FRONT-LINE TREATMENT of advanced Hodgkin lymphoma with brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) plus doxorubicin/ vinblastine/dacarbazine (A+AVD) achieved superior outcomes compared with the standard four-drug regimen of doxorubicin/bleomycin/vinblastine/dacarbazine (ABVD). The substitution of brentuximab...
THE COMBINATION of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) achieved favorable responses in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to initial results of the phase II CLARITY trial presented at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual ...
FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED multiple myeloma patients not eligible for transplant, the addition of the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody daratumumab (Darzalex) to subcutaneous bortezomib (Velcade), melphalan, and prednisone (VMP) reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 50%, the phase III ALCYONE...
POSITIVE DATA about chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy in lymphoma continue to accrue. Long-term follow-up of the pivotal ZUMA-1 trial shows that patients with refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) continue to have durable responses to the CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy...
THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh Medical School was established in 1726 during the Scottish Enlightenment. As one of the oldest medical schools in the English-speaking world, it is interesting to reflect on the seminal contributions made centuries ago by several alumni that are still relevant to the...
On December 20, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody nivolumab (Opdivo) for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma with involvement of lymph nodes, or in patients with...
On December 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for the use of osimertinib (Tagrisso)—a third-generation, irreversible epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor with clinical activity against central...
Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, has been elected to serve as the President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2019. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2018. Additionally, five...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Bickell et al found underuse of treatment for clinically significant prostate cancer was infrequent among white and black patients at two New York City hospitals, but black men accounted for nearly all such underuse of treatment. As noted by...
As reported at the recent American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition and in The New England Journal of Medicine, Schuster et al found that chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy produced responses in a high proportion of patients with B-cell lymphomas refractory to or...
The phase III KEYNOTE-061 trial investigating pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a second-line treatment for patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma did not meet its primary endpoint of overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] = ...
The American Medical Association (AMA) is reminding physicians that the Medicare reimbursement system has changed, and, if they have not done so already, they have until December 31, 2017, to take a few simple steps to avoid a Medicare payment penalty in 2019. The changes are part of the...
On December 5, Clovis Oncology announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for rucaparib (Rubraca) and granted Priority Review status to the application, with a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) date of April 6, 2018. In...
At the 59th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, Wang et al presented results from the open-label, single-arm phase II ACE-LY-004 clinical trial, which served as the basis for the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accelerated approval of acalabrutinib...
At the 59th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, Hunger et al presented data from the phase II CA180-372 study in pediatric patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated with dasatinib (Sprycel) added ...
Results from a phase II clinical trial presented by Kean et al at the 59th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting (Abstract 212) show that the drug abatacept (Orencia) nearly eliminated life-threatening severe acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in patients receiving hematopoietic...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Mørch et al, a Danish study has shown that the risk of breast cancer is increased in hormonal contraception users vs nonusers, with the absolute increase in risk being small. Study Details The study assessed the association between the...
In the phase III MURANO trial, treatment with the targeted cancer drug venetoclax (Venclexta) in combination with rituximab (Rituxan) more than doubled the likelihood that patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) would survive for 2 years without cancer progression, compared to treatment...
The first randomized trial to evaluate the use of a monoclonal antibody for treating newly diagnosed multiple myeloma showed that adding the drug daratumumab (Darzalex) to one of the standard treatment regimens reduced the likelihood of disease progression or death by 50%. The regimen also induced...
In the first comprehensive analysis of clinical trial enrollment among older adults with blood cancers, researchers from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found significant gaps in participation among those aged 75 and older when considered against the incidence of these malignancies in...
Joseph M. Connors, MD, of the British Columbia Cancer Agency, discusses study findings on a new front-line option: brentuximab vedotin plus doxorubicin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine in patients with previously untreated stage III or IV Hodgkin lymphoma (Abstract 6).
Among 108 patients with fast-growing and refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), more than half were still alive at least a year after receiving a single infusion of a CAR T-cell therapy called axicabtagene ciloleucel that targets the CD-19 protein frequently found on cancerous lymphoma...
Patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) who were treated with a multidrug regimen that included the targeted agent brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) had a 23% reduction in the risk of disease progression, death, or the need for additional therapy, compared with patients who received the standard...
The results of a pooled analysis of patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) treated with ibrutinib (Imbruvica) were presented at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 151). The extended follow-up data demonstrated that...
At the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, the 3-year follow-up data from the RESONATE-2 study (PCYC-1115/1116) were presented. The investigators found that patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL/SLL)...
People with cancer have an increased risk of developing blood clots, with roughly one in five experiencing venous thromboembolism (VTE). International guidelines recommend treatment using low–molecular-weight heparin, an anticoagulant that is injected subcutaneously; however, new results from ...
Older women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer who were treated with cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitors achieved progression-free survival at a rate similar to that of younger women, according to data presented by Singh et al at the 2017 San...
Among patients with hormone receptor–positive HER2-negative stage II–III breast cancer without clinical evidence of recurrence, those who had circulating tumor cells (CTCs) detected in blood 5 years after diagnosis had an increased risk for late recurrence of breast cancer, according to ...
On November 8, 2017, the Chemotherapy Foundation held a benefit in New York City to raise funding to support an investigator in ovarian cancer research selected for the 2018 Research Grant Program. The event coincided with the 35th Annual Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium and honored oncology...
On November 30, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved CDx (F1CDx), a breakthrough-designated, next-generation sequencing–based in vitro diagnostic test that can detect genetic mutations in 324 genes and 2 genomic signatures in any solid tumor type. The Centers for Medicare &...
On December 1, 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved trastuzumab-dkst (Ogivri) as a biosimilar to trastuzumab (Herceptin) for the treatment of patients with breast or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma whose tumors overexpress the HER2 gene. The...
An update of the Meta-Analysis of Radiotherapy in Squamous Cell Carcinomas of Head and Neck (MARCH) showed that hyperfractionated radiotherapy maintained a survival advantage over conventional radiotherapy in head and neck cancers. The findings were reported in The Lancet Oncology by Lacas et al....
The discovery of my non–small cell lung cancer (NCSLC) in 2005 was serendipitous and completely unexpected. A never smoker and physically active my whole life, the only hint something might be amiss was a slight tickle in my throat, which I’m not even sure was related to my cancer diagnosis. In...
City of Hope announced that it has appointed Michael A. Caligiuri, MD, to a new executive leadership role as President of City of Hope National Medical Center and Physician-in-Chief. Dr. Caligiuri is a health-care visionary, renowned cancer researcher, and President of the American Association for ...
BOOKMARK Title: Cancer: What You Need to Know: Overcome the 10 Common Mistakes Patients MakeAuthor: Stephen A. Rosenberg, MDPublisher: Stephen Rosenberg, MDYear Published: November 2017Price: $9.99, paperback, 248 pages Stephen A. Rosenberg, MD, is Chief Resident in Radiation Oncology at the...
BOOKMARK Title: Tripping Over the Truth: How the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Is Overturning One of Medicine’s Most Entrenched ParadigmsAuthor: Travis Christofferson, MSPublisher: Chelsea Green PublishingPublication Date: February 2017Price: $24.95, hardcover; 288 pages Bringing a book to market is...
BOOKMARK Title: The Red Devil: To Hell With Cancer—and BackAuthor: Katherine Russell RichPublisher: CrownDate Published: October 1999Price: $23.95, hardcover, 256 pages Over the past year or so, there have been several best-selling memoirs of people fighting and ultimately losing their battle with ...
NYU Langone Health has announced that nationally renowned physician and researcher Raoul Tibes, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology at NYU School of Medicine, will lead efforts to expand the clinical and investigative leukemia programs at its Perlmutter Cancer Center....
The first consensus recommendations on the recognition and clinical management of immune-related side effects from cancer immunotherapy were recently published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC).1 The article, “Managing Toxicities Associated With Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors:...
University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher Barbara Savoldo, MD, PhD, has been awarded a $600,000, 3-year grant from to support research of an immunotherapy being developed. The grant will help fund clinical research into an investigational chimeric antigen...
Virginia Cancer Specialists, a practice within The US Oncology Network and a premier cancer care and research center in Northern Virginia with more than 40 years of service to patients, has announced that Stephanie Akbari, MD, FACS, has joined the practice. Dr. Akbari, the first dedicated breast...
Results from a validation study to better define the risk of breast cancer in women of European ancestry who tested negative for a hereditary cancer mutation with a hereditary cancer risk test (myRisk Hereditary Cancer test) were reported earlier this week in a spotlight presentation at the 2017...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy burst upon the scene as an innovative approach to the treatment of hematologic malignancies, mainly for patients who have exhausted all other treatment options. Recently two CAR T-cell products were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
Five cross-disciplinary research groups involving scientists from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington School of Medicine, and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance have received $100,000 in awards from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center–based Seattle Translational Tumor...
Nationally recognized lymphoma expert Sonali M. Smith, MD, was born and reared in Chicago to a mother who was a pediatrician and allergist, and a father who was an engineer. Her parents were first-generation immigrants from India who placed the value of education second to none. “I became used to...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Arlene A. Forastiere, MD, of The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline update on the use of larynx-preservation strategies in the treatment of laryngeal cancer. The ...
Melinda Telli, MD, of the Stanford University School of Medicine, discusses the current status of treatment for advanced TNBC, and new therapeutic strategies now being used for better outcomes.
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Arjun V. Balar, MD, of Perlmutter Cancer Center of New York York Langone Medical Center, and colleagues, first-line pembrolizumab (Keytruda) produced durable responses in cisplatin-ineligible patients with locally advanced and unresectable or metastatic...
Ipilimumab (Yervoy) is a fully human monoclonal antibody that inhibits cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) and was the first checkpoint inhibitor approved after showing survival benefit in metastatic melanoma.1 Indeed, in the first-line setting for metastatic melanoma, ipilimumab ...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) has created a new resource for patients living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who develop acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related Kaposi sarcoma. This newly released NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN...