In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, interviewed his colleague Brian J. Bolwell, MD, FACP, Chairman of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. Among other things, Dr. Bolwell discussed his...
Clinicians interested in breast cancer who logged into the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program were greeted with an abundance of high-impact presentations. The ASCO Post has reported on several studies in depth elsewhere, but here we offer our readers a roundup of several important studies in early...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Richard S. Finn, MD, of Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues, the phase III IMbrave150 trial has shown that anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) plus...
The antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin yielded responses as a single agent and in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone in the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, according to two reports from the DREAMM team at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program.1,2 In the...
Data from the phase II PrE0505 multicenter trial showed that adding durvalumab, an immune checkpoint antibody targeting programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1), to the combination of cisplatin and pemetrexed chemotherapy improved outcomes in previously untreated patients with unresectable malignant...
The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in two different regimens: On May 15, 2020, the two-drug combination was approved for first-line treatment in...
At the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, Nathalie LeVasseur, MD, BSc, FRCPC, received the Annual Meeting Merit Award for a project titled, “Whole-Genome Sequencing in Metastatic Breast Cancer: Lessons Learned From the BC Cancer Personalized Oncogenomics Program.” Along with her clinical work, Dr....
On May 1, 2020, the combination of daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj was approved for adult patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. This new product allows for subcutaneous (SC) dosing of daratumumab.1,2 Daratumumab and hyaluronidase-fihj is for SC use only. The...
Although the full impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with cancer is still being evaluated, data from several studies show that in comparison with people who do not have cancer, those who do generally experience a higher risk of severe events including admittance to the intensive care unit, ...
A visiting away elective is a resident’s designated time to visit another academic program to foster the growth of medical knowledge through patient care from the perspective of another health-care system and educational experience. The time dedicated to make this dream happen is grueling. First...
Pain is among the most difficult medical issues for oncologists to confront, said Tony L. Yaksh, PhD, Professor of Anesthesiology and Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego, during his keynote address at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium. Failure to adequately manage...
With the rapid expansion of scientific advances, the intersection of ethics and the delivery of cancer care becomes ever more complicated. To shed light on some of the challenging ethical issues faced by today’s busy oncology practitioners, The ASCO Post spoke with Rebecca D. Pentz, PhD, Professor ...
In 2019, the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer was born from the merger of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation and the Lung Cancer Alliance. The marriage of two lung cancer advocacy groups raises the profile of each group’s work and combines considerable resources to combat lung cancer. The...
Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, announced its 2020 grant and award recipients in conjunction with the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program. The awards will support researchers with projects spanning many areas in cancer care, including immunotherapy, lung and breast cancers, and palliative...
ASCO’s Survey on COVID-19 in Oncology Registry (ASCO Registry) is an acceptable clinical trial registry for the attestation of the high-weighted practice Improvement Activity, “COVID-19 Clinical Trials Related to the Emergency Response & Preparedness,” under the Centers for Medicare &...
The world is grappling with a pandemic and we are all adjusting to a new reality. Fewer handshakes, more masks. Fewer hugs, more fear. COVID-19 has tested us, challenged us, changed us. It’s changed the way we look, the way we work, the way we socialize. It’s changed us, but it can’t stop us. It...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recently announced the publication of “NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Immunotherapy Side Effects—Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors.” These new guidelines are designed to educate patients and to help them recognize immune side effects so effective...
Adolescents and young adults (AYA) who have survived cancer may continue to suffer from insomnia long after treatment ends, interfering with a range of daily activities. In Pediatric Blood & Cancer, Eric S. Zhou, PhD, and Christopher J. Recklitis, PhD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute,...
“As a medical student, I often felt marginalized from my medical community. I have been told that my name is ‘not American,’ fallen prey to being confused for support staff such as a janitor (even while wearing my white coat), and been asked questions like, ‘Where are you really from?’ or ‘How old...
Combining the HER2-targeted therapy trastuzumab with carboplatin and paclitaxel improved survival rates for women with a rare, aggressive type of endometrial cancer, according to findings published by Fader et al in Clinical Cancer Research. Each year, more than 65,650 women in the United States...
Patients who were unexpectedly hospitalized for dehydration, fever, or other events while undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck cancer were at a higher risk for less favorable outcomes, according to a study published by Anurag K. Singh, MD, and colleagues in Oral Oncology. Researchers found...
The early initiation—at age 25 to 30—of annual breast cancer screening with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with or without mammography may reduce breast cancer mortality by more than half in survivors of childhood cancer who had been previously exposed to chest radiation, according to a study by...
Elizabeth H. Phillips, MD, of the University of Manchester and The Christie Hospital, discusses phase II findings showing inotuzumab ozogamicin plus rituximab, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and prednisolone is a feasible and effective regimen for front-line treatment of high-risk patients with...
Two phase III trials provide support for secondary cytoreductive surgery in women with recurrent ovarian cancer, with the caveats that patient selection is key and the surgery should be performed at sites of excellence. The results of the DESKTOP III and SOC1 trials, both presented during the...
Over the past 3 decades, colorectal cancer survival in the United States has improved significantly, but in young people—particularly men diagnosed with colorectal cancer before age 50—incidence and mortality due to colorectal cancer are on the rise. Additionally, among patients with early-stage...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Ghosh et al found that a more intense reduced-intensity conditioning and nonmyeloablative conditioning (RIC-NMAC) regimen consisting of fludarabine plus melphalan at 140 mg/kg (Flu-Mel14) appears to be associated with poorer overall survival and higher...
On July 7, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an oral combination of decitabine and cedazuridine (Inqovi) for adult patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), including the following: Previously treated and untreated de novo and secondary MDS with the following...
On July 7, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) posted a draft recommendation statement, draft evidence review, and draft modeling study on screening for lung cancer in people who do not have signs or symptoms. Based on the evidence, the USPSTF recommends annual screening using a...
At the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer 2020 Virtual, Javle et al reported that third- and later-line treatment with the selective fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) 1-3 inhibitor infigratinib resulted in a progression-free survival and...
Discussant Scott T. Tagawa, MD, MS, of Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, agreed that prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted positron-emission tomography (PET) is the wave of the future, but data on long-term outcomes are needed, he said. “We are all aware of the deficiencies of imaging ...
New, longer-term data from a pivotal phase II trial in advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), were presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program and discussed during a poster discussion.1 Danny Rischin, MD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Victoria, Australia, presented...
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...
In a poster presentation at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, Mansoor Raza Mirza, MD, of the the Department of Oncology, Rigshopitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Denmark, and colleagues reported the final analysis of the phase II NSGO-AVANOVA2/ENGOT-OV24 trial comparing the...
In the final, preplanned, overall survival analysis in the randomized phase III SOLO2/ENGOT-ov211 trial, maintenance treatment with the PARP inhibitor olaparib extended overall survival by an unprecedented 12.9 months, compared with placebo. This marks the first time that overall survival has been...
Two gynecologic oncologists and ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, commented on the findings of the TROPHIMMUN trial for The ASCO Post. “The authors demonstrate efficacy of a new treatment approach for gestational trophoblastic...
Almost 50% of patients resistant to single-agent chemotherapy responded in the first trial of immunotherapy for gestational trophoblastic tumors, reported French investigators in an abstract presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program.1 Benoit You, MD, PhD, of Lyon University Hospital,...
Bilateral pelvic lymphadenectomy represents the current “gold standard” for lymph node staging in cervical cancer—but an assessment of disease-free and disease-specific survival among patients with early-stage cervical cancer determined that sentinel lymph node biopsy alone is a valid standard of...
The phase II BYLieve trial indicates the effectiveness of the PIK3CA inhibitor alpelisib in patients with PIK3CA-positive, hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative advanced breast cancer previously treated with a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor plus an aromatase inhibitor. These results...
Tucatinib, a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is highly selective for HER2, plus trastuzumab/capecitabine significantly improved central nervous system (CNS) progression-free survival, overall survival, and intracranial response rate vs placebo plus trastuzumab/capecitabine, as shown...
Advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients whose tumors have no EGFR or ALK alterations poses a particular challenge in terms of first-line therapy. The use of nivolumab plus ipilimumab as well as nivolumab/ipilimumab plus two cycles of chemotherapy, respectively, as first-line therapy ...
When added to bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients with multiple myeloma, selinexor significantly improved progression-free survival and response rates, with a lower incidence of peripheral neuropathy, compared with bortezomib/dexamethasone alone, according to results from the global phase III...
Treatment with the anti–PD-1 agent pembrolizumab significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma compared with standard brentuximab vedotin, according to results of the phase III KEYNOTE-204.1 The study results were presented during the ASCO20 Virtual...
Treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma yielded responses with the antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin, both as a single agent and in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone. Two reports from the DREAMM team expanded on these findings at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific...
Results of the phase III E2108 study indicate that surgery and radiotherapy given after systemic treatment afforded no additional survival benefit among women with newly diagnosed metastatic breast cancer. The practice may, however, reduce locoregional progression of disease, according to a report...
No superior efficacy was shown with the combination of carfilzomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (KRd) in newly treated patients with standard- and intermediate-risk multiple myeloma who are not slated for immediate autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT), compared with the standard of care: ...
Sharing his perspective on KEYNOTE-177 with The ASCO Post was Axel Grothey, MD, Director of GI Cancer Research at the West Cancer Center, OneOncology, Memphis. “This is a very important, highly anticipated study,” he said. “It’s the first randomized trial of any checkpoint inhibitor in...
“These data are solid, showing a 7-month improvement in overall survival in patients with stable disease or better after first-line chemotherapy. This is roughly a 50% improvement in survival, which is clinically meaningful. Also, progression-free survival was significantly increased with...
According to an interim analysis of the phase III JAVELIN Bladder 100 trial, rates of survival among patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma who did not progress on first-line platinum-based chemotherapy were significantly prolonged by maintenance therapy with avelumab and best supportive care...
Lecia V. Sequist, MD, who was not involved in the ADAURA study, said this could be a practice-changing study. Dr. Sequist is the Landry Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Innovation in Early Cancer Detection at Massachusetts General Hospital....
Courtney D. DiNardo, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses data from her study of treatment-naive, predominantly older patients with acute myeloid leukemia who are ineligible for intensive therapy. The research shows venetoclax plus azacitidine improved response rates...