Clinical Updates & Insights

Our clinical updates provide you with timely information about Memorial Sloan Kettering’s new treatment approaches, key clinical trials, and innovations in detecting and treating many cancers.

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236 Clinical Updates found
Severity of COVID-19 in Patients with Lung Cancer: Not Driven by Cancer or Cancer Treatments

Our study, published recently in the Annals of Oncology, suggests that the greatest determinants of COVID-19 severity were patient features and comorbidities, such as a history of heavy smoking and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
T cell attacking cancer cells
CAR T Update Part 1: Learning and Opportunities in Hematologic Cancers

In our paper, published recently in the journal Expert Review of Hematology, we review the main challenges with current CD19-targeted CAR, obstacles to adopting CAR T cell therapy in solid tumors, and various strategies scientists are pursuing to overcome these issues.
https://www.mskcc.org/clinical-updates/car-update-part-1-learning-and-opportunities-hematologic
CAR T Update Part 2: Challenges and Opportunities in Solid Tumors

This CAR T Update Part 2 summarizes the unique challenges with using CARS to defeat solid tumors, and how learning from preclinical and clinical research in hematologic malignancies is informing new strategies and research efforts.
Bill Tap, Chief of MSK's Sarcoma Medical Oncology Service
Combination Immunotherapy Meets Primary Endpoint in Phase II Clinical Trial in Advanced Sarcoma

The combination immunotherapy of talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) and pembrolizumab met its primary endpoint of objective response rate at 24 weeks in our phase II clinical trial in patients with advanced sarcoma.
Surgery at MSK
Best Practices for Managing Cancer Surgery during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Memorial Sloan Kettering has convened a COVID-19 Operating Room Executive Committee to scrutinize all surgical cases and determine whether they were truly essential and to review needs, resources, and ICU availability.
CAR T cells attacking cancer
CAR T Cell Therapy Should Proceed During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Treatment with chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy should proceed in patients with B cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas and B cell acute lymphocytic leukemia, despite Covid-19 according to the CAR T Cell Consortium, a collaboration of investigators from eight U.S. academic institutions.
Breast radiation therapy
Evidence-Based Approaches to Defer or Shorten Breast Radiotherapy during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, a team of radiation oncologists specializing in breast cancer management at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center reviewed the literature and established recommendations for the safe use of hypofractionated and abbreviated radiation regimens for our patients with breast cancer.
Patient in scanner
Managing Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer with Short-Course Radiation Therapy During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The pandemic has raised important issues for clinicians, and, after weighing the risks and benefits, the Colorectal Disease Management Team at MSK decided that all patients with locally advanced colorectal cancer will be treated with short-course radiation therapy rather than standard long-course chemoradiation therapy.
Babak J. Mehrara, MD
The Best Preoperative Assessment Tools for Patients Undergoing Surgery for Secondary Upper Extremity Lymphedema

For the past five years, we have prospectively evaluated patients with secondary lymphedema of the upper extremity who presented for surgical consultation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK).
T Cell attacking cancer cell
CAR T May Be Beneficial and Safe in Older Patients with Relapsed/Refractory LBCL and Geriatric Vulnerabilities

Older, vulnerable patients with relapsed/refractory large B cell lymphoma should receive the same consideration for CAR T cell therapy as younger patients.