Investigators have found that federal cancer research funding tends to be allocated more heavily toward cancers that occur more often in non-Hispanic White patients than those that occur more frequently in other racial and ethnic groups, according to a new study published by Haghighat et al in the...
The rates of survival and disease recurrence improved significantly when a personalized mRNA vaccine tailored to the patients’ tumor genetics was coupled with immunotherapy in those who had undergone surgery for high-risk melanoma, according to novel findings presented by Khattak et al at the 2023...
For some precancerous cells, traveling from the bone marrow to the skin can trigger genetic transformations that can result in leukemia, according to a novel study published by Griffin et al in Nature. The new findings may have shed light on what researchers have termed the “genetic travelogue” of...
In a single-institution retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Lin et al identified factors associated with nonadherence to lung cancer screening recommendations among patients undergoing screening—and found that negative findings on two successive screenings were associated with ...
In a new study reported by Farooq et al in Blood Advances, patients with relapsed or refractory lymphoma during pregnancy had a progression-free survival rate of 24% and an overall survival rate of 83%. Background Receiving a lymphoma diagnosis during pregnancy may be uncommon but can occur for...
Prior authorization of medical procedures, services, and medications has been a standard requirement of health-care providers for decades. Rising health-care costs, specifically the escalating prices of cancer drug therapies, have led to a new focus by payers, providers, and policymakers on prior...
This has been a year of firsts and seconds for Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, FASCO. This past October, Dr. Bertagnolli became the 16th Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the first woman and the first clinical trials cooperative group chair to hold that position. Then, 2 months...
Patients with early relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma had significantly improved overall survival when treated with the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel when compared to the current standard-of-care chemoimmunotherapy, according to results of the...
Ciltacabtagene autoleucel, a B-cell maturation antigen–targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, significantly slows or stops progression of multiple myeloma when compared with standard-of-care treatments among patients with lenalidomide-refractory disease. Results from the...
The international phase III MIRASOL randomized clinical trial found that mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx, an antibody and microtubule inhibitor conjugate, significantly improved progression-free and overall survival for patients with platinum-resistant, advanced high-grade epithelial ovarian,...
According to Sunil R. Hingorani, MD, PhD, his parents figured heavily on who he became as a person and on his career choices, which ultimately led to his current position as Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, Omaha. “My father...
Jonathan W. Friedberg, MD, MMSc, Director of the James P. Wilmot Cancer Institute, grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. While his school friends were attending camp, he spent his summers working on the family farm. “Perhaps the hardest work I’ve ever done was haying on a hot, humid night in July,...
Don S. Dizon, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Pelvic Malignancies Program at Lifespan Cancer Institute and Director of Medical Oncology at Rhode Island Hospital was born and reared in Guam. He also is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Surgery at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. “I am...
George D. Demetri, MD, FASCO, Director of the Sarcoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard, was born in Hyde Park, a town along the Hudson River in New York. When Dr. Demetri was growing up there, it was known for three...
The respected members of the oncology community listed here are among some of those who passed away in 2022–2023. The ASCO Post remembers them, their lives, and their contributions to cancer research and treatment. Robert J. Gillies, PhD Moffitt Cancer Center and the global research community lost ...
In December 2019, Robert A. Winn, MD, became the second Black physician to lead a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center when he took the helm of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center. Dr. Winn’s basic science research, which has been...
Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, Head of the Dermatology Unit at Gustave Roussy and Co-Director of the Melanoma Research Unit at INSERM 981 Paris-Sud University, was born and reared in Paris. “I didn’t have a vocation for medicine when I was a kid; I wanted to be an archeologist. I’m not from a medical...
Today is the era of the multidisciplinary oncology care approach, cancer staging facilitates precision in documenting disease extent, all of which improved the quality of patient care. However, in the United States, the Rai staging system is still the most commonly used clinical staging system for...
Manali Patel, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine (Oncology) at Stanford University, grew up in Shelby, a small town in the textile and farming community of Western North Carolina, among mill workers and other blue-collar laborers. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Dr. Patel’s early life was...
Susan K. Parsons, MD, MRP, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and Founding Director of the Reid R. Sacco Adolescent and Young Adult Program for Cancer and Hereditary Blood Disorders at Tufts Medical Center, grew up on a working dairy farm in Sharon Springs,...
On May 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the optimized, high-affinity radiohybrid prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted positron-emission tomography (PET) imaging agent flotufolastat fluorine-18 (Posluma). Flotufolastat F-18 is indicated for PET imaging of...
Delays in cancer screenings during the COVID-19 pandemic may have resulted in lower reported incidences of colorectal, lung, and breast cancers, reflecting potentially high rates of undiagnosed cancer and later-stage diagnoses, according to a new study published by Romatoski et al in the Journal of ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Shankar Siva, PhD, and colleagues, long-term outcomes of the Trans Tasman Radiation Oncology Group (TROG) 13.01 SAFRON II phase II trial showed no difference in overall survival with single-fraction vs multifraction stereotactic ablative body...
Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, FASCO, has said that volunteering and working with ASCO over many years has been the highlight of her career. She served on the ASCO Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012 and on several ASCO committees, including terms as Chair of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program...
The irony is not missed on me. In August 2022, 2 months before I was to start my tenure as President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), I was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma. My entire career over the past 30 years has been in the pursuit of improving global cancer control...
As discussed in Part I of this special feature on cancer survivorship, there are now more than 18 million cancer survivors in the United States, and that number is expected to grow to 26 million by 2040.1 However, most of those survivors—at least two-thirds—either cured or in remission or living...
With this issue of The ASCO Post, we introduce a new feature, View From the Top: The Future of Cancer Care Delivery, which will explore how leaders in oncology are developing strategies to ensure continued innovative oncology care in an ever-changing health-care environment. In this inaugural...
The improvement in cancer survival rates since President Richard M. Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971 into law is staggering. The legislation further committed the United States to greater investments in cancer-focused research to drive down the rates of cancer diagnoses, boost patient...
The updated results of the POLLUX trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dimopoulos and colleagues and in this issue of The ASCO Post, showed significantly improved overall survival with daratumumab plus lenalidomide/dexamethasone (DRd) vs Rd in patients with previously treated...
For this installment of The ASCO Post’s Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Sibylle Loibl, MD, PhD, Chair of the German Breast Group (GBG) and Chief Executive Officer of the GBG Forschungs GmbH. Professor Loibl, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology ...
Carol Aghajanian, MD, Chief of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, commented on the final analysis of NOVA for The ASCO Post. She highlighted the difficulty in truly measuring overall survival in recurrent ovarian cancer. Dr. Aghajanian also ...
The oral, small-molecule Wee1 kinase inhibitor adavosertib was clinically active but not well tolerated by more than half the patients with recurrent or persistent uterine serous carcinoma in the phase IIb ADAGIO trial. The findings were reported at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Dov Zippel, MD, a surgical oncologist at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, where he is Head of the Meirav Breast Center. Dr. Zippel is the current President of ...
The Appalachian Community Cancer Alliance (ACCA) has launched a lung cancer screening initiative to improve cancer care in rural Appalachia. Home to nearly 26 million people, the Appalachian region includes all of West Virginia and parts of 12 other states, and it has a 10% higher cancer mortality...
Researchers have found that individuals in early and middle adulthood who have a body mass index (BMI) indicating that they have overweight or obesity may be at an increased risk of developing gastrointestinal cancer, according to a new study published by Loomans-Kropp and Umar in JAMA Network...
Investigators have found that in the majority of countries studied, the recent mortality rates for all major cancer types have decreased except for lung cancer among female patients and hepatic cancer among male patients—where increasing rates were observed in most countries, according to a novel...
Botensilimab (AGEN1181) in combination with balstilimab (AGEN2034) induced durable responses in patients with platinum-resistant or -refractory ovarian cancer, in the ongoing phase Ib C-800 study presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer by Bruno...
Platinum resistance occurs in almost all patients whose ovarian cancer recurs. Single-agent chemotherapies are commonly used in this setting, but outcomes are generally poor, leaving a large unmet need for effective treatment. At the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on...
Carol Aghajanian, MD, Chief of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, commented on the final analysis of NOVA for The ASCO Post. She highlighted the difficulty in truly measuring overall survival in recurrent ovarian cancer. Dr. Aghajanian also ...
Treatment with the folate receptor alpha (FRα)-targeted antibody-drug conjugate mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx benefited patients with FRα-high, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, even after multiple lines of prior therapy, according to an updated analysis of the SORAYA trial presented at the...
The oral, small-molecule Wee1 kinase inhibitor adavosertib was clinically active but not well tolerated by more than half the patients with recurrent or persistent uterine serous carcinoma in the phase IIb ADAGIO trial. The findings were reported at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023...
“Endometrial cancer is the most frequently diagnosed gynecologic malignancy in the United States, and it is the only one where the mortality has actually risen over the past 40 years,” noted Rebecca Arend, MD, MSH, Associate Professor at the University of Alabama and Associate Scientist in the...
The addition of a checkpoint inhibitor to standard chemotherapy as first-line treatment of advanced endometrial cancer reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 70% in patients with mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) tumors in two recent phase III studies. The results of the two...
City of Hope recently announced the appointment of John D. Carpten, PhD, as Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center, Director of Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, and Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Carpten will also hold the Irell &...
Invited discussant of the phase II APPLE trial, Daniel SW Tan, BSc, MBBS, PhD, of the National Cancer Centre Singapore, noted that 17% of patients have had only molecular disease progression and were switched over to the sequential strategy. “This may be in some parts related to the sensitivity of...
Invited discussant Antonio Passaro, MD, PhD, of the European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy, underscored the significant results of the landmark CheckMate 816 trial, which he said, “established a new treatment paradigm for resectable NSCLC [non–small cell lung cancer].” In addition to the 14% ...
Treatment with the folate receptor alpha (FRα)-targeted antibody-drug conjugate mirvetuximab soravtansine-gynx benefited patients with FRα-high, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, even after multiple lines of prior therapy, according to an updated analysis of the SORAYA trial presented at the...
The search for an effective cancer vaccine has been frustrating, but finally there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Adjuvant use of an investigational personalized mRNA vaccine (mRNA-4157) plus the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab improved recurrence-free survival vs pembrolizumab alone in...
On May 9, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) posted a draft recommendation statement on screening for breast cancer. The USPSTF now recommends that all women get screened for breast cancer every other year starting at age 40 years (this is a B grade recommendation, meaning the USPSTF...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Ryu et al, the phase III portion of the NRG Oncology/RTOG 0631 trial showed no benefit in pain relief with use of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) vs conventional external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) in patients with one to three sites of vertebral metastases. Study...