ASCO 2015 Highlights

Generic medicines are the backbone of the US prescription drug market, supplying more than 9 out of every 10 prescriptions. And the production of generic medicines overall has been remarkably stable—even during challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

At the 10th Annual Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation Conference, Rachna Shroff, MD, MS, Chief, Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, and Director, Clinical Trials Office, University of Arizona Cancer Center, Tucson, and Madhulika Eluri, MD, Hematology/Oncology Fellow, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, debated whether chemotherapy remains the backbone for cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) treatment or if it is time to move away from this therapeutic strategy.

On July 19, 2023, an EF3 tornado touched down in Rocky Mount, NC, badly damaging a Pfizer drug manufacturing facility that is responsible for producing nearly 25% of Pfizer’s sterile injectable medicines used in US hospitals.

Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) can prevent several types of cancer, including cervical, oral/oropharyngeal, penile, and anal cancers. Unfortunately, vaccination rates, as well as public knowledge regarding the link between HPV and these cancers, are lagging, according to research presented during the 2023 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.

An April 4, 2023, Medical Group Management Association Stat poll found that almost one-half (47%) of medical group leaders have added or created part-time or flexible-schedule physician roles in the past year, while 53% did not.

A new study has found that partners of colorectal cancer survivors experienced long-term financial toxicity that was associated with worse health-related quality of life due to systems- and individual-level behavioral factors.

National Black Family Cancer Awareness Week will be held June 15, 2023, through June 21, 2023.

During the 2023 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting, researchers presented results from a phase 2b clinical trial demonstrating significant improvement in recurrence-free survival in patients with high-risk melanoma who were treated with a combination of an investigational personalized mRNA-based vaccine plus the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda), compared with pembrolizumab alone.

In a session during the 2023 National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference, Deborah M. Stephens, DO, provided important updates to treatment recommendations for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), and identified key factors for selecting frontline and subsequent therapies, including IGHV gene status, 17p deletion/TP53 mutation status, age, patient comorbidities, and resistance mutations.

Surgery is typically the gold standard for patients with biopsy-proven, clear cell, renal cell carcinoma with no evidence of metastatic disease, said Eric Jonasch, MD, in a session during the 2023 National Comprehensive Cancer Network Conference. In this setting, there is probably not a role for systemic neoadjuvant treatment, as response rates of 15% to 45% have been recorded with axitinib (Inlyta), sunitinib (Sutent), and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors.