The statistics are grim: Worldwide, pancreatic cancer is the 12th most common cancer and the seventh leading cause of cancer mortality.1 In the United States, the malignancy has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers. It is currently the third leading cause of cancer-related death after...
The incidence of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL) has surged in recent years—possibly because of the growing use of textured breast implants. Considering this trend, some patients with breast cancer who undergo mastectomy may wonder if the benefits of getting reconstructive implants are worth...
In a retrospective study reported in JAMA Oncology, Rakaee et al found that tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) levels ascertained via machine learning–based scoring on standard histologic images were associated with response in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for non–small...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Zhang et al found that U.S. counties with greater deprivation as measured by residential racial and economic segregation using the Index of Concentration at the Extremes (ICE) had higher cancer mortality rates vs less deprived counties. Study Details The study...
In a U.S. cross-sectional study reported in JAMA Oncology, Oakes et al found that as of December 2021, breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening rates remained below pre–COVID-19 pandemic levels, despite initial rebounds in some rates. Reduced screening rates were accompanied by reduced...
Research shows that all beverage types containing ethanol, including wine, beer, and hard liquor, increase cancer risk, and that the risk increases with higher alcohol consumption. Even light drinking—no more than one drink per day—increases the risk for some cancers, including esophageal and...
In an Australian phase IIb trial (MedCan1-CBD) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hardy et al found that use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil did not improve symptom distress vs placebo in adult patients with advanced cancer receiving palliative care. Study Details The double-blind multicenter...
In a study reported as a research letter in JAMA, Shahmoradi et al found that the incidence of cervical cancer decreased or remained stable in U.S. women between 2001 and 2019, except for an increase in the 30- to 34-year-old age group in more recent years. As stated by the investigators, “A recent ...
Preclinical research has shown that mantle cell lymphoma is so critically dependent on the FOXO1 protein that by blocking its activity with an experimental drug, the cancer’s growth may be slowed, according to a new study published by Jang et al in the Journal of Clinical Investigation....
More than 1.4 million patients were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2020 globally, but the molecular characteristics of the disease remain unexplored for the majority of patients around the world. In the final days of the Movember campaign, which every year in November aims to raise awareness of...
In an analysis from the phase III CALGB (Alliance)/SWOG 80702 trial of adjuvant FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin) for patients with stage III colon cancer reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lee et al found that longer duration of oxaliplatin treatment was associated with ...
Survivors of pediatric cancer who consumed more total sugar, added sugar, and sugar-sweetened beverages had more aging-related health conditions than survivors who consumed less sugar, according to a new study presented by Lan et al at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special...
In an individual patient meta-analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Shankar Siva, PhD, and colleagues found that patients receiving stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) for primary localized renal cell carcinoma had long-term outcomes indicating that the treatment is safe and...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Botta et al, the population-based EUROCARE-6 study has shown an improvement in 5-year survival rates and estimated cure fractions across patients with childhood cancers diagnosed between 2010 and 2013 vs previous years. Findings differed among cancer types and...
OVERALL CANCER death rates continued to decline among men, women, children, and adolescents/young adults in every major racial and ethnic group in the United States from 2015 to 2019, according to the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer.1 From 2014 to 2018, the overall cancer ...
With longer-term follow-up, adjuvant treatment with osimertinib led to a 77% reduction in the risk of disease recurrence or death following complete resection vs placebo-treated patients with EGFR-mutated, stage II to IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Disease-free survival was improved...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an ongoing feature that quizzes readers on issues in hematology. In this installment, Drs. Syed Ali Abutalib and Mrinal M. Patnaik explore the current treatment and prognosis of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. For each quiz question...
Researchers have created a model for predicting an individual’s breast cancer risk that could be used to create personalized breast cancer screening strategies, according to a new study published by Louro et al in the European Journal of Cancer. The research, also presented at the 13th European...
Colorectal cancer ranks third among cancer deaths in both men and women in the United States, with an estimated 150,000 new cases and 52,000 deaths anticipated in 2022.1 Colorectal cancer rates have declined by approximately 2% per year from 2014 to 2018 in people older than age 50, which is...
In a phase II trial (SALV-ENZA) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Phuoc T. Tran, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the addition of enzalutamide to salvage radiotherapy improved freedom from prostate-specific antigen (PSA) progression in patients with biochemically recurrent prostate...
After examining the impact of exercise on the gut microbiome of patients with cancer and reporting a positive association, researchers discovered that regular physical activity may extend the survival of patients with colorectal cancer, according to a new study published by Himbert et al in the...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Reid et al found that undergoing prophylactic bilateral mastectomy was as common in women with breast cancer with pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants in ATM and CHEK2 (moderate-penetrance genes) as in those with variants in BRCA1, BRCA2, or PALB2...
The 2022 State of Lung Cancer report by the American Lung Association revealed that only 5.8% of eligible Americans had been screened for lung cancer in 2021, and some states had screening rates as low as 1%. The 5th annual report highlighted how the toll of lung cancer varied by state and examined ...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Lucia Del Mastro, MD, and colleagues, end-of-study findings from the Italian phase III GIM2 trial after a median follow-up of 15 years indicate that the addition of fluorouracil to adjuvant epirubicin, cyclophosphamide, and paclitaxel did not improve outcomes...
New findings revealed that overall cancer mortality among American Indian and Alaska Native patients was 18% higher than among White patients despite similar cancer incidence, according to a new study published by Kratzer et al in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The findings included the first ...
In a post hoc analysis of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial, sacituzumab govitecan-hziy improved efficacy outcomes in HER2-negative immunohistochemistry (IHC) subgroups.1 Results were consistent with those of the intent-to-treat population of hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative advanced breast...
To achieve its goal of eliminating cervical cancer, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on all countries “to reach and maintain an incidence rate of below 4 per 100,000 women.” Doing so would depend on the following: A total of 90% of girls being fully vaccinated against human...
The pace of cancer drug development may have accelerated over the past decade, but so too has the cost of care, which threatens to limit access for a large percentage of Americans in the decade to come. During the keynote lecture at the 2022 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, ...
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Low-intensity therapy for older or unfit patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) was introduced in the early 2000s in the form of low-dose cytarabine or hypomethylation therapy (azacitidine or decitabine). Recent studies...
Patients with nonmetastatic soft-tissue sarcoma who need preoperative radiation therapy can safely receive hypofractionated treatment for 3 weeks instead of 5 weeks, with comparable tumor control and no increased risk of major complications in wound healing, according to a new study published by...
On November 8, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab-rwlc (Libtayo) in combination with platinum-based chemotherapy for adult patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with no EGFR, ALK, or ROS1 aberrations. Study 16113 Efficacy was...
In an Indian single-center phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vijay Patil, MBBS, MD, DM, and colleagues found that the addition of low-dose nivolumab to triple metronomic chemotherapy significantly improved overall survival in patients with newly diagnosed or recurrent...
In a phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Henry Kuerer, MD, PhD, FACS, and colleagues found radiotherapy alone among women with triple-negative or HER2-positive invasive breast cancer who had pathologic complete response on percutaneous image-guided, vacuum-assisted core biopsy (VACB)...
A new drug designed to inhibit an enzyme that plays a crucial role in cell division and growth has shown signs of anticancer activity with manageable side effects in patients with liver cancer and up to three lines of previous unsuccessful treatment, according to a new study published by Reig et al ...
Researchers have identified a range of genetic mutations in gliomas that may help them understand how different mutations in the BRAF gene interact with other gene mutations—and which ones are more susceptible to targeted treatments in adults—according to a new study published by Schreck et al in...
Patients with rare desmoid tumors may finally have an effective treatment. A first-in-class gamma secretase inhibitor, nirogacestat, led to an improvement in progression-free survival in the phase III DeFi trial. The results were presented during the Presidential Symposium at the European Society...
Treatment with neoadjuvant immunotherapy in colon cancer resulted in major pathologic responses in 95% of patients, NICHE-2 investigators reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022.1 Additionally, after 4 weeks of nivolumab plus ipilimumab, 67% of patients with...
Colorectal cancer ranks third among cancer deaths in both men and women in the United States, with an estimated 106,000 new cases and 52,000 deaths anticipated in 2022.1 Colorectal cancer rates have declined by approximately 2% per year from 2014 to 2018 in people over the age of 50 years, which is ...
With longer-term follow-up, adjuvant treatment with osimertinib led to a 77% reduction in the risk of disease recurrence or death following complete resection vs placebo-treated patients with EGFR-mutated, stage II to IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Disease-free survival was improved...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Bryant et al found that prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening rates at Veterans Health Administration (VHA) facilities declined between 2005 and 2019—and that diagnoses of metastatic prostate cancer increased over the same time period....
In a U.S.-based cross-sectional study reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Sarju Ganatra, MD, of Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Burlington, Massachusetts, and colleagues found that mortality from comorbid cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) was significantly higher in counties with higher...
Overall cancer death rates continued to decline among men, women, children, adolescents, and young adults in every major racial and ethnic group in the United States from 2015 to 2019, according to the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer. From 2014 to 2018, overall cancer...
The Republic of Austria is a high-income, landlocked country in south-central Europe and has been a member of the European Union since 1995.1 Vienna, the capital city of nearly 2 million people, is regularly ranked among the most livable cities in the world.2 The total population of Austria is more ...
In 2000, the da Vinci Surgical System broke new ground by becoming the first robotic surgery system approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for general laparoscopic surgery. In its early years, robot-assisted radical prostatectomy was characterized by some in the surgical community as an...
In our continuing effort to connect and learn more about our international oncology colleagues, The ASCO Post recently spoke with Rossana Berardi, MD, Professor in Medical Oncology and Director of the Postgraduate School of Oncology at the Università Politecnica Marche, Ancona, Italy, where she is...
A randomized study has confirmed that patients with high-risk prostate cancer can be treated with 5 vs 8 weeks of radiation therapy. The phase III clinical trial is the first to confirm the safety and efficacy of a moderately shortened course of radiation exclusively for patients with high-risk...
FLASH radiation treatment—which delivers therapeutic doses of radiation in a fraction of a second—may be a potential treatment for tough-to-kill tumors, a first-in-human study in a small number of people with bone cancer suggests. The technology, previously tested in animals, was shown to be as...
New research confirmed the safety of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in individuals with cancer who are undergoing immunotherapy, according to a novel study published by Widman et al in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The researchers analyzed the frequency of immune-related...
In 2020, 4.4 million women died from cancer worldwide, leaving behind an estimated 1.04 million maternal orphans (defined as children aged 18 years and younger who have lost their mother), according to the results from a study by Guida et al presented during a press conference at the Union for...
In a preplanned analysis of the PALLAS trial, the addition of adjuvant palbociclib to standard endocrine therapy did not improve outcomes over endocrine therapy alone in patients with stage IIA breast cancer. Palbociclib offered no additional benefit in terms of invasive disease–free survival (the...