Mepitel Film—a silicone-based polyurethane film dressing—may be beneficial in reducing skin toxicities caused by radiation treatment, according to data presented during the October 2022 session of the ASCO Plenary Series by Chow et al (Abstract 390226). Results of the phase III trial showed the...
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...
Commercially available noninvasive screening tests for colorectal cancer—the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) and the Cologuard multitarget stool DNA test—are equally effective for screening patients with early-stage colorectal cancer. However, FIT costs about one-fifth of the multitarget stool DNA...
In an updated analysis of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial, which included postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer, first-line treatment with ribociclib plus fulvestrant added nearly 16 months of overall survival time vs fulvestrant...
For advanced breast cancer that is hormone receptor–positive and HER2-negative, sacituzumab govitecan-hziy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression by 34% over physician’s choice of treatment, based on the results of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial.1 The heavily pretreated patients in...
The past year has seen an unprecedented number of practice-changing advances across all three major breast cancer subtypes. For patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer, neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus pembrolizumab firmly entered the standard of care based on improvements in...
The final overall survival analysis of the phase III PALOMA-2 trial has shown no significant benefit for palbociclib given with letrozole, vs letrozole and placebo, as a first-line treatment in hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.1 The results were reported at the 2022 ...
The invited discussant of the TUXEDO-1 trial1 was Mafalda Oliveira, MD, PhD, of Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona. Dr. Oliveira noted that 40% of the 15 patients in TUXEDO-1 had symptomatic disease, and 60% had central nervous system metastases...
The antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) doubled progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with “HER2-low” metastatic breast cancer—ie, patients with low levels of HER2 expression. The agent also extended overall survival for patients with low ...
Preliminary results of the basket BEGONIA trial showed that the antibody-drug conjugate datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), paired with the immune checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, has strong activity in advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer among patients not biomarker-selected for...
The OlympiA trial of adjuvant olaparib in patients with HER2-negative, high-risk early-stage breast cancer and BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations has now demonstrated a significant overall survival benefit, reducing the risk of death over placebo by 32% and yielding an absolute improvement of 3.8% at 3...
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...
Just 1 month after the DESTINY-Breast04 data were presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Plenary Session,1 an ASCO expert panel released updated guidance that endorses the adoption of the antibody-drug conjugate fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) into clinical practice for patients with...
Although standard therapies may provide long-lasting remissions for many patients with various subtypes of lymphoma, there is a critical need for new strategies for the sizable high-risk subset. At the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference, four experts in the field described future therapies for...
An overall survival benefit has now emerged for sacituzumab govitecan-hziy in women with previously treated, hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative, locally recurrent, inoperable or metastatic breast cancer, according to a planned second interim analysis of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial.1 The...
The results of SWOG S18011 were met with enthusiasm by attendees at the Presidential Symposium of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022. The ASCO Post captured the thoughts of several melanoma experts, who had somewhat different ideas about the immediate clinical...
With the aging of the world population, geriatric oncology is becoming a mainstay. Over the past year in The ASCO Post, we published a couple of articles on the history of oncology, including one on the history of geriatric oncology in the United States and Europe. Our goal was to promote a...
The addition of cabozantinib to nivolumab plus ipilimumab prolonged progression-free survival in untreated intermediate-risk patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), according to the first results of the phase III COSMIC-313 trial. These findings were presented as a Presidential Symposium ...
Survivors of prostate cancer originally diagnosed with metastatic disease may experience significantly worse health-related quality of life than those diagnosed with early-stage disease and individuals without a cancer history across all domains, according to a new study by Zheng et al published in ...
In a survey study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Jimenez et al found that half of surveyed oncologists reported sometimes or usually using reduced doses at initiation of a new systemic treatment in patients with metastatic cancer in order to potentially reduce toxicity. Study Details The study...
Concurrent chemoradiation therapy followed by durvalumab has become the standard of care in patients with unresectable, locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), based on the PACIFIC trial.1 However, clinical trials have predetermined inclusion and exclusion criteria, and they evaluate...
In locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), immunotherapy consolidation with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab improved overall survival in the PACIFIC trial,1 thus leading to its use after chemoradiotherapy as a standard of care. Real-world evidence of durvalumab’s effect on overall and...
Interim results of a phase II study have demonstrated the safety and feasibility of treating elderly and frail patients with locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with the monoclonal antibody durvalumab during and after radiation therapy, without chemotherapy. The results of a...
In patients with resectable, stage IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the addition of neoadjuvant nivolumab to platinum-based chemotherapy significantly improved overall survival compared with neoadjuvant chemotherapy alone, according to data presented by Mariano Provencio, MD, PhD, at the...
A large prospective analysis, published by Bayle et al in Annals of Oncology, evaluated differences between tissue and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) next-generation sequencing (NGS) with a large cancer gene panel. The investigators compared the impacts of both methods in terms of molecular tumor...
Pebbles Fagan, PhD, MPH, has assumed the role of Associate Director for Cancer Prevention and Control for the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Dr. Fagan, an expert on tobacco-related health disparities and co-founder of the...
Despite a significant potential for cure, relapsed and refractory large B-cell lymphomas (LBCL) comprise the most common cause of lymphoma-related mortality. Sequential relapses reflect the limits of repeated exposure to chemotherapy, even when delivered at high doses. More than 30 years ago,...
Little is known about patients with cancer’s social welfare and how it affects their health outcomes. To address this, researchers at University of California (UC) San Diego School of Medicine and partnering institutions assessed the prevalence and impact of various social risk factors in patients...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Yue et al, an updated analysis of the Chinese phase II EVAN study indicated a sizable overall survival advantage with adjuvant erlotinib vs vinorelbine/cisplatin in patients with R0 resected stage IIIA EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer...
Sapna P. Patel, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the latest findings from the SWOG S1801 trial, which showed that using single-agent pembrolizumab as neoadjuvant therapy improved event-free survival compared to adjuvant therapy in high-risk resectable stage III–IV ...
Aggarwal et al presented data from PRESTO (AFT-19) at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 (Abstract LBA63), the first trial to evaluate whether intensifying treatment beyond androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) by adding apalutamide with or without abiraterone acetate plus...
An overall survival benefit has now emerged for sacituzumab govitecan-hziy in patients with previously treated hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative locally recurrent inoperable or metastatic breast cancer, according to a planned second interim analysis of the phase III TROPiCS-02 trial. These...
The ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group presented data from PROSPER RCC (EA8143), the first randomized phase III trial of neoadjuvant immunotherapy in patients with kidney cancer, at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 (Abstract LBA67). Patients with high-risk renal cell...
On September 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved eflapegrastim-xnst injection (Rolvedon)—a long-acting granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) with a novel formulation—to decrease the incidence of infection, as manifested by febrile neutropenia, in adult patients with...
The James P. Allison Institute at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, recently announced the establishment of its scientific advisory board to provide strategic guidance and evaluation of its research portfolio and programs. The 11-person advisory board will be co-chaired by ...
Pebbles Fagan, PhD, MPH, has been named Director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco at the Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). Dr. Fagan will serve as Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education in the...
The GOG Foundation, Inc (GOG-F), Board of Directors recently announced the election of Thomas J. Herzog, MD, as its next President, succeeding Larry J. Copeland, MD, who has served in this role since 2017. Under Dr. Copeland’s leadership, the GOG-F has experienced unprecedented growth in its...
When combined with radiotherapy as definitive treatment of locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, cisplatin at a dose of 40 mg/m2 weekly is noninferior to cisplatin at 100 mg/m2 every 3 weeks, according to the results of the ConCERT trial.1 These findings were presented by Atul...
The randomized phase II GRIFFIN study evaluated the investigational use of daratumumab in combination with lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone (RVd), followed by maintenance therapy with daratumumab and lenalidomide, compared to RVd followed by maintenance therapy with lenalidomide alone,...
On September 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved durvalumab (Imfinzi) in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic biliary tract cancer. TOPAZ-1 Efficacy was evaluated in TOPAZ-1 (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier:...
On September 17, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cabozantinib (Cabometyx) for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients aged 12 years and older with locally advanced or metastatic differentiated thyroid cancer that has progressed following prior vascular endothelial growth...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor tislelizumab to first-line chemotherapy significantly reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50% and, despite a 49% crossover rate, numerically boosted overall survival in patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal cancer, Zhang et al...
Head and neck cancer is the seventh most common cancer in the world, with 1.1 million new diagnoses reported annually.1 In the United States, the incidence of oral and pharyngeal cancers is over 54,000 cases per year, resulting in over 11,000 yearly deaths.2 Although smoking and alcohol consumption ...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Ting Bao, MD, DABMA, MS, and Jyothirmai Gubili, MS, focus on the herb dong...
Harry P. Erba, MD, PhD, of Duke Cancer Institute, discusses potentially practice-changing phase III results from the QuANTUM-First trial, which showed that adding quizartinib to standard chemotherapy and up to 3 years of continuation therapy led to improvement in overall survival for adults aged 18 ...
In the first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer, the sequencing of nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine with FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin) resulted in a significant improvement in overall survival at 12 months and in all other efficacy endpoints as compared with the standard ...
The 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting was filled with important science, engaging data, and several practice-changing abstracts, many of which have been covered in detail on other pages or in earlier issues of The ASCO Post. There were numerous high-impact studies and attendees, whether present at the...
Sexual dysfunction is highly prevalent in women with lung cancer, with most participants in a survey reporting little to no interest in sexual activity, according to research led by Narjust Florez (Duma), MD, presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World...
Researchers from Vancouver, British Columbia examined the effect of duration of past exposure to air pollution with lung cancer diagnosis in new research presented by Myers et al at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer 2022 (Abstract...
At the 2022 Summit on Cancer Health Disparities in Seattle, leaders from five of the leading professional societies in cancer discussed their respective organizations’ current initiatives toward improving cancer health disparities.1 Representatives from ASCO, the American Society for Clinical...