The proportion of early-stage drug trials tackling the most common tumor types has declined sharply since the early 1990s, as less common cancers receive increasing attention in trials, according to new research presented by Sato et al at the TAT 2019–International Congress on Targeted...
Patients with advanced prostate cancer who had preexisting cardiovascular disease had a higher risk of mortality in the 6 months after starting abiraterone acetate treatment compared with those who had no preexisting cardiovascular disease, according to data presented by Lu-Yao et al at a presscast ...
Among patients with melanoma treated with anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immunotherapy, consumption of a high-fiber diet was associated with higher gut microbiome diversity and better response to treatment, according to data presented by Spencer et al at a presscast in advance of ...
New research published by Chopra et al in JNCCN—Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network calls for much greater integration between cardiologists and oncologists for patients with coronary artery disease who are diagnosed with cancer. Coronary artery disease is the most...
INVESTIGATORS FROM Australia have identified a genetic mutation that causes resistance to the targeted drug venetoclax in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to research presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition1 and...
FIRST-LINE therapy with the combination of ibrutinib and rituximab reduced disease progression by two-thirds compared with standard chemotherapy using fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab (FCR) in younger patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to the late-breaking...
Mrinal S. Patnaik, MBBS, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and Oncology and a consultant in hematology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, commented on the MEDALIST trial for The ASCO Post. “Given its unique mode of action, relative ease of administration, and excellent tolerability,...
IN THE RANDOMIZED, double-blind, phase III MEDALIST trial, the experimental drug luspatercept significantly reduced the need for frequent red blood cell transfusions in patients with lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and ring sideroblasts. With luspatercept, 37.8% of patients remained...
IN A PHASE III TRIAL reported during the Plenary Session at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, single-agent ibrutinib and ibrutinib/rituximab were associated with superior progression-free survival vs...
In sunny San Diego, the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition welcomed nearly 30,000 attendees who were eager to present, learn, network, and cheer the joint achievements of many researchers. The packed meeting was filled with important information from...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On October 30, 2018, pembrolizumab in combination with...
A new global resource that includes data on thousands of inherited variants in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes will help inform the understanding of cancer risk. Wendy Rubinstein, MD, PhD, FACP, FACMG, Deputy Medical Director of CancerLinQ, LLC, a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of ASCO, served as a...
AT MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING Cancer Center, Mrinal M. Gounder, MD, led the first randomized, global trial for patients with desmoid tumors, a rare type of sarcoma. The trial: Patients with unresectable progressive desmoid tumors randomly received either a placebo or sorafenib. The results: Tumors...
THE JOURNAL of Clinical Oncology’s (JCO) author-friendly submission programs are taking time off the publication process for health-care professionals. JCO’s quick review process programs, Fast Track Presubmission and Rapid Review, aim to make the journal submission and review process easier for...
“IN THIS era of immunotherapy, it is highly possible, and potentially probable, that radiation therapy may become not just a form of locoregional and palliative treatment, but an essential component of our systemic treatments of cancer,” according to Zachary S. Morris, MD, PhD, Vice-Chair,...
SOME PATIENTS with advanced head and neck cancer may achieve durable responses with immunotherapy, and recent trial results suggest first-line immunotherapy may increase survival among patients with recurrent or metastatic disease. However, concerns remain about selecting patients most likely to...
AXICABTAGENE CILOLEUCEL (also known as CAR19) is an anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat selected hematologic malignancies.1 To appreciate the clinical trial findings summarized here, from selected abstracts presented at the ...
TISAGENLECLEUCEL IS an anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product approved by U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat selected hematologic malignancies.1,2 To appreciate the clinical trial findings summarized here, from selected abstracts presented at the 2018 American Society of...
ON FEBRUARY 6, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationFDA approved caplacizumab-yhdp (Cablivi) injection, in combination with plasma exchange and immunosuppressive therapy, for the treatment of adult patients with acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (aTTP). “Patients with aTTP endure...
ON FEBRUARY 12 , 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a split-dosing regimen for daratumumab (Darzalex), providing health-care professionals and patients with multiple myeloma an option to split the first infusion over 2 consecutive days. Daratumumab is a CD38-directed...
TO ADD to our ongoing coverage of the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, we bring readers of The ASCO Post these summaries of an assortment of interesting studies. They focus on novel therapies under investigation in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic...
CARLOS L. ARTEAGA, MD, Director of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology Programs at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, expressed some caution about the overall applicability of the findings of the PADDY trial. Primarily, he...
IN THE PADDY TRIAL, involving more than 10,000 women with early invasive breast cancer, the presence of disseminated tumor cells at diagnosis or primary surgery was an independent prognostic factor for overall, disease-free, and distant disease–free survival. The study findings were presented at...
REPORTERS FOR The ASCO Post captured the following summaries of noteworthy studies presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. In HER2-Negative Metastatic Disease, CTCs Frequently HER2-Positive ALMOST HALF of all patients with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer have circulating...
IN 2017, ASCO issued its recommendations for addressing the oncology care needs of sexual and gender minority cancer survivors and the unique challenges they face.1 There are myriad reasons for cancer disparities in this population compared to heterosexual cisgender cancer survivors, including...
THERE IS little doubt that the U.S. health-care system is under assault from many directions.1 It is clear that the costs of health management are no longer sustainable, and the United States has one of the highest per capita health costs among the 36 member nations of the Organisation for...
ANDREW X. ZHU, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, noted that Prep-02/ JSAP-05 is the first study to show the value of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma. However, the findings are applicable only to Asian ...
SEVERAL STUDIES presented at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium evaluated the benefits of neoadjuvant treatment in patients with pancreatic cancer—and in patients deemed fully resectable, not just “borderline” resectable.1-3 Although the standard of care for resectable pancreatic ductal...
The largest study to date addressing the common problem of perioperative direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) management has shown that patients with atrial fibrillation can safely stop taking their anticoagulant for 1 day before and after procedures with a low risk of bleeding and for 2 days before...
Initial findings from a first-in-human trial have provided proof of principle for a groundbreaking approach to gene therapy for sickle cell disease, according to data presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 Early results of genetic targeting of...
The results of a recent pilot study suggest that low-dose rituximab provides similar efficacy to standard-dose rituximab for the treatment of acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a finding that could point to potential cost savings for patients in the nonlymphoma setting. According...
In interviews with The ASCO Post, Kenneth Shain, MD, PhD, Director of the Myeloma Working Group at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, and Vincent Rajkumar, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, commented on the findings of the MAIA trial. “The study shows that...
In patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are not eligible for stem cell transplantation, the addition of daratumumab to lenalidomide and dexamethasone significantly reduced the risk of death or disease progression by 44%, according to a late-breaking abstract presentation by Thierry...
A new report indicates that without a national effort to transform health-care delivery in the United States, many people will not benefit from the ongoing improvements in cancer care. These findings were published by Yabroff et al in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The article is the fifth...
BOOKMARK Title: Severed Trust: Why American Medicine Hasn’t Been FixedAuthor: George D. Lundberg, MD, With James StaceyPublisher: Basic BooksPublication date: March 2001Price: $28.00, hardcover, 336 pages Pathologist George D. Lundberg, MD, served as Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of the American...
Mayo Clinic researchers have identified estradiol as a potential new treatment for a subset of women with triple-negative breast cancer. Their findings were published by Reese et al in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. “Triple-negative breast...
The first symptom of my multiple myeloma appeared 6 months before I received the official diagnosis. I began having some discomfort, not pain exactly, in my right hip, and developed a pronounced limp. I had recently left my medical practice to launch Global Girls Global Women, a nonprofit...
Women diagnosed with breast cancer at age 50 or younger had twice the risk of developing either osteoporosis or osteopenia after adjuvant treatment than did women of the same age who did not have cancer, according to a study led by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,...
Younger women who have been treated for breast cancer have a higher risk for osteopenia and osteoporosis than do their cancer-free peers, and that risk seems to rise when treatment involves chemotherapy plus hormone therapy or aromatase inhibitors alone. Researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg...
On November 27, 2018, the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) dedicated the conference room on its oncology floor in the name of faculty member Nagi El Saghir, MD, FACP, FASCO, Head of the Hematology/Oncology Division and Director of the Breast Center of Excellence at AUBMC. Dr....
Physician wellness is emblazoned upfront in the news with attention-seeking headlines on a daily basis. The fact that one or two physicians commit suicide every day in this country sometimes elicits more of a sympathetic acknowledgment than a committed call to address it. Moreover, these sobering...
A study published in Nature Medicine found that an artificial intelligence program could distinguish between the histologic diagnosis of adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.1 Experienced pathologists often struggle to differentiate these tumor types without confirmatory tests. The artificial ...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. In this installment of the Living a Full Life series of articles, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, interviewed Norman E. ...
In a retrospective analysis reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Parikh et al found that more than one-quarter of hospitalizations in Medicare patients with prostate cancer were potentially avoidable. Study Details The study involved 99 evaluable patients in the Mount Sinai Health System ...
Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed coverage of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy under its “coverage with evidence development” paradigm. Currently, there is no national...
It is estimated that 20% to 33% of patients undergoing cancer treatment are concomitantly using a gastric acid suppressant, most commonly a proton pump inhibitor (including omeprazole and esomeprazole magnesium) or a histamine H2-receptor blocker (such as ranitidine). A study by Mir et al...
The 2019 Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research will be awarded to Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, of the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The prize, awarded annually by the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR), recognizes Dr....
The latest U.S. estimates indicate that since 1989, hundreds of thousands of women's lives have been saved by mammography and improvements in breast cancer treatment. In a study published by Hendrick et al in Cancer, findings point to progress made in the early detection and management of...
An increase in the diagnosis of glottic carcinoma in young adults may be due in part to infection with strains of human papillomavirus (HPV). Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) described finding HPV infection in all tested samples of glottic carcinoma from 10 patients diagnosed ...
The German S2k guidelines for cutaneous basal cell carcinoma were recently updated to include new developments regarding the epidemiology, diagnosis, and histology of the disease. Commissioned by the Dermatologic Cooperative Oncology Group of the German Cancer Society and the German Society of...