Ronald de Wit, MD, PhD, of the University Medical Center Rotterdam, discusses phase II findings on the efficacy of pembrolizumab in bacillus Calmette-Guérin–unresponsive bladder cancer with high risk for disease progression.
Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, of the NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses how long people with melanoma should be treated with PD-1 blockade and the data on remission rates.
Johan F. Vansteenkiste, MD, PhD, of Catholic University Leuven, summarizes a session he co-chaired that included discussion of translating advances in stage IV disease to nonmetastatic lung cancer, TKI approaches in early-stage disease, and integrating immunotherapy and TKIs in stage III disease...
Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of the LungenClinic, discusses recent updates on biomarkers beyond PD-L1 expression; mechanisms and management of resistance; as well as combinations and novel approaches in lung cancer.
Ezra E.W. Cohen, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses the effectiveness of anti–PD-1 therapy in patients with recurrent head and neck cancer and the studies that might help predict who will benefit, how to combine agents, and ways to reduce long-term toxicity.
Matti S. Aapro, MD, of the Genolier Cancer Centre, discusses the challenges of avoiding futile treatments and the need to work with patients, integrate palliative care, and monitor toxicities.
Matti S. Aapro, MD, of the Genolier Cancer Centre, discusses the optimal treatment and supportive care for older patients with cancer, including the importance of maintaining dose density and intensity as well as monitoring toxicity.
Matthew J. Ellis, MB, BChir, PhD, of the Baylor College of Medicine, discusses data on endocrine therapy alone or in combination with targeted treatments for postmenopausal women with strongly ER-positive/HER2-negative tumors.
Alexander M.M. Eggermont, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, discusses findings from recent adjuvant trials in high-risk melanoma, and what the NCCN Guidelines recommend in light of such data as results on dabrafenib plus trametinib vs anti–PD-1 treatments (nivolumab or pembrolizumab) and the new standard ...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has recognized Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), with the 2018 ESMO Women for Oncology Award. The award recognizes an ESMO member who has contributed to supporting the career development of women in oncology. The recipient must have actively worked to...
The global burden of cancer is huge and growing. In 2018, there will be > 18 million new cancer cases and 9.6 million deaths.1,2 Although several recent articles have reviewed cancer in developing countries, few have focused on the Palestinian territories. There are several reasons for that,...
Even before James P. Allison, PhD, made an appearance at the Fourth International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science Into Survival in New York City, the excitement among attendees was palpable. Earlier that day, October 1, 2018, Dr. Allison and Tasuku Honjo, MD, PhD, of Kyoto...
Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, of Istituto Nazionale Tumori–Fondazione Pascale, discusses the breakthroughs in melanoma treatment and the challenges of managing toxicities, especially endocrine and neurologic side effects, which can require lifetime hormone replacement and may cause permanent dysfunction.
Kathrine Rugbjerg, PhD, of the Danish Cancer Society, discusses her findings on the risk of cardiovascular disease and hospitalizations in Danish survivors of cancer during their adolescence and young adulthood.
Some European countries take more than twice as long as others to reach health technology assessment (HTA) decisions to reimburse new cancer treatments following their approval by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The average decision time is longer than 1 year in some countries, according to a...
In an analysis presented by Davidson et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (Abstract 619PD_PR), data were pooled from four UK randomized controlled clinical trials of first-line chemotherapy in esophagogastric cancer, finding significant differences in a...
Nearly 1 in 6 premenopausal women being treated for early-stage breast cancer do not adhere adequately to tamoxifen therapy after 1 year of treatment, potentially putting themselves at increased risk of recurrence and reduced survival, reported a French prospective study at the European Society for ...
Women with HER2-positive early breast cancer with small tumors have similar disease-free survival and lower risk of cardiac toxicity with a 9-week course of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) compared to those treated for 1 year, according to a subgroup analysis of the Short-HER trial reported by...
An emerging treatment known as adoptive T-cell therapy has proven effective in a phase II clinical trial for treating progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare and often fatal brain infection sometimes observed in patients with cancer and other diseases in which the immune...
According to a new American Cancer Society report published by Gapstur et al in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, the highest priority in a national cancer control plan is the expansion of tobacco control—the intervention with the largest potential health benefits. This report is the...
On October 16, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved talazoparib (Talzenna), a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, for patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated (gBRCAm), HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer....
Neoadjuvant combination checkpoint blockade showed activity among patients with high-risk stage III melanoma in a small study. However, a high incidence of side effects caused the trial to be closed early. These results were published by Amaria et al in Nature Medicine. The phase II...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted a new drug application seeking accelerated approval for selinexor, a first-in-class, oral selective inhibitor of nuclear export (SINE) compound, as a new treatment for patients with pentarefractory multiple myeloma. The FDA...
Twitter is a place where many patients with cancer go to share and discuss their experiences of the disease, according to a recent exploratory study to be presented by Sánchez-Bayona et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (360P_PR). The...
Nearly 1 in 4 patients with advanced cancer treated at a community practice cancer network in the United States received innovative drugs matched to DNA mutations in their tumors. These results, to be reported by Alvarez et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress...
Mayo Clinic researchers have identified estradiol as a potential new treatment for a subset of women with triple-negative breast cancer. Their findings were published by Reese et al in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. “Triple-negative...
Doximity has released a new study detailing a concerning trend that could potentially impact cancer care in the United States. Doximity researchers examined retirement trends, percentage of state-trained specialists, and prevalence of breast cancer on a city-by-city basis. The report is the...
The cancer burden in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory with a 99% Hispanic population, is substantially different from that of Hispanics in the continental United States, according to Cancer Statistics for Hispanics/Latinos, 2018. The report, published every 3 years, found that men in Puerto Rico...
A study from the Thoracic Oncology Research Group (TORG), Division of Pulmonary Critical Care, Medical University of South Carolina, aimed to examine the adherence to annual low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) screening after baseline LDCT within the Veteran Health Administration Lung Cancer...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
MOODY WHARAM, JR, MD, Professor Emeritus of Radiation Oncology and Molecular Radiation Sciences and former Willard and Lillian Hackerman Professor of Radiation Oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, died on August 10 at the age of 77. Dr. Wharam specialized in the treatment of...
FREE ME FROM LUNG CANCER (FMFLC) and the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) have announced the first-ever winner of the FMFLC-IASLC Foundation Joint Fellowship Award for the Early Detection of Lung Cancer. The FMFLC-IASLC Joint Fellowship Award supports novel,...
There is a lot of breast cancer in my family history. My mother was diagnosed with the disease at 44, and my paternal grandmother died of breast cancer when she was just 33, so I’ve always been diligent about performing breast self-exams— often weekly—to ensure that if I did get breast cancer, it...
THE ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY CANCER CENTERS (ACCC) has chosen seven cancer centers nationwide to receive 2018 ACCC Innovator Awards. Now in its 8th year, the Innovator Awards recognize ACCC member programs that have created solutions to challenges commonly faced by cancer programs and practices as...
Bernard Lown, MD, was born in Lithuania, the son of a rabbi. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 14, where his scientific precocity bloomed. After attaining his medical degree from John Hopkins University School of Medicine, he pursued his passion of raising international awareness of...
Only a few centuries ago, the major source of moral and scientific authority in Western culture was religion, which requires trusting one of numerous supernatural deities. However, the presumption that medicine is based on evidence-based and peer-reviewed science is what gives it authority in...
CHARLES SWANTON, PhD, FRCP, of The Francis Crick Institute, London, was recognized by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) at the 2018 IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer with the Paul A. Bunn, Jr, Scientific Award, honoring his lifetime achievements in scientific...
JAMES ALLISON, PHD, Chair of Immunology and Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Tasuku Honjo, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor at the Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study and Professor of Immunology and Genomic Medicine ...
Eight years ago, a survey of the preferences of Dutch patients with cancer for health care found that while gender was one aspect influencing how men and women approach cancer care, it was the most important, with men, generally, regarding most care aspects as less important than women. The study...
ON SEPTEMBER 27, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dacomitinib tablets (Vizimpro) for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletion or exon 21 L858R substitution...
Primary treatment of most solid tumors includes surgical excision or radiation therapy, both of which require precise anatomic localization of the tumor as well as surrounding tissue and organs. If the targeting is too broad, unnecessary morbidity may occur to nearby structures, along with the...
ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to duvelisib (Copiktra) for adults with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) after at least two prior therapies. Duvelisib also received accelerated...
THE NATIONAL Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has awarded a $4.7 million grant to the Cleveland Clinic to study the prevention of cancer-associated thrombosis. The 5-year grant supports the creation of a new risk assessment tool to better predict patients with cancer who have a higher probability...
THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has chosen Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, to receive the ESMO Translational Research Award for his research contributions in lung cancer. Dr. Jänne is Director of the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology and Director of the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer...
THE EUROPEAN SOCIETY for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has recognized Tony S. Mok, MD, FRCPC, FASCO, with the ESMO Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions in lung cancer. Dr. Mok, who is a Li Shu Fan Medical Foundation Endowed Professor and Chairman of the Department of Clinical Oncology at the ...
The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) recently released the results of its first national public awareness report about risks, actions, and attitudes toward prostate cancer in the PCF 3P Report 2018: Public Perception of Prostate Cancer. Each year, even though more than three million men in...
The phase III ECHELON-2 clinical trial has met its primary endpoint, demonstrating a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) with brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) in combination with CHP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, prednisone) vs CHOP (cyclophosphamide,...
In a study published by Preston et al in European Urology, researchers demonstrated that a baseline prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level obtained from black men between 40 and 60 years old may predict the future development of prostate cancer for years after testing. The study builds on ...
Researchers have shown that autologous fecal microbiota transplantation may be a safe and effective way to help replenish beneficial gut bacteria in patients with cancer who require intense antibiotics during allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Their findings were published by Taur...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a supplemental application for recombinant human papillomavirus (HPV) 9-valent vaccine (Gardasil 9), expanding the approved use of the vaccine to include women and men aged 27 through 45 years. Gardasil 9 prevents certain cancers and...