Smoldering myeloma is an asymptomatic plasma cell disorder with a heterogeneous clinical behavior. Two trials presented at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition investigated early intervention for smoldering multiple myeloma, aiming for a “curative strategy”...
Combination regimens beyond lenalidomide/dexamethasone were shown to significantly delay—and potentially prevent altogether—progression from smoldering disease to active multiple myeloma, according to researchers who reported findings from two studies at the 2022 American Society of Hematology...
As in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2023 ASCO GI Cancers Symposium—its 20th such gathering—played to a full ballroom. It featured a stellar lineup of experts in the field as well as high-quality, impactful research in esophageal, gastric, hepatocellular, pancreatic, biliary tract, and ...
The widespread use of immune checkpoint inhibitors has led to significant benefits in younger patients with advanced lung cancer; however, older patients have not experienced similar survival benefits, according to research from Yale Cancer Center. The study was published in JAMA Oncology.1 “There ...
In the phase I/II MonumenTAL-1 trial, the novel bispecific antibody talquetamab produced responses in more than 70% of heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma.1 Of note, the safety profile confirmed results of the phase I portion of the study (recently published in TheNew England Journal...
Although longer follow-up is needed, the results of the three-arm randomized TRIANGLE study suggest that the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib may replace autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) after chemoimmunotherapy in younger patients with previously untreated mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). ...
Offering their thoughts on the study by Williams et al from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort were Jane N. Winter, MD, Immediate Past President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and Catherine Bollard, MBChB, MD. Both moderated press briefings where the results were presented or discussed....
Long-term follow-up of survivors of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort showed signs of “epigenetic accelerated aging,” and many of these survivors had signs of neurocognitive impairment by their late 30s, researchers reported at the 2022 American Society of Hematology...
Alexey Danilov, MD, PhD, Co-Director, Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center and Professor, Division of Lymphoma, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope, Duarte, California, commented on the phase III ALPINE trial comparing ibrutinib and zanubrutinib in patients...
In a phase II trial, treatment with the JAK2 inhibitor ruxolitinib resulted in clinical activity in two-thirds of patients with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) with splenomegaly or an otherwise high disease symptom burden. The magnitude of symptomatic benefit was similar to that observed in...
“Standard treatment of older or less fit adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is now venetoclax/azacitidine, which has been shown to improve overall survival vs azacitidine monotherapy. Since that backbone was established, there has been a tsunami of trials looking at drugs added to this...
Two separate studies presented at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition provide preliminary evidence that triplet combinations may have a role in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Both triplets were based on the addition of a third drug to standard ...
“Pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the paradigmatic success story in hematology,” said Joseph C. Alvarnas, MD, Professor in the Department of Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplant, Vice President of Government Affairs, and Chief Clinical Advisor for AccessHope at City of Hope...
The 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition took place in the vibrant city of New Orleans. The meeting brought together tens of thousands of participants from across the world to present and discuss the results of studies that ranged from hypothesis-generating to...
Patients with prostate cancer who reported the highest amounts of plant-based foods in their diets had a 52% lower risk of disease progression and a 53% lower risk of recurrence compared with those who had the lowest amounts of plants in their diets. The diet assessments were based on...
The most humbling—and fortunate—experience I’ve had since I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma 13 years ago at the age of 43 was being treated in the pediatric wing of a major cancer center in New York City. It is pretty difficult to feel sorry for yourself when you are sitting next to a 14-year-old...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Kristin Flowers, MD, a general surgeon at Tanana Valley Clinic at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital in rural Alaska. Dr. Flowers’ surgical areas of interest include treating...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Derek Raghavan, MD, PhD, FACP, FRACP, FASCO, Founding President of the Levine Cancer Institute. Established in 2011, the Levine Cancer Institute is part of Atrium Health (formerly the...
The ASCO Board of Directors recently took further action to support members in lower-middle–income countries. In alignment with ASCO’s strategic goal of making a global impact, the Board elected to expand free membership for physicians from lower-middle–income countries, as defined by the World...
The high-energy vibe at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition reflected the welcomed presence of enthusiastic on-site attendees and the high quality of the research presented. The ASCO Post has already reported in detail on many of these presentations, and now...
Press briefing moderator Virginia Kaklamani, MD, Professor of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio and leader of the Breast Cancer Program at UT Health San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center, said the findings from RxPONDER and those regarding the tumor microenvironment of metastasis (TMEM) doorway are ...
Suboptimal treatment, which often underlies worse outcomes for cancer in racial minorities, did not explain a recent finding from the landmark RxPONDER study: non-Hispanic Black women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative, lymph node–positive breast cancer had worse outcomes compared with...
Initial data from the global phase III SPOTLIGHT trial may herald the use of a new targeted agent for a subset of patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.1 The addition ofzolbetuximab, which targets the transmembrane protein claudin18.2 (CLDN18.2), to chemotherapy ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will award Carl H. June, MD, with the 2023 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research during the AACR Annual Meeting 2023, taking place from April 14 to 19 in Orlando, Florida. Dr. June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in...
The newly identified category of “HER2-low” breast cancer has raised many new issues in this malignancy now that the DESTINY Breast-041 trial determined that fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) may effectively treat this tumor. Among the issues are challenges in accurately identifying just...
Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, known as SPHINKS, capable of performing advanced computational analyses to identify potential therapeutic targets for patients with glioblastoma multiforme. The platform may also have applicability in other cancers, according to...
Higher consumption of ultraprocessed foods may be linked to increased cancer burden and mortality, according to a new, UK-based study published by Chang et al in eClinicalMedicine. Ultraprocessed foods are food items which have been heavily processed during their production—such as fizzy drinks,...
Individuals who ovulate for longer over their lifetimes may have a higher risk of developing ovarian cancer, suggesting that suppressing ovulation can lower this risk, according to a new study published by Fu et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The researchers also offered clues...
Soon after my marriage, in 2003, I noticed swelling in the glands around my throat. Although I otherwise felt fine, I went to see my primary care physician for a checkup and a blood test. The results of the test showed that I had an abnormally high number of lymphocytes circulating in my...
Most of us have felt our stomachs sink as we opened a patient’s radiology or laboratory report and realized the patient faced a grave situation. If we’re lucky, we have a couple of days before a scheduled patient appointment to prepare ourselves to deliver that bad news. Other times, we may have...
Isaac Craig Henderson, MD, passed away at the age of 81 at his home in San Francisco on December 26, 2022, after a brief illness. Dr. Henderson was an internationally known medical oncologist who specialized in breast cancer, beginning his career at Harvard’s then-designated Sidney Farber Cancer...
Intensive salvage therapy with the goal of achieving complete remission prior to allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (alloHCT) may not be necessary in some patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to the results of the phase III ASAP trial presented at...
Northwell Health recently announced a gift from longtime trustee Roy J. Zuckerberg to create the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Hospital at Long Island Jewish (LIJ) Medical Center—Long Island’s first cancer hospital—and to establish the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Center, Northwell’s largest ambulatory cancer...
Options are growing in the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma after complete response. At the 2022 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference,1 the use of these newer strategies in older patients was discussed by Brad S. Kahl, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lymphoma Service at Washington...
As an oncologist, I had cared for patients facing grave illness and death. I imagined the loss of loved ones and expected grief to be an unbearable sadness, most poignant in the earliest days and lessening with time. I somehow expected that counseling people who grieved would make me more prepared. ...
Lymphoma expert Jeremy S. Abramson, MD, was born in Westchester County, New York, but soon after, his family relocated to Bergen County, New Jersey, where he spent his formative years. “I attended Tenafly High School and had dual passions: one was the natural sciences and the other on the...
Nick Pavlakis, PhD, MBBS, of Australia’s Royal North Shore Hospital, discusses phase III findings from the INTEGRATE IIa study of regorafenib vs placebo in refractory advanced gastroesophageal cancer. The trial provides a platform for the investigation of combination therapy with an immune...
In a phase II study of stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), domvanalimab, a novel antibody that blocks T-cell immunoglobulin and ITIM domain (TIGIT), when added to anti–PD-1 zimberelimab immunotherapy resulted in improved response rates and progression-free survival compared with...
Offering their thoughts on the study by Williams et al from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort were Jane N. Winter, MD, Immediate Past President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), and Catherine Bollard, MBChB, MD. Both moderated press briefings where the results were presented or discussed....
Long-term follow-up of survivors of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma from the St. Jude Lifetime Cohort showed signs of “epigenetic accelerated aging,” and many of these survivors had signs of neurocognitive impairment by their late 30s, researchers reported at the 2022 American Society of Hematology...
Alexey Danilov, MD, PhD, Co-Director, Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center and Professor, Division of Lymphoma, Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation, City of Hope, Duarte, California, commented on the phase III ALPINE trial comparing ibrutinib and zanubrutinib in patients...
“Standard treatment of older or less fit adults with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is now venetoclax/azacitidine, which has been shown to improve overall survival vs azacitidine monotherapy. Since that backbone was established, there has been a tsunami of trials looking at drugs added to this...
Two separate studies presented at the 2022 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition provide preliminary evidence that triplet combinations may have a role in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Both triplets were based on the addition of a third drug to standard ...
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 at the 2022 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting.1 Findings from the first matched cohort to compare clinical...
Breast medical oncologist Virginia Kaklamani, MD, Professor of Medicine, UT Health San Antonio, MD Anderson Cancer Center, believes the results of the POSITIVE trial will help patients with breast cancer make decisions. “The trial is important because it helps us give advice to younger patients,”...
“There is a clear suggestion from SERENA-2 that camizestrant might be a better treatment than fulvestrant,” said press briefing moderator Carlos L. Arteaga, MD, Director of the Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Associate Dean of Oncology Programs at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. “As ...
The opportunity to write this commentary on cancer disparities comes at a sorrowful time for me. Despite practicing as a surgical oncologist for more than 20 years and understanding the unequal burden that cancer visits on the Black community, I was woefully unprepared for the premature death of my ...
In the phase I/II MonumenTAL-1 trial, the novel bispecific antibody talquetamab produced responses in more than 70% of heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma.1 Of note, the safety profile confirmed results of the phase I portion of the study (recently published in TheNew England Journal...
Researchers at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and caregivers have helped secure medical coverage and financial compensation for individuals who were exposed to Ground Zero and consequently developed uterine cancer, including endometrial cancer—according to a new, final rule added to...
Although longer follow-up is needed, the results of the three-arm randomized TRIANGLE study suggest that the tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib may replace autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) after chemoimmunotherapy in younger patients with previously untreated mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). ...