Oncology Times - OncTimes Talk

In this episode of OncTimes Talk, we chat with Tom Hulsey—athlete, author, and prostate cancer survivor—about the life-altering moment he received his diagnosis on his birthday, and how it set him on a path of resilience, advocacy, and renewed purpose. Tom opens up about the emotional toll of staying silent, the power of mindset in healing, and how facing both cancer and heart disease reshaped his...

In this third episode of the OncoExTra® podcast series, host Ruchika Talwar, MD, talks with Christy Russell, MD, Vice President of Medical Affairs at Exact Sciences, about what oncologists can expect when they receive their OncoExTra comprehensive genomic profiling test results, and how they can utilize the report and tap into Exact Sciences' skilled support team to develop a plan of action for th...

In this episode of OncTimes Talk, we chat with Sami Mansfield, ACSM-CET, PN1, the founder of Cancer Wellness for Life, an organization dedicated to developing, implementing, and optimizing exercise oncology and lifestyle medicine programs and resources for hospitals, healthcare organizations, pharmaceutical companies, nonprofits, and individuals impacted by cancer. cancerwellnessforlife.com

In this episode of OncTimes Talk, we chat with Katie Coleman. Diagnosed with an ultra-rare stage IV kidney cancer in 2020 , her prognosis had a chance to significantly change after six months. Since then, Katie has since become an Author, founded a non-profit organization, and has become a podcast host—all with the goal of giving back to cancer research.   Katiekickscancer.com

In this podcast episode, host Ruchika Talwar, MD, is joined by Amin Mazloom, PhD, Senior Vice President of Bioinformatics, Biostatistics & Data Innovation, and Janine LoBello, DO, Senior Clinical Laboratory Medical Director at Exact Sciences to discuss patient-matched tumor-normal (PMTN) sequencing and why it matters for oncologists. Drs. Mazloom and LoBello discuss PMTN sequencing as a gold stand...

In this episode, Dr. Ruchika Talwar, a urologic oncologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Dr. Adham Jurdi, a medical oncologist and Senior Director of Oncology at Natera, delve into the groundbreaking world of tumor-informed molecular residual disease testing. Discover how circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is revolutionizing cancer detection and treatment, providing real-time insights that s...

In this episode of the OncTimes Talk, we chat with Susan MacDonald, MD, Associate Professor and Program Director of the Department of Urology at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, in Hershey, PA. 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, a...

Masood Moghul, MBBS, a urologist and Research Fellow at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research in London shared findings from a study investigating a mobile, targeted, case-finding approach to prostate cancer detection with 3,379 patients.   Moghul told the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco how the study add...

At the 2025 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, researchers from Japan reported marked differences between the populations of several key microbial species in the gut microbiomes of patients with metastatic prostate cancer that distinguished them from those with non-metastatic disease. This was in the PROMISE-JAPAN study with 869 Japanese patients.   After talking about his group’s ne...

At the 2025 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, the Phase III AFU-GETUG-20 trial reported that adjuvant androgen deprivation therapy did not improve outcomes when added to surgery for patients with high-risk prostate cancer. Using 2 years of androgen deprivation therapy after radical prostatectomy in high-risk patients with undetectable postoperative PSA did not significantly im...

A numerical formula called the absolute percentage pattern 4/5 (APP4) combining risk factors, including Gleason grade, PSA, and digital rectal examination, is being used to select patients whose intermediate risk prostate cancer can safely be followed with active surveillance.   A research study using APP4 was reported at the 2025 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. First a...

Masood Moghul, MBBS, a urologist and research fellow at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK, discussed his group’s findings from the Man Van study investigating a mobile, targeted, case-finding approach to prostate cancer detection with 3,379 patients conducted in Greater London.   Moghul told the 2025 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Fra...

In the third episode of A Deep Dive Into HRD Testing in Ovarian Cancer, a three-part podcast series sponsored by AstraZeneca, we’re speaking with Dr. David O’Malley, and Bobbie R, an ovarian cancer patient. Dr. O’Malley will highlight how HRD testing empowers ovarian cancer patients to make more informed decisions with their doctors to help guide their treatment journey, and Bobb...

In the second episode of A Deep Dive into HRD Testing in Ovarian Cancer, a three-part podcast series sponsored by AstraZeneca, we’re speaking with Dr. Erin Crane who will highlight how HRD testing provides helpful information to ovarian cancer patients.   Erin K. Crane, MD, MPH, is a gynecologic oncologist with Atrium Health Levine Cancer in Charlotte, North Carolina. A graduate of the...

In the first episode of A Deep Dive into HRD Testing in Ovarian Cancer, a three-part podcast series sponsored by AstraZeneca, we’re speaking with Dr. Kathleen Moore about HRD testing in ovarian cancer and its clinical significance in helping aid precision medicine approaches.   Dr. Kathleen Moore is a Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center...

The pivotal role of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) checkpoint inhibition for treating advanced melanoma has been confirmed in findings from the KEYNOTE-006 study comparing the anti-PD-L1 antibody pembrolizumab immunotherapy with the anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) drug ipilimumab for treating patients with unresectable advanced or metastatic melanoma. Results from the...

Although one in five colorectal cancers having microsatellite instability and expressing the Werner Helicase (WRN) gene could be treated with drugs that inhibit WRN, the effectiveness of such an approach has been limited by resistance. However, researchers identified the Cys727 mutation as being solely responsible for WRN inhibitor resistance. This potentially opens the door to using WRN inhibitor...

A tumor-agnostic classifier and screening tool was announced at ESMO Congress 2024 in Barcelona. It was created to make it easier and quicker to develop new drugs that have specific molecular targets, and thus have potential anti-cancer efficacy irrespective of tumor type or location. The ESMO Tumour-Agnostic Classifier and Screener was the result of work by a multidisciplinary team of internation...

Findings from a study of patients receiving targeted therapy for their BRAFV600 mutation-positive advanced melanoma, suggest that switching early to immune checkpoint inhibition appeared to bring better rates of overall survival than saving immunotherapy for use as salvage treatment later on. The ESMO 2024 Annual Congress heard from the randomized Phase II ImmunoCobiVem trial that a switch to immu...

The pivotal role of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) checkpoint inhibition for treating advanced melanoma has been confirmed in findings from the KEYNOTE-006 study comparing the anti-PD-L1 antibody pembrolizumab immunotherapy with the anti-cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) drug ipilimumab for treating patients with unresectable advanced or metastatic melanoma. Results from the...

A clinically meaningful benefit in overall survival was found in the second interim analysis of the randomized, double-blind, Phase III KEYNOTE-A18 study of immunotherapy together with concurrent chemoradiotherapy among 1,060 patients who had newly diagnosed, previously untreated high-risk locally advanced cervical cancer. A multinational team of researchers, led from Italy, reported findings at t...

In this podcast episode, Ruchika Talwar, MD, sits down with Rick Baehner, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Precision Oncology at Exact Sciences and Clinical Professor of Pathology at University of California, San Francisco, to discuss the importance of ultra-comprehensive genomic profiling in advanced cancer therapy selection. The two talk about the OncoExTra® test from Exact Sciences, which includes...

The prospect of markedly raising chemotherapy response rates and extending patient survival has been held out by scientists reporting a new AI-powered digital tool to optimize cancer management for individual patients.   The tool creates a “digital twin” for each patient that makes it possible to predict response to specific treatment regimens and confidently predict outcomes, acc...

The prospect of a minimally toxic, chemotherapy-free cure for hepatoblastoma is held out by findings from a mouse model using the small-molecule drug WNTinib that inhibits the Wnt signaling pathway involved with cancer growth.   Lead author Ugnė Balaševičiūtė, a pre-doctoral researcher in Translational Research of the Hepatic Oncology Group led by Josep M. Llovet, Professor at the Inst...

A chemotherapy-free combination of two anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (anti-HER2) agents brought clinically meaningful responses to patients with bile duct cancers testing positive for HER2 or with mutated HER2 in research from Japan reported at the EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium held in Barcelona, Spain.   In the SGNTUC-019 Phase II bas...