In a phase II trial (CITYSCAPE) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Byoung Chul Cho, MD, and colleagues found that the addition of tiragolumab, an inhibitor of the immune checkpoint molecule TIGIT, to atezolizumab improved objective response rate and progression-free survival in first-line treatment...
Adults aged 45 to 64 years experienced a nearly doubled rate of esophageal cancer and a 50% increase in the precancerous condition Barrett’s esophagus between 2012 and 2019, according to a database analysis of roughly 5 million patients presented by Qumseya et al at Digestive Disease Week 2022...
A retrospective analysis of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) by Pinsky et al, summarized in the April 25, 2022, issue of The ASCO Post, found high rates of incidental respiratory abnormalities on low-dose computed tomography (CT) examinations.1 Specifically, the findings of emphysema and...
Lung cancer mortality rates have declined by more than 50% in men since 1990 and more than 30% in women since 2002. These declines in mortality are largely due to increases in smoking cessation. However, in recent years, clinical treatment advances, such as targeted therapies and immunotherapy,...
Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, ASCO, together with its partners the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center–Jefferson Health, began assembling resources to establish a network of oncology professionals to help Ukrainian patients with cancer find...
Several recent studies examining the global burden of cancer on adolescents and young adults (AYAs) show the growing magnitude of the disease’s impact on the lives of individuals between the ages of 15 and 39. Although considered a rare occurrence, cancer in this age group has risen by...
The toll of cancer on children, especially those living in low-resource countries, is staggering. Each year, an estimated 400,000 children and adolescents worldwide develop cancer,1 and despite improved survival rates, the global 5-year net childhood cancer survival rate is only 37.4%,2 making...
More extensive surgery does not improve survival over less aggressive surgery in younger women with breast cancer, according to data presented at the 2022 American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting.1 The results of a retrospective study of nearly 600 patients showed that treatment with...
Use of multiple immune pathway inhibitors appears to be superior to checkpoint inhibitor therapy alone as neoadjuvant therapy for resectable non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the results of the phase II NeoCOAST trial presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)...
A triplet regimen consisting of the PARP (poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase) inhibitor olaparib, metronomic (the chronic administration of low, equally spaced doses of) cyclophosphamide, and metformin demonstrated activity in elderly, heavily pretreated patients with recurrent, advanced endometrial...
Radiation segmentectomy may be an effective treatment for very early– to early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) that cannot be treated surgically or thermally. The findings from a multidisciplinary study by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai were published by Kim et al...
A sizable proportion of patients with advanced melanoma will experience disease progression on anti–PD-1 therapy, and the optimal treatment of such patients represents an unmet need. Two studies presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022 explored separate...
Men taking either of the two most common oral medications for advanced prostate cancer who had also undergone hormone therapy to treat their disease were at higher risk of serious metabolic or cardiovascular issues than patients who were receiving hormone therapy alone, according to findings...
Recent research underlines the importance of following up with a colonoscopy exam after a positive result on an at-home stool test to screen for colorectal cancer. The test, known as the fecal immunochemical test (FIT), checks for traces of blood in patient-collected stool samples, which can be an...
The first bladder cancer drug targeting a cancer-driving gene mutation has been used relatively little despite its clear efficacy in a clinical trial, suggests a report published as a research letter by Nimgaonkar et al in JAMA Oncology. Researchers analyzed a large, nationwide database of cancer...
The first-in-human, first-in-class trial of the next-generation PARP (poly [ADP-ribose] polymerase) 1–selective inhibitor AZD5305 suggests this drug may be a welcome advance over its U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved predecessors in the treatment of solid tumors with alterations in...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Ma et al found that the initiation of lower gastrointestinal endoscopy screening in women younger than age 50 was associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer vs no screening, and a greater absolute risk reduction compared with screening starting at age...
Although considered a rare occurrence in adolescents and young adults (AYAs), aged 15 to 39 years, the incidence of cancer in this age group has been increasing by approximately 30% since the 1970s. This year, it is estimated that nearly 90,000 new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in this...
The use of a polygenic score incorporating variations in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values that are not due to cancer may allow for more precise PSA screening, according to findings of a large genome-wide association study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual ...
Ara Klijian, MD, of Scripps Health, discusses findings on the safety of AVATS (awake video-assisted thoracic surgery), a procedure that may benefit select patients, including those whose early non–small cell lung cancer was previously deemed inoperable due to poor pulmonary function. Performed...
A new clinical guideline from the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) provides guidance on the use of radiation therapy to treat patients with brain metastases. Evidence-based recommendations guide the multidisciplinary planning and delivery of advanced radiation therapy techniques to...
In the Dutch phase III TEAM-IIB trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sonja B. Vliek, MD, and colleagues found that the addition of oral ibandronate to adjuvant endocrine therapy did not improve disease-free survival in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive stage I ...
Guest Editor’s Note: Cancer and its treatments are associated with both physical and psychological symptoms that can have substantial impact on patients’ quality of life. Music therapy is a complementary modality that is being increasingly used for cancer symptom management. In this article, Joke...
The human epidermal growth factor (HER) family of receptors are a well-established therapeutic target. Indeed, seminal studies conducted nearly 2 decades ago identified a key association between activating mutations in the kinase domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR, also known as...
In a phase II trial (DESTINY-Lung01) reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Bob T. Li, MD, PhD, MPH, of the Thoracic Oncology and Early Drug Development Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and colleagues found that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) showed...
In the Dutch CONCERVE study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kremer et al found that the absence of FAM19A4/miR124-2 DNA methylation was associated with a high rate of clinical regression of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia over 24 months among women treated with a...
On March 4, 2022, nivolumab was approved for use with platinum-doublet chemotherapy for resectable non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the neoadjuvant setting.1 The approval is the first for neoadjuvant therapy for early-stage NSCLC. Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings from...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by David Palma, MD, PhD, and colleagues, enrollment in the phase II ORATOR2 trial, which was designed to evaluate overall survival after de-escalated treatment with primary radiotherapy vs transoral surgery in human papillomavirus (HPV)-related oropharyngeal squamous...
When I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 1996, I was given 3 years to live. At the time, there was little understanding of this disease, which was termed incurable. There were no new treatments, few drugs in the pipeline, hardly any clinical trials, and no multiple myeloma community or...
“In the past decade, major improvements in treating lung cancer have come from identification of mutations and development of drugs to target those mutations: EGFR, ALK, RET, HER2, and others. Finally, we can add KRAS as a druggable target,” stated invited discussant Mark Awad, MD, PhD, Clinical...
Ongoing evaluation of novel, targeted, and immunotherapies has led to exciting advances across the array of hematologic malignancies over the past year. The availability of new treatment options, along with emerging data on novel combinations and sequencing approaches, is rapidly changing...
For the first-line treatment of newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, the percentage of patients achieving measurable residual disease (MRD, previously called minimal residual disease) negativity was significantly greater when the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody isatuximab was added to a standard...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Philippe Moreau, MD, of the University Hospital Hôtel-Dieu, Nantes, and colleagues, an interim analysis of part 2 of the phase III CASSIOPEIA trial has showed significantly prolonged progression-free survival with maintenance daratumumab vs observation...
In the phase Ib/II CARTITUDE-1 trial reported in The Lancet, Jesus G. Berdeja, MD, and colleagues found that ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel), a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy with two B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)-targeting single-domain antibodies, produced a high rate of...
The autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel failed to improve event-free survival vs standard-of-care treatment strategies in patients with aggressive, relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), according to results of the phase III BELINDA trial,...
The bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab achieved deep and durable remissions as monotherapy in patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma, according to the results of a pivotal phase II trial presented at the 2021 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 In ...
In the primary analysis of the phase III ZUMA-7 trial, examining second-line therapy for relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, the CAR T-cell therapy axicabtagene ciloleucel led to a fourfold increase in event-free survival over the standard of care. These findings were presented at the...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Matthew J. Matasar, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues, the phase III CHRONOS-3 trial has shown that the addition of the pan-class I PI3K inhibitor copanlisib to rituximab significantly improved progression-free survival vs rituximab ...
Zanubrutinib, a second-generation Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, significantly improved response rates and delayed disease progression as compared with the standard of care, ibrutinib, in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma...
Acalabrutinib was equally efficacious with less toxicity when compared directly with ibrutinib in patients with previously treated relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to the results of an open-label, randomized, noninferiority phase III trial presented at the 2021...
When compared with intravenous (IV) chemotherapy, the use of intraperitoneal (IP) carboplatin with dose-dense weekly paclitaxel improved progression-free survival in patients with ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal carcinoma, according to data presented at the 2022 Society of...
A new study published by Ahmadian et al in the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering suggests how scientists may use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict how cancer may affect the probability of fractures along the spinal column. The report described how the...
In an interim analysis of the phase II COAST trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, FACP, FASCO, and colleagues found that consolidation durvalumab in combination with the anti-CD73 antibody oleclumab or anti-NKG2A antibody monalizumab both improved objective...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has made an impact on the treatment of certain blood cancers, but in clinical study, the cellular therapy has not been as successful for patients with solid tumors, due in part to the lack of tumor targets not expressed in vital tissues. In a new study ...
Elective abdominal aortic aneurysm repair in patients with a cancer diagnosis is associated with several poor postoperative outcomes, according to a newly published study from researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. Roush et al reported their findings in the Journal of...
In the largest and most detailed population-based cohort study to date, researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm found that individuals with autism spectrum disorders, when present with comorbid intellectual disability and/or birth defects, were at a higher risk of cancer in early...
In the Japanese phase II BOOSTER trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Saji et al found that compared with continuing paclitaxel/bevacizumab, a maintenance strategy of switching to endocrine therapy plus bevacizumab (with the option of reinitiating paclitaxel/bevacizumab) was associated with a...
OCE Insights is an occasional column developed for The ASCO Post by members of the Oncology Center of Excellence (OCE) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In this installment, Mirat Shah, MD, of the Office of Oncologic Diseases, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, FDA; Atiqur...
The novel antibody-drug conjugate mirvetuximab soravtansine could become the new standard of care for patients with folate receptor alpha–positive, platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to data presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2022 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer.1...
Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH, Director of Breast Cancer Research and Attending Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, commented on this study on recurrence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). “This is an interesting study that evaluated whether...