The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO (CCF) is currently accepting applications for the 2017 Young Investigator Award (YIA) and Career Development Award (CDA). Young Investigator Award (YIA) A 1-year grant totaling $50,000, the YIA provides research funding to promising physicians to support the...
Researchers at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) presented a molecular imaging methodology that allows the increase of the radiotherapy dose to the tumor while protecting vulnerable vital organs.1 The delicate balance of administering the...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has been effective in adults and children with advanced acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), but along with efficacy, the treatment can stimulate cytokine-release syndrome, which can be deadly if it goes unrecognized and untreated. Adjusting the dose...
The discussant of these studies was Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Breast Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. Dr. Mittendorf noted that approximately 3% of U.S. breast cancer patients present with de novo stage IV disease. For...
For de novo stage IV breast cancer, does resection of the primary tumor improve outcomes? Two studies presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting reached different conclusions. A prospective randomized study conducted in Turkey concluded there is a survival benefit at 5 years,1 whereas a U.S....
Stephen K.L. Chia, MD, of the British Columbia Cancer Agency, Vancouver, discussed two of these neoadjuvant breast cancer studies at the ASCO Annual Meeting. In the current landscape for neoadjuvant therapy in HER2-positive disease, said Dr. Chia, the NeoSphere, TRYPHAENA, KRISTINE, and I-SPY 2...
In a study report published by Bhatt et al in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center explained how a type of herpesvirus uses mimicry to trick the host cell to produce proteins the virus needs and...
Every longstanding culture has ages: The Minoans were followed by the Mycenaeans and, later, the Hellenistic peoples. And so it is with hematology/oncology. A descriptive age dominated predominately by histopathologists was followed by an age of experimentalists. Development of the atomic bombs...
How best to combine new immunotherapies is a burning question in oncology. A new study in the CheckMate series suggests that nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) can be safely and effectively combined as first-line treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC),1 but further study...
Low-dose oral cyclophosphamide plus methotrexate maintenance therapy yielded no disease-free survival benefit in women with hormone receptor–negative early breast cancer, according to the phase III International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) 22-00 trial. Some evidence of benefit was...
The addition of olaratumab, an anti–platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha (anti–PDGFRα) antibody, to doxorubicin resulted in prolonged progression-free and overall survival in the phase II evaluation of patients with advanced soft-tissue sarcoma, according to findings...
In the French phase III OS2006 trial reported by Piperno-Neumann et al in The Lancet Oncology, the addition of zoledronate to chemotherapy and surgery provided no event-free survival benefit in the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed high-grade osteosarcoma. Study Details In the open-label ...
In the phase III GADOLIN trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Sehn et al found that adding the anti-CD20 antibody obinutuzumab (Gazyva) to bendamustine (Bendeka, Treanda) increased progression-free survival in patients with rituximab-refractory indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). Outcomes in...
According to the European phase III PENELOPE trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kurzeder et al found that adding pertuzumab (Perjeta) to investigator’s choice of chemotherapy did not improve progression-free survival in women with low-HER3 mRNA–expressing...
In the phase I/II CheckMate 032 study, nivolumab (Opdivo) alone and with ipilimumab (Yervoy) demonstrated activity in patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) progressing after at least one previous platinum regimen, as reported in The Lancet Oncology by Antonia et al. Study Details In the...
At my last screening mammogram in 2015, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The technician took the usual four x-rays of my breasts, and I was told I could leave. So it was especially shocking to get a phone call from the radiologist a week later telling me that I had to come back for an additional ...
A large prospective Swedish study reported by Susanna C. Larsson, PhD, of the Unit of Nutritional Epidemiology at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues found a 2.2-fold increased risk of gallbladder cancer in people who consumed two or ...
A phase I study by Timothy F. Cloughesy, MD, Director of the Neuro-Oncology Program at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and colleagues published in Science Translational Medicine investigated the effectiveness of vocimagene amiretrorepvec (Toca 511), an experimental nonlytic,...
A review of more than 50 studies (many randomized controlled trials) concluded that surgery and radiation therapy “remain standard-of-care treatment options” in the management of ductal carcinoma in situ.1 The review continues the widely reported discussion on managing ductal carcinoma in situ,...
Two clinician-scientists whose groundbreaking work has shown how the human body’s own immune system can fend off cancer will share the 2016 $100,000 Taubman Prize for Excellence in Translational Medical Science, the University of Michigan’s A. Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute announced....
Scientific Name: Cimicifuga racemosa Common Names: Black snakeroot, rattlesnake root, squawroot, bugbane, bugwort Brand Names: Remifemin, Menofem, Klimadynon Overview A perennial plant native to the eastern United States and Canada, black cohosh root was used by Native Americans to treat colds,...
The Genomic Data Commons (GDC), a unified data system that promotes sharing of genomic and clinical data among researchers, was launched on June 6 with a visit from Vice President Joe Biden to the operations center at the University of Chicago. An initiative of the National Cancer Institute (NCI),...
A 65-year-old patient with widely metastatic pancreatic cancer was emergently transferred to our facility in the early hours of the morning with free air suggestive of a perforated viscus. The patient is from a small town several hundred miles away from our academic center, which can be quite...
Phase 0 Study Title: Use of Definity® Contrast Agent for Ultrasound of Intraocular Tumors Study Type: Interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Emory University Purpose: To determine if microbubbles may be used as a contrast agent to help image tumors in the eye. In...
ASCO and Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) have launched a collaborative effort to modernize eligibility criteria to promote greater patient participation in cancer clinical trials. Although it is important for defining the population under study and ensuring patient safety, overly strict...
Thomas G. Roberts, Jr, MD, is Managing Member at Farallon Capital Management, LLC and Chair of the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Board of Directors and Executive Committee. What led you to oncology prior to your career in finance? TGR: As an intern at Massachusetts General Hospital, I was...
Asia is currently experiencing an unprecedented rate of growth in its aging population. This “silver tsunami” has translated into a burgeoning number of older patients with cancer, as cancer is a disease of aging. However, unlike their Western counterparts, elderly patients with cancer in Asia are ...
Older patients with cancer generally have multiple comorbidities, with each often requiring separate medications. Studies have shown that polypharmacy and inappropriate drug use are prevalent among older cancer patients, leading to an enormous amount of preventable adverse events, many requiring...
Immune checkpoint inhibitors have emerged as one of the most promising new areas of drug development in oncology. Broad activity has been observed for these agents across a spectrum of hematologic malignancies and solid tumors. As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Muro and colleagues now...
Case reports on 13 patients with cancer suggest that patients taking the immunotherapeutics ipilimumab (Yervoy) and nivolumab (Opdivo) may be at higher-than-normal risk of developing autoimmune joint and tissue diseases, including inflammatory arthritis, according to a preliminary study by Johns...
The KEYNOTE-012 phase Ib trial assessed single-agent pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with advanced programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–positive gastric cancer, triple-negative breast cancer, urothelial cancer, and head and neck cancer. The activity of pembrolizumab in study patients with...
Mark A. Dickson, MD, has been fascinated by science and medicine since he was in high school. After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1999, Dr. Dickson pursued a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York. Once he decided on a...
With the advent of the Papanicolaou (Pap) test and population-based screening, along with the development of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, cervical cancer has become a largely preventable disease for many. However, in India, cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancer mortality. To...
According to the American Cancer Society’s 2016 Cancer Facts & Figures, behaviors such as poor diet choices, physical inactivity, excess alcohol consumption, and unhealthy body weight account for about 20% of all cancers diagnosed in the United States and likely could be prevented with...
In 2015, four new drugs were approved for the treatment of multiple myeloma by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: panobinostat (Farydak), daratumumab (Darzalex), elotuzumab (Empliciti), and ixazomib (Ninlaro). Of them, the first three are drugs with unique new targets, whereas ixazomib is the...
In the phase III TOURMALINE-MM-1 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Philippe Moreau, MD, of the University Hospital Hôtel Dieu, Nantes, France, and colleagues found that adding the oral proteasome inhibitor ixazomib (Ninlaro) to lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone...
Although oncology has moved toward a personalized approach to care, medical decision-making within the context of multidisciplinary care has broad public health implications. To shed light on this and other relevant issues, The ASCO Post recently spoke with William Dale, MD, PhD, of the University ...
Five years ago, the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center and Research Institute at Christiana Care Health System in Newark, Delaware, and The Wistar Institute, a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated biomedical research center, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, joined forces to collaborate on...
Although new gastrointestinal cancers are on the rise, advancements in their treatment, as well as the upcoming results of perioperative trials, could prove to be “clinical practice game-changers,” declared Thomas J. George, Jr, MD, FACP, at the 2016 Community Oncology Conference in Orlando,...
Initial encouraging news from a first-in-human trial suggests that the antibody-drug conjugate rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T) may turn out to be a new option for patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) whose tumors overexpress delta-like protein 3 (DLL3). Study results were presented at the...
Formal discussant Taofeek Kunle Owonikoko, MD, of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta, said it has been controversial whether to use once-daily or twice-daily radiation therapy in this patient population. “CONVERT is one of two studies trying to step into this gap, and it failed...
A schedule of once-daily radiation therapy (66 Gy) was no better than a twice-daily schedule (45 Gy) for optimization of chemoradiotherapy in patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), according to the eagerly anticipated results of the phase III CONVERT trial, presented at the...
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common and costly disease, largely of the elderly, with nearly 25% of cases diagnosed among patients aged 75–84 years. However, but the guidelines for CRC screening of Americans aged 75 or older vary according to the source. In a study published by Klabunde et al...
Oncologists in the United States may need to improve their efforts to reduce unnecessary care for younger patients with terminal cancer over the last 30 days of life, based on the findings of a study reported at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Contrary to recommendations, aggressive care is still...
The role of intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer has been debated for a long time. According to a new study presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting, a combination of IP and intravenous (IV) chemotherapy appears more effective than IV chemotherapy alone in...
A new biosimilar version of the monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin) is getting close to the finish line in the race to develop biosimilars in oncology. The new antibody, MYL-1401O, demonstrated comparable efficacy and safety compared with trastuzumab as front-line treatment of women with...
Last June, ASCO published its initial concept for a value framework in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).1 The framework, developed by ASCO’s Value in Cancer Care Task Force, is designed to provide a standardized approach to assist physicians and patients in assessing the “value” of a new...
In children with high-risk neuroblastoma, tandem autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) improved event-free survival rates in the ANBL0532 trial from the Children’s Oncology Group. The study was presented at the plenary session of the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting by Julie R. Park, MD, of Seattle...
As reported by Choueiri et al in The Lancet Oncology, the final results of the phase III METEOR trial indicate significantly improved overall survival with cabozantinib (Cabometyx) vs everolimus (Afinitor) in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) that had progressed after previous...
Preliminary tests have demonstrated that a new device may enable existing breast cancer imagers to provide up to six times better contrast of tumors in the breast, while maintaining the same or better image quality and halving the radiation dose to patients. The advance is made possible by a new...