A modeling study of global demand for cancer surgery and estimated surgical and anesthesia workforce requirements between 2018 and 2040 showed a predicted increase, which could especially impact low-income countries. These findings were published by Perera et al in The Lancet Oncology. Study...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Erica L. Mayer, MD, and colleagues, the second interim analysis of the phase III PALLAS trial showed no improvement in invasive disease–free survival with the addition of adjuvant palbociclib to ongoing endocrine therapy in patients with hormone receptor...
In a Chinese single-institution phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lu et al found that early interdisciplinary supportive care with a focus on nutrition and psychological status was associated with improved overall survival vs standard care in previously untreated...
In a phase II trial (SWOG S1406) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Scott Kopetz, MD, PhD, and colleagues found that the addition of vemurafenib to irinotecan and cetuximab significantly improved progression-free survival in previously treated patients with BRAF V600E–mutant metastatic...
ASCO has announced that the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting will be an online-only experience, taking place from June 4 to 8, 2021. The Society issued the following statement on the Meeting: We had hoped for a return to an in-person meeting, as we all miss the opportunity to see and engage with our...
Four years after patients with melanoma were treated with a personalized cancer vaccine, the immune response caused by the vaccine remained robust and effective in keeping cancer cells under control, according to a new study published by Hu et al in Nature Medicine. The findings demonstrate the...
Patients with inactive cancer who are not currently undergoing treatment also face a significantly higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, according to a new study published by Sun et al in JNCI Cancer Spectrum. The findings underscore the importance of COVID-19 mitigation, like social...
Researchers have developed the first comprehensive framework to classify small cell lung cancer (SCLC) into four unique subtypes based on gene expression and have identified potential therapeutic targets for each type. These findings were published by Gay et al in Cancer Cell. SCLC is known for...
In a Canadian population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Noel et al found that patient-reported symptom burden was significantly associated with the likelihood of emergency department use and unplanned hospitalization among patients with head and neck cancer. Study ...
In a U.S. population-based, case-control study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Hu et al identified the prevalence of and risk associated with germline pathogenic variants in established and candidate breast cancer predisposition genes. Study Details The study involved 32,247 women...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kadauke et al found that risk-adapted tocilizumab reduced the expected incidence of grade 4 cytokine-release syndrome in pediatric patients receiving CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell...
BOOKMARK Title: Milkshakes and Morphine: A Memoir of Love and LifeAuthor: Genevieve FoxPublisher: VintagePublication date: January 2019Price: $15.95, paperback, 384 pages “It doesn’t hurt, but I know it is there and I know it shouldn’t be. Interloper. I have touched it a couple of times already,...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has announced the publication of new, free informational resources on health and wellness for cancer survivors. These two new NCCN Guidelines for Patients® are focused on healthy living and managing late and long-term side effects, and they include...
Sometimes there just is no escaping cancer. I thought I had done everything right. I was diligent about adhering to my annual physical exams, including mammograms, and routinely performed breast self-exams to spot any early changes in my breasts. Still, in the summer of 2015, I was diagnosed with...
Sarah Cannon recently announced that Melissa Johnson, MD, has been named Program Director of Lung Cancer Research. In her new role, Dr. Johnson will lead the lung cancer clinical trial portfolio across the Sarah Cannon network. Dr. Johnson has served as Associate Director of Lung Cancer Research...
The first independent, community oncology practice recently joined the Mayo Clinic Care Network. Minnesota Oncology comprises a group of carefully vetted, independent health-care providers with special access to the Mayo Clinic’s knowledge and expertise, including its research, diagnostic, and...
Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center has announced that Kenneth H. Kim, MD, will direct its Division of Gynecologic Oncology. Dr. Kim also serves as Chair of the institution’s Committee for Oversight of Training and Education. The appointment reflects Dr. Kim’s breadth of experience, which involves novel...
Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah has been awarded a 5-year, $3 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve Utah’s colorectal cancer screening rates. The program will build on an ongoing partnership between HCI’s Center for Health...
Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah recently announced that Jay Gertz, PhD, and Trudy G. Oliver, PhD, have accepted invitations to serve as co-leaders of HCI Comprehensive Cancer Center research programs. Dr. Gertz will serve alongside Jared Rutter, PhD, as co-leader of the...
Two recent studies found significant survival benefits for patients older than 70 years with surgically treated nonmetastatic triple-negative breast cancer who also received chemotherapy.1,2 The authors of both studies concluded that the findings support the consideration of chemotherapy for older...
Women older than age 70 diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer had significantly improved overall survival if they received adjuvant and/or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, according to an analysis of data from more than 16,000 women enrolled in the National Cancer Database. The estimated 5-year...
Nearly 500 members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) have earned the lifetime distinction of AAAS Fellow. The Fellows are elected each year by their peers serving on the Council of AAAS, the organization’s member-run governing body. The title recognizes important...
In a National Cancer Database analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jennifer A. Crozier, MD, of the Division of Cancer Medicine, Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center, Jacksonville, and colleagues found that receipt of neoadjuvant or adjuvant chemotherapy was associated with improved overall...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Thierry André, MD, of Sorbonne Université and Hôpital Saint Antoine, Paris, and colleagues, the prospective pooled analysis of six phase III trials in the IDEA collaboration has shown that noninferiority in overall survival for 3 vs 6 months of adjuvant...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Laura M. Fernandez, MD, of Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, and colleagues found high rates of conditional recurrence-free survival during watch-and-wait surveillance among patients with rectal cancer who maintained a clinical complete response to...
Commentary for monarchE and PENELOPE-B was provided by C. Kent Osborne, MD, and Ruth M. O’Regan, MD, respectively. Dr. Osborne is Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Oncology and the Dudley and Tina Sharp Chair for Cancer Research at Baylor College of Medicine, as well as Founding Director of...
The primary outcome analysis of the phase III monarchE trial, an update of previous data, continued to show significant benefit for abemaciclib in the adjuvant setting, reducing the risk for invasive disease recurrence by 28.7%. Meanwhile, the first results of the phase III PENELOPE-B trial of...
In the December 10, 2020, issue of The ASCO Post, an article about Shilpi Gupta, MD, joining Atlantic Health System Cancer Care’s comprehensive breast health program included a photo of Shilpa Gupta, MD, an oncologist at Cleveland Clinic. The correct photo appears here. We apologize to both...
Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey has named Christian Hinrichs, MD, as Chief of the Section of Cancer Immunotherapy and Co-Director of the Cancer Immunology and Metabolism Center of Excellence, along with Eileen White, PhD, Deputy Director and Chief Scientific Officer at Rutgers Cancer...
The ASCO Post is pleased to introduce this department on Global Health-Care Equity. On an occasional basis, we will publish interviews between Guest Editor, Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, and another oncologist or cancer care specialist spanning regions around the world. Our goal is to...
On December 18, 2020, osimertinib was approved for adjuvant therapy after tumor resection in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with tumors with EGFR exon 19 deletions or exon 21 L858R mutations, as detected by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved test.1,2 Supporting...
The Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) recently appointed Kristin Ferguson, DNP, RN, OCN, as Senior Director, Cancer Care Delivery and Health Policy. Dr. Ferguson will lead the organization’s initiatives to improve cancer care delivery across rural, urban, and underresourced settings,...
The studies of ALLO-715 “off-the-shelf” CAR T-cell therapy and bb21217 impressed two experts in the field. Sagar Lonial, MD, the Anne and Bernard Gray Family Chair in Cancer, Chair and Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, and Adam D. Cohen, MD, ...
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University and partners in the United States and India are applying the investigative and predictive capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to help physicians customize treatments for patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas. Research shows that oral...
In the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies with unique characteristics, still targeting B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA), are looking promising. At the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition,...
Five Innovation Discovery Grants (IDG) have been awarded to faculty from Mass General Brigham for scientific advancements, as the highly competitive IDG program exceeds $3.5 million in grants since inception. Each of the five potential patient health and health-care delivery breakthroughs for 2020...
Russ Kridel, MD, Chair of the American Medical Association (AMA) Board of Trustees, recently released the following statement on December 17, 2020: The American Medical Association strongly supports the nominations of Xavier Becerra, JD, to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)...
Commenting on this trial, Marlise Luskin, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, explained that the treatment of AML in older adults remains a particular challenge for leukemia clinicians. “Although many older patients eligible for intensive induction chemotherapy achieve complete remission,...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Shaji K. Kumar, MD, of the Division of Hematology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, and colleagues, the phase III BELLINI trial has shown that the addition of venetoclax to bortezomib/dexamethasone significantly prolonged progression-free survival in patients with...
Health-related quality of life was sustained in patients taking oral azacitidine (also known as CC-486) compared with placebo in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to results of the phase III QUAZAR AML-001 trial reported at the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual...
In a national address delivered on January 12, 2021, American Medical Association (AMA) President Susan R. Bailey, MD, outlined immediate action necessary for a coordinated, comprehensive federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The address, titled “COVID-19: The Long Road to Recovery,” focused...
IFM 2009 showed that autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) combined with lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone (RVd) results in a significantly better progression-free survival than RVd alone in newly diagnosed patients with myeloma.1 “The data favor immediate ASCT, as transplant resulted in ...
City of Hope, an independent cancer and diabetes research and treatment center, has welcomed Angela L. Talton, MBA, to its executive leadership team as Senior Vice President and Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer. Ms. Talton will provide leadership for City of Hope’s efforts to build a...
The benefit of autologous transplantation in newly diagnosed multiple myeloma has been confirmed by follow-up of the IFM 2009 trial, reported at the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition by Aurore Perrot, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Hematology at the Cancer...
Yuan Yuan, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at City of Hope, Duarte, California, commented on the IPATunity130 trial. “Targeting the PIK3CA/AKT/mTOR cancer driver pathway is the holy grail for breast cancer in general. About 30% to 40% of breast cancers carry an alteration. Activation of this pathway ...
The combination of ipatasertib plus paclitaxel failed to improve progression-free survival in PIK3CA/AKT1/PTEN-altered locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, according to results from cohort A of the phase III IPATunity130 trial, presented at the 2020 San...
Yuan Yuan, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at City of Hope, Duarte, California, said that this was yet another failed phase III trial following promising phase II data. “Entinostat was granted Fast Track designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration several years back based on preclinical and...
The histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDAC) entinostat, added to exemestane, failed to overcome endocrine therapy resistance in advanced breast cancer, according to the E2112 phase III trial conducted by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group. Results showed that overall survival was not improved by the ...
Yuan Yuan, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at City of Hope, Duarte, California, weighed in on the KEYNOTE-355 findings. “The study presented by Dr. Rugo on KEYNOTE-355 reconfirms the utility of adding immune checkpoint inhibitorsto chemotherapy as front-line treatment for metastatic triple-negative...
“The updated long-term follow-up from IBIS II showed that tamoxifen and anastrozole have similar efficacy in preventing breast cancer recurrences in patients diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ. However, there were differences in side effects consistent with the known safety profiles of these...