Scientists have newly discovered three genetic changes that increase the risk of breast cancer in men. These findings were published by Maguire et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The researchers identified three common variations in DNA that predispose men to developing breast...
Public health screening guidelines for lung cancer followed by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) undercount eligible Black individuals, according to a study by Mary Pasquinelli, DNP, FNP-BC, and colleagues in press at the...
Nineteen of the 20 nations with the highest cervical cancer death rates are in sub-Saharan Africa. Now an international team has published the first comprehensive genomic study of cervical cancers in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on tumors from 212 Ugandan patients with cervical cancer. Their...
In a phase II trial reported by Vivek Subbiah, MD, and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology, the combination of dabrafenib, a BRAF inhibitor, and trametinib, a MEK inhibitor, achieved a 51% overall response rate in patients with BRAF V600E–mutated cholangiocarcinoma. This trial represents the first...
Project N95, a not-for-profit organization, is offering access to ASCO’s qualifying U.S. members who are having difficulty obtaining personal protective equipment (PPE) for their patients and staff. Qualifying ASCO members will be able to make a one-time bulk purchase of the following PPE...
Results from a recent clinical trial indicated that for older adults with advanced cancer, initiating aspirin treatment may increase their risk of disease progression and mortality. These findings were published by McNeil et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Study Background and...
Gabriella Pravettoni, PhD, of the University of Milan, discusses the need for tailored psychological interventions to take care of oncologists, health-care workers, and patients with cancer affected by the coronavirus crisis. The interventions can help minimize burnout and post-traumatic stress...
Amit Mahipal, MBBS, MPH, Consultant, Associate Professor of Oncology, Mayo College of Medicine, Rochester, put the findings for tremelimumab/durvalumab into context regarding other studies evaluating checkpoint inhibitors in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. In the current study by Kelly et al, he ...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first liquid biopsy companion diagnostic that also uses next-generation sequencing technology to identify patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and specific types of EGFR mutations. The FDA also granted Fast Track...
A new study published by Kanter et al in Health Affairs sheds light on another reason why the coronavirus pandemic is disproportionately affecting individuals of lower socioeconomic status: residents in low-income neighborhoods lack access to intensive care unit (ICU) beds. While the shortage of...
Taimur Sher, MBBS, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology Consultant, and Director of the Multi-Specialty Amyloidosis Group at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, told The ASCO Post that shutting down the source of amyloidogenic light-chain production—the...
Updated clinical practice guidelines for managing mucositis—a common and often debilitating complication of cancer therapy—were recently published by Elad et al in the journal Cancer. The new guidelines summary, which will provide health-care professionals with better tools to deliver care for...
As reported in The Lancet by Matthew D. Galsky, MD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Tisch Cancer Institute, New York, and colleagues, the phase III IMvigor130 trial has shown prolonged progression-free survival with first-line atezolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy vs...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Jacqueline Vuky, MD, of Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, and colleagues, long-term follow-up in the phase II KEYNOTE-052 study has shown durable responses with first-line pembrolizumab in cisplatin-ineligible locally advanced or...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 Matthew D. Galsky, MD, of The Tisch Cancer Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and colleagues found that maintenance pembrolizumab produced additional responses and improved progression-free survival vs...
At the Genitourinary Highlights session of the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, Toni K. Choueiri, MD, Director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, put the findings from KEYNOTE-426 into perspective. “This is an important update. The initial...
Pembrolizumab: On January 8, 2020, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive, high-risk, non–muscle invasive bladder cancer with carcinoma in situ with or without papillary tumors who are ineligible for or...
Extended analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-426 study upholds pembrolizumab plus axitinib as a preferred front-line regimen over sunitinib in patients with advanced sporadic renal cell carcinoma.1 These updated results were presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program by Elizabeth R....
Philip J. Saylor, MD, Attending Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, Boston, commented on this study. “The results presented are clearly exciting and cause us to look forward to a likely phase III study of this strategy. The high response...
It may be possible to use a platinum-free combination as first-line treatment for advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma in cisplatin-ineligible patients, if the results of the phase Ib/II EV-103 trial hold up. The combination of the newly approved antibody-drug conjugate (enfortumab vedotin)...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Loriot et al, the fibroblast growth factor receptor 1-4 tyrosine kinase inhibitor erdafitinib showed activity in FGFR-altered advanced urothelial carcinoma.1 The study enrolled patients from sites in 14 countries between May 2015 and March 2018. ...
Maintenance therapy with avelumab and best supportive care significantly prolonged overall survival vs best supportive care alone in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma that did not progress on first-line platinum-based chemotherapy, according to an interim analysis of the phase III JAVELIN ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 Anita Gul, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, and colleagues found that salvage therapy with nivolumab/ipilimumab was capable of producing a response after prior PD-1 pathway inhibitor therapy in some patients with...
Two recently reported phase III trials have shown the benefits of combination therapy vs sunitinib in the first-line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma. As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Brian I. Rini, MD, of Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, and colleagues, the ...
As reported inThe New England Journal of Medicine by Ian D. Davis, MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FAChPM, of Monash University and Eastern Health in Melbourne, and colleagues, the phase III ENZAMET trial has shown that the androgen receptor inhibitor enzalutamide improved progression-free and overall survival...
Pembrolizumab Plus Axitinib: On April 19, 2019, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was approved for use in combination with the small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma. Approval was based on findings in the phase...
In a study presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program1 and published as a brief report in JAMA Oncology,2 Praful Ravi, MB, BChir, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues found that rechallenge with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy was capable of producing...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Kim N. Chi, MD, of BC Cancer and Vancouver Prostate Centre, and colleagues, the first analysis of the phase III TITAN trial has shown that the addition of apalutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy improved radiographic progression-free and...
In the phase III ARAMIS trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine,1 Karim Fizazi, MD, PhD, of the Institut Gustave Roussy, Universite Paris-Sud, Villejuif, France, and colleagues found that the androgen-receptor (AR) antagonist darolutamide significantly prolonged metastasis-free...
The past year has witnessed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of a number of drugs for treatment of patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer or castrate-sensitive prostate cancer. Castrate-Resistant Prostate Cancer Olaparib: On May 19, 2020, olaparib...
The single-arm TRITON2 study demonstrated the efficacy of the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor rucaparib in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.1,2 Results from the study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT02952534) led to the approval of rucaparib in this...
A year ago, initial results from the double-blind, multicenter, randomized phase III ARAMIS clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of darolutamide, a structurally unique androgen-receptor antagonist, in men with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, were published in The...
In the final overall survival analysis of the phase III PROSPER trial reported at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program1 and published in The New England Journal of Medicine,2 Cora N. Sternberg, MD, and colleagues found that enzalutamide plus androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly...
As reported at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program1 and in The New England Journal of Medicine2 by Neal D. Shore, MD, FACS, of Carolina Urologic Research Center, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and colleagues, the phase III HERO trial showed sustained castrate testosterone levels and lower risk of...
Positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) imaging with the prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted radiotracer fluorine F-18 DCFPyL (PyL) successfully identified areas of occult metastasis in men with biochemically recurrent metastatic castration-resistant prostate...
Discussant Scott T. Tagawa, MD, MS, of Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, congratulated Dr. Hofman and coauthors on this first randomized trial of any PSMA-targeted therapy and was cautiously optimistic about the targeted radioligand treatment being adopted as post-docetaxel therapy in men with...
Initial results of the randomized phase II TheraP trial showed that therapy directed to prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) with lutetium-177–labeled PSMA-617 (LuPSMA) significantly improved prostate-specific antigen (PSA) response compared with cabazitaxel in men with metastatic...
Over the past year, we have seen significant advances in the treatment of prostate, kidney, and urothelial cancers that will benefit patients now and in the future. We have learned about the final results of important clinical trials across multiple genitourinary cancers disease states leading to...
Robert A. Winn, MD, of Virginia Commonwealth University and the Massey Cancer Center, discusses the COVID-19 pandemic and how it is exacerbating disparities in cancer care among racial and ethnic minorities and the medically underserved who are disproportionately affected by the coronavirus...
Kala Visvanathan, MD, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, discusses her analysis of data from more than 10,000 women with ovarian cancer. The results suggest that atorvastatin and simvastatin, lipophilic statin cholesterol-lowering drugs, reduced ovarian cancer death rates (Abstract ...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) has published new guidelines to help older adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and their health-care providers make critical care decisions, including if and how to proceed with cancer treatment and the need for blood transfusions for those in hospice...
The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) lauded the adoption of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global strategy toward eliminating cervical cancer as a public health problem. WHO Member States adopted the strategy alongside other health resolutions as part of the silence procedure...
Neuroendocrine tumors are rare malignancies that arise in neuroendocrine cells, which can occur throughout the body but are most commonly found in the gastrointestinal tract, lungs, and pancreas. Although most neuroendocrine tumors are indolent and take years to grow, some are aggressive and grow...
A new 10-year analysis, led by Igor Puzanov, MD, MSci, FACP, Director of Early Phase Clinical Trials and Chief of Melanoma at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and recently published in JAMA Oncology,1 provides new insights into an important question: whether BRAF V600E/K–mutation status or ...
A cancer diagnosis is often overwhelming in and of itself, and adding financial burdens to the mix can sometimes feel unmanageable. Provide your patients with practical guidelines with the Managing the Cost of Cancer Care booklet from ASCO Answers. It covers health insurance benefits, information...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced flexibilities for clinicians participating in the 2020 Quality Payment Program (QPP) Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) who have been impacted by the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE). Affected clinicians may...
ASCO is conducting an open search for the position of Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President, as current Chief Medical Officer Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, prepares to retire in February 2021. ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer applies medical and scientific knowledge and...
Before there was funding, there was a need. “Patients with cancer needed to understand immediately what COVID-19 meant [for] their health. Providers and practices needed guidance on how to offer safe care,” recalled Howard A. Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, Chair of the ASCO Board of Directors, of...
I’m very pleased to be joined by Piyush Srivastava, MD, Past Chair of ASCO’s Clinical Practice Committee. Dr. Srivastava is a practicing gastrointestinal oncologist, Regional Medical Director of the End of Life Options Program, and Director of Outpatient Palliative Care at Kaiser Permanente Walnut...
I have witnessed much sickness and death over my 35-year career as a medical oncologist. During the early years of my career, I had difficulty dealing with the sickness and death I witnessed on a regular basis. As a result, with help from the Hindu scripture of Bhagavad Gita, I have trained my...