value of the patient having microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) status as a biomarker for immunotherapy. The analysis by Chao et al “highlights how well patients with MSI-H tumors do,...
Post hoc subanalyses of three KEYNOTE trials established the survival benefit of pembrolizumab in advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) tumors or a programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 10 (ie, the number of...
Research published by Melchior et al in Cancer Medicine has indicated that starting chemotherapy before surgery does not expedite the start or completion of treatment for breast cancer vs performing surgery first. “Increasingly, patients are given [neoadjuvant] chemotherapy…This is done for breast ...
The 5-year survival rate for adolescents and young adults with cancer has significantly improved from 1975 to 2005 in the United States overall, but this was not the case for all types of cancer, according to a report published by Anderson et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “We ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Daniel W. Lin, MD, and colleagues found that the 17-gene Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score was not associated with the finding of adverse pathology among men with prostate cancer undergoing radical prostatectomy after initial active...
According to research published by Andrea Hayes-Jordan, MD, FACS, and colleagues in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, children and young adults with colon cancer are more likely to have shorter overall survival and recurrence-free survival than middle-aged adults. In a...
ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) Round 1 of reporting is open for data abstraction. Round 1 will close on June 5, 2020, and final reports will be available approximately 4 weeks later. To get started, go to the registration portal at myqopi.asco.org/registration/login.aspx and...
The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) recently announced that Susan Band Horwitz, PhD, has been selected to receive the 2020 Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research. Dr. Horwitz is being recognized for pioneering the understanding, at the molecular level, of the mechanisms...
I am a retired 82-year-old Hematologist/Oncologist who reads The ASCO Post regularly. I am writing to share some brief thoughts with the authors of two articles in the February 10, 2020 issue. First, I would address the article, A Hopeful Look Ahead in Oncology, written by Dan L. Longo, MD, MACP....
When the landmark report from the Institute of Medicine, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition, was published in 2006, there were 10 million cancer survivors in the United States.1 Meant to raise awareness of the medical, functional, and psychosocial consequences of a cancer...
On January 23, 2020, tazemetostat was granted accelerated approval for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients aged 16 and older with metastatic or locally advanced epithelioid sarcoma not eligible for complete resection.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the finding of...
A scientific team has been awarded a $9.1 million grant by the National Cancer Institute to study liver metastasis. The co-lead investigators, Neil Bhowmick, PhD, Director of the Cancer Biology Program, and Shelly Lu, MD, Women’s Guild Chair in Gastroenterology and Director of the Division of...
A retrospective analysis from the Southwest Oncology Group S8814 trial, reported by Wendy A. Woodward, MD, PhD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues in JAMA Oncology,1 showed that a low 21-gene assay recurrence score was...
In addition to our regular coverage of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the following reports from the meeting include studies you may have missed. We hope you find them of interest. Ribociclib/Letrozole as Neoadjuvant Therapy As neoadjuvant therapy in women with high-risk hormone...
With the availability of a number of effective targeted agents for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the question arises whether chemotherapy still has a role in treating this malignancy. At the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, CLL...
Javier Pinilla-Ibarz, MD, PhD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, commented on this study: “ELEVATE TN compared front-line treatment with acalabrutinib alone or in combination with obinutuzumab vs obinutuzumab/chlorambucil and showed that a second-generation Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK)...
The combination of the small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor cabozantinib (inhibits VEGF, AXL, MET, and others), plus the immune checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab achieved encouraging activity in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, according to the results of...
New data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium are validating the purpose of ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study, a multibasket trial that matches patients’ genomic alterations to commercially available targeted therapies. The aim is to learn...
ASCO and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have jointly published an update to a clinical practice guideline on estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor testing in breast cancer.1 The guideline for immunohistochemistry testing of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptors in patients...
By way of tradition, our current system of oncology training exposes fellows to vast amounts of suffering in their first year. As fellows, we see dying patients with cancer in the hospital; we see the third-opinion, last-ditch referrals; we see most newly presenting patients; and we spend the hours ...
A novel approach using a drug called MK-6482 showed activity in a phase I/II study in patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma, according to a presentation at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.1 MK-6482 is an oral, first-in-class selective small-molecule inhibitor that...
“The investigators of the current study tested the hypothesis that vitamin D supplementation is associated with a reduced risk of checkpoint-induced colitis by rigorously assessing 37 variables in both discovery and validation cohorts,” said invited discussant Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, Assistant...
Vitamin D supplementation prior to starting immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may significantly reduce the odds of developing colitis, according to a study conducted at Harvard Medical School. Although this was a retrospective chart review, the association was relatively strong in the...
A study published in JAMA Oncology found that 31 genome-targeted anticancer agents were in use as of January 2018.1 To shed light on the current state of precision oncology, The ASCO Post recently spoke with David M. Cutler, PhD, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of ...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a combination therapy in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL); gave Fast Track designations for treatments in T-cell lymphoma and adenoid cystic carcinoma; granted Orphan Drug designation to an agent for the ...
Scott Gottlieb, MD, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), had some advice for attendees of the 37th Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference in his keynote address at the meeting. While his formal presentation pertained to innovations in oncology drug development and...
A study evaluating the economic impact of the cancer in young women has found that the diagnosis can result in employment disruption and financial decline. The findings—published by Tangka et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention—indicate the need for obtaining and maintaining...
“In the 10-year analysis of the NSABP B-42 trial, the effect of extended treatment with 5 years of letrozole on disease-free survival persisted and reached statistical significance. There was no significant improvement in overall survival with letrozole, but letrozole continued to provide a...
Investigators in Brazil are seeking to explore the efficacy and safety of adjuvant biosimilar trastuzumab in a real-world study of patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer. In 2019, biosimilar trastuzumab became the first biosimilar approved in Brazil for the treatment of patients with...
Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, Boston, commented on KEYNOTE-890. “Previous work has suggested minimal activity of...
In the phase II KEYNOTE-890 trial, patients with inoperable advanced triple-negative breast cancer who received one intratumoral tavokinogene telseplasmid injection followed by electroporation and pembrolizumab, several patients with skin or subcutaneous tumors saw metastatic lesions disappear,...
The second interim analysis of the phase III SOPHIA trial demonstrated a significant though modest improvement in progression-free survival, response rate, and clinical benefit with the addition of margetuximab to chemotherapy vs trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER2-positive...
In patients with triple-negative breast cancer, the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy achieves higher rates of pathologic complete response compared with placebo, according to results of the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial presented at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer ...
Capecitabine improves disease-free and overall survival for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, but only when it is added to other systemic therapies, not when it is used as a substitute, according to a large meta-analysis of the effects of capecitabine in early breast cancer, The results...
A. Jo Chien, MD, Associate Professor at UCSF’s Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, was the formal discussant of this abstract. Dr. Chien said that a median follow-up of 3-years is relatively short for this trial, considering about 75% of patients had hormone receptor–positive...
Results of the randomized, phase II ATEMPT trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) failed to demonstrate improved safety when compared with paclitaxel plus trastuzumab as adjuvant therapy in patients with stage 1 HER2-positive breast cancer. These results of...
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...
Martine J. Piccart, MD, PhD, FASCO, reported that at 6-year follow-up of the APHINITY trial there was a modest, but not statistically significant, overall survival benefit for the addition of pertuzumab to chemotherapy plus trastuzumab vs chemotherapy/trastuzumab as adjuvant therapy in patients...