The Community Oncology Alliance (COA), a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated solely to independent oncology practices and the patients they serve, recently announced the election of Kashyap Patel, MD, as President. A longtime COA Board of Directors member and community oncology champion, Dr. Patel...
Completing cancer screening tests such as mammograms can be challenging for low-income patients who may face such issues as lack of transportation or inability to take time off work. A team at Massachusetts General Hospital explored the possibility of addressing preventive care needs when patients...
Guest Editor’s Note: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) held its 2020 international conference in a virtual format. It focused on key issues of health disparities in integrative cancer care, innovative integrative oncology service delivery models, and...
Sean Khozin, MD, MPH, has been named Chief Executive Officer of CancerLinQ LLC, a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of ASCO. A board-certified oncologist, physician-scientist, and data science expert, Dr. Khozin is a proven leader and visionary in deploying cutting-edge data science and technology...
A research team has published findings from a study that brought together data from genomic prostate cancer studies. Including more than 200,000 men of European, African, Asian, and Hispanic ancestry from around the world, the study is reportedly the largest, most diverse genetic analysis ever...
Although efforts have been made by various medical societies, including ASCO, over the past decade to address the needs of sexual and gender minorities in the cancer care setting, research shows that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) patients continue to face...
To improve long-term survival odds, individuals with early-stage colon cancer should have their surgery performed by highly skilled surgeons. In a study that used video assessment, surgeons with highly ranked skills gave their patients a 69% lower risk of dying at 5 years as compared with their...
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has appointed John Ryan, JD, as its Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Chief Governance Officer. Mr. Ryan has extensive expertise representing health-care and life sciences organizations in public company and nonprofit settings. He has managed a wide range of...
Cancer has been an intimate part of Nancy Borowick’s life since her mother, Laurel, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997, when Nancy was 12. She began photographing her mother’s journey with the disease after the cancer recurred in 2009 for her final project for the Documentary Photography and ...
Are we winning the war on cancer? It’s not so clear, especially with COVID-19 poised to erase recent gains, panelists said at a session on global cancer control at the 2020 European Cancer Summit, which was sponsored by the European Cancer Organisation. “We know what we have to do. My question is...
It has become a familiar theme of late: Inequities exist in all aspects of cancer care. Although study after study documents problems with access to care and poorer cancer outcomes among underrepresented groups, less is heard about organized efforts to address these issues. This critical topic was...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recently announced the donation of next-generation sequencing equipment to six reference laboratories in five countries in Latin America. These countries constitute the International Consortium on Acute Leukemia (ICAL), a clinical network supported by the...
Robert A. Brodsky, MD, Professor of Medicine and Oncology and Director of the Division of Hematology, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, included this late-breaking abstract among his picks of noteworthy abstracts at the meeting, in a press briefing with journalists. “The researchers...
Six months before my diagnosis of metastatic colorectal cancer, in 2016, at age 38, I told my mom, “I feel like I’m dying.” Even though more than 10 specialists I had seen over the previous 8 years for unexplained bouts of abdominal pain and bloating, fatigue, and constipation kept assuring me that ...
Although the field of psychosocial oncology had its roots in the 1970s, it wasn’t until 2007 that the Institute of Medicine acted on the growing data describing the impact of emotional well-being and physical recovery on quality of life, establishing guideline standards requiring that the...
In 2006, President of Uruguay Dr. Tabaré Vázquez, a radiation oncologist by profession, enacted comprehensive antismoking legislation, eventually leading Uruguay to become the first country in Latin America to prohibit smoking in enclosed public spaces. His bold action drew the ire of international ...
Here we discuss a complex and often emotionally wrenching challenge related to informed consent in the provision of pediatric cancer care. For example, what legal and ethical claims do young patients have to information about their cancer diagnosis and treatment recommendations? What are the...
Stem cell transplants are not frequently offered to older patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). According to a study from the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMTCTN 1102), these patients may indeed achieve a survival benefit from stem cell transplant. As...
The Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) has announced the recipient of the ACCC 2020 Clinical Research Award: Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Ensign Professor of Medicine, Professor of Pharmacology, Chief of Medical Oncology, and Associate Director for Translational Research at the Yale Cancer...
Electra D. Paskett, PhD, was born in New York City, the daughter of a Greek immigrant who led a notable dance band. As a young child, Dr. Paskett frequented her parents’ rehearsal and dance studio, which was situated above a bustling Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime store. One of the studio’s famous...
Farhad Ravandi, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, offers his expert perspective on key treatment studies in acute myeloid leukemia on the use of gilteritinib, consolidation chemotherapy, venetoclax, cladribine, azacitidine, quizartinib, decitabine, and CPX-351 (Session 616...
Just in are the results of the SWOG S1007 RxPONDER trial, which evaluated the benefit of chemotherapy in women with early-stage, hormone receptor (HR)-positive, node-positive breast cancer. Based on the findings, many postmenopausal women may be able to safely skip adjuvant chemotherapy. However,...
Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, offers his expert views on five treatment studies in mantle cell lymphoma focusing on the next-generation BTK inhibitor LOXO-305; lisocabtagene maraleucel; minimal residual disease monitoring following autologous stem cell...
Chirag Shah, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, discusses the impact of DCISionRT testing on radiation therapy recommendations for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ following lumpectomy. His study found that despite using traditional favorable-risk criteria, radiation recommendations were changed in ...
Ari M. Melnick, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses the BCL10 mutation in patients with activated B-cell–like diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and his study results which showed that the mutation should be considered as a biomarker for ibrutinib resistance so that alternative targeted treatments ...
The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) has announced the creation of the Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, Endowed Scholars Fund. Established in honor of Dr. Rosenberg, this fund recognizes his many contributions to the field by supporting investigators who are emerging leaders in...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) presented the 2020 E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and Prize to Toshio Suda, MD, PhD, of the National University of Singapore and Japan’s International Research Center for Medical Sciences, Kumamoto University, for his outstanding contributions to the field of...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) presented the 2020 William Dameshek Prize to Adolfo Ferrando, MD, PhD, of Columbia University Institute for Cancer Genetics in New York, for his outstanding research on the impact of NOTCH1 mutations on T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). “I am...
CITY OF HOPE ORANGE COUNTY recently announced the appointment of cancer researcher and clinician Edward S. Kim, MD, MBA, as Senior Vice President and Vice Physician-in-Chief at City of Hope and Orange County Physician-in-Chief. “Dr. Kim has a depth and breadth of cancer expertise that is well...
New York University (NYU) Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center recently appointed Abraham Chachoua, MD, as the new Director of Perlmutter Cancer Center’s Lung Cancer Center. Dr. Chachoua currently serves as the Jay and Isabel Fine Professor of Oncology and Professor of Urology at NYU...
Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah recently announced new leadership appointments for two long-standing cancer center members. Chief Academic Officer Brad Cairns, PhD, has accepted an appointment as Chief Academic Officer at HCI. In this new role, Dr. Cairns will lead...
“A bald eagle skims along the bluff where windblown Douglas firs, their exposed roots like talons, grip the eroding cliffs. Gulls circle and warn the bird of prey not to get too close. One hundred fifty feet below, the Salish Sea crashes and stretches west to the Pacific.” So begins Wild Ride Home: ...
The 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Award for Leadership in Promoting Diversity was awarded to Edward J. Benz, Jr, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer Emeritus of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Richard and Susan Smith Distinguished Professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr....
Researchers from Penn State College of Medicine are participating in a $10 million project to better understand why men and women with a common and deadly type of brain cancer have different survival rates. The investigators hope the study results can be used to develop new therapeutic approaches...
That Moses Judah Folkman would buck tradition, breaking his family’s long line of rabbinical succession and pursuing a career in science and medicine instead, was evident from the time he was a young child. Born in Cleveland on February 24, 1933, the first child of Rabbi Jerome and Bessie Folkman, ...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) honored Admiral Brett Giroir, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), for his outstanding support of hematology research and patient care. At the all-virtual annual meeting, Admiral Giroir received the...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) recently announced that Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, FACP, FASCO, FAACR, will receive the inaugural AACR Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research. Dr. Von Hoff is being recognized for his...
Editor’s Note: The following essay was first published in 2011. It is being reprinted here with permission from the author and publisher. In 2020, the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) now includes more than 5,000 members; the annual meeting convenes more than 3,200...
Elaine R. Mardis, PhD, Co-Director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, was born and reared in North Platte, a small city located in the west-central part of Nebraska. “My love of science was sparked and nurtured by my father, who was a chemistry professor for...
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with Bhawna Sirohi, FRCP, who is currently the lead medical oncologist at the Apollo Proton Cancer Centre in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Along with her work in the clinic and her research endeavors, Dr....
Craig Jordan, PhD, University of Colorado (CU) Cancer Center member and Chief of the Hematology Division in the CU School of Medicine, was awarded a 2020 National Cancer Institute (NCI) Outstanding Investigator Award. This 7-year grant supports investigators with outstanding records of...
In October 2020, Her Royal Highness Princess Dina Mired of Jordan ended her 2-year tenure as President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), a global organization with more than 1,198 members from 172 countries and territories committed to reducing the cancer burden and...
Paul G. Richardson, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, gives his expert perspective on three important studies in multiple myeloma: long-term results from the IFM 2009 trial on early vs late autologous stem cell transplant in patients with newly diagnosed disease; the effect of high-dose...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) presented Mohandas Narla, DSc, of the New York Blood Center, with the 2020 Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology. Dr. Narla is being recognized for his significant contributions to hematology through his groundbreaking research, his ...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) will honor Ari Melnick, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, and Courtney DiNardo, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, with the 2020 Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize for their significant research contributions to the treatment...
Stem cell transplants are not frequently offered to older patients with high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). According to a study from the Blood and Marrow Transplant Clinical Trials Network (BMTCTN 1102), these patients may indeed achieve a survival benefit from stem cell transplant. As...
Global Cancer Institute (GCI), which is focused on improving survival rates for underserved patients with cancer worldwide, recently announced it has extended its programs to Bangladesh. The extension begins with the launch of monthly tumor boards, which help physicians and oncologists in...
A cohort study of 188,862 cases of all-stage melanomas of the trunk and extremities found no differences in overall survival between patients treated with Mohs micrographic surgery or with wide local excision.1 “These findings add to the existing body of evidence demonstrating that wide local...
Mount Sinai has received a $4 million donation from Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch to support prostate health and the Milton and Carroll Petrie Department of Urology at Mount Sinai. The prostate program—founded by Ash Tewari, MBBS, MCh, Kyung Hyun Kim, MD Professor and Chair of Urology—will be named the ...
In a phase III trial (SORCE) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tim Eisen, FMedSci, FRCP, PhD, of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and colleagues found no disease-free survival benefit with 3 years of sorafenib vs placebo as adjuvant therapy in patients with renal...