A growing number of people with cancer are being treated on an outpatient basis. At the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York, to ensure that the psychosocial and psychiatric needs of these patients were being...
Earlier this month, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released its updated projections of reductions in programs due to the deficit-budget mechanism known as sequestration, which took effect on March 1, 2013. The sequestration law requires NIH to cut 5%, or $1.55 billion, of its fiscal year...
When I was 9 years old, a bout of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain sent me to the emergency room. The physicians diagnosed appendicitis and rushed me to the operating room. But what the surgeon found instead was a 10-cm-wide, grade 2, immature teratoma. In 1968, treatment for malignant ovarian...
Founded in 1994, just 1 year after ASCO launched the State/Regional Affiliate Program, the Society of Rhode Island Clinical Oncologists is one of ASCO’s oldest state affiliates. Like many other ASCO affiliates, the Providence-based group is facing a myriad of challenges, including ensuring...
The promotion of accountable care organizations, a crucial element in the Affordable Care Act, may result in liability risks, said H. Benjamin Harvey, MD, JD, a radiologist in the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and I. Glenn Cohen, JD, Assistant Professor of Law at...
A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looking at the prevalence of HPV infections in girls before and after the introduction of the HPV vaccine in 2006 found a significant reduction of 56% in infections among female teenagers aged 14 to 19. About 79 million Americans,...
A new government study investigating the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in females aged 14 to 59 before and after the introduction in 2006 of the HPV vaccine found that the rate of the HPV infection dropped by 56%, decreasing from 11.5% in 2006 to 5.1% in 2010 among female...
At the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, Selma Schimmel conducted a series of interviews with prominent oncologists, to get their perspectives on palliative care. These discussions can be viewed via The Group Room website here: http://thegrouproom.tv/category/cancer-topics/palliative-care/ All Vital...
This is the first time I’m going public with the fact that I have advanced ovarian cancer. I thought I could avoid the fate of my mother and her mother, both of whom died of ovarian cancer in their 50s, and live well past my 60s and even 70s. But at 58, I’ve had to accept that that is not likely. I ...
On June 13, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that isolated human genes may not be patented. However, the creation of synthetic forms of DNA, known as complementary DNA (cDNA), is eligible for patent protection. The decision resolves the question brought before the Supreme Court justices in...
I found out that I had stage III pancreatic cancer on Valentine’s Day in 2011, but I think the disease may have been brewing for a long time. For 19 years, I had experienced intermittent pain in the right upper quadrant of my abdomen. I had gallbladder surgery to relieve a bile duct obstruction,...
Despite his fame as co-discoverer—along with Francis Crick, PhD—of the double-helix structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in 1953, that accomplishment is not what James Dewey Watson, PhD, came to talk about during a recent presentation he gave at the World Science Festival in New York. Instead,...
The International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) has developed clinical practice recommendations for the management of multiple myeloma-related bone disease based on published study data through August 2012. Consensus of the interdisciplinary panel of clinical experts on the plasma-cell cancer was...
Internationally known for her research in the molecular genetics of cancer, Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, MD, FACP, first became interested in oncology during medical school in Nigeria, where she cared for patients with Burkitt’s lymphoma. After moving to Chicago in 1983 to continue her medical...
I am the Outreach Administrator/Newsletter Editor at Support for People with Oral and Head and Neck Cancer (SPOHNC). SPOHNC is a national nonprofit organization involved in the development of support programs. As such, it can have an enormous positive impact on meeting the psychosocial needs of...
In 1979, when I was just 35 years old, I started experiencing abnormal vaginal bleeding and lower back pain. When a Pap test came back normal, the gynecologist I saw said not to worry about anything, that I was fine. But I wasn’t fine. My symptoms quickly escalated, and I sought the opinion of...
An educator and scientist for over 30 years, David Sadava, PhD, became interested in the science of cancer while on sabbatical from Claremont Colleges, where he was teaching courses in molecular biology and biotechnology, and went to the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California, to study...
Looking over his 5 decades in clinical oncology and research, Joseph R. Bertino, MD, says his greatest professional satisfaction comes from seeing his former students and oncology fellows go on to achieve great success in their own medical and research careers. It is a fitting sentiment since Dr....
The most recent figures from the National Cancer Institute put the number of cancer survivors in the United States at nearly 14 million—by 2022, that number is expected to top 18 million. And for the vast majority of those survivors—more than 80%—returning to work after treatment is a top priority...
Now in its fifth year, the West Virginia Oncology Society (WVOS) is already having a major impact on cancer care in the state. In 2010, a joint initiative to develop a statewide cancer clinical trials network was launched by WVOS and the West Virginia University Cancer Center. With funding support...
The past 10 years have seen dramatic advances in cancer care, especially in better screening methods and earlier detection, genomic sequencing, and more effective therapies, which have led to increased survival rates in both childhood and adult cancers. According to the National Cancer Institute...
A cohort study of 2,238 men who were evaluated for infertility at a clinic in Texas from 1989 to 2009 found that those men who had azoospermia, a condition in which no measurable sperm is present, had a 2.2-fold higher cancer risk compared with those who were nonazoospermic. The study was published ...
The International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) has developed clinical practice recommendations for the management of multiple myeloma-related bone disease based on published study data through August 2012. Consensus of the interdisciplinary panel of clinical experts on the plasma cell cancer was...
For the first time since the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine became available for adolescent girls in 2006, the vaccination rate for teenagers has stalled, according to data published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The data...
That the United States spends twice as much on health care than other industrialized countries—about $2.8 trillion in 2012—without reaping appreciably better outcomes1 is not news. The topic has been dissected on the front pages of leading newspapers for years and was the subject of the entire...
I’ve been the caretaker for my husband Will since he suffered three strokes in March 2011, followed by a diagnosis of leukemia a few months later. Now, our roles have reversed, and Will is taking care of me as I go through treatment for stage III follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). It’s been a...
In a study of ovarian cancer cells taken from patients, scientists from Georgia Institute of Technology have confirmed that metastasizing cancer cells have a different molecular structure from primary tumor cells and display genetic signatures consistent with epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition....
Parents and siblings of children with cancer have between a two- and four-times increased risk of developing cancer than first-degree relatives with no childhood cancer patients, according to a study published in the International Journal of Cancer.1 The study, led by Joshua Schiffman, MD, Medical...
While the many scientific advances over the past 50 years have led to improved outcomes for millions of patients with cancer—increasing the number of survivors from just 3 million in the 1970s to nearly 14 million today—the next 20 years promise to bring even greater opportunities to improve the...
Data analyzed from a large cohort study of men diagnosed with prostate cancer found that prostate cancer aggressiveness may be established when the tumor is formed and not changed over time. The researchers of the study, Kathryn L. Penney, ScD, Instructor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard...
Although the price of next-generation genomic sequencing is coming way down, making it available to more people interested in determining their risk for disease, figuring out how to interpret the results and applying that information in the routine medical care of individual patients remains a...
Reminiscing about his 65 years in medicine, LaSalle Doheny Leffall, Jr, MD, FACS, cites three events in his early childhood that would ultimately lead him to his position today as the Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC. First, he was...
In June, the David J. Sencer Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Museum in Atlanta, Georgia, opened a new photo exhibit featuring the faces of people living through and beyond a cancer diagnosis. The exhibit: Cancer: Survivors in Focus, tells the stories of cancer survivors while...
This past June, I celebrated 20 years of being a cancer survivor by throwing myself a party. It was an interesting experience because I learned that many of the 100 guests I invited were also cancer survivors or were family members of cancer survivors, and so we celebrated their lives as well. Our...
The use of immunotherapy to target malignant cells in a variety of cancers—especially the PD-1 inhibitors lambrolizumab and nivolumab in the treatment of metastatic melanoma and the anti–PD-L1 agent MPDL3280A in the treatment of melanoma and lung, kidney, colorectal, and gastric cancers—made...
A study from the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery finds that advances in imaging technologies, including ultrasound, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, are fueling an epidemic in the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancers that are unlikely to ever...
The Patient Advocate Foundation has assisted more than 650,000 patients, and provided educational programs and information on resolving health insurance, workplace discrimination due to illness, and financial issues to millions more through its website. Visit the Patient Advocate Foundation at...
As a young girl, Nancy Davenport-Ennis remembers hearing her parents tell stories about families struggling to pay their health-care expenses following a diagnosis of a serious illness like cancer. But it wasn’t until 3 decades later when she was coping with her own diagnosis of breast cancer and...
The Wisconsin Association of Hematology & Oncology (WAHO) is among the youngest of ASCO’s State Affiliates. Formerly known as the Wisconsin Association of Medical Oncologists, WAHO was officially formed just 2 years ago and is already having an impact on oncologists and patients with cancer...
Recently the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) and the International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS) held a fundraising event, Cruise for a Cause: Improving Psychosocial and Supportive Cancer Care, to raise money to advance the science and practice of psychosocial care for patients with...
The panomics of cancer include the networks of molecular pathways and characteristics of tumor microenvironment that interact to drive the development of each individual’s cancer, response to treatment, and long-term toxicities. ■ Source: Shaping the Future of Oncology: Outcomes of the ASCO...
The next 10 years are expected to usher in unprecedented advances in oncology, including molecularly driven diagnostic and therapeutic developments, whole genome sequencing that results in true precision-based medicine, survivorship care plans that address long-term quality of life concerns, and...
Looking back, my son Max’s fall as he was running after another little boy while playing baseball was such a blessing. Although he landed on his right arm, the fall didn’t seem severe enough to cause him to cry out in such excruciating pain. But after several hours of icing the bruise failed to...
The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) has announced two open access gateways, the MMRF Researcher Gateway, which will upload genomic data as it becomes available and make it accessible to all researchers, and the MMRF CoMMunity Gateway, which will aggregate subtypes of myeloma patients...
All nonessential government services were suspended at midnight on October 1, 2013, after Congress failed to reach a budget compromise to keep the government funded before the start of the new fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2013. ASCO issued a statement in response to the government shutdown...
I know it sounds strange, but being diagnosed with cancer was one of the best things to have happened to me. I don’t mean to diminish the traumatic experience of hearing the words, “You have breast cancer.” That was over 11 years ago, and I’m still reeling from the diagnosis and its aftereffects....
1. September 30, 2013: Pertuzumab (Perjeta) Accelerated approval in combination with trastuzumab and docetaxel for the neoadjuvant treatment of HER2-positive, locally advanced, inflammatory, or early-stage breast cancer. 2. September 6, 2013: Paclitaxel protein-bound particles (albumin-bound)...
Dubbed “Cancer Czar” by the media, Richard Pazdur, MD, Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Hematology and Oncology Products, said he has the “best job in oncology, with a unique vantage point in cancer drug development.” An oncologist for more than 30 years—including...
Cost of Care and Federal Funding How can ASCO address the high cost of cancer care and diminishing federal resources for basic and translational research? We need to work with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, private insurers, and health-care systems to encourage evidence-based...
Cost of Care and Federal Funding How can ASCO address the high cost of cancer care and diminishing federal resources for basic and translational research? In answer to the first part of this question, the rising cost of cancer care has certainly become a focus of national conversation given the...