Oncology News

• Researchers Detail More Cases of Clots Tied to COVID Vaccines New evidence emerged tying vaccines for COVID-19 to extremely rare cases of people who develop blood clots and low platelets within weeks of being vaccinated.
  Medscape Medical News, April 16, 2021
• Alert FDA Approves Frontline Immunotherapy for Gastric Cancers The approval marked a first for an immunotherapy in patients with gastric cancers.
  FDA Approvals, April 16, 2021
• Mycosis Fungoides Hospitalizations Longer for Blacks, Hispanics Results are consistent with prior studies that have found Black and Hispanic patients have earlier and more severe disease.
  Medscape Medical News, April 16, 2021
• AACR 2021 Tebentafusp improves OS: A First in Metastatic Uveal Melanoma First-line tebentafusp significantly improved overall survival (OS) when compared with immunotherapy or chemotherapy in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma in a phase 3 trial.
  Medscape Medical News, April 16, 2021
• Quicker Fertility Rebound in Young Women With Breast Cancer Results from a phase 3 trial show that removing cyclophosphamide from the standard chemotherapy regimen improved fertility without compromising survival.
  Medscape Medical News, April 16, 2021
• White Bagging: Insurer Shift on Drugs Raises Alarm A change in treatment for cancer is arriving in Georgia. It's not a new medication. What's coming is what's known as 'white bagging,' an insurer tactic involving expensive infusion or injection drugs.
  Georgia Health News, April 15, 2021
• AACR 2021 Personalized Cancer Vaccine Shows Early Promise Across Tumor Types In a phase 1 trial, the vaccine, called PGV-001, was well tolerated. It was given to 13 patients with multiple myeloma who had a high risk of recurrence after surgery or autologous stem cell transplant.
  Medscape Medical News, April 15, 2021
• AACR 2021 Healthy Lifestyle May Offset Genetic Risk in Prostate Cancer Adhering to a healthy lifestyle may offset the heightened risk of lethal prostate cancer in patients with adverse genetic risk factors, according to results of a large US study presented at AACR 2021.
  Medscape Medical News, April 15, 2021
• AACR 2021 Made-to-Order TILs Effective Against Metastatic Melanoma Cell therapy with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) extracted from tumor tissue yielded responses in patients with heavily pretreated malignant melanoma.
  Medscape Medical News, April 15, 2021
• How Long Do You Expect to Wear a Mask? With low flu activity during the pandemic winter, some speculate mask-wearing is here to stay.
  Medscape Reader Polls, April 14, 2021
• AACR 2021 New Combo Shows Benefit Even in Patients With High-Risk HCC Updated data from the IMBRave150 trial show benefit for the combination of atezolizumab with bevacizumab even in patients with high-risk hepatocellular carcinoma.
  Medscape Medical News, April 14, 2021
• ENDO 2021 Cushing Death Rate 'Unacceptable' In the largest such study to date, death rates among patients with endogenous Cushing syndrome have dropped since 2000 but are still threefold that of the general population.
  Medscape Medical News, April 14, 2021
• AACR 2021 New Data Dim Hopes for 'Triumph of Drug Discovery' Excitement over novel drugs that for the first time showed efficacy against KRAS mutations has been muted somewhat by new data showing many different types of resistance mechanisms.
  Medscape Medical News, April 14, 2021
• Rankings of Most Common Cancers to Shift Over Next 20 Years Rankings for the most common cancers, as well as the cancer types responsible for the most deaths, are predicted to change over the next 20 years in the United States.
  Medscape Medical News, April 14, 2021
• FAQ: What to Know About the J&J Vaccine Pause After reports of a rare blood clot in people receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the FDA and CDC have recommended a pause in its use. Here are 6 questions on the what, why, and how of this stoppage.
  WebMD Health News, April 13, 2021
• AACR 2021 Combo Provides 'Broad Benefit' Across NHL Subtypes The combination of copanlisib + rituximab led to a reduction in the risk for disease progression/death when compared with rituximab + placebo in patients with relapsed, indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
  Medscape Medical News, April 13, 2021
• First Female CEO for 107-Year-Old Cancer Organization Karen Knudsen, MBA, PhD, will be the next chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society and its advocacy affiliate, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.
  Medscape Medical News, April 13, 2021
• Don't Screen for Vit D in General Population, Says US Task Force There is insufficient evidence that screening for vitamin D deficiency among the asymptomatic general population is of any benefit, concludes an update of US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations.
  Medscape Medical News, April 13, 2021
• COVID-19 Vaccine Failure in Patients With Blood Cancers Almost half of patients with hematologic malignancies failed to produce antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 after full vaccination and thus remained at risk for COVID-19 infection.
  Medscape Medical News, April 13, 2021
• Adverse Reactions to Immunotherapy Can Appear After a Year Some cancer patients receiving anti-PD-1 immunotherapy may tolerate the drug well for months but then develop a serious immune-related adverse reaction.
  Medscape Medical News, April 13, 2021