ASCO and the Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF) proudly announce the winners of ASCO’s Special Awards, the Society’s highest honors, and the CCF Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award. The recipients of these awards include researchers, patient advocates, and global oncology leaders who have worked ...
Overall cancer death rates continue to decrease in men, women, and children for all major racial and ethnic groups, according to the latest Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, 1975–2014, published by Jemal et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The report...
The incidence of colorectal cancer continues to increase among young adults, with the sharpest increase among those aged 20 to 29, according to a recent article in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.1 This trend has been called disturbing and ominous, but the widely reported results of...
For more than 3 decades, Nancy E. Davidson, MD, has dedicated her clinical and research career to better understanding the molecular mechanisms driving the development of breast cancer and to the discovery of more effective therapies to treat the disease. The recipient of an ASCO Young...
In a report from the Children’s Oncology Group Study AALL03N1 published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Landier et al found no association between oral mercaptopurine ingestion habits in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and risk of relapse after adjustment for medication...
Few pediatric oncology patients or their parents expressed negative attitudes toward early integration of palliative care during cancer treatment, according to a study by Levine et al reported in JAMA Oncology. Study Details The study involved completion of surveys by 129 patient-parent dyads...
Anne Friedman Glauber, 63, co-founder of Let’s Win, an online community for persons affected by pancreatic cancer, recently passed away at her home in New York City, after a courageous battle with the disease. Ms. Glauber’s dedication to the organization (www.letswinpc.org) helped countless...
In April 2014, I was so sick with uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea and severe abdominal and chest pain that I had to be hospitalized for 5 days. As I was in my late 20s and in otherwise good health, there was no easy explanation for my symptoms. After I was released from the hospital, my...
Parental concern that a child is not sexually active is declining as a reason parents do not vaccinate their children against papillomavirus (HPV), according to a study presented by Beavis et al at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology’s (SGO) 2017 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer...
In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ladenstein et al found that high-dose chemotherapy with busulfan and melphalan vs carboplatin, etoposide, and melphalan was associated with an improved event-free survival in patients with high-risk neuroblastoma and adequate disease response to ...
ASCO and the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO (CCF) have proudly announced the winners of ASCO's Special Awards, the Society's highest honors, and the CCF Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award. The recipients of these awards include researchers, patient advocates, and global oncology leaders...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Shaikh et al, of the Children’s Oncology Group, found that event-free survival rates were not maintained with the use of reduced and compressed cisplatin-based regimens in children and adolescents with intermediate-risk extracranial...
Last year’s inaugural Cancer Survivorship Symposium stressed the importance of bringing together the fields of medical oncology and primary care to ensure a coordinated effort to help patients with cancer transition to long-term survivorship care. Building on that goal, the 2017 Cancer Survivorship ...
In a rigorous study of tumor tissue collected from 125 patients with aggressive brain cancers, researchers at Johns Hopkins said they have found no evidence of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and concluded that a link between the two diseases, as claimed by earlier reports, likely does not exist. A ...
In a retrospective multicenter cohort study reported in JAMA, Turcotte et al found that the risk for subsequent neoplasms in 5-year survivors of childhood cancers decreased between those diagnosed in the 1970s vs the 1990s but nevertheless remained elevated vs expected incidence. The reduced risk...
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide. It affects 80% of individuals, with the initial infection usually occurring between the ages of 15 and 24. Persistent infection with oncogenic HPV genotypes, primarily 16 and 18, is the cause of virtually all...
In 1995, Matthew Zachary, an aspiring concert pianist and composer, was en route to graduate school to study film composition when he lost all fine-motor coordination in his left hand, was diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer (medulloblastoma), told he would never play again, and was given 6...
The majority of children with cancer are treated with complicated chemotherapy regimens that include multiple drugs, demanding monitoring schedules and complex dosing based on body surface area that often require changes in dose. Given this high risk for error in treating children with these highly ...
My breast cancer diagnosis in 1993, at age 34, came at the happiest moment in my life. I had gotten married just 10 months earlier and was looking forward to the future and children. But instead of celebrating my first wedding anniversary with my husband over a romantic dinner, we were at a cancer ...
Many news reports about the latest cancer statistics released by the American Cancer Society (ACS) have focused on the 25% reduction in cancer mortality since 1991. Several reports quoted ACS Chief Medical Officer Otis W. Brawley, MD, FACP, who said in a statement1 announcing the publication of...
Scientific Name: Glycine max Common Names: Soybean, soya, tofu, miso, tempeh Overview An annual herb indigenous to East Asia, soy was domesticated more than 3,000 years ago for its pods and edible seeds. It is now the world’s most important legume crop and is grown in diverse climates. Foods...
New research suggests that young patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL)—the most common type of pediatric cancer—and their parents are likely to report to their physician that they took more of their anticancer medication than they actually did. The study, published by Landier et al in...
“Estimates suggest that by the year 2020, there will be over 500,000 adult survivors of childhood cancer in the United States,” Daniel A. Mulrooney, MD, MS, of the Division of Cancer Survivorship, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, reported at the 10th Oncofertility Conference in...
In 1959, my 5-year-old cousin, Kim, was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). As an 8-year-old, I didn’t really understand what was happening to him, except that he had to go to the Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis, Indiana, for treatment. The haunting vision of his looking...
Two investigational agents, the aurora A kinase inhibitor alisertib and a virus derived from HSV-1 (HSV1716), have shown antitumor efficacy in early clinical trials as monotherapies. A new study published by Currier et al in Oncotarget, however, demonstrates that the combined usage...
New research suggests that young patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) and their parents are likely to report to their physician that they took more of their anticancer medication than they actually did. The study, published by Landier et al in Blood, found that 84% of patients with ALL...
Peter Nowell, MD, was a pathologist at the University of Pennsylvania studying leukemia cells under a microscope when he happened to wash his slides with tap water instead of laboratory solution. Viewing the newly cleaned slides under a microscope, he saw that the water had caused the cell’s...
The ability to artificially alter DNA opens the door to new scientific understanding and treatments for various diseases. Oliver Smithies, PhD, made the crucial discovery that a disease-causing gene could be modified. For that and other groundbreaking work, he, along with two other scientists, was ...
By 2050, the death rates from malignant melanoma will have decreased from their current levels, but the numbers of people dying from the disease will have increased due to the aging of populations. However, if new treatments for the deadly skin cancer prove to be effective, the numbers of deaths...
Research led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has identified three genetic alterations to help identify high-risk pediatric patients with acute megakaryoblastic leukemia (AMKL) who may benefit from allogeneic stem cell transplants. The study, published by de Rooij et al in Nature...
I was feeling a bit more tired than usual as the Christmas holidays approached in December 2012, but I chocked it up to the frenetic pace of the season and keeping up with caring for my two young children, ages 4 and 12. I had none of the other typical warning signs of chronic myeloid leukemia...
Tuesday morning was the regular time for the departmental meeting—an opportunity to discuss cases, troubleshoot, debrief, and expedite the necessary allied health referrals. As usual, patient cases were being discussed in alphabetical order of the attending oncologist. We were already three...
The statistics on the rising rates of skin cancer are alarming. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, each year over 5.4 million cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer are treated in more than 3.3 million people, and an additional 76,380 people are diagnosed with the deadliest form of skin cancer,...
While evidence is mounting on the physical and emotional challenges many cancer caregivers experience, few studies have addressed the experience of partners of young adults with cancer. Now, a new study evaluating the psychosocial concerns and mental health in the partners of young survivors of...
The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research announced the appointment of Chi Van Dang, MD, PhD, as its Scientific Director. A hematologic oncologist and renowned researcher, Dr. Dang joins Ludwig from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center, which he has...
Ensuring that people with cancer understand how cancer treatment could affect their fertility and what options are available for preserving fertility were widely recognized as top priorities by attendees of the 2016 Oncofertility Conference in Chicago. As detailed at the conference, means of...
“One of the most challenging oncologic situations that I face as a clinician is the diagnosis of breast cancer in a young pregnant patient,” Jacqueline Jeruss, MD, PhD, Director of the Breast Care Center at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, told the more than 250...
Precision medicine has advanced to the point where it can now impact the care of a majority of children with brain tumors, a new study by investigators at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center suggests. In the largest clinical study to date of genetic abnormalities in...
In an article published by Siegel et al in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, researchers assert that exposure to medical radiation does not increase a person’s risk of getting cancer. The long-held belief that even low doses of radiation, such as those received in diagnostic imaging, increase...
The 69 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers have issued a joint statement in support of recently revised recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to improve national vaccination rates for human papillomavirus (HPV). According to the CDC,...
Findings from the National Institutes of Health Pediatric and Wildtype Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors (GISTs) Clinic, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Weldon et al, indicate that more extensive or serial resections are not associated with improvement in event-free survival in...
Despite many successes in treating pediatric cancer, young children remain at high risk for developing severe, long-lasting impairments in their brain, heart, and other vital organs from chemotherapy and radiation treatments. In adults, however, these tissues are relatively spared. This disparity, ...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Knight et al of the Children’s Oncology Group found that the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Ototoxicity (SIOP) scale may be more sensitive than other classification systems in detecting ototoxicity in children...
In a phase II Canadian Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium Study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lassaletta et al found that vinblastine monotherapy was associated with response or stable disease in most children with chemotherapy-naive low-grade glioma. Vinblastine monotherapy has shown ...
Twenty-five years ago, I was a physically fit woman of 45 in training to run a marathon, which had been a lifelong goal. I was feeling fine and had no hint of the illness that would nearly take my life and has forever changed it. While ramping up to go the 26.2-mile distance, I decided to have a...
The following five abstracts were chosen as the best submitted studies presented at this year’s International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO). They represent a diverse group of integrative therapies and interventions in the care of patients with cancer, including an...
W.K. Alfred Yung, MD, has wanted a career in medicine since he was a high-school student and has spent nearly 4 decades fulfilling that dream, specifically in the research and treatment of one of the deadliest cancers, malignant brain tumor, especially glioblastoma multiforme, the most common...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation has an incredible opportunity for you to make an amazing impact! An anonymous donor is offering a Matching Gift Challenge, which will double the value of every gift we receive by December 31—dollar for dollar—up to $64,000! This amount is enough to fund one of our...
There has been no better time than the present for women in the field of oncology: Women at all stages of their careers are finding more opportunities and avenues to excel. At the time of the last ASCO workforce survey, women made up 28.4% of the oncologist workforce, and that proportion is rising...
Richard Gorlick, MD, an expert in pediatric oncology and hematology, has joined The University of Texas MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital as the Division Head and Department Chair of Pediatrics. A pediatric cancer survivor himself, Dr. Gorlick committed his life’s work to helping young...