A new report examining cancer in adolescents and young adults (AYAs, defined as diagnoses occurring between the ages of 15 and 39) provides updated estimates of the contemporary cancer burden in this age group, with predictions that 89,500 cases and 9,270 deaths will occur in this group in 2020 in...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine and during the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 (Abstract 610O) by Maha Hussain, MD, FACP, FASCO, and colleagues, an overall survival analysis from the phase III PROfound trial has shown a significant benefit with olaparib vs physician’s choice of...
For the first time, an inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) has improved outcomes in patients with early breast cancer when combined with standard endocrine therapy, Stephen Johnston, MD, PhD, and colleagues reported at the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 (Abstract LBA5_PR)....
The Lung ART trial was designed to demonstrate whether there was any benefit to the routine use of modern mediastinal postoperative radiotherapy in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following complete resection and (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy. No difference in disease-free survival...
Researchers have found that certain treatments for cancer may increase the chance of death if they contract COVID-19. These findings from a multicenter study presented by Trisha Wise-Draper, MD, and colleagues at the ESMO Virtual Congress 2020 (LBA71), shed light on ways standard anticancer...
Findings from the JAVELIN Bladder 100 trial were published by Thomas Powles, MD, and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers reported that the PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab led to a 31% reduction in risk of death, and extended median survival by more than 7 months in patients with ...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted designations to agents for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, recurrent glioblastoma, and pediatric acute myeloid leukemia. Fast Track Designation for EPI-7386 in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer The FDA...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kyriakopoulos et al found that use of quantitative total bone imaging with fluorine-18 (F-18)–sodium fluoride (NaF) positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) helped identify heterogeneity of response in bone lesions...
In a phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, and colleagues found that the addition of pembrolizumab to eribulin did not improve progression-free survival in women with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. As stated by the...
There are approximately 25 million foreign-born immigrants living in the United States, which is more than 13% of the nation’s total population. Of these individuals, it is estimated that about 11 million are undocumented; by far, the largest group of this immigrant undocumented population is...
Higher viral loads may be associated with a greater risk of death among patients with cancer—and individuals without cancer—hospitalized with COVID-19, according to a report by Westblade et al in Cancer Cell. Among hospitalized patients infected with COVID-19, those with hematologic malignancies...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, van Roessel et al found that adjuvant chemotherapy after pancreatic cancer resection and neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan, and oxaliplatin) was associated with an improvement in overall survival. The benefit was...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hong et al found that mandatory twice-weekly evaluations reduced the need for unplanned acute care visits among patients undergoing outpatient radiotherapy or chemoradiation who were identified as being at high risk for...
In a comprehensive analysis of adenosquamous cancer of the pancreas in preclinical models, researchers identified potential therapeutic targets for this aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. They also identified already-available agents—designed to treat other types of cancer—that may be useful in...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Karim Fizazi, MD, and colleagues, the phase III ARAMIS trial has shown significantly prolonged overall survival with darolutamide vs placebo in men with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The previously reported primary analysis ...
Clinicians who treat multiple myeloma can anticipate a host of new treatments: melflufen, cereblon E3 ligase (CEL) modulators, antibody-drug conjugates, bispecific antibodies, and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, Director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple...
Patients treated for bladder cancer with a radical cystectomy have worse outcomes if they are smokers, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis by Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). The study appeared in The Journal of Urology.1 “This study is important because...
In the treatment of adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), use of newer antibodies and de-intensification of chemotherapy have greatly improved outcomes, according to Hagop Kantarjian, MD, who has been very involved in much of the research in ALL treatment. Dr. Kantarjian, Professor and...
Results from a phase II trial led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center suggest that a combination of ipilimumab (anti–CTLA-4) plus nivolumab (anti–PD-1) can generate durable responses in a subset of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, an...
In a letter to the editor published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Brandon A. Mahal, MD, and colleagues described genomic differences in prostate cancer in Black, White, and Asian men. Study Details The study involved next-generation sequencing data from patients who had been treated for...
In a French Head and Neck Radiotherapy Oncology Group phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Sun et al found that the addition of Debio 1143 (a small-molecule antagonist of inhibitor of apoptosis proteins) to high-dose cisplatin chemoradiation improved locoregional disease control in...
For some patients with prostate cancer, surgery and/or radiation are considered standard treatments. However, these procedures may cause side effects, including urinary incontinence or impotency. A recent study published by Abreu et al in the Journal of Urology demonstrated that high-intensity...
A research letter published by Thornblade et al in JAMA Network Open examined the impact of race or ethnicity on rates of chemotherapy, liver resection, and survival among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. “The unfortunate reality is that minorities, especially Black people, have a much...
According to findings from a small study published by Calabretta et al in Circulation, treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors may worsen inflammation in the arteries that distribute blood from the heart. The research found increased inflammation in the large arteries of 20 Austrian patients...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Wolf et al, the phase II GEOMETRY mono-1 trial has shown durable responses with the selective MET inhibitor capmatinib in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and MET exon 14–skipping mutations. The trial supported the May...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Reinhard Dummer, MD, and colleagues, 5-year follow-up of the phase III COMBI-AD trial has shown continued relapse-free survival benefit with adjuvant dabrafenib/trametinib vs placebo in patients with stage III melanoma and BRAF V600E or V600K...
This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released new data from the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS). The results, published by Wang et al in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), show 1.8 million...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Baize et al, a French phase III trial has shown significant improvement in progression-free survival with second-line carboplatin plus etoposide vs topotecan in patients with chemotherapy-sensitive relapsed small cell lung cancer. As noted by the investigators, ...
In the TRANSCEND NHL 001 study reported in The Lancet, Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, and colleagues found that the autologous CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell agent lisocabtagene maraleucel (liso-cel) produced a high response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell...
I have been a registered nurse for almost 5 decades and was completely unprepared to hear the words “You have stage IV lung cancer.” I think receiving the diagnosis was especially shocking because the symptoms I began experiencing in the summer of 2015, including some unusual weight gain,...
More than 5 decades ago, the concept of bone marrow transplantation to treat humans with leukemia was met with varying degrees of skepticism and countless clinical failures. Yet, over those same decades, bone marrow transplantation was transformed from an insurmountable therapeutic option used in a ...
In 2013, at the ASCO Annual Meeting Plenary Session, it was both surprising and encouraging in the era of personalized medicine for cancer care to hear about a simple low-tech intervention delivered by women in the community that cut the rate of death from cervical cancer in India by about...
On August 5, 2020, the antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin-blmf was granted accelerated approval for treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received at least four prior therapies, including an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody, a proteasome inhibitor, ...
On July 7, 2020, an oral combination of the nucleoside metabolic inhibitor decitabine and the cytidine deaminase inhibitor cedazuridine was approved for treatment of adult patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), including: Previously treated and untreated, de novo, and secondary MDS with the ...
“Ask any doctor why he or she enters medicine and the answer will likely be the same,” said Marc L. Citron, MD. “People become doctors to help patients...but to deliver the moments that matter to patients—to extend their lives and give quality to their days—doctors rely on new research.” In 2003,...
Doctor after doctor recommended different treatment options for Marlene Portnoy’s husband, Steve, after he was diagnosed with a desmoid tumor. Desmoid tumors are rare, and each doctor admitted uncertainty about treatment plans. “Let me tell you, that’s a really scary thing when doctors can’t...
Global oncology refers to the application of the concepts of global health to cancer and implies an approach to the practice of oncology that acknowledges the reality of limited resources in parts of the world. The Global Oncology Young Investigator Award (YIA) from ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the...
Multiple myeloma is a malignant clonal plasma cell malignancy that primarily affects older adults. Although therapeutic advances have led to improvements in disease-specific and overall survival over the past decade, age-related survival disparities continue to exist. The higher prevalence of...
On July 30, 2020, atezolizumab was granted approval for use in combination with cobimetinib and vemurafenib for patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive unresectable or metastatic melanoma.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings from the phase III, double-blind IMspire150 trial ...
In keeping with her Presidential theme of “Equity: Every Patient, Every Day, Everywhere,” in July, ASCO President Lori J. Pierce, MD, FASTRO, FASCO, announced the Society was joining forces with the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) to increase racial and ethnic minority participation...
On June 30, 2020, avelumab was approved for maintenance treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma that has not progressed with first-line platinum-containing chemotherapy.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the randomized, multicenter, ...
In a phase III trial (PROfound) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Johann de Bono, MB, ChB, PhD, of the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital, London, and colleagues found that olaparib significantly improved progression-free survival vs hormonal therapy in patients...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer. They include narratives, topical essays, historical...
In this period of time, more than ever before, I feel the dichotomy of being a non-Hispanic White American vs a person of color. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, I rode the subway to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Ralph Lauren Cancer Center clinic in Harlem, where I was often the only White person on...
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new study that specifically examines how COVID-19 is affecting American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN), one of the racial and ethnic minority groups at highest risk from the disease. The CDC found that in 23 selected states, the...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has selected 19 distinguished members to receive the ASTRO Fellow (FASTRO) designation. The 2020 class of Fellows will be recognized at a virtual awards ceremony on October 27 during ASTRO’s 62nd Annual Meeting. The ASTRO Fellows program...
Although most patients with breast cancer are considered to have an overall excellent prognosis, 600,000 people still die annually of the disease around the world. Even in HER2-positive breast cancer, a subtype that has seen a transformation of outcomes in the past 2 decades, there’s still room for ...
Cancer is not for the faint of heart, and sometimes neither is the treatment, according to information presented during the ASCO20 Virtual Education Program.1 Approximately 30% of patients who receive cancer therapy will have cardiovascular complications.2 What’s more, in anthracycline-treated...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Hematology Expert Review, we take a closer look at the monoclonal antibody targeting CD38, daratumumab, in the treatment of amyloid light chain (AL) amyloidosis and resistant multiple myeloma as well as the antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin-blmf,...
Fox Chase Cancer Center recently announced the hiring of Robert Brenchak, MD, who will join the Department of Medicine as Assistant Professor in the Division of Hospital Medicine. Dr. Brenchak is coming to Fox Chase from Temple University Hospital, where he was Assistant Professor of Clinical...