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MacDonald shares her inspiring journey of facing a life-changing diagnosis with strength and resilience. Discover her insights into the healthcare system, the unexpected joys she found, and her advice for others facing similar challenges.

Moghul told the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco how the study addressed health inequalities and barriers to accessing health care that affect prostate cancer in high-risk underserved groups.

Moghul told the 2025 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco how the study had addressed health inequalities and barriers to accessing health care that affect prostate cancer in high-risk underserved groups.

A research study using APP4 was reported at the 2025 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. First author Ruben Del Castillo, MD, a radiation oncologist from the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, shared the details.

After talking about his group’s new data, lead researcher Koji Hatano, MD, a urologist from Osaka University in Japan, discussed the insights this has given doctors into the metastatic process and potential ways of modifying it.

Dr. Kathleen Moore is a Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Associate Director of Clinical Research and Director of the Oklahoma TSET Phase I Program at the Stephenson Cancer Center. A graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine, WA, Dr. Moore completed her residency in gynecology at the University Health Center of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, PA and completed a fellowship in gynecologic oncology at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine in Oklahoma City, OK. She is board certified in obstetrics and gynecology as well as gynecologic oncology and hospice and palliative care.

For more information, visit: https://www.azprecisionmed.com/tumor-type/ovarian-cancer/hrd-testing.html

For patient resources, please visit TestForHRD.com.

This podcast does not necessarily reflect the opinions of AstraZeneca and are the spokeperson's opinions and experience.

Erin K. Crane, MD, MPH, is a gynecologic oncologist with Atrium Health Levine Cancer in Charlotte, North Carolina. A graduate of the SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, Dr. Crane completed her residency at the University of Virginia and a fellowship at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gynecologic Oncology. She is board certified by the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Gynecologic Oncology and Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Crane is a Clinical Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

For more information, visit https://www.azprecisionmed.com/tumor-type/ovarian-cancer/hrd-testing.html

For patient resources, please visit TestForHRD.com.

This podcast does not necessarily reflect the opinions of AstraZeneca and are the spokesperson's opinions and experience.

Dr. David O’Malley is a professor in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and the director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the OSUCCC – James.

Bobbie is a stage 3C ovarian cancer patient who lives in Rochester, New York. Bobbie is an animal rights activist, vegetarian, and exerciser who recently retired from the healthcare field, having worked as a registered nurse and owner of a healthcare staffing firm. Following her diagnosis in July of 2021, Bobbie participated in biomarker testing which indicated that she was breast cancer gene (BRCA) negative and homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) positive. After undergoing surgery and chemotherapy as first-line treatment, Bobbie’s oncologist explained that she was eligible for a poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor due to her HRD status and on March 7, 2022, Bobbie started on a PARP inhibitor for maintenance treatment. As she continues treatment in 2024, Bobbie celebrates over 45 years of marriage with her husband and looks forward to traveling the United States, reading good books, and spending time with her dogs.

For more information, visit https://www.azprecisionmed.com/tumor-type/ovarian-cancer/hrd-testing.html

For patient resources, please visit TestForHRD.com.

This podcast does not necessarily reflect the opinions of AstraZeneca and are the spokespeople's opinions and experiences.

At the EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium Gabriele Picco, PhD, Senior Staff Scientist in the Translational Cancer Genomics Team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute’s Genome Campus, reported findings about WRN resistance mechanisms that may clear the path to introducing WRN inhibitors to the cancer clinic to fight microsatellite unstable cancers. 

The ESMO 2024 Annual Congress heard from the randomized Phase II ImmunoCobiVem trial that a switch to immunotherapy after only 3 months treatment with drugs targeted to the mutation gave equivalent or better survival than continuing with targeted therapy.

The ESMO Tumour-Agnostic Classifier and Screener was the result of work by a multidisciplinary team of international experts led by the ESMO Precision Medicine Working Group. At the conference, Benedikt Westphalen, MD, a medical oncologist and molecular biologist who is Head of the Precision Oncology Program at the University of Munich in Germany, talked about the details with Oncology Times correspondent Peter Goodwin.

A multinational team of researchers, led from Italy, reported findings at the ESMO Congress 2024. There was a statistically significant increase in 36-month overall survival in patients treated with pembrolizumab, in addition to chemoradiotherapy, in comparison to those in the control group who received standard chemoradiation alone.

The tool creates a “digital twin” for each patient that makes it possible to predict response to specific treatment regimens and confidently predict outcomes, according to findings from a study reported by scientists at the EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium.

Lead author Ugnė Balaševičiūtė, a pre-doctoral researcher in Translational Research of the Hepatic Oncology Group led by Josep M. Llovet, Professor at the Institut D'Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) in Barcelona, Spain, reported that the CTNNB1 (catenin beta-1 protein) gene targeted by WNTinib was expressed in 90 percent of all hepatoblastomas. Hopes were high that a safer alternative to chemotherapy in humans was on the way.

In the SGNTUC-019 Phase II basket study of 217 patients, who had a variety of previously treated solid tumors with HER2 overexpressed, amplified, or mutated, a combination of tucatinib with trastuzumab brought significant clinical responses among those with biliary tract tumors in addition to those with breast cancer.

The findings were reported by Ben Tran, MBBS, FRACP, at the 2024 EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium held in Barcelona, Spain. Tran is a Medical Oncologist and Associate Professor at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Melbourne, Australia. He also is Chair of the Germ Cell Tumour Subcommittee for the Australian and New Zealand Urological and Prostate Cancer Trials.

At ESMO Congress 2024, the study also reported a low rate of interstitial lung disease in patients treated with the ADC. Oncology Times correspondent Peter Goodwin talked with Christina Teng, PhD, the presenting author of the new research from Scientia Clinical Research and the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, Australia.

Data on the biodistribution and tumor uptake of the drug were reported at the 2024 EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium held in Barcelona. Researcher Machaba Mike Sathekge, PhD, Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Pretoria and Steve Biko Academic Hospital in South Africa. He is also CEO of Nuclear Medicine Research Infrastructure and Chairman of the South African Medical Research Council.

At the conference, Oncology Times reporter, Peter Goodwin, caught up with James Larkin, FRCP, PhD, Professor and Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.

The study included patients from clinical trials and real-world studies who had pure immune checkpoint inhibitor neoadjuvant therapy, or combinations including BRAF/MEK targeted therapy. After giving her talk in Barcelona, lead investigator Georgina Long, AO, PhD, MBBS, FRACP, Professor and Co-Medical Director at the Melanoma Institute Australia, University of Sydney, gave Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin the details.

The CVGBM vaccine encodes multiple molecular features derived from tumor-associated antigens, all of which were judged to be potentially relevant in glioblastoma.

After reporting her group’s findings to the ESMO Barcelona meeting, first author Ghazaleh Tabatabai, MD, PhD, a neurologist, Professor of Neuro-Oncology, and Chair of the Department of Neurology and Interdisciplinary Neuro-Oncology at the University Hospital, Tübingen, Germany, talked about the findings with Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin.

At the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO) held in Xiamen, China, Rao gave Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin details of the molecular methods he had just outlined to the conference.

At a special session devoted to cardio-oncology held at the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO) 2024 Annual Meeting, the challenges of cardio-oncology were examined by a committee of experts with reference to the CSCO Clinical Practice Guide for Tumor Cardiology.

Among the speakers was cardiologist Yun-Long Xia, MD, PhD, FESC, FHRS, Head of Cardiovascular Medicine at Dalian Medical University in China. Afterward, he talked about their conclusions with Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin.

After his talk at CSCO, Dorigo told Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin about the promise cell therapies held for improving outcomes in ovarian cancer and other solid tumors, as well as the benefit of the exchange of ideas flowing between China, U.S., and other global players in this young science.

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin talked with Eva Blondeaux, MD, Medical Oncologist in the Epidemiology Unit at the IRCCS Ospedale Policlinico San Martino, Genoa, Italy, and the author of the study, after her presentation of the new data at the ESMO 2024 Congress.

In Barcelona, OncTimesTalk reporter Peter Goodwin met up with Fedro Peccatori, MD, PhD, Director of the Fertility and Procreation Unit in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the European Institute of Oncology, Milan, Italy, after he reported his group’s findings. “Breastfeeding in women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer who conceived after temporary interruption of endocrine therapy: Results from the POSITIVE trial,” Peccatori noted.

At the Chicago meeting, OncTimesTalk reporter Peter Goodwin met up with the lead author of the research, Jefferson DeKloe, BSc, from the Department of Otolaryngology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

Findings from a validation study in independent patient cohorts led by researchers from the Barts Cancer Institute at the Queen Mary University of London were reported at a poster session of the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Oncology Times correspondent Peter Goodwin attended the session and talked with the second author of the study, Weronika E. Borek PhD, a Bioinformatics Technical Lead at Kinomica Limited in London.

Furthermore, the study found a higher than previously reported negative interaction of PPI comedication on crystalline dasatinib bioavailability that may compromise clinical efficacy and risk CML disease progression.

The latest findings from the study were reported in a poster session at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting where Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin met up with Olof Harlin, PhD, of Xspray Pharma, based in Solna, near Stockholm, Sweden.

After the session, Oncology Times correspondent Peter Goodwin learned about more study details from Jean-Marc Classe, MD, PhD, Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgical Oncology in the Institut de Cancérologie de l'Ouest and Nantes University in Western France.

Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin met up in Chicago with the lead study author, Christian F. Singer MD, a gynecologist specializing in breast cancer at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the Medical University of Vienna, in Vienna, Austria.

After his session at ASCO, the lead author of NADINA, Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, from the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Antoni van Leeuwenhook Hospital, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, met up with Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin to discuss the findings.

For the Oncology Times podcast, OncTimesTalk, correspondent Peter Goodwin spoke with Joseph A. Greer, PhD, lead author of the study and Co-Director of the Cancer Outcomes Research and Education Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

First author Timothy Hughes MD, Consultant Hematologist with the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, and the University of Adelaide in Australia, reported higher efficacy in terms of major molecular responses and lower toxicity with asciminib. After his talk in Chicago, he met up with Oncology Times reporter, Peter Goodwin.

Lead author Jens Höppner FAChirg, FACS, MD, Director of the Department of Surgery in the University Medical Center at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, spoke with Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin about his group’s comparison of neoadjuvant therapy using the CROSS (41.4 Gy plus carboplatin/paclitaxel) regimen followed by surgery, with the use of an alternative protocol: perioperative FLOT (5-FU/ leucovorin/oxaliplatin/docetaxel) and surgery, in which chemotherapy is given both before and after curative surgery.

After announcing the results at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting, first author Giuseppe Curigliano, MD, PhD, Director of Early Drug Development for the Innovative Therapies Division of the European Institute of Oncology, discussed the findings with Oncology Times correspondent Peter Goodwin

During the conference, Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin met up with Peter Borchmann, MD, PhD, the lead author of the new research and Chair of the German Hodgkin Study Group at the University Hospital of Cologne in Germany.

Peter Goodwin was there for Oncology Times, where he talked with the lead author of the new research, David Spigel, MD, Chief Scientific Officer at Sarah Cannon Research Institute in Nashville, TN.

In Chicago, Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin met up with lead author of the LAURA study, Suresh S. Ramalingam MD, Executive Director of the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta.

At the AACR 2024 Annual Meeting in San Diego, Victor Velculescu, MD, PhD, Co-Director of the Cancer Genetics & Epigenetics Program at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, reported his group’s validation of the test that assesses the pattern of circulating fragments of tumor DNA, known as fragmentomes.

After discussing the findings at an AACR press briefing, Velculescu joined Peter Goodwin in the OncTimesTalk podcast studio to discuss the clinical implications.

After reporting his group’s early findings of AZD1390, an inhibitor of ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) kinase studied in 115 patients with recurrent or newly diagnosed glioblastoma, first author Jonathan T. Yang MD, PhD, previously from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and now at UW Medicine, stepped into the Oncology Times studio at the AACR conference to tell OncTimesTalk’s reporter Peter Goodwin about the safety of this new agent and the clinical value it could bring in glioblastoma.

The randomized study, led by the researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center, looked at a combination of the mRNA-based active cancer vaccine BI1361849 combined with the anti-PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab with or without the anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) checkpoint inhibitor tremelimumab immunotherapy.

After announcing the findings at the AACR, presenting author Dung-Tsa Chen, PhD, Senior Member in the Department of Biostatistics & Informatics, Special Clinical Trial Design, and Data Analysis at the Moffitt Cancer Center, called in to discuss the new data with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin.

After giving his talk in San Diego, lead author Sundar Jagannath MBBS, Professor of Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology and Director of the Center of Excellence for Multiple Myeloma at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, met up with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin to discuss the therapeutic progress the drug offers.

At the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 in San Diego, Peter Goodwin talked with Ajay Goel, PhD, AGAF, senior author of the study and Chair of the Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics in the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope in Los Angeles.

At the AACR Annual Meeting 2024, Olivier Lantz, MD, PhD, Head of the Clinical Immunology Laboratory at the Institut Curie Hospital in Paris, reported data using a “neoantigen-based vaccine” specifically designed to recognize multiple genetic features unique to each patient’s tumor. During the conference, Lantz called into the OncTimesTalk studio to tell Peter Goodwin about the clinical options that could develop from such highly personalized vaccines.

At the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference in Milan, Stefan Paepke, MD, from the Interdisciplinary Breast Centre at the Technical University of Munich in Germany, said the technique prevents the unnatural breast mobility patients can experience after reconstruction, sometimes called jumping breasts.

After reporting his group’s 24-month follow-up data from the prospective international mesh-supported, pre-pectoral breast reconstruction trial (PRO-Pocket Trial) at the conference, he discussed the findings with Peter Goodwin.

The trial findings were reported by Sophie Bosma, MD, PhD, Radiation Oncologist from The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam at the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference held in Milan. After her talk, she discussed the findings with Peter Goodwin.

The population-based Netherlands Cancer Registry retrospective cohort study of 25,719 women with DCIS diagnosed from 1989 up to 2021 (all of whom were treated with standard conservative therapy) found there were successes and limitations with the current standard of care for DCIS.

Surprisingly, long-term risk appeared to have been unrelated to tumor grade. Also, despite a continuing improvement in outcomes during this period, the investigators concluded that specific molecular predictors of outcome still needed to be identified to distinguish intrinsically low-risk tumors (that did not require even conservative therapy) from those that carry higher risk and are highly likely to benefit from breast-conserving surgery and radiotherapy.

After reporting the study findings in Milan, study author Adri Voogd, PhD, Associate Professor of Clinical Epidemiology in the Faculty of Health, Medicine, and Life Sciences at Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, discussed their clinical implications with Peter Goodwin.

Annemiek van Hemert, a Medical Doctor and PhD candidate at the Surgical Oncology Department of the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek-Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, reported her findings from a study using the MARI protocol (marking axillary lymph nodes with radioactive iodine seeds) that predicts cancer outcomes. The protocol was developed at the AVL Hospital in 2014 and is now being used in several Dutch hospitals.

After her session at the Milan conference, van Hemert talked with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin about the clinical implications of her group’s findings.

The researchers found that single-dose, MRI-guided, partial breast irradiation given before breast-conserving surgery achieved durable pathologic complete remissions in low-risk breast cancer, as well as held out the prospect of surgery-free treatment for some patients. 

After giving her talk in Milan, Civil discussed the details of the ABLATIVE study findings with Peter Goodwin.

These findings from a study reported at the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference were presented by Heather McArthur, MD, MPH, Clinical Director of Breast Cancer and Komen Distinguished Chair in Clinical Breast Research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

After McArthur’s talk in Italy, she shared the details with Peter Goodwin, OncTimesTalk correspondent.

At the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference, held in Milan, Italy, Laura van ’t Veer, PhD, Program Leader of the Breast Oncology Program at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, reported findings from the I-SPY2 TRIAL showing that analysis of “response predictive subtypes” identified a subset of patients with triple-negative early-stage breast cancers with a very low likelihood of response to neoadjuvant immunotherapy and can be spared potential toxicities.

After her talk in Milan, van ’t Veer called in to the OncTimesTalk studio to talk about the I-SPY findings with Peter Goodwin. 

The new research involved adding quizartinib that targets fms-related tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) oncogene. Mutations of FLT3 are present in nearly a third of all AML tumors. The internal tandem duplication mutation of FLT3, in particular, is associated with poor prognosis in AML. So, it was hypothesized that targeting FLT3 could help in treating FLT3-mutated AML.

First author Musa Yilmaz MD, Associate Professor in the Department of Leukemia at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been talking with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin. 

Noel Clarke, MBBS, FRCS, ChM, FRCS (Urol), Consultant Urological Surgeon and Professor of Urological Oncology at the Christie at Salford Royal Hospitals in Manchester, said the study is a multi-arm, multi-stage trial in which the current standard of care has continually been compared during the past 20 years with various candidate interventions tested against it. 

“Multiple thousands of patients have taken part in the trial,” Clarke said. “It has changed the standard of care serially in the last decade and has given a fantastic body of clinical and scientific material to work on, which helps us to understand prostate cancer, its natural history, the effect of different treatments, and the biology of prostate cancer, helping us to design future treatments.”

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin met up with Professor Clarke at his office in Manchester, England, and asked him about findings and clinical take-home messages that have come out of the STAMPEDE studies. They also discussed translational research the investigators are now conducting in their ongoing battle to fight prostate cancer.

First author Xiuning Le, MD, PhD, Associate Professor in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has been discussing her group’s findings with Peter Goodwin, an OncTimesTalk correspondent.

Revumenib acts on the hitherto untargeted histone-lysine N-methyltransferase 2A (KMT2A)-rearranged gene, which is present in around 1 in 10 acute leukemias among patients of all ages. The drug inhibits the interaction of the protein menin (associated with tumor suppression) and the KMT2A-fusion protein, which is believed to be an oncogenic driver in leukemias.

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin heard the latest from lead study author Ibrahim Aldoss, MD, Associate Professor in the Division of Leukemia of the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation at the City of Hope, after his report to the 65th ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition.

At the ESMO Congress 2023 held in Madrid, Spain, Mary McCormack, PhD, MBBS, FRCR, Consultant Clinical Oncologist at University College London Hospitals, reported findings from the GCIG INTERLACE randomized Phase III trial of induction chemotherapy. This involved the use of carboplatin with paclitaxel for 6 weeks immediately before standard chemoradiotherapy.

After the conference, OncTimesTalk’s correspondent Peter Goodwin visited McCormack to find out more about the clinical implications arising from the INTERLACE study.

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin talked with Satoru Miura, MD, from the Niigata Cancer Center Hospital in Japan, after he reported his findings at the ESMO meeting.

This clear message comes from the randomized Phase III LIBRETTO-431 study reported at ESMO Congress 2023 by Herbert Ho Fung Loong, MBBS, FRCP, Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Oncology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in China.

After his talk in Madrid, OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter M. Goodwin talked with him about the study findings and clinical implications, as well as selpercatinib’s role in the landscape of cancer treatments along with other targeted therapies, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy.

After the conference, OncTimesTalk’s Peter M. Goodwin travelled to Manchester, England, to discuss the RADICALS study with lead author Noel Clarke, MBBS, FRCS, ChM, Chair of Urological Oncology at Manchester University and the Christie Hospital in Manchester.

At the 2023 AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, Jun Ishihara, PhD, a lecturer at London’s Imperial College reported on a protein bioengineering approach in which IL/12 is bound to collagen from the extracellular matrix of the tumor. This targets the cytokine’s action to operate specifically on cancer while hopefully avoiding most of the off-target toxicities previously observed with unbound IL/12. 

After the conference, OncTimesTalk’s Peter Goodwin called to see him at his London laboratory.

Patients who achieved molecular residual disease (MRD) negativity in their peripheral blood were at low risk of relapse, and had no benefit from allogeneic transplant in CR1, including those with the FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) internal tandem duplication mutation of the NPM1 (nucleophosmin 1) gene, that is generally considered to be a marker of poor risk.

Peter Goodwin spoke with Jad Othman, MBBS, from King's College London and the Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, and now based at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia. Othman explained how testing for the FLT3 mutation of the NPM1 gene can be used along with assessment of molecular MRD to help choose patients who can benefit from transplant and spare those for whom the risk/benefit ratio is adverse.

After the conference OncTimes Talk’s Peter Goodwin travelled to Manchester, England, to discuss the RADICALS study with lead author Noel Clarke, MBBS, FRCS, ChM, FRCS, Chair of Urological Oncology at Manchester University and the Christie Hospital.

At the 2023 AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, Jun Ishihara, PhD, from London’s Imperial College, reported on a protein bioengineering approach in which IL/12 is bound to collagen from the extra cellular matrix of the tumor. This targets the cytokine’s action to operate specifically on the cancer while hopefully avoiding most of the off-target toxicities previously observed with unbound IL/12. 

After the conference, OncTimes Talk’s Peter Goodwin discussed this new research on a call with Ishihara.

Presenting author Xiuning Le, MD, PhD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, has been talking with OncTimes Talk’s Peter Goodwin about her group’s study in which osimertinib was combined with the MET-tyrosine kinase inhibitor tepotinib in patients who tested positive for MET-amplification.

Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, talks with OncTimes Talk’s Peter Goodwin about her group’s Nautilus phase 1b/2 study that added an oral histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi), bocodepsin, to therapy with a mitogen-activated protein kinase enzyme (MEK) inhibitor, binimetinib, to target the RAS-pathway in solid tumors.

The researchers found the combination of bocodepsin and binimetinib was tolerable in patients with RAS-mutated advanced cancers with manageable adverse events, and that this combination brought clinical responses indicating a potential benefit for patients who have failed immunotherapy.

Today on OncTimes Talk, we interview Dr. Christina Glytsou, lead author of the study, and discuss the reasons behind leukemia cells’ resistance to venetoclax, a BH3 mimetic drug that promotes cancer cell death in individuals with AML. Dr. Glytsou holds a joint appointment as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Biology at the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy of Rutgers University and the Department of Pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She is a member of Cancer Metabolism & Immunology and the Cancer Pharmacology Programs, at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Dr. Glytsou’s laboratory aims to address fundamental questions unravelling the role of mitochondrial biology in blood malignancies’ progression and drug resistance.

OncTimesTalk reporter, Peter Goodwin, asked David Cameron, MD, about his group’s findings on the effectiveness of T-DXd in ER-low metastatic breast cancer, and about the context and overall potential of using antibody drug conjugates in breast cancer. Cameron is Professor of Oncology at Edinburgh University and a joint lead for the Edinburgh Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre.

First author of the study, Laura Vuduc from the Department of Applied Mathematics at CentraleSupélec, Paris-Saclay University in Gif-sur-Yvette near Paris, France, talked about the importance of this new development with OncTimesTalk correspondent, Peter Goodwin.

In this edition of OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin hears about axillary dissection in older women with clinically node-negative breast cancer from Mariam Rana, MD, FRCSC, Oncology Surgeon with the University of Saskatchewan in Canada College of Medicine, in discussion with Robert Hills, DPhil, Chair of Medical Statistics at Oxford University Nuffield Department of Population Health, who leads the secretariat for the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group.

They discuss Rana’s ASCO poster that found the omission of axillary surgery to stage the axilla may be associated with a higher risk of overall mortality in older women with early-stage breast cancer, compared to those who have this surgery.

Study researchers at the University of Catania suggested tumor heterogeneity was a big reason why markers like PR and HER2 were being missed that subsequently turned up in surgical specimens. But biopsy technique was also an issue, they concluded.

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin caught up with one of the study authors, Federica Martorana, Assistant Professor of Medical Oncology. Together with lead author Sabrina Nucera from the University of Messina, and their co-authors, she said they retrospectively analyzed data from samples—collected over a 10 year period—for which both biopsy and surgical specimens were available.

They excluded patients receiving neoadjuvant therapy and looked for differences in the detection of estrogen and progesterone receptors plus Ki67, as well as HER2 score, tumor grade, and intrinsic subtype. As a result, they had to re-classify 25 out of 61 cases of luminal B-like breast cancer that turned out mostly to be luminal A, with three of them being triple-positive.

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin discusses the findings with senior author of the study, Dominik Dannehl, MD, a physician at the Department of Women's Health, Tübingen University Hospital, in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

“These results indicate perioperative pembrolizumab given in combination with chemotherapy prior to surgery and for up to one year as a single agent after surgery led to significant improvement in event-free survival (defined by local progression precluding definitive surgery, recurrence, or death) with a strong trend towards improvement in overall survival. These results indicate peri-operative pembrolizumab significantly improves outcomes for patients with potentially resectable Stage II-III NSCLC,” said Wakelee. After her talk at ASCO, she discussed her group’s findings with OncTimesTalk correspondent, Peter Goodwin.

In a late-breaking abstract reported at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting Plenary Session, Herbst showed that osimertinib not only improved disease-free survival, but also brought a clear and big benefit in overall survival.

The results of a long-term clinical trial showed electronic nudges delivered to health care clinicians based on a machine learning algorithm that predicts mortality risk quadrupled rates of conversations with patients about their end-of-life care preferences (JAMA Oncol 2023; doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2022.6303). The study, published by Penn Medicine investigators, also found that the machine learning-triggered reminders significantly decreased use of aggressive chemotherapy and other systemic therapies at end of life.

Oncology Times interviewed study author Ravi B. Parikh, MD, about the results. Parikh is an oncologist and Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Associate Director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation at Abramson Cancer Center.

To get the full picture on how gynecologists and oncologists today are navigating screening guidelines and new treatment options with their patients, Oncology Times interviewed Deanna Gerber, MD, an obstetrics and gynecology specialist at NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center. Gerber treats women who have cancer of the reproductive tract and who have been diagnosed with a genetic mutation that increases their risk of gynecologic cancer. She offers preventive treatments and risk-reducing surgery as a routine part of her care approach. She discussed how oncologists can approach conversations around screening and address the issue of screening overuse and underuse.

First author of this new research, Mark Litzow, MD, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, talked with journalist Peter Goodwin at the ASH Annual Meeting. They discussed the use of blinatumomab in patients whose initial therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia had achieved minimum residual disease—MRD (Abstract LBA-1).

Next, researchers explored the potential of using genomic DNA and RNA profiles in a machine-learning algorithm to predict which patients with acute myeloid leukemia or advanced myelodysplastic syndrome will respond to venetoclax-based therapy (Abstract 2789). Maher Albitar, MD, discussed the findings.

Moving on, the downside of curative therapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma was under discussion at ASH. The conference heard about “epigenetic age” and neurocognitive function in young adults previously treated for Hodgkin's disease. OncTimes Talk correspondent Peter Goodwin asked first author of a report on this, Annalynn M. Williams, PhD, from the University of Rochester, in New York, about the impact of standard treatments on the subsequent lives of children (Abstract 902).

Finally, we interviewed James McCloskey, MD, from the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center, about the results of the V-Mast study showing the value of combining CPX-351 with midostaurin for high-risk acute myeloid leukemia. In this Phase III study in older adults with newly diagnosed, high-risk/secondary AML, CPX-351 significantly improved overall survival and remission rates versus conventional 7+3 chemotherapy, with a comparable safety profile (Abstract 1436).

PRGN-3006 UltraCAR-T is a multigenic autologous chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T simultaneously expressing a CAR specifically targeting CD33; membrane bound IL-15 (mbIL15) for enhanced in vivo expansion and persistence; and a kill switch to conditionally eliminate CAR-T cells for an improved safety profile. CD33 is over-expressed on AML blasts with lesser expression on normal hematopoietic stem cells. PRGN-3006 UltraCAR-T drug product is manufactured via an overnight process at medical centers using the Company's proprietary non-viral and UltraPorator systems and released for infusion in patients the next day. The decentralized, overnight UltraCAR-T manufacturing process, which does not use viral vectors or ex vivo activation and expansion of T cells, has the potential to address major limitations of current T cell therapies. PRGN-3006 UltraCAR-T has been granted Orphan Drug Designation and Fast Track Designation in patients with AML by the FDA.

The Phase I/Ib clinical study is designed to enroll in two phases, an initial dose escalation phase followed by a dose expansion phase, to evaluate safety and determine the recommended Phase II dose of PRGN-3006 delivered via intravenous (IV) infusion without lymphodepletion (Cohort 1) or with lymphodepletion (Cohort 2). The study is also evaluating in vivo persistence and anti-tumor activity of PRGN-3006.

Today on OncTimes Talk, we interview Anil K. Rustgi, MD, on the current state of colorectal cancer screening, advancements in non-invasive testing, and the mechanisms behind early-onset colorectal cancer.

In addition to being a world-renowned leader in the field of gastrointestinal oncology, Rustgi is the Director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. His research focuses on tumor initiation, the tumor microenvironment, and tumor metastasis in gastrointestinal cancers.

Marco Tagliamento, PhD student, medical oncologist, and research fellow at the Gustave Roussy Institute, France, told the symposium about study findings from the large Gustave Roussy Molecular Tumor Board dataset able to identify genetic mutations involved in clonal hematopoiesis. Tagliamento told the conference 113 patients—8 percent of their total—were found to have had at least one clonal hematopoiesis mutation that could be considered to place them at higher risk of developing hematologic malignancies.

“Out of these patients, 45 were referred to our hematology unit by their oncologist and five were subsequently diagnosed with blood cancer: one with myelomonocytic leukemia, two with myelodysplastic syndrome and two with essential thrombocythemia,” Tagliamento told the symposium.

Journalist Peter Goodwin briefly interviewed Tagliamento on his findings at EORTC-NCI-AACR.

Nearly a quarter of the patients treated with the AKT blocker had their tumors shrink. These included patients with breast, endometrial, and salivary gland cancers. Tumors remained stable in just over half of the remaining patients. The presenting author at the Barcelona symposium, Carolyn McCourt, MD, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis, talked with OncTimes Talk reporter Peter Goodwin.

What is the underlying cause of disparities in breast cancer? It comes down to a variety of factors, from screening disparities and clinical trial participation to differences in genetics and biology. Today on OncTimes Talk, we sit down with Lisa A. Newman, MD, MPH, FACS, FASCO, to discuss each of these categories and explore how oncologists and the medical community at large can finally close the gap.

Newman is a world-renowned surgical oncologist and was appointed Chief of the Section of Breast Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Weill Cornell Medicine. She also leads the multidisciplinary breast oncology programs at the NewYork-Presbyterian David H. Koch Center, providing compassionate care to breast cancer patients. Newman’s primary research has focused on ethnicity-related variation in breast cancer risk and management of high-risk patients.

Later in the episode, we interview Deborah Mukherji, MD, MBBS, FRCP, at the American University of Beirut to discuss the experiences of refuges in Syria and Lebanon and how humanitarian and health agencies around the world can better serve displaced people.

To understand these factors more, Oncology Times interviewed Clara N. Lee, MD, Associate Professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Lee’s clinical practice focuses on breast reconstruction and microvascular surgery and her research focuses on understanding and improving how people with cancer make decisions about surgery. She recently authored a paper titled “The Role of Emotion in Cancer Surgery Decisions: Applying Concepts From Decision Psychology” published in the Annals of Surgery (2021; doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000004574). She has expertise in patient-reported outcomes for breast reconstruction and patient decision-making about breast cancer treatments. We discussed a bit of her research into the emotional journeys of patients who are deciding whether to proceed with contralateral prophylactic mastectomy

To discuss some of these impending changes and what oncologists and patients can do to prepare, Oncology Times interviewed Robert A. Hiatt, MD, PhD, Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, and Associate Director of Population Sciences at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The recharged Cancer Moonshot calls for a bipartisan across-the-board, all-hands-on-deck U.S. effort, which includes establishing a “Cancer Cabinet” consisting of the heads of major government agencies. Biden is asking Congress to approve $6 billion net new money to advance promising new treatments.

In a press briefing in early February, Candace Johnson, PhD, the President and CEO of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center discussed the reinvigorated Moonshots program with Congressman Brian Higgins (D-NY 26th District). Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center will benefit from the newly announced federal Cancer Moonshot Initiative and Representative Brian Higgins said the center was selected because of its extraordinary background in cancer research and treatment.

Primary Analysis of ZUMA-7
The 2021 American Society of Hematology Plenary Sessions in Atlanta, Georgia, heard data from a new study of CAR-T cell therapy in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: the Phase III randomized ZUMA-7 trial. This compared Axicabtagene Ciloleucel (Axi-Cell) with the current standard-of-care in patients whose disease had relapsed or was refractory after first-line therapy.

After the talk, Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin caught up with the lead investigator Frederick Locke, MD, Co-Leader of the Immuno-Oncology Program, and Vice Chair of the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL.

How Patients with AML & MDS Respond to COVID Vaccines
ASH 2021 held a cluster of sessions devoted to coronavirus infection in patients with hematologic malignancies.

Since cancer patients in general are at higher risk from COVID-19 than the general population, it has become vitally important to know whether vaccines can protect them.

Vaccine responses in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia have been investigated by a team led by Jeffrey Lancet, MD, Chair of Malignant Hematology at the Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida.

Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin asked him about his findings.

Antibody Response to Vaccination

Whether or not to vaccinate your patient for COVID-19 may not be obvious in some clinical situations, and in hematologic malignancy this cannot be assumed.

At ASH, German investigator Susanne Saussele, MD, reported her group’s findings about vaccination responses in patients with a range of myeloid and lymphoid malignancies. She is Head of the CML Excellence Center III. Medizinische Klinik, Hematology and Oncology at the University of Mannheim in Mannheim, Germany.

First up, we hear from radiation oncologist Stephen Hahn, MD, who was the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Commissioner from 2019 to 2021—where he oversaw all manner of regulations concerning COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. In his 2021 address at the World Cancer Leaders' Summit, Hahn discussed "What can we learn from the development of COVID-19 vaccines." During the summit, leading cancer decision-makers from about a hundred countries met online to assess whether innovations generated during the pandemic of COVID-19 could be harnessed to improve cancer treatment and prevention. Journalist Peter Goodwin was curious to know about decision-making at the FDA during this crucial period of American history.

Next, from Mumbai, India—there's news that the new adjuvant radiotherapy standard of care for cervical cancer—image-guided intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IG-IMRT)—should cut late gastrointestinal (GI) toxicity rates by 50 percent. This according to mature results from the Phase III, randomized Postoperative Adjuvant Radiation in Cervical Cancer (PARCER) study.

Although IG-IMRT is a newer—more costly—form of radiotherapy that has already been shown to reduce early toxicity rates to some extent when compared with conventional three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT), up until now it had not been shown to outperform the older technique either in terms of medium-term toxicity or anti-cancer activity.

The PARCER findings, however, demonstrate clear superiority for long term GI toxicity. They confirm equivalent anti-neoplastic efficacy.

Peter Goodwin interviewed first author Supriya Chopra MD, DNB, from the Tata Memorial Centre’s Homi Bhabha National Institute in Kharghar near Mumbai, India. She discusses the strong mandate that the study has brought for choosing IG-IMRT adjuvant radiotherapy for patients with early cervical cancer in whom surgery is needed.

Lastly, The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us a lot about cancer care—according to one of India's most prominent oncologists, C.S. Pramesh, MS FRCS, Director of the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai, India. He also spoke at the 2021 World Cancer Leaders’ Summit, organized by the Union for International Cancer Control, and hosted virtually by the American Society for Clinical Pathology. After the meeting OncTimes Talk reporter Peter Goodwin caught up with him to ask for his take on the impact the pandemic has had on cancer medicine, and about his views on how to improve medical practice and cope better with future crises.

The importance of this Californian study is that up until now we've mainly relied on phase three study results to assess vaccine efficacy. This study (and another, even bigger one in Chile—with the CoronaVac) brings much greater statistical significance to the outcome findings and makes it possible to look at subgroups.

In this episode, Lead author Dr. Sara Y Tartof, a Research Scientist Epidemiologist with Kaiser Permanente Department of Research & Evaluation in Southern California discusses the implications for vaccination programs with Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin.

New clinical findings on:
Nivolumab in gastro-esophageal cancer, CDK4/6 inhibition for breast cancer, COVID-19 vaccination limitations, sitagliptin/graft-versus-host disease, breast cancer individualization, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy for rectal cancer.
Featuring:
Ronan Kelly (Austin TX), Erica Mayer (Boston MA), Sibylle Loibl (Frankfurt, Germany), Shabir Madhi (Johannesburg South Africa) and Thierry Conroy (Nancy, France).

Interviews in this edition:

Ronan J Kelly MD MBA, Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas
Adjuvant Nivolumab “Practice Changing” in Resected Gastroesophageal Cancer
Ronan Kelly tells OncTimesTalk about a big reduction in the risk of death, and doubling of median disease-free survival, from using nivolumab as adjuvant therapy for patients with esophageal, and gastro-esophageal junction, cancers after
chemoradiotherapy plus surgery in the placebo-controlled phase-three CheckMate 577 study.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032125

Erica L. Mayer MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA
Palbociclib Added No Benefit to Breast Cancer Adjuvant Endocrine Therapy
Erica Mayer discusses the PALLAS study findings with OncTimesTalk that adding the CDK 4/6 inhibitor palbociclib to endocrine therapy failed to improve invasive disease-free survival among patients with early breast cancer despite its proven efficacy in metastatic disease.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(20)30642-2/fulltext

Breast Cancer: A Guide to Therapy Individualization 
Sibylle Loibl, Professor of Obstretrics and Gynaecology, University of Frankfurt, CEO and Chair, German Breast Group.
Sibylle Loibl discusses her expert panel’s findings with OncTimesTalk about optimizing the many powerful methods for managing breast cancer to individualize treatment. “Future research in breast cancer will focus not only on new drugs, but even more on the individualization of therapy for every single tumor in every single patient,” she wrote in “The Lancet”.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32381-3/fulltext

Sherif S. Farag MD PHD, Director of the Stem Cell Transplant and Cellular Therapy, Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis
Sitagliptin Reduced Graft Versus Host Disease in Stem Cell Transplantation
A non-randomized 36-patient phase-two clinical study found a big reduction in acute graft-versus-host disease after adding the dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor sitagliptin (a long established antiglycemic agent) to immunosuppression for allogeneic stem-cell transplantation.  Sherif Farag discusses the study findings with OncTimesTalk.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2027372

Shabir A. Madhi PhD, Professor of Vaccinology and Director of the Vaccines & Infectious Diseases Analytics Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Co-Director of African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise.
SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Was Ineffective Against B.1.351 (“South African”) Variant
A “first-generation” vaccine for COVID-19 failed to prevent mild or moderate disease caused by the B.1.351 coronavirus variant in South Africa in a randomized, double-blind, controlled trial of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine among relatively young adults. Shabir Madhi tells OncTimesTalk, however, that vaccination with such first-generation vaccines should still protect against severe disease and death from the new variant because T-cell responses had been preserved in the South African variant.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214

Thierry Conroy MD, Professor, Department of Medical Oncology, Institut de Cancérologie de Lorraine, 54519 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, France
Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Before Preoperative Chemoradiotherapy in Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer
A multi-center, randomized, open-label, phase-three trial has shown that outcomes for patients with rectal cancer can be improved still further by using neoadjuvant chemotherapy before the current standard of care (chemo-radiotherapy and surgery).  Professor Thierry Conroy, from the Cancer Institute in Nancy, gives OncTimesTalk the details on why they decided to try an additional treatment and the benefit it brought.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(21)00079-6/fulltext

Here’s why he says that work will help cancer patients at MSKCC and beyond.

Listen to what he told OT are the trends in palliative care he sees in practice.

He shared with OT the key clinical implications for oncologists and the whole cancer care team.

Hear his chat with OT Contributing Writer and “Practice Matters” blogger Lola Butcher.

Jorge Cortes of M. D. Anderson Cancer Center on three different ASH papers by his group looking at alternatives to standard imatinib in CML. Jane Apperley of Hammersmith Hospital and Imperial College London, reflects on these, and discusses strategies for dealing with imatinib resistance.

OT Broadcast News Scientific Editor George Canellos of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on what some were jokingly calling a re-run of World War II that took place in the Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma session: R-CHOP 14 vs R-CHOP 21 in elderly patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Andrzej Jakubowiak of the University of Michigan discusses a 4-drug regimen to treat newly diagnosed multiple myeloma....Ruben Niesvizky of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City on the novel proteasome inhibitor carfilzomib, used in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone to treat relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. OT interviewers: Peter Goodwin and Sarah Maxwell.

Massimo Martelli of University of Perugia on infused donor T-regulatory cells to prevent graft-vs-host-disease in patients with leukemia & lymphoma; comments from Armand Keating of the University of Toronto.

Mathias Rummel of University Hospital in Germany on using bendamustine rather than CHOP combined with rituximab for treating indolent lymphomas—front-line. Commenting: Dr. Canellos and Richard Van Etten of Tufts University.

Eduardo Rego of the University of Sao Paolo on his networking between North and South America to improve treatment of APL in developing countries. Adding their thoughts: Dr. Canellos and Richard Larson of the University of Chicago. OT Interviewers: Peter Goodwin and Sarah Maxwell.

Maria-Victoria Mateos of Salamanca University in Spain on melphalan as the better partner drug for bortezomib in multiple myeloma; Commentary Dr. Canellos and Jesus San-Miguel, also of Salamanca, and Richard Van Etten of Tufts University.

Steven Devine of Ohio State University on T-cell depletion to avoid GVHD in AML; commentary from Dr. Canellos and Armand Keating of the University of Toronto.

Srdan Verstovsek, also of M. D. Anderson, on JAK signaling inhibition as a treatment for myelofibrosis; Commentary from Richard Larson of University of Chicago and Dr. Canellos.