More than three out of four patients with relapsed multiple myeloma, or myeloma that was refractory to at least two therapies, remained in remission 7 months after treatment with a novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy targeting two proteins that are frequently found on myeloma...
Patients with multiple myeloma who had received a median of five prior therapies with refractory disease had a high response rate when treated with the investigational chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy JNJ-4528, which targets B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), a protein commonly found...
The investigational bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab is showing activity in preliminary studies of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), including those who are refractory to or relapsed after third-line chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. If preliminary findings are validated by...
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that women who use permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners may have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who do not use these products. The study, published by Eberle et al in the International Journal of Cancer, ...
Clinical trials continue to demonstrate that combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy and other targeted therapies can improve survival for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, according to results presented at the 21st Annual Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium in Chicago. Nearly 700...
For opioid-tolerant patients with advanced cancer experiencing pain, relief does not necessarily have to come from a higher dose of opioids, according to findings presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium.1 The results of a retrospective analysis of 300 patients with advanced...
Does nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer really exist? Although it is considered a disease category, it turns out that the definition depends on the type of imaging used. Many patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer who were categorized as “nonmetastatic” on conventional...
In a phase I/II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Geoerger et al found little activity of atezolizumab alone in pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed or refractory malignancies (including solid tumors, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Hodgkin lymphoma) with known or expected programmed...
Findings from the phase II NRG Oncology/RTOG 1014 trial, reported in JAMA Oncology by Arthur et al, showed that partial-breast reirradiation after second lumpectomy for recurrence of ipsilateral breast cancer following previous whole-breast irradiation was an effective treatment approach and could...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Richard T. Lee, MD, describes the symptoms associated with colorectal cancer...
Invited study discussant, Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona, said the phase II G1T28-04 study was “a ‘negative’ trial with clinically ‘positive’ results: an improved toxicity profile and overall survival benefit…. Despite the statistically negative...
An unanticipated result of a randomized phase II study was the improvement in overall survival achieved with the investigational CDK4/6 inhibitor trilaciclib in women with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. The drug was not being evaluated for its anticancer effects, but rather as a means of ...
On December 4, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in combination with chemotherapy (nab-paclitaxel and carboplatin) for the first-line treatment of adults with metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor...
In a health-related quality of life analysis from the phase III KEYNOTE-407 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mazières et al found that the patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received pembrolizumab in addition to chemotherapy had better...
High-dose brachytherapy for elderly patients with nonmelanoma skin cancer produces excellent cure rates and cosmetic outcomes, according to a new study presented at the 2019 annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) (Abstract SSM24-02). “For elderly patients [with...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Nathwani et al found that the use of a tablet-based modified geriatric assessment during physician visits by older patients with multiple myeloma was feasible and provided physicians with information that influenced treatment decisions. Study ...
In an individual patient-level meta-analysis reported in the Annals of Surgery, Syn et al found that laparoscopic resection vs open surgery was associated with significantly improved overall survival as treatment for colorectal liver metastases. Study Details The meta-analysis included data from...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, and colleagues, the phase III RANGE trial has shown no significant improvement in overall survival with the addition of ramucirumab to docetaxel in patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma previously treated with ...
Oncologists have become accustomed to seeing pneumonitis associated with immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), requiring intervention by pulmonologists in the management of severe cases. At CHEST 2019, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest...
As the Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan wrote, “The times they are a-changin’.” Heather Cheng, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Washington, Associate Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Director, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic, quoted this line in...
Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors is now considered a standard of care for the front-line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma. Despite better outcomes with these agents, there is still room for improvement. At the 2019 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium, Robert J. Motzer, MD, of...
In the post-trastuzumab era, a number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved targeted agents for metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer are available, but there is no preferred option for third-line treatment and beyond. At the 2019 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium, Shanu Modi, MD,...
A secondary analysis of the phase II NRG-RTOG 0424 trial—which initially reported a 73.1% 3-year overall survival rate—has shown a decline in neurocognitive function for half of the trial participants with high-risk, low-grade gliomas up to a year after receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy with...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dung T. Le, MD, and colleagues, the phase II KEYNOTE-164 trial demonstrated activity of pembrolizumab in previously treated metastatic microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H)/mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) colorectal cancer. Findings from the...
In 2018, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute launched a large, ambitious screening study called (PROMISE; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03689595) to identify people with premalignant precursor conditions of multiple myeloma, to understand the molecular signs of progression to myeloma...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Beaty et al found that the presence of a PIK3CA mutation was associated with poorer disease-free survival among patients receiving deintensified definitive chemoradiotherapy for human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated oropharyngeal...
In a phase I/IIa study reported in JAMA Oncology, Lillian L. Siu, MD, FRCPC, FASCO, and colleagues found no evidence of activity of the glucocorticoid-induced tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor–related protein (GITR) agonist antibody BMS-986156 alone or in combination with nivolumab in patients...
In a Canadian phase II crossover trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kim N. Chi, MD, and colleagues found that time to second prostate-specific antigen (PSA) progression from start of treatment was longer with crossover from abiraterone acetate/prednisone to enzalutamide vs the reverse sequence...
Over the past few weeks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted reviews or designations to treatments for gastrointestinal cancers and lymphoma, and also provided authorizations for products designed to screen for malignancies and tumor mutational burden. Priority Review for Nivolumab...
In the phase III trial Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG)-0213 trial, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Robert L. Coleman, MD, and colleagues, no overall survival benefit was found for secondary surgical cytoreduction followed by chemotherapy vs chemotherapy alone in women with...
In a phase I trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Danila et al found that the antibody-drug conjugate DSTP3086S, which targets the six-transmembrane epithelial antigen of the prostate 1 (STEAP1), had acceptable safety and evidence of activity in patients with metastatic...
As reported in The Lancet by Michel Attal, MD, and colleagues, the phase III ICARIA-MM trial has shown that the addition of the CD38-targeted antibody isatuximab to pomalidomide and low-dose dexamethasone significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with relapsed and refractory...
Combination therapy with the programmed cell death ligand 1 inhibitor atezolizumab and the VEGF inhibitor bevacizumab significantly improved overall and progression-free survival in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) compared to sorafenib, according to findings from the phase ...
More than one out of two patients with metastatic melanoma treated with the combination of nivolumab plus ipilimu-mab is still alive after 5 years, according to the longest follow-up of patients receiving this combination. In two additional studies, the immunotherapy duet also proved to be active...
The ASCO Nominating Committee has selected 14 ASCO members as candidates for open leadership positions within the Society, including: The office of President-Elect Four seats on the Board of Directors Two seats on the Nominating Committee. All eligible ASCO members* can vote, and the voting...
William G. Kaelin, Jr, MD, Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, admits that early in his research career, he and his late wife, Carolyn, would have fun...
Local therapy for stage IV breast cancer has not been proven to increase overall survival, yet there are some cases where local therapy could be considered outside a clinical trial. For patients with intact asymptomatic primary tumors, local therapy could be offered if distant disease is well...
Discussant of the abstract by Rao et al, Oreofe Olukemi Odejide, MD, MPH, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, underscored the issues associated with intense health-care utilization near the end of life. “Several studies have shown that intense health-care utilization...
Medical oncologist/hematologist Adetokunbo ‘Toks’ Oluwasanjo, MD, has joined Florida Cancer Specialists (FCS) in the new FCS Lake City office. For 3 years, she served on the faculty in the Department of Medicine of the Reading Health System (now Tower Health System). Dr. Toks received her medical...
For many people who have had cancer, severe pain can persist, even after treatment ends. In an effort to find a nonpharmaceutical approach to pain management for cancer survivors, researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Health have been awarded $6 million from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to test ...
“There is clear evidence that patients are more likely to exercise if their oncologist tells them to do so,” reported representatives from 17 organizations participating in the Second Roundtable on Exercise and Cancer Prevention and Control. In an article published in CA: A Cancer Journal for...
Although many commentaries on studies featured in The ASCO Post call for scrutiny of the fine points, this is not the case for the recent report by Antonia et al in The Lancet Oncology (reviewed in the current issue of The ASCO Post).1 This article serves as a well-deserved victory lap for the...
In late 2018, calaspargase pegol-mknl, an asparagine-specific enzyme, was approved for use as a component of a multiagent chemotherapeutic regimen for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in pediatric and young adult patients aged 1 month to 21 years.1,2 The new product provides for a longer interval ...
The 61st American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition is being held December 7–10, 2019, at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando. Be sure to visit The ASCO Post in the exhibit hall (booth 2429, Harborside) and watch interviews with experts being filmed there live....
Early in 2019, trifluridine/tipiracil tablets were approved for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma previously treated with at least two prior lines of chemotherapy that included a fluoropyrimidine; a platinum; either a taxane or...
In an analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Scott J. Antonia, MD, PhD, of Duke Cancer Institute, and colleagues identified long-term survival rates with nivolumab therapy in patients with previously treated advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including comparative outcomes vs...
Oncology massage therapy might be a helping hand for patients suffering from chronic chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, according to data presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium.1 The results of the pilot study supported the premise that patients who received massages...
In patients with stage IV squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), those with high programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression treated with atezolizumab and chemotherapy experienced longer overall survival rates than those treated with chemotherapy alone. For those participants without...
Here is a glimpse at updated clinical trial data on newer therapies under study for the small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and advanced extrapancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. IMpower133 and ALTER: Novel Therapies for SCLC The treatment of small cell lung cancer has seen little progress in recent years,...
In late 2018, elotuzumab was approved for use in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least two prior therapies, including lenalidomide and a proteasome inhibitor.1 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based ...