Caryn Lerman, PhD, has been appointed Director of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, also serving as Professor of Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Lerman was the John H. Glick Professor for Cancer Research and Vice Dean for Strategic Initiatives in...
Women Business Leaders (WBL), of the U.S. Health Care Industry Foundation, recently recognized American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Chief Executive Officer Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), with the 2019 Women of Inspiration and Influence award. Dr. Foti is among 11 senior executive women...
Population screening programs and the advent of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination have made cervical cancer largely a preventable disease. Despite these advances, cervical cancer remains a leading cause of cancer death for women in low- and middle-income countries. A recent study identified...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) recently awarded the 2019 Heine H. Hansen Award to Francoise Mornex, MD, PhD. The award was presented at the 2019 European Lung Cancer Congress. Dr. Mornex is Professor of...
The Global Burden of Disease Study was initiated in 1990, commissioned by the World Bank. At that time, the study was conducted mainly by researchers at Harvard and the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then the study has gone through many iterations to its present structure, which is a...
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has selected eight scientists as Lasker Clinical Research Scholars as part of a joint initiative with the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation to foster the next generation of clinical scientists. This program provides early-stage researchers with the...
It has been well documented that noncommunicable diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes, now pose the greatest health threat to people living in low- and middle-income countries, surpassing infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of death and disability.1...
Margo Shoup, MD, FACS, has been appointed Network Chair of the Cancer Service Line for the new health system formed by Health Quest and Western Connecticut Health Network (WCHN), to be called Nuvance Health. Dr. Shoup will provide strategic and clinical leadership for all aspects of Nuvance...
Pat A. Basu, MD, MBA, has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Cancer Treatment Centers of America Global, Inc., which includes the existing Comprehensive Cancer Care Network of Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA) hospitals and outpatient care centers, as well as new...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has awarded the 59th AACR G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award to Elaine Fuchs, PhD. The award was presented during the AACR Annual Meeting 2019. Dr. Fuchs delivered her award lecture, “Stem Cells in Wound Repair, Inflammation, and Cancer,” at the Georgia ...
Recently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed to improve the reimbursement currently given to hospitals that provide chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy to patients with blood cancer as part of the Fiscal Year 2020 Inpatient Prospective Payment System...
A report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) based on data from more than 100 cancer registries in 68 countries shows that from 2001 to 2010, the occurrence of childhood cancer worldwide was 13% more common than in the 1980s.1 In addition, the report’s findings showcase stark...
Teen Cancer America (TCA), the national nonprofit organization founded by rock artists Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who, recently announced appointments to its newly formed Advisory Council. Based in Los Angeles, TCA develops specialized facilities as well as treatment- and age-specific...
The statistics are alarming: according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI), about 70,000 adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are diagnosed with cancer each year1—a recent report by the University of California put that figure at 87,000.2 Although overall cancer survival rates continue to improve ...
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center has appointed Charles G. Mullighan, MBBS (Hons), MSc, MD, as its new Deputy Director. In this new position, Dr. Mullighan will help guide precision medicine and preclinical strategic research initiatives for the Center, which is...
The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health (SKCC) recently welcomed Anjali Mishra, PhD, and Nitin Chakravarti, PhD, to its team of researchers focused on hematologic cancers. Both Drs. Mishra and Chakravarti are Assistant Professors in the Department of Medical Oncology. Dr. Mishra is a...
Lisa Kachnic, MD, has been named Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Chief of the Radiation Oncology Service at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She will also serve as Associate...
On May 15, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved venetoclax (Venclexta) in combination with obinutuzumab (Gazyva) for the treatment of adult patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). Approval was based on the CLL14...
On April 14, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the first-line treatment of patients with stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are not candidates for surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation, or those with metastatic NSCLC....
The AIM at Melanoma Foundation recently announced the grand opening of the first branch of the International Melanoma Tissue Bank Consortium (IMTBC) at the Hillman Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The Pittsburgh site is the first of six global locations of the...
Baylor Scott & White Health, the largest not-for-profit health-care system in Texas, recently named Ronan Kelly, MBBCh, MD, MBA, Chief of Oncology for the organization’s North Texas medical centers. Dr. Kelly’s leadership will span Baylor University Medical Center—the System’s North Texas...
On May 2, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded its approval of ivosidenib (Tibsovo) to include newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a susceptible IDH1 mutation, as detected by an FDA-approved test, in patients who are at least 75 years old or who have comorbidities that ...
With increasing knowledge on the key role of the tumor microenvironment in lymphomagenesis, treatments for indolent B-cell lymphoma, especially follicular lymphoma, are mechanistically moving toward a more immunomodulatory approach. Chemotherapy-free regimens are an attractive alternative to...
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute recently announced the opening of the first Lynch Syndrome Center dedicated to providing genetic counseling and testing for those at risk for the syndrome and delivering a new model of coordinated care for those living with the disease. A common and underdiagnosed...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) announced recently that Jonas Bergh, MD, PhD, FRCP, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, has been awarded the newly established 2019 ESMO Breast Cancer Award at the inaugural ESMO Breast Cancer Congress 2019. The ESMO Breast Cancer Award...
Hematology experts Gareth Morgan, MD, PhD, and Faith Davies, MD, have joined the Center for Blood Cancers at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center and will lead its multiple myeloma program. About Dr. Morgan Dr. Morgan, the Center’s Director of Multiple Myeloma Research, previously served...
Over the past year, in recognition of their research and dedication to treating patients with cancer, several physician-scientists from City of Hope received awards, fellowships, and honor society inductions. These recipients listed below are experts in a variety of cancers and treatments, ranging...
Posters presented at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Annual Conference continue to grow in number and in quality. The ASCO Post presents a few that we found interesting at the recent 2019 meeting. Next-Generation Sequencing Not Always Helpful in Practice The value of...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has shown remarkable efficacy in the treatment of certain hematologic malignancies, including several types of large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs) and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved...
In a Dutch study published by de Blok et al in The BMJ, researchers found an increased risk of breast cancer in transgender women compared with cisgender men, and a lower risk of breast cancer in transgender men than in cisgender women. Methods This retrospective, nationwide cohort study...
In just 5 years since its launch in 2014, CancerLinQ®, ASCO’s big-data, rapid-learning, health information technology platform, has grown from 37 vanguard oncology practices to 58 participating practices in 2016 to 100 diverse oncology practices nationwide this year. CancerLinQ...
In a retrospective analysis published in European Urology, Sandler et al examined the protocol for treating aggressive prostate cancer. Researchers aimed to study the impact of whole-pelvis radiation on men with Gleason grade 5 disease who had been treated with external-beam radiotherapy with...
Colorectal cancer survivors’ risk for heart attack—five times that of the average person—may be linked to the amount of fat stored within the abdomen and abdominal muscles, not to body mass index (BMI), according to a new study of 2,800 colon cancer survivor health outcomes...
Mary Beckerle, PhD, Chief Executive Officer at Huntsman Cancer Institute and Professor of Biology and Oncological Sciences, University of Utah, and Martin McMahon, PhD, Huntsman Cancer Institute’s Senior Director of Pre-Clinical Translation and Professor of Dermatology, have been appointed to...
The University of Southern California (USC) Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center has launched a study to determine how financial assistance for costs associated with clinical trial participation might increase enrollment, particularly among low-income patients and racial and ethnic minorities. The...
Marcie L. Riches, MD, MS, Director of Clinical Research and Data Quality and Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic Medical Director, and Clinical Associate Chief of Hematology/Oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, commented on the study of tabelecleucel for The ASCO Post. At the...
In a Japanese phase I trial reported by Ueno et al in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, researchers found nivolumab showed activity and had a manageable safety profile in patients with unresectable or recurrent biliary tract cancer. Methods The open-label phase I trial was conducted...
Julie Margenthaler, MD, FACS, Professor of Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine and a breast surgeon at Siteman Cancer Center, St. Louis, underscored the “overall excellent outcomes” being achieved with chemotherapy and HER2-targeted therapy for patients with HER2-positive breast...
Susan G. Komen recently announced new organizational advisory roles for five breast cancer oncologists. The new appointees will join the group of breast cancer researchers, clinicians, and advocates who help guide the organization’s work, particularly through the organization’s $988 million...
The discovery of trastuzumab has been revolutionary in the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer, both in the metastatic and early-stage settings.1-6 This cannot be disputed. In the early-stage setting, the addition of trastuzumab to standard chemotherapy has led to a 50% gain in...
Results from a study published by Cykert et al in The Journal of the National Medical Association show that a pragmatic system-based intervention within cancer treatment centers can nearly eliminate existing disparities in treatment and outcomes for black patients with early-stage...
On May 14, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved avelumab (Bavencio) in combination with axitinib (Inlyta) for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). This is the first FDA approval for an anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) therapy as...
On May 3, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) for the adjuvant treatment of patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer who have residual invasive disease after neoadjuvant taxane- and trastuzumab-based treatment. Patients should be...
Scientists have identified a genetic mutation in the tumors of some men with prostate cancer that is linked to very poor survival, and which could be used to help select certain patients for more intensive treatment. These findings were published by Abida et al in the Proceedings of the...
The 24th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) was held this past March in Orlando, Florida. Updates to a number of Clinical Practice Guidelines (NCCN Guidelines®) were reported, including three relevant to the field of genitourinary oncology: kidney cancer,...
THE COMBINATION of lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab has demonstrated antitumor activity in patients with advanced urothelial cancer, including patients receiving later-line treatment. Results of a phase Ib/II trial showed an objective response rate of 25% and a median progression-free survival of 5.4...
PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan is active in patients previously treated with chemotherapy or checkpoint inhibitor therapy for metastatic urothelial cancer. These results from a phase I/II basket study of this agent were presented at the 2019...
A phase III Egyptian trial presented by Mohamad S. Zaghloul, MD, et al at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium focused on the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced bladder cancer treated with postoperative radiotherapy.1 Researchers compared postoperative...
May 14, 2019: Avelumab (Bavencio) plus axitinib (Inlyta) for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). April 19, 2019: Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus axitinib (Inlyta) for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). April 12,...
Adding enzalutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) significantly prolonged radiographic progression-free survival in men with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, reducing the risk of disease progression or death by 61% compared with ADT plus placebo, according to the results of the ...