In the phase III TAGS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Shitara et al found that trifluridine/tipiracil (Lonsurf) significantly improved overall survival vs placebo in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic gastric cancer. In the double-blind trial, 507 patients with nonresectable...
Patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving treatment at academic centers have an increased 2-year survival compared to patients treated at community-based centers, according to findings published by Ramalingam et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. An...
A review and analysis of randomized clinical trials published by Kovic et al in JAMA Internal Medicine questioned whether interventions that prolong progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with cancer improve their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The systematic review and quantitative...
By combining data on individuals’ lifetime sun exposure and their genetics, researchers may be able to generate improved predictions of their risk of skin cancer, according to findings presented by Fontanillas et al at the 2018 American Society of Human Genetics Annual Meeting (Abstract PgmNr ...
In a phase Ib study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Advani et al found that the combination of rituximab (Rituxan) and the CD47-blocking monoclonal antibody Hu5F9-G4 (or 5F9), a macrophage immune checkpoint inhibitor, was active in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. CD47, which is ...
The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation (SWCRF), an international nonprofit organization that funds cancer research, recently announced that its founder and Chief Executive Officer, Samuel Waxman, MD, has received China’s highest honor granted to a foreigner. The Vice-Premier of the People’s...
Thomas J. Dougherty, PhD, the developer of modern photodynamic therapy and Chief Emeritus of Roswell Park’s Photodynamic Therapy Center, died October 2, 2018, in Buffalo, New York. “He was undoubtedly the major influence in bringing [photodynamic therapy] into the realm of cancer therapy,” said...
BOOKMARK Title: Here We Grow: Mindfulness Through Cancer and BeyondAuthor: Paige DavisPublisher: She Writes PressDate: May 2018Price: $22.95, paperback, 154 pages Since the publication of Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s best-selling book, When Breath Becomes Air, about his diagnosis of cancer and untimely...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN) has moved into new headquarters to Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. The new location will allow for greater hosting capacity for meetings, guests, and a growing staff. “International surveys repeatedly show that oncologists...
BOOKMARK Title: The Trail to Tincup: Love Stories at Life’s EndEditors: Joyce Lynnette HockerPublisher: She Writes PressPublication date: May 2018Price: $23.95, hardcover, 288 pages Human mortality is embedded in the day-to-day challenges of clinical oncology; a cancer diagnosis is a reality...
Arthralgia is a common and debilitating adverse effect experienced by patients with breast cancer who are being treated with aromatase inhibitors, often resulting in poor adherence. And premature treatment discontinuation can negatively impact disease-free and overall breast cancer survival....
The International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM), an independent nonprofit organization, recently announced that physician-entrepreneur Neil Bacon, MD, has been appointed as its new President and Chief Executive Officer. ICHOM’s mission is to catalyze a global movement to...
Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, a Manhattan-based fertility center, and the Mount Sinai Health System have launched an integrated oncofertility program at The Blavatnik Family Chelsea Medical Center at Mount Sinai to provide individuals and couples the benefit of advanced medical...
A health-care system is evaluated by various metrics: one is how it cares for its most vulnerable patients. The United States spends far more on health care than any nation in the world, yet access to high-quality oncology services remains elusive to certain minority populations—none more so than...
Nearly 4 in 10 Americans believe cancer can be cured solely through alternative therapies, according to ASCO's second annual National Cancer Opinion Survey. This is despite research showing that patients who use alternative therapies instead of standard cancer treatments have much higher...
The text and photographs on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The Antiseptic Era: 1876–1900.” The photograph...
The Persephone presentation by Helena Margaret Earl, MBBS, PhD, got a lot of publicity after a pre–ASCO Annual Meeting press release, suggesting that 6 months of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) is enough. The advice of experts has been that the evidence is inconclusive, but I have not heard a...
What was an MBA doing at the podium of a clinical oncology meeting? Ten years ago or so, that might have been surprising. But in an era of rapid change—in therapies, costs, payment models, and practice—it only makes sense. Amy Porter-Tacoronte, MBA, Health System Chief Administrative Officer at the ...
Radiation therapy to the limited disease in patients with early-stage follicular lymphoma “achieves local control in over 90% of lesions, and almost 50% of patients remain free of any lymphoma event (cured) for decades,” Joanna C. Yang, MD, MPH, and Joachim Yahalom, MD, wrote in a recent editorial...
An interactive online LGBT cultural competency training program for oncologists may be acceptable and feasible—and may improve LGBT-related knowledge and clinical practices, according to preliminary results of a pilot study of oncologists in Florida presented by Schlumbrecht et al at...
A pilot study by Ma et al examining the intervention effect on the outcome of a provider-based, culturally tailored, multilevel intervention to promote human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among Asian American adolescents has found that the strategy significantly increased the uptake of at least...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to LOXO-292, a selective RET inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with advanced RET fusion–positive thyroid cancer who require systemic therapy, have had disease progression following...
The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) could become a new first-line treatment in patients with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H), mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer, following results from the CheckMate-142 trial reported ...
In a Dutch study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Henricks et al found that DPYD genotype–guided dosing reduced the frequency of severe fluoropyrimidine toxicity in patients with cancer. Increased fluoropyrimidine toxicity is associated with reduced activity of the metabolic...
Three prominent medical societies have issued a new clinical guideline for physicians treating men with early-stage prostate cancer using external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT). Adoption of the guideline could make treatment shorter and more convenient for many patients with prostate cancer....
Adjuvant treatment with zoledronic acid, plus hormonal therapy with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole, significantly increases disease-free survival compared to tamoxifen in premenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive early breast cancer, according to results reported by Perrone et al...
Treatment of renal cell carcinoma with stereotactic radiation therapy is as safe and effective for patients with one kidney as it is for those with two, according to an analysis of an international data set presented by Correa et al at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for...
In the first randomized, phase II clinical trial of its kind, researchers have shown that an aggressive form of high-precision radiation therapy can increase survival in patients with oligometastatic tumors. These findings were presented by Palma et al in the plenary session at the 60th Annual ...
Adding radiation therapy or surgery to systemic therapy for patients with stage IV lung cancer whose cancer has spread to a limited number of sites can significantly extend overall survival, according to new results from a multicenter, randomized, controlled phase II study. The findings were...
A subset of patients with low-risk breast cancer is highly unlikely to see cancer return following breast conservation surgery, but can lower that risk even further with radiation therapy, finds a new long-term clinical trial report. These 12-year follow-up data from the only prospective,...
A phase III trial has determined that cisplatin chemotherapy combined with radiation therapy showed high amounts of activity in human papillomavirus (HPV)-related head and neck cancer. Findings from NRG-RTOG 1016 were presented by Trotti et al the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for...
A new analysis of genetic data from a large prospective registry and clinical data from several randomized trials indicates that African American patients may have comparatively higher cure rates when treated with radiation therapy than Caucasian patients. The study, which is the first report...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) improved survival in patients with head and neck cancer that has recurred or metastasized in the KEYNOTE-048 trial, according to late-breaking results from the study reported by Burtness et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (Abstract...
The grandson of Italian immigrants, Philip J. DiSaia was born on August 14, 1937, in Providence, Rhode Island. He earned his Bachelor’s in Science at Brown University and his MD at Tufts University. Upon the advice of his mentor in medical school, Dr. DiSaia obtained 2 years of general surgery...
In an interim analysis of the French phase III noninferiority Carmena trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Arnaud Méjean, MD, PhD, of the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, and colleagues found that sunitinib alone was not inferior in overall survival vs nephrectomy followed by...
Radiation therapy for early-stage follicular lymphoma “is underused,” Joanna C. Yang, MD, MPH, and Joachim Yahalom, MD, declared in a recent editorial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 This underuse of radiation therapy can result in overtreatment with systemic therapies or overconfidence in...
The Gabriella Miller Kids First Data Resource Center, a collaborative effort supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund, announced the launch of its new Data Resource Portal to help accelerate the discovery of precision-based treatments for pediatric disorders, thanks to a...
The Gastric Cancer Foundation launched its new website this month and introduced an online clinical trials navigator to help patients more easily identify clinical trials matched with their specific diagnosis, stage, and treatment history. A special grant from Stupid Strong Charitable Foundation, a ...
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor, Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Kanti R. Rai, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Karches Center for Oncology Research, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset; Professor of Medicine at Zucker School of Medicine at...
I’m a psychiatrist, so I don’t say this lightly: receiving a diagnosis of stage IV gastric adenocarcinoma made me insane. I had remembered the horrible deaths due to abdominal cancer I had seen during my medical training and was terrified that would be my fate as well. I knew from looking at the...
To gain further insight into, among other things, optimizing big data and the latest on hormonal breast cancer treatment, The ASCO Post recently spoke with pioneering oncologist Christopher C. Benz, MD, a breast cancer specialist and Director of the Cancer & Developmental Therapeutics Program, ...
Recently, the term “personalized medicine” in oncology care has been overtaken by the more contemporary concept of “precision medicine.” According to the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, the newer terminology shifts the focus to improving...
On April 10, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved everolimus tablets for oral suspension (Afinitor Disperz) for the adjunctive treatment of adult and pediatric patients aged ≥ 2 years with tuberous sclerosis complex–associated partial-onset seizures.1,2 Tuberous sclerosis complex is ...
A pair of studies showcased the potentially devastating long-term health and financial consequences cancer has on adult survivors of childhood cancer compared with other adults, as well as survival disparities based on health insurance status.1,2 Despite increasing survival rates among the more...
Nationally regarded breast cancer researcher and clinician Joyce A. O’Shaughnessy, MD, was born in upstate New York, just outside of Albany, where she attended grade school before her family moved to Beverly, Massachusetts, a suburban town 26 miles from Boston, where her family’s roots were....
Laurence Albiges, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, discusses data from the global, phase III JAVELIN trial that compared axitinib plus avelumab vs sunitinib, which could lead to a new standard of care in renal cell carcinoma (Abstract LBA6_PR).
Radiotherapy to the prostate improved overall survival in men newly diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer who have a low metastatic disease burden, but not in those with higher burden of disease, according to results from a preplanned analysis of a large comparison study reported by Parker et...
A combination of the immune checkpoint blocker avelumab (Bavencio) plus the tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) improved progression-free survival (PFS) in previously untreated patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in the phase III JAVELIN Renal 101 study, according to results...
Two-year maintenance therapy with olaparib (Lynparza), a poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, led to a substantial improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) in newly diagnosed patients with advanced ovarian cancer and a BRCA1/2 mutation, results from the phase III SOLO-1 trial...
ASCO issued a set of recommendations for overcoming financial barriers to patient participation in cancer clinical trials. The policy statement stresses the importance of increasing participation in clinical research, especially for patients from particular ethnic, racial, geographic, age,...