In a Chinese study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Xu et al found that a test for epigenetic imprinted biomarkers was highly accurate in distinguishing malignant vs benign thyroid nodules. Study Details The multicenter study involved 550 consecutively enrolled patients with nodules...
Twenty percent of patients are likely to forgo additional testing after an abnormal finding on a screening mammogram if there is a deductible, according to new findings presented at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) 2022 Annual Meeting. Background As health-care costs and insurance...
In an Australian phase IIb trial (MedCan1-CBD) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hardy et al found that use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil did not improve symptom distress vs placebo in adult patients with advanced cancer receiving palliative care. Study Details The double-blind multicenter...
There is a 2-decades-long separation between the time I was diagnosed with oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma in 1996 and my laryngectomy in 2016. The surgery was necessary because of the long-term damage to my larynx from the radiation therapy I received. In 1996, I had a low-grade sore throat...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Living a Full Life series, Guest Editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with C.S. Pramesh, MS, FRCS, Director of the Tata Memorial Hospital and Professor and Head of Thoracic Surgery at the Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India. Dr. Pramesh is the Convener of the...
Myeloma expert Sarah A. Holstein, MD, PhD, was born and reared in Iowa City, a college town in eastern Iowa along the banks of the Iowa River. “The town itself is small, but it doubles in population when all the college students are present. Both my parents had a PhD in humanities, so I had no...
An ASCO guideline rapid update is revising guidance for the use of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor therapy for the management of ovarian cancer to include updated considerations for the use of several different PARP inhibitor therapies based on recent phase III clinical trial data.1...
In a preplanned analysis of the stage IIA cohort of the PALLAS trial, the addition of adjuvant palbociclib to standard endocrine therapy did not improve outcomes over endocrine therapy alone. This finding suggests this agent provides no benefit in reducing the risk of early relapse in patients with ...
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturning Roe v Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion and returning the power to regulate reproductive health for women to the states, ASCO, the American Cancer Society Action...
Patients and survivors of breast cancer may have better mental health, physical health, and quality of life when taking part in a “behavioral graded activity” in combination with psychological therapies, according to a new study published by Lahousse et al in the European Journal of Cancer. The new ...
Although socioeconomic status often influences survival outcomes, pediatric patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who were living in poverty and were treated with CAR T-cell therapy achieved similar overall survival and were equally likely to achieve a complete...
For many patients who have smoldering myeloma, early treatment can slow or delay the disease’s progression to multiple myeloma, according to a new study published by Sklavenitis-Pistofidis et al in Cancer Cell. Investigators demonstrated that changes in immune system cells may indicate which cases...
Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses a phase I study that used CRISPR gene editing to simultaneously “knock out” endogenous T-cell receptors and replace them with personalized neoantigen T-cell receptors in patients with solid tumors. The edited TCR T-cell...
The 2022 State of Lung Cancer report by the American Lung Association revealed that only 5.8% of eligible Americans had been screened for lung cancer in 2021, and some states had screening rates as low as 1%. The 5th annual report highlighted how the toll of lung cancer varied by state and examined ...
MicroRNA may be used as a biomarker to predict which patients are likely to face breast cancer recurrence and mortality, according to a new study published by Davey et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. While long-term outcomes have improved for patients with breast cancer, 20%...
New research examining whether patients with ovarian cancer were receiving care concordant with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) found clear disparities based on patients’ race, ability to pay, and access to specialists and...
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are safe and effective for people living with HIV who have metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to data presented by El Zarif et al at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 2022 Annual Meeting (Abstract 437). Findings from the first matched...
Robin Kate Kelley, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, was invited to discuss the results of LEAP-002.1 She said the main takeaway is that lenvatinib monotherapy is active as a preferred first-line agent for fit patients who have contraindications to...
The highly anticipated final analysis of the phase III LEAP-002 trial failed to meet expectations, as first-line treatment with lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab did not significantly improve outcomes in unresectable advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. Both progression-free survival and overall survival ...
A new resource-stratified ASCO guideline update provides new evidence-based recommendations for the secondary prevention of cervical cancer in various resource settings.1 In the updated guideline, the screening recommendations cover basic, limited, enhanced, and maximal resource settings. Since...
For the first time in a multicenter randomized trial, T-cell therapy has been shown to improve outcomes in a solid tumor. In the phase III M14TIL trial, first-line or second-line treatment with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) led to a 50% reduction in disease progression or death from advanced ...
The MONARCH 3 study’s invited discussant, Meritxell Bellet Ezquerra, MD, PhD, a senior researcher at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, commented: “The second interim analysis for overall survival in MONARCH 31 indicates a positive trend, which was also observed for the subgroup...
Overall survival results from two trials of abemaciclib in advanced breast cancer were reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022. Both MONARCH 3 and monarcHER previously met their primary endpoints of progression-free survival. The current results for overall...
I don’t know why I am so susceptible to developing lung cancer. Since 2014, I have been diagnosed with both non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer, each occurring in my right lung. I have also been diagnosed with precancerous colon polyps, which necessitated invasive surgery. ...
With out-of-pocket costs of cancer care exceeding $21 billion in 2019, financial toxicity among patients and their families in the United States has become too prevalent to ignore. In fact, more than 50% of working-age survivors now report at least one material, psychological, or behavioral domain...
To achieve its goal of eliminating cervical cancer, the World Health Organization (WHO) is calling on all countries “to reach and maintain an incidence rate of below 4 per 100,000 women.” Doing so would depend on the following: A total of 90% of girls being fully vaccinated against human...
For many years, treatment options for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) were limited mainly to the 7 + 3 regimen. However, more recently, a mini-explosion of AML therapies aimed at newly identified genetic targets makes discussions about treatment of this disease much more complicated. In fact, these...
Which is the preferred second-line treatment option for patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL): high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) or chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy? This was the subject of a debate at the...
The pace of cancer drug development may have accelerated over the past decade, but so too has the cost of care, which threatens to limit access for a large percentage of Americans in the decade to come. During the keynote lecture at the 2022 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, ...
When Stephanie L. Walker, RN, was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2015, she was not given information about an appropriate clinical trial or help navigating her way through the financial difficulties she was having after a stroke from complications of the cancer forced her to leave her...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Grob et al found that next-generation sequencing detection of FLT3-internal tandem duplication (FLT3-ITD) measurable residual disease (MRD) in complete remission was associated with markedly increased risk of relapse and poorer overall...
Researchers have found that a new drug may be able to target—and for the first time, inhibit—the function of the MYC gene. Until now, no other drug has been able to do this safely and effectively, according to findings from a phase I clinical trial published by Garralda et al in the European...
Researchers have found that an incidental finding of clonal hematopoiesis in liquid biopsies can be used to trigger hematologic tests to assess the risk of developing myeloid malignancies, according to a new study published by Tagliamento et al in the European Journal of Cancer. The findings were...
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...
Robin Kate Kelley, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, was invited to discuss the results of LEAP-002.1 She said the main take-away is that lenvatinib monotherapy is active as a preferred first-line agent for fit patients who have contraindications to ...
The highly anticipated final analysis of the phase III LEAP-002 trial failed to meet expectations, as first-line treatment with lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab did not significantly improve outcomes in unresectable advanced hepatocellular carcinoma. Both progression-free survival and overall survival ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved cobimetinib (Cotellic), an oral inhibitor of MEK1 and MEK2, for the treatment of adult patients with the family of blood diseases known as histiocytic neoplasms. These diseases include Erdheim-Chester disease, Rosai-Dorfman disease, and...
Three negative phase III trials presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 may dampen enthusiasm for immunotherapy as adjuvant therapy for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). None of the three trials—CheckMate 914, IMmotion010, and PROSPER—met its primary endpoint.1-3 The...
“Platinum-ineligible patients are typically excluded from clinical trials, yet they represent the majority of patients that we diagnose and treat—patients with poor performance status and comorbidities,” said invited discussant Natasha Leighl, MD, of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto....
At this year’s European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress, we experienced an eagerly awaited return to normality (or almost), and the quality of the science on display was anything but disappointing: from molecular medicine to treatment de-escalation, from early cancer detection and...
A new study identified both common and rare genetic mutations that may impact radiation resistance and sensitivity, an important step toward providing more individualized and effective radiotherapy for patients with cancer, according to findings published by Gopal et al in Clinical Cancer ...
Meeting with a medical physicist who can explain how radiation therapy is planned and delivered may reduce patient anxiety and increase patient satisfaction throughout the treatment process, according to a new study published by Burmeister et al in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology •...
Nicholas J. Vogelzang, MD, FACP, FASCO, an expert in the treatment of patients with renal cell carcinoma, died on September 20, 2022. Dr. Vogelzang was 72 years old. Son of a Preacher Dr. Vogelzang was born on December 13, 1949, in Holland, Michigan, the oldest of seven children, in a close-knit...
In 2000, the da Vinci Surgical System broke new ground by becoming the first robotic surgery system approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for general laparoscopic surgery. In its early years, robot-assisted radical prostatectomy was characterized by some in the surgical community as an...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, Guest Editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with William L. Dahut, MD, who is currently serving as Chief Scientific Officer for the American Cancer Society (ACS). In this role, Dr. Dahut manages all pieces of the organization’s discovery work,...
Richter transformation, usually a diffuse large B-cell lymphoma developing in a person with CLL, remains a challenging entity, but novel regimens look promising, as described at the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference by Matthew S. Davids, MD, MMSc, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard...
Three negative phase III trials presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2022 may dampen enthusiasm for immunotherapy as adjuvant therapy for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). None of the three trials—CheckMate 914, IMmotion010, and PROSPER—met its primary endpoint.1-3 The...
I continue to be struck by the creativity of medical oncologists. The reimagining of dosing, duration, or regimen composition to respond to patient symptoms or preferences is like a master chef in the kitchen. Although standardization has, with good reason, become the paragon, delivering...
It has been well documented that breast cancer is the most common malignancy in adolescent and young adult (AYA) women aged 15 to 39 years, accounting for 30% of cancers among this population.1 In addition, 5.6% of all invasive breast cancers occur in AYA women.1 A presentation by Rebecca H....
“Platinum-ineligible patients are typically excluded from clinical trials, yet they represent the majority of patients that we diagnose and treat—patients with poor performance status and comorbidities,” said invited discussant Natasha Leighl, MD, of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto....