Ilixadencel is essentially a dendritic cell vaccine without preloaded antigens. In the MERECA study, ilixadencel produced “a great signal,” though this approach is still very experimental, said the study’s invited discussant, Navid Hafez, MD, MPH, of Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Hafez is a member of the ...
Ilixadencel is a cell-based, allogeneic, off-the-shelf product aimed at priming the anticancer immune response when injected intratumorally. The phase II MERECA study evaluated this allogeneic dendritic cell product given with sunitinib in 88 patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The study ...
According to research published by Andrea Hayes-Jordan, MD, FACS, and colleagues in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons, children and young adults with colon cancer are more likely to have shorter overall survival and recurrence-free survival than middle-aged adults. In a...
Relieving pain is an important part of cancer care, and each patient experiences pain differently. ASCO Answers offers two helpful products for managing cancer-related pain: a one-page fact sheet and an in-depth booklet. These resources help patients and their caregivers learn about: The...
ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) Round 1 of reporting is open for data abstraction. Round 1 will close on June 5, 2020, and final reports will be available approximately 4 weeks later. To get started, go to the registration portal at myqopi.asco.org/registration/login.aspx and...
As early-career oncologists, Rachna Shroff, MD, and Nina Shah, MD, offered patients a textbook bedside manner—personal interactions were limited, and emotions were rarely shared. “People talk about how, especially in oncology, the more you let [a patient] in, the more profoundly you feel losses,...
ASCO has released a position statement, “Block Grants in Medicaid & Their Impact on Cancer Care,” summarizing the Society’s concerns about the potential negative impact that block grants—proposals that establish annual limits on federal funding for Medicaid—could have on patients with cancer....
ASCO and Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation®, congratulate the recipients of recent Conquer Cancer Merit Awards, which recognize oncology fellows’ and trainees’ high-quality research submitted in abstracts to an ASCO-sponsored or cosponsored meeting. These early-career researchers presented their...
Thirty-three practices received the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) certification in the fourth quarter of 2019. The Association for Clinical Oncology applauds the work of these practices to ensure a better and healthier future. The following practices achieved QOPI certification or...
The work of nine researchers who have previously received funding from Conquer Cancer is featured in ASCO’s Clinical Cancer Advances 2020. Visit CONQUER.ORG for more details. Advance of the Year: Refinement of Surgical Treatment At Massachusetts General Hospital, Janet Murphy, MD, is expanding...
An expert in ocular oncology, Zelia M. Correa, MD, PhD, has joined Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center and Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine as Co-Director of the Ocular Oncology Service. Dr. Correa specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of eye...
Despite being vigilant about adhering to my annual schedule of screening mammography, in 2002, I was diagnosed with stage III triple-negative breast cancer. The diagnosis scared me, and I wondered if I was going to die. Determined to do what I could to survive the cancer, I underwent aggressive...
The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) recently announced that Susan Band Horwitz, PhD, has been selected to receive the 2020 Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research. Dr. Horwitz is being recognized for pioneering the understanding, at the molecular level, of the mechanisms...
I am a retired 82-year-old Hematologist/Oncologist who reads The ASCO Post regularly. I am writing to share some brief thoughts with the authors of two articles in the February 10, 2020 issue. First, I would address the article, A Hopeful Look Ahead in Oncology, written by Dan L. Longo, MD, MACP....
When the landmark report from the Institute of Medicine, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition, was published in 2006, there were 10 million cancer survivors in the United States.1 Meant to raise awareness of the medical, functional, and psychosocial consequences of a cancer...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Sandra M. Swain, MD, FACP, FASCO, Professor of Medicine and Associate Dean for Research Development at Georgetown University Medical Center, and Vice President of MedStar Genetic Medicine at Medstar...
Venipuncture is the most commonly performed invasive procedure in hospitals daily. The risk of this procedure is nerve damage or an arterial nick. Of course, there are other possible issues, such as hematoma and injection-site infection. Then there’s dealing with caterwauling children and swooning...
A scientific team has been awarded a $9.1 million grant by the National Cancer Institute to study liver metastasis. The co-lead investigators, Neil Bhowmick, PhD, Director of the Cancer Biology Program, and Shelly Lu, MD, Women’s Guild Chair in Gastroenterology and Director of the Division of...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapies for newly diagnosed and relapsed or refractory acute...
Hongchao Pan, PhD, of the University of Oxford, discusses an analysis of 86,000 women in the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group database, which showed that the risk of distant recurrence 20 years after a diagnosis of node-negative, estrogen receptor–negative early-stage breast...
PAMELA L. KUNZ, MD, has been appointed Leader of the Gastrointestinal Cancers Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven and Yale Cancer Center and Director of GI Medical Oncology within the Section of Medical Oncology. Dr. Kunz joins Yale from Stanford University School of Medicine in...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) recently welcomed H. Timothy Hsiao, PhD, as its new Director of Scientific Affairs, where he will provide strategic leadership to advance the impact of research and innovation in radiation oncology through ASTRO’s research funding, fellowships,...
James N. Gerson, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, commented on the implications of the findings from CAPTIVATE. “Upfront therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is rapidly evolving. We now have three...
TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH IN ONCOLOGY (TRIO), a global academic clinical research organization, recently announced the appointment of two new members to the Company’s Board of Directors. Joining the board are Peter Fasching, MD, and Hari Kumar, PhD. Together, they bring decades of leadership in key...
The National Pancreas Foundation has named Rush University Medical Center as a National Center of Excellence for Pancreatic Cancer, a designation given to hospitals that have demonstrated the multidisciplinary approach, social support, and advanced research resources needed to successfully treat...
In an interview with The ASCO Post, Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD, expounded on the results of the COSMIC-021 trial. Dr. Drake is Division Director for GU Oncology, Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Program, and Co-Leader of the Tumor Biology and Microenvironment Program at the Herbert Irving...
New data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium are validating the purpose of ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study, a multibasket trial that matches patients’ genomic alterations to commercially available targeted therapies. The aim is to learn...
In February 2020, Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of ASCO, was designated a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for his decades-long contributions to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). ...
ASCO and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) have jointly published an update to a clinical practice guideline on estrogen receptor and progesterone receptor testing in breast cancer.1 The guideline for immunohistochemistry testing of estrogen receptor and progesterone receptors in patients...
By way of tradition, our current system of oncology training exposes fellows to vast amounts of suffering in their first year. As fellows, we see dying patients with cancer in the hospital; we see the third-opinion, last-ditch referrals; we see most newly presenting patients; and we spend the hours ...
A novel approach using a drug called MK-6482 showed activity in a phase I/II study in patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma, according to a presentation at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.1 MK-6482 is an oral, first-in-class selective small-molecule inhibitor that...
“The investigators of the current study tested the hypothesis that vitamin D supplementation is associated with a reduced risk of checkpoint-induced colitis by rigorously assessing 37 variables in both discovery and validation cohorts,” said invited discussant Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, Assistant...
Vitamin D supplementation prior to starting immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may significantly reduce the odds of developing colitis, according to a study conducted at Harvard Medical School. Although this was a retrospective chart review, the association was relatively strong in the...
A study published in JAMA Oncology found that 31 genome-targeted anticancer agents were in use as of January 2018.1 To shed light on the current state of precision oncology, The ASCO Post recently spoke with David M. Cutler, PhD, the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of ...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a combination therapy in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL); gave Fast Track designations for treatments in T-cell lymphoma and adenoid cystic carcinoma; granted Orphan Drug designation to an agent for the ...
“In the 10-year analysis of the NSABP B-42 trial, the effect of extended treatment with 5 years of letrozole on disease-free survival persisted and reached statistical significance. There was no significant improvement in overall survival with letrozole, but letrozole continued to provide a...
Investigators in Brazil are seeking to explore the efficacy and safety of adjuvant biosimilar trastuzumab in a real-world study of patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer. In 2019, biosimilar trastuzumab became the first biosimilar approved in Brazil for the treatment of patients with...
Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, Boston, commented on KEYNOTE-890. “Previous work has suggested minimal activity of...
In the phase II KEYNOTE-890 trial, patients with inoperable advanced triple-negative breast cancer who received one intratumoral tavokinogene telseplasmid injection followed by electroporation and pembrolizumab, several patients with skin or subcutaneous tumors saw metastatic lesions disappear,...
The second interim analysis of the phase III SOPHIA trial demonstrated a significant though modest improvement in progression-free survival, response rate, and clinical benefit with the addition of margetuximab to chemotherapy vs trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER2-positive...
In patients with triple-negative breast cancer, the addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy achieves higher rates of pathologic complete response compared with placebo, according to results of the phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial presented at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer ...
Capecitabine improves disease-free and overall survival for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, but only when it is added to other systemic therapies, not when it is used as a substitute, according to a large meta-analysis of the effects of capecitabine in early breast cancer, The results...
A. Jo Chien, MD, Associate Professor at UCSF’s Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center, San Francisco, was the formal discussant of this abstract. Dr. Chien said that a median follow-up of 3-years is relatively short for this trial, considering about 75% of patients had hormone receptor–positive...
Results of the randomized, phase II ATEMPT trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) failed to demonstrate improved safety when compared with paclitaxel plus trastuzumab as adjuvant therapy in patients with stage 1 HER2-positive breast cancer. These results of...
Steven J. Isakoff, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, commented on the results of the DESTINY-Breast01 trial. “These data are extraordinarily encouraging, suggesting we will have another new option for patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer. The...
In heavily pretreated patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer [fam-]trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd), a novel antibody-drug conjugate, achieved high response rates and durable responses, according to results of the phase II DESTINY-Breast01 trial presented at the 2019 San Antonio...
“With longer follow-up, the addition of pertuzumab to chemotherapy and trastuzumab appears to show benefit in hormone receptor–positive patients as well. In practice, we offer this regimen to node-positive patients and we are encouraged that hormone receptor-positive and -negative patients have a...
Martine J. Piccart, MD, PhD, FASCO, reported that at 6-year follow-up of the APHINITY trial there was a modest, but not statistically significant, overall survival benefit for the addition of pertuzumab to chemotherapy plus trastuzumab vs chemotherapy/trastuzumab as adjuvant therapy in patients...
The investigational oral agent tucatinib added to trastuzumab/capecitabine reduced the risk of death by one-third and reduced the risk of disease progression or death by one-half in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer, including those with untreated or previously ...
More than 7,500 specialists in breast oncology from over 90 countries attended the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) held last December. Researchers convened to present a wide-ranging array of abstracts and posters featuring important new data in the treatment of breast cancer....