As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Losk and colleagues from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center report their institution’s implementation of a protocol of surgeon-initiated genomic profiling of estrogen receptor–positive tumors in women with early breast cancer that resulted in ...
AT THE 2017 ASCO ANNUAL MEETING, the leaders of the newly formed Value in Cancer Care Consortium (vi3c; vi3c.org) met to discuss the group’s plan to study how to improve the affordability of cancer drugs and make them more accessible to patients. The goal of the Value in Cancer Care Consortium is...
A matched case-controlled study among Medicare beneficiaries with metastatic lung, colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers has found that palliative care consultation significantly reduced total health-care costs following intervention. According to data presented at the 2017 Palliative and...
A new electronic curriculum delivered via e-mail with push technology may provide an efficient, cost-effective solution to the shortage of palliative care faculty serving the nation’s oncology fellowship programs. According to data presented at the 2017 Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology...
A new study has shed light on how palliative care interventions may improve patient outcomes. According to data presented at the 2017 Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium,1 patients with incurable cancer who received early integrated palliative care had an increased use of active...
For 50 years, clinicians in the United States have had a legal duty to disclose to patients with cancer the risks, benefits, and alternatives to a proposed cancer treatment. Until recently, however, it has been unclear whether clinicians have a similar duty to discuss the costs of that treatment....
NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) researchers have found that for the most common high-risk type of human papillomavirus (HPV) to cause cervical cancer, an important viral gene may need to have a precise DNA sequence. The findings, published by Mirabello et al in Cell,1 contribute to a better...
Addressing the need to integrate palliative and supportive care practices into medical specialties to ensure optimal patient-centered care across the cancer continuum and the evidence-based remedies to accomplish that goal were the focus of the nearly 300 study abstracts presented at the 2017...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies commonly used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Sheila N. Garland, PhD, R Psych, and Jun J. Mao, MD, MSCE, present...
In recognition of her work in value-based care, Barbara McAneny, MD, FASCO, MACP, was honored with the Annual Achievement Award of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC). Her work in developing the grant-funded COME HOME oncology medical home initiative demonstrated reduced costs and...
The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (ALCF) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) announced they have awarded $300,000 in research funding to a Johns Hopkins University investigator studying the genetics of lung cancer. According to the organizations, Johns ...
On October 1, 2017, nutritional epidemiologist Marian Neuhouser, PhD, RD, became head of the Cancer Prevention Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch). She replaces Acting Program Head Johanna Lampe, PhD, RD, Associate Director of...
On September 22, 2017, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was granted accelerated approval for treatment of recurrent locally advanced or metastatic, gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with tumors expressing programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1), as determined by a U.S. Food and Drug...
Seattle Children’s has opened the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy trial in the U.S. for children and young adults with relapsed or refractory CD19- and CD22-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that will simultaneously attack two targets on cancer cells. With ...
It had been an uneventful Sunday morning, and I was writing my final note for the day, hopeful to make a stealth exit and perhaps join my family at church. But as I closed the chart and looked up, I saw Ruthie, my oncology fellow, approaching with a grim expression. “I just left the room of a...
A RECENTLY PUBLISHED STUDY in JAMA Oncology, led by Mohamed Sorror, MD, MSc, and Elihu Estey, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch), involving five collaborating institutions, provides a novel model to predict 1-year survival rates of patients after beginning treatment...
Oncologists are apt to give patients the worst news of their lives: You have cancer. Yet studies show that, by and large, despite the stressful aspects of treating people with a life-threatening disease, oncologists report one of the highest percentages of professional satisfaction among medical...
Invited discussant Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, of the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium, put the JACOB trial findings in context of what is known for HER2-positive metastatic gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer, where two targeted agents are approved: trastuzumab (Herceptin) in the first...
THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (MATCH) clinical trial has achieved the goal of screening nearly 6,000 patients in just under 2 years, according to data presented at the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research–NCI–European Organisation for Research...
Bloodless stem cell transplantation, performed without the transfusion of allogeneic blood or blood products, has numerous clinical advantages, especially among populations of patients who prefer, for religious or other reasons, no blood methods of medical and surgical treatment. Patricia A. Ford, ...
ON OCTOBER 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta), a cell-based gene therapy, to treat adult patients with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma who have not responded to or who have relapsed after at least two other kinds of treatment....
According to Alberto Sobrero, MD, Head of Medical Oncology at Ospedale San Martino in Genova, Italy, the results of the pivotal IDEA trial, which evaluated the optimal duration of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer, were not clear to clinicians.1 The combined analysis of six...
CLINICIANS ARE now well acquainted with BRAF mutations in advanced melanoma, but there is more to genomics in this disease than identifying BRAF and prescribing a BRAF inhibitor. At the 2017 Debates and Didactics Conference, held at Sea Island, Georgia, Melinda L. Yushak, MD, MPH, of Emory...
VISIT ASCO’S patient information website, Cancer.Net, for comprehensive information on understanding bone marrow/stem cell transplantation, donating bone marrow, and extensive information for caregivers. Stock your practice with copies of the ASCO Answers Guide to Caregiving and Understanding...
SIXTEEN DISTINGUISHED ASCO members have been selected by the ASCO Nominating Committee as candidates for open leadership positions within the Society, including: The offices of President-Elect and Treasurer Four seats on the Society’s Board of Directors Two seats on the Nominating Committee...
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, marks the 6th consecutive year of #GivingTuesday, a global day of giving that celebrates philanthropy. Taking place on the heels of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday serves as a reminder that the holiday season is about giving back as well as giving gifts. Those...
A large subset analysis of the MINDACT trial suggests that oncologists may be undertreating women with small (< 1 cm) node-negative breast tumors, which are clinically considered to be low risk but can be genomically high risk. About one in four women with small node-negative breast tumors <...
The ASCO Nominating Committee, which is itself elected by ASCO members, is charged with selecting candidates for future Society leadership. This job is both a great pleasure and a real challenge, since ASCO has so many dedicated members who have the desire, insight, and ability to lead our...
Invited discussant Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD, Head of the Breast Center of the University of Munich (LMU), Germany, said the UNICANCER-NeoPAL trial points toward the future of endocrine therapy in early breast cancer—using cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors as a means of “enhancing” this ...
As neoadjuvant treatment of women with high-risk luminal breast cancer, the combination of letrozole and palbociclib (Ibrance) did not reduce the residual cancer burden or improve the rates of breast-conserving surgery, in the phase II UNICANCER- NeoPAL study presented at the 2017 European Society ...
On April 28, 2017, brigatinib (Alunbrig) was granted accelerated approval for the treatment of patients with metastatic anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have had disease progression on or are intolerant to crizotinib (Xalkori).1,2 Supporting Efficacy...
On June 22, 2017, regular approvals were granted to dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist) given in combination for the treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with BRAF V600E mutation as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved...
Stand Up To Cancer, joined by the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, LUNGevity, and the American Lung Association, announced that four teams of top researchers will study lung and pancreatic cancers using a new approach of “cancer interception” at their earliest stages. “The...
With the availability of at least five checkpoint inhibitors to treat non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and other solid tumors, appropriate patient selection for these expensive treatments remains key. The hope is that testing the level of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in tumor ...
On September 28, 2017, the cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor abemaciclib (Verzenio) was approved for use in combination with fulvestrant (Faslodex) for women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer with disease progression following...
As computer-based physician support systems for decision-making in cancer management continue to evolve, “we will come to embrace this as something that liberates us to spend more time on the human aspects of cancer care,” Andrew D. Seidman, MD, told participants at the 2017 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer ...
While age remains a major risk factor for breast cancer, with nearly 80% of new cases occurring in women aged 50 years and older, women diagnosed at a younger age generally have poorer outcomes. This is partly because premenopausal women are more likely to have triple-negative breast cancer, which ...
The treatment of triple-negative breast cancer is rapidly evolving, as clinical trials continue to test chemotherapy agents and combinations and immunotherapy studies promise potentially “game-changing” interventions early in the course of disease, Joyce O’Shaughnessy, MD, reported at the 19th...
“Growing research suggests that body weight is not only related to the risk of developing malignancy, but also prognosis after diagnosis, especially in breast cancer,” said Jennifer A. Ligibel, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, at the 19th Annual Lynn Sage Breast...
Although a majority of major cancer centers may test for minimal residual disease (MRD), a recent survey conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, suggests most oncologists remain uncertain about what to do with the results. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network®...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has announced that its registration count has grown to more than 1 million users. By registering on the NCCN website, users are able to view and download all of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) free of charge...
With the vast majority of patients cured with primary therapy, classical Hodgkin lymphoma is largely a success story. For the 10% to 20% of patients who either relapse or are refractory to front-line therapy, the disease can still be fatal. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 12th ...
Although the indications to initiate treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have not changed, determining the optimal first-line treatment and sequence of therapies once treatment has begun remain challenges for providers. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 12th Annual...
Poly (ADP ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are among the most exciting new classes of oncology drugs, and their development has coincided with the increasing recognition of the therapeutic vulnerability in targeting DNA damage response and DNA repair. The initial clinical testing of PARP...
Although most Americans, 78%, recognize that smoking is a major risk factor for cancer, just 31% say obesity—the second-leading preventable cause of cancer after smoking—is a risk factor for the disease, according to the results of ASCO’s National Cancer Opinion Survey, which polled over 4,000...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Noelle K. LoConte, MD, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a statement on the association of alcohol consumption with cancer risk that outlines proposals for promoting awareness of the association, supporting...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Chow et al have developed a model that distinguishes risk groups for ischemic heart disease and stroke in 5-year survivors of childhood cancer. Study Details The study included data from 13,060 participants in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study...
On November 16, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a comprehensive policy framework for the development and oversight of regenerative medicine products, including novel cellular therapies. The framework—outlined in a suite of four guidance documents—builds upon the...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has published its ESMO Precision Medicine Glossary in Annals of Oncology. The glossary’s 43 definitions are set to pave the way for consistent communication on precision medicine between oncologists, researchers, and patients by standardizing...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncologyby Bryan J. Schneider, MD, of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and colleagues, ASCO has endorsed the recently released American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) evidence-based guideline on stereotactic body radiotherapy in early-stage...