Article Category: In the Media

Thaker named Chief of Gynecologic Oncology

Nationally recognized clinical trials expert, also known for outstanding patient care

Premal H. Thaker, MD, MS, a physician-scientist recognized for her expertise in conducting clinical trials, authoring numerous medical and scientific publications and outstanding patient care, has been named chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at WashU Medicine. In this role, she oversees a continuum of research and clinical approaches aimed at improving the treatment of ovarian, cervical, endometrial and other gynecologic cancers at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine.

A member of WashU Medicine’s faculty since 2006, Thaker has served as interim director of the division for the past 17 months. She also is the David G. and Lynn Mutch Distinguished Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of Gynecological Oncology Clinical Research at WashU Medicine. As a surgeon, she is a member of the multidisciplinary teams at Siteman that provide personalized care incorporating the specific needs of each patient.

“I am honored and humbled to lead such a great team of physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, scientists and staff who are committed to excellent patient care and cutting-edge research in gynecologic malignancies,” Thaker said. “I am excited by the opportunity to continue to expand our service line both locally and regionally to help more patients receive care from Wash U Medicine and Siteman Cancer Center.”

She succeeds Matthew A. Powell, MD, the Ira C. and Judith Gall Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who served as chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology from 2015-2024.

The division’s mission is to improve care through exceptional clinical service, research, education and community engagement. Specialties within the division include advanced minimally invasive benign gynecologic surgery and gynecologic oncologic surgeries, fertility-sparing medical and surgical options for gynecologic oncology diseases, and reconstructive surgery. Pediatric, adolescent and young adult gynecologic care is also offered.

Thaker earned her undergraduate degree in biology from Villanova University in Villanova, Pa., and her medical degree from Allegheny University of the Health Sciences in Philadelphia through a prestigious six-year BA/MD program. She completed her residency in obstetrics and gynecology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, also in Philadelphia, and her fellowship in gynecologic oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. She also holds a master’s degree in cancer biology from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, also in Houston.

Additionally, Thaker received training in laparoscopic lymph node dissection at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in Germany.

In recognition of her outstanding patient care, she has been consistently named to the St. Louis Magazine and Castle Connolly Top Doctors lists since 2013 and 2021, respectively.

Thaker also is an accomplished clinical investigator in translational research and is recognized for her expertise in conducting clinical trials. She has co-led a collaborative R01 program that explored biobehavioral influences such as social isolation on ovarian cancer progression. This work began during her fellowship at MD Anderson and resulted in a landmark publication in 2006 in Nature Medicine titled, “Chronic stress promotes tumor growth and angiogenesis in a mouse model of ovarian carcinoma.” This collaborative research has resulted in more than 24 articles in such journals as Cancer, the Journal of Clinical Oncology and Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

She also has been part of WashU Medicine and Siteman’s endometrial Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE), first received in 2009, evaluating ERK signaling in endometrial cancer and its potential for therapeutic targeting. Thaker continues to engage in translational research evaluating stress on ovarian cancer immunology, with her colleague Melanie Flint, PhD, at the University of Brighton in the United Kingdom. This work was published by their mutual graduate student Marta Falcinelli, PhD, in Brain, Behavior and Immunity in 2023. Thaker has published more than 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts, nine reviews and 11 chapters. See her research profile here.

Under Thaker’s leadership, WashU Medicine has been named among the top five sites for patient accrual for Lead Academic Participating Site (LAPS) and GOG Partners clinical trials. She has been the national principal investigator of two GOG Foundation clinical trials, four national pharmaceutical trials and three investigator-initiated trials. Thaker also serves on several Data and Safety Monitoring Boards for clinical trials. She has chaired the Early Business Development Subcommittee for GOG Partners since 2021 and has led efforts of the Association of Community Cancer Centers to educate the greater medical oncology community about ideal ovarian cancer care, leading to a white paper in Cancer in 2022. Thaker also represents Siteman Cancer Center on the ovarian cancer guidelines committee of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), an alliance of 33 leading cancer centers that convenes world-renowned experts to create national clinical practice guidelines.

Since joining the WashU Medicine faculty, Thaker has shown a strong commitment to education and has mentored many medical students, residents, fellows and faculty members. She also contributes to continuing medical education programs locally, nationally and internationally.

De Los Santos, Hugo recognized by ASTRO

Two WashU Medicine professors of radiation oncology – Jennifer De Los Santos, MD, and Geoffrey Hugo, PhD – have been named fellows of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO).

ASTRO counts 10,000 members worldwide, including physicians, physicists and cancer biologists, whose work advances care, education, professional development and research in the radiation oncology field. Only 541 of ASTRO’s members have been named fellows since the program began in 2006.

This year, De Los Santos and Hugo are among 43 members to receive the ASTRO Fellow (FASTRO) designation. They will be recognized Sept. 30 at an awards ceremony during ASTRO’s 67th Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

“These distinguished leaders embody ASTRO’s core principles of excellence, innovation and unwavering dedication to improving patients’ lives through radiation oncology,” said Howard M. Sandler, MD, chair of the ASTRO Board of Directors. “On behalf of ASTRO, we celebrate their elevation to FASTRO status and their meaningful contributions to cancer care.”

De Los Santos and Hugo are affiliated with Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, where De Los Santos treats patients at the Head and Neck Tumor Center. Her research interests include the development of paradigm-shifting treatment approaches across several cancer sites, and translational work to define populations who may successfully proceed with these approaches.

Hugo is vice chair of the Medical Physics Division in the Department of Radiation Oncology at WashU Medicine His research interests include image-guided adaptive radiotherapy particularly for lung cancer, image registration and analysis, and the use of machine learning in radiation oncology.

They join other recently named fellows, including WashU Medicine professors and radiation oncologists Clifford Robinson, MD, and Julie Schwarz, MD, PhD, who were appointed last year. Radiation oncologist Jeff Michalski, MD, MBA, the Carlos A. Perez Distinguished Professor at WashU Medicine, is the immediate past chair and a past president of the ASTRO Board of Directors.

Siteman recruiting participants for multi-cancer detection tests

National study aims to detect disease before symptoms appear

Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine is recruiting participants for a national study of a new type of blood test aimed at detecting several types of cancer before symptoms appear. The tests could identify the presence of ovarian, pancreatic, bladder and other cancers that currently have no recommended screenings, as well as more common cancers that do.

WashU Medicine researchers at Siteman are recruiting people ages 45 to 75 who haven’t been diagnosed with cancer in the past five years to participate in the study. A blood draw is the most invasive part of participating, though additional time for follow-up is also required. There is no cost for participating in the study.

“We’re building the evidence on how these tests will perform: how they’re experienced by people, their potential benefits and more,” said Aimee James, PhD, MPH, MA, a WashU Medicine cancer prevention and control researcher at Siteman. “This could open up access to screenings for cancers we don’t already have screening options for — including stomach, esophageal and liver cancer.”

Multi-cancer detection tests are designed to detect biological substances that cancer cells release into the bloodstream, information that can even indicate where the cancer originated. The tests in this study, a national effort known as the Vanguard Study, also will screen for cancers that already have recommended screenings, including breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancers.

The Vanguard Study is an important preliminary step in a larger plan to evaluate how well such tests work for reducing cancer deaths. The study will:

  • Provide information on how the tests work as cancer screening tools
  • Explore the decisions that participants and care providers make based on the results

The tests under review are expected to detect cancer in fewer than 5% of participants. If cancer is indicated, a nurse navigator will work with study participants to find appropriate follow-up care.

To enroll in the study or to learn more, call 314-362-5539 or visit https://publichealthsciences.wustl.edu/csrn.

Siteman named among top U.S. cancer centers

Newsweek rankings note the strength of breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancer and leukemia programs

Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine has been ranked No. 13 of cancer centers nationwide by Newsweek. The recognition — part of the news magazine’s listing of America’s Best Hospitals for Specialized Care 2025 — makes Siteman the highest-ranked cancer center in Missouri, Illinois and beyond.

Highlighted specialties that contribute to Siteman’s national standing are breast, prostate, lung and colorectal cancer care and leukemia care, according to Newsweek. The ranking places Siteman among the top 7% of the nation’s 200 best cancer centers.

“This ranking recognizes the hospitals [that] go above and beyond when it comes to providing excellent cancer care for their patients,” according to Newsweek Healthcare Editor Alexis Kayser.

Separately, Siteman also is the only NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Missouri and southern Illinois. As an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Siteman is expected to be a major researcher into the causes, prevention and early detection and treatment of cancer, and to share these findings so other health-care institutions also might implement them to improve the overall health of the population. These efforts include a focus on basic science, which is the search for foundational knowledge about cancer risk and therapies, and on clinical research such as clinical trials designed to evaluate the effectiveness of innovative cancer therapies.

Since 2015, Siteman has held NCI’s highest possible rating — “Exceptional” — demonstrating the highest level of excellence in cancer research, patient care and community outreach.

The Newsweek rankings and methodology are available at https://rankings.newsweek.com/americas-best-hospitals-for-specialized-care-2025-cancer-care-hospitals.

“We hope this list serves as a guide for those seeking the best oncological care for themselves or their loved ones,” Newsweek said about its cancer center rankings.

AI-driven blood test could aid earlier detection of brain cancer

WashU Medicine physician-researchers at The Brain Tumor Center at Siteman Cancer Center have co-developed an innovative approach that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect brain cancer, potentially leading to earlier diagnoses. Siteman is based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine.

The process incorporates a noninvasive blood test and machine learning that analyzes the blood sample for evidence of brain cancer – specifically, circulating DNA patterns associated with brain tumors. It then identifies repeating genomic patterns that indicate the presence of brain cancer. Such tests have already shown success in the earlier detection of lung cancer.

“We now have a method that detects brain cancer based on its unique characteristics, including DNA fragmentation and immune responses,” said WashU Medicine neurosurgeon Dimitrios Mathios, MD, who developed the test with Victor E. Velculescu, MD, PhD, co-director of the Cancer Genetics and Epigenetics Program at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.

“The signals we detect come from both the tumor itself and the immune system’s reaction to it,” said Mathios, an assistant professor of neurosurgery and director of the Lab for Molecular Neuro-oncology at WashU Medicine and a Siteman research member.

Mathios and Velculescu published their work April 29 in Cancer Discovery.

Detecting brain cancer before symptoms appear is challenging, often leading to diagnoses at more advanced stages when tumors are larger and located in high-risk areas. This complicates treatment, making it both riskier and less effective. The blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain, also prevents biomarkers — signs of cancer — from entering the bloodstream, further complicating early detection.

Using their new approach, the researchers successfully detected brain cancer in approximately 75% of cases from a cohort of 505 patients in the U.S. and South Korea, according to their paper, and validated their results in a separate group of 95 patients in Poland. In contrast, traditional blood-based liquid biopsy methods have detected brain cancer in fewer than 10% of cases.

A key factor in this success is the detection of immune system changes associated with brain cancer. Brain cancer often leads to immune suppression and alters the immune cell profile in the blood. These immune changes occur throughout the body, bypassing the blood-brain barrier and making them detectable, Mathios said.

In a simulation, the researchers modeled the potential benefits of using their method to screen the 10 million patients who visit emergency rooms or primary care clinics annually due to headaches. Normally, these patients are only referred for brain imaging if a physician suspects a problem. However, the simulation showed that incorporating blood-based liquid biopsy results could help identify nearly 1,700 additional cancer cases in the U.S.

The next step for the team is to conduct a larger prospective trial to confirm these findings in a broader population at higher risk for brain cancer.

The Brain Tumor Center at Siteman announces associate directors

Huang is promoted, and Chheda joins the leadership team of the multidisciplinary practice

The Brain Tumor Center at Siteman Cancer Center, a multidisciplinary practice of physicians and scientists, has named two board-certified WashU Medicine faculty members as associate directors.

They are:

“We are proud to announce Dr. Huang’s new leadership role, which reflects his deep commitment to advancing clinical and translational care for brain tumor patients,” said WashU Medicine neurosurgeon Albert H. Kim, MD, PhD, director of The Brain Tumor Center and the August A. Busch Jr. Professor of Neurological Surgery, a professor of genetics, neurology and developmental biology, and the senior vice-chair of the Department of Neurosurgery. “We are equally excited to welcome Dr. Chheda as a key leader of our center. His strategic insights and deep understanding of the field will be instrumental in shaping the future of The Brain Tumor Center.”

Huang previously served as clinical director of The Brain Tumor Center. He has led investigations into the use of novel drugs in glioblastoma and meningioma and the late effects of treatment following radiation therapy for brain tumors.

Chheda researches new ways to eradicate cancer cells that are resistant to conventional therapies and new methods to activate the body’s immune system to recognize and clear tumors. His laboratory is also pursuing the relationship between the aging brain and brain tumors.

The Brain Tumor Center at Siteman is a multidisciplinary practice of WashU Medicine physicians and scientists whose mission is to provide leading-edge, patient-centric care for brain tumor patients while also developing transformative basic, translational and clinical research to develop new therapies and improve patient outcomes.

Other leaders of The Brain Tumor Center are:

To make an appointment at The Brain Tumor Center at Siteman, call 314-747-7222 or 800-600-3606, or complete this form.

Innovative immunotherapy shows promise against aggressive T cell cancers

WashU startup’s “off-the-shelf” CAR-T cell therapy evaluated in international clinical trial

A new type of immunotherapy that targets aggressive blood cancers shows promising results alongside manageable side effects, according to the results of an international phase 1/2 clinical trial led by WashU Medicine researchers at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine.

The clinical trial evaluated the safety and efficacy of an innovative CAR-T cell immunotherapy that is specifically designed to attack cancerous T cells. Participants in the trial had been diagnosed with rare cancers — T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia or T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma — and had run out of treatment options after standard therapy proved ineffective for them. With the new immunotherapy, most of the patients in the study who received the full dose of cells achieved full remission of their cancer.

The trial’s results were published May 30 in the journal Blood.

“For patients with these rare and aggressive cancers, who have no other options, this has the potential to become a transformative advance in the field,” said senior author John F. DiPersio, MD, PhD, the Virginia E. & Sam J. Golman Professor of Medicine at WashU Medicine, who first developed the therapy in his lab at WashU Medicine. “The trial demonstrated a high likelihood of response to the therapy and even remission. This CAR-T cell treatment shows promise in becoming a ‘bridge-to-transplant’ therapy for patients who would otherwise not be eligible for stem cell transplantation, which is the only potentially curative treatment for these blood cancers.”

Larger studies with more patients and longer follow-up are necessary before the researchers can determine whether this new therapy could be curative on its own.

The current trial included 28 adult and adolescent patients with T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and T cell lymphoblastic lymphoma that either returned after several lines of therapy or that never responded to treatment. About 1,000 people are diagnosed with these cancers annually in the U.S. If the cancer does not respond to treatment or returns after initial treatment, patients survive only six months, on average, and less than 7% are still living at the five-year mark.

The therapy, called WU-CART-007, was developed by Wugen, a WashU biotech startup company founded by DiPersio and other WashU Medicine investigators, including Matthew Cooper, PhD, who co-founded the company when he was on the WashU Medicine faculty and now serves as Wugen’s chief scientific officer. The clinical trial was conducted in Australia, Europe and multiple sites across the U.S. For the St. Louis site, the trial was conducted at Siteman Cancer Center.

The trial design included a dose-escalation phase, which determined the recommended dose of therapeutic cells that patients would receive for the second phase of the trial. Dose escalation helps determine the largest dose of CAR-T cells that patients can receive and still have manageable side effects. Thirteen patients received the full dose of 900 million CAR-T cells after undergoing a procedure to clear the patients’ own immune cells. This procedure — called lymphodepletion — reduces immune cells, making room for the new therapeutic T cells to establish themselves and expand in number. Two of these patients died from their cancer or treatment complications, such as infection, during the study period.

Of 11 patients who could be evaluated after treatment, the overall response rate was 91%, meaning 10 patients either showed no signs of cancer after treatment or their cancer cell burden was reduced significantly. Eight out of 11 patients (72.7%) achieved complete remission. At the study’s data cut off, six who underwent a transplant remain in remission, with no evidence of disease, six to 12 months later.

“These response and remission rates — ranging from 70%-90% of patients — are much higher than we would expect from standard-of-care for this cancer type, which typically leads to remission in only 20%-40% of patients,” said first and corresponding author Armin Ghobadi, MD, a professor of medicine and clinical director of the Center for Gene and Cellular Immunotherapy at WashU Medicine. “These responses are remarkable because the patients in this trial had run out of options. They had very aggressive cancers return after several lines of therapy, including several who relapsed after an earlier stem cell transplant.”

Most patients (88.5%) experienced cytokine release syndrome as a side effect of the immunotherapy, and these cases were predominantly mild or moderate. Cytokine release syndrome is a common side effect of CAR-T cell therapy that occurs when large numbers of immune cells release chemicals that cause a full-body inflammatory response. About 19% of the patients experienced more-severe cytokine release syndrome. A small number of patients experienced rarer side effects, such as neurotoxicity syndrome and low-grade graft-versus-host disease. Adverse events were managed with additional therapies.

Off-the-Shelf Cell Therapy

The immunotherapy evaluated in the trial is considered a “universal” CAR-T cell therapy because — harnessing CRISPR gene editing technology — it can be produced from cells donated by any healthy individual and used to treat any patient with a T cell cancer. In contrast, approved CAR-T cell therapies are adapted from the patient’s immune cells. The cells must be collected from the patient and shipped to a manufacturing facility to be made and then shipped back, a process that typically takes three to six weeks. In contrast, universal CAR-T cell therapies can be made ahead of time, stored frozen and be readily available “off-the-shelf,” greatly reducing the wait time before therapy can begin.

Using CRISPR gene editing tools, the production process deletes the T cell receptor from the donor cells, greatly reducing the risk of graft-versus-host disease, in which donor T cells attack healthy tissue. Removing another key antigen also prevents the CAR-T cells from attacking one another. The types of rare cancers in this study presented a unique challenge: the therapeutic cells and the cancer cells are both T cells, so steps must be taken to prevent the therapeutic T cells from mistaking one another for the cancer and causing CAR-T cell fratricide. All other approved CAR-T cell therapies target B cell cancers, which do not have this T cell self-targeting complication. After using CRISPR gene editing to modify the CAR-T cells to prevent these harmful side effects, the cells are further engineered to target a protein called CD7 on the surface of cancerous T cells to then destroy the cancer.

“A larger international clinical trial of this therapy is already underway,” DiPersio said. “We must complete this larger trial first, but we are hopeful this universal CAR-T cell therapy can become an approved treatment for patients with deadly T cell cancers.”

# # #

Ghobadi A, Aldoss I, Maude SL, Bhojwani D, Wayne AS, Bajel A, Dholaria B, Faramand R, Mattison RJ, Rijneveld A, Zwaan CM, Calkoen F, Baruchel A, Boissel N, Rettig M, Wood B, Jacobs K, Christ S, Irons H, Capoccia B, Masters D, Gonzalez J, Wu T, del Rosario M, Hamil A, Bakkacha O, Muth J, Ramsey B, McNulty E, Baughman J, Cooper ML, Davidson-Moncada J, DiPersio JF. Phase 1/2 trial of anti-CD7 allogeneic WU-CART-007 in patients with relapsed/refractory T cell malignancies. Blood. May 30, 2025.
Ghobadi has provided consulting for Wugen. Wugen’s founders include members of Washington University physicians who are colleagues of Ghobadi. Several co-authors are employees of Wugen and some hold shares in the company. DiPersio is a co-founder of Wugen and holds equity-ownership in the company.
This trial was funded by Wugen; and by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), through an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award, grant number R35CA210084; an NCI Leukemia SPORE, grant number P50CA171963; and an NCI Research Specialist Award, grant number R50CA211466.

Immunotherapy improves survival of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer

Approved drug that revolutionized melanoma treatment may change the standard of care for yet another cancer type

An international phase 3 clinical trial led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center shows that patients with certain locally advanced head and neck cancers benefited from the addition of the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (brand name Keytruda) to standard-of-care therapy. Patients who received pembrolizumab saw greater tumor shrinkage prior to surgery and, on average, survived cancer-free almost two years longer than did patients who only received standard-of-care therapy.

These results are reported April 27 at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) in Chicago. WashU Medicine researchers co-led the study at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine.

In locally advanced head and neck cancers, the tumor has spread to nearby tissues or lymph nodes but has not yet metastasized to distant organs. Standard-of-care therapy for these patients includes surgery to remove the tumor followed by radiation given with or without chemotherapy. Only 40% to 50% of such patients are alive five years after standard-of-care therapy.

Pembrolizumab, a type of immunotherapy that helps a patient’s own immune system attack cancer cells, was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2014 for advanced melanoma. It has since been approved for many other cancers, including advanced lung cancer, colorectal cancer, cervical cancer and lymphoma. In 2016, it was approved for recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer.

If approved for locally advanced head and neck cancers, which was the focus of the clinical trial, pembrolizumab — given before and after surgery to remove the tumor — will be the first change in standard-of-care therapy for this cancer type in more than two decades.

“The survival benefit we’ve seen in adding pembrolizumab to standard-of-care therapy for patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer is clinically meaningful and groundbreaking,” said co-senior author Douglas R. Adkins, MD, a professor of medicine and director of the Section of Head and Neck and Thyroid Medical Oncology at WashU Medicine. Adkins treats patients at the Robert Ebert and Greg Stubblefield Head & Neck Tumor Center, which he co-leads at Siteman Cancer Center.

The proposal to evaluate pembrolizumab in this cancer type originated at WashU Medicine and formed the basis of an earlier phase 2 clinical trial that began at Siteman in 2013. The findings from that study led directly to this international phase 3 trial.

“It’s exciting to see our ideas move toward clinical practice with such impressive and potentially life-changing results,” Adkins added.

The new phase 3 study enrolled 714 patients with newly diagnosed stage III or stage IVA head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Beginning in December 2018, patients were randomly assigned to receive standard-of-care therapy alone, which includes surgery and radiation given with or without chemotherapy, or to standard-of-care therapy plus pembrolizumab given before and after surgery.

Analyzing data collected through July 2024, patients who received standard-of-care therapy plus pembrolizumab survived cancer-free for a median of 51.8 months (about 4.3 years), compared with a median of 30.4 months (about 2.5 years) for those who received standard-of-care therapy alone. Those given pembrolizumab also experienced greater reductions in tumor size prior to surgery, an important outcome given that therapies that shrink a tumor before its removal may reduce the risk of the cancer returning later.

The phase 3 study, funded by Merck, builds upon the work started in 2013 by Adkins and Ravindra Uppaluri, MD, PhD, who was then with WashU Medicine and is now the director of Head and Neck Surgical Oncology at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Adkins and Uppaluri proposed investigating whether giving pembrolizumab before and after surgery would improve outcomes for patients undergoing surgical removal of locally advanced head and neck cancers that have not yet become metastatic.

Merck also funded the earlier phase 2 trial, which found that adding pembrolizumab before and after surgery increased tumor cell death. The therapy was found to be safe and did not harm the delivery of standard-of-care therapy. After this therapy, the researchers found, patients’ cancers returned at lower rates than expected compared with historical data. This set the stage for the current phase 3 randomized trial that included more patients and a control group and was conducted at multiple sites around the world.

Pembrolizumab is what’s known as an immune checkpoint inhibitor, meaning that it works by skirting roadblocks that keep the body’s own immune cells from destroying tumor cells. One of these roadblocks is a protein on the surface of tumors called PD-L1. By circumventing PD-L1, pembrolizumab allows the patient’s own immune cells to attack and kill tumor cells.

Head and neck cancers include tumors of the mouth, sinuses, nose and throat. Smoking and other tobacco use as well as human papillomavirus (HPV) infection increase the risk of such cancers.

The FDA is scheduled to announce a decision on approving pembrolizumab for locally advanced head and neck cancers in June.

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Uppaluri R, Haddad RI, Tao Y, Le Tourneau C, Lee NY, Westra W, Chernock R, Tahara M, Harrington K, Klochikhin AL, Brana I, Vasconcelos Alves G, Hughes BGM, Olivia M, Pinto Figueiredo Lima I, Ueda T, Rutkowski T, Schroeder U, Mauz P, Fuereder T, Laban S, Oridate N, Popovtzer A, Mach N, Korobko Y, Alpuim Costa D, Hooda-Nehra A, Rodriguez CP, Bell RB, Manschot C, Benjamin K, Gumuscu B, Adkins D. Neoadjuvant and adjuvant pembrolizumab plus standard of care in resectable locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma: phase 3 KEYNOTE-689 study. Advances in Immunotherapy, Clinical Trials Plenary Session. American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting. April 27, 2025.

This research was funded by Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC.

New cancer care clinic opens in Center for Advanced Medicine

The Cancer Care Clinic at Siteman Cancer Center has moved to a larger, more easily accessible area within the Center for Advanced Medicine (CAM) on the Washington University Medical Campus.

The clinic provides cancer treatments, manages side effects of cancer therapy, and provides other services for cancer patients, including evaluations, infusions and injections, and care related to clinical studies.

With more treatment areas than its previous location, the Cancer Care Clinic is now located on the first floor of the CAM, at 4921 Forest Park Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110 (map), next to the Barnard Health and Cancer Information Center.

“The Cancer Care Clinic is a unique space, designed to meet the needs of patients with cancer 24/7,” said Emily Buehrle, MHA, BSN, RN, OCN, the clinic’s manager. “We understand their journey and strive to provide the most compassionate care possible.”

Amenities include complimentary Wi-Fi and beverages and light snacks. A cafeteria, Starbucks, family lounge and business center are located nearby. The closest parking garages are:

  • Euclid Garage, 224 S. Euclid Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110 (map)
  • Parkview Garage, 1 Parkview Place, St. Louis, MO 63110 (map)

While the clinic serves urgent needs, it is not an urgent care clinic. In the case of an emergency, a patient should call 911, contact his or her physician and head to the nearest emergency room.

To be seen at the Cancer Care Clinic, patients at Siteman should make an appointment through their Washington University physician or other care team member.

Learn more about the new clinic location.