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Showing 12551 - 12600SIDEBAR: Expect Questions From Your Patients
Physicians and patients should engage in open discussion” about the complex issues of cancer screening, overdiagnosis, and overtreatment, according to a report from the chairs of a National Cancer Institute working group tasked with developing a strategy to improve the current approach to cancer...
Tackling Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment, by Words and by Deeds
The complexity of the pathologic condition called cancer,” according to a Viewpoint article in the Journal of the American Medical Association,1 “complicates the goal of early diagnosis.” Failure to recognize that cancers are heterogeneous, and that not all progress to metastases and death, can...
Prominent Surgeon and Teacher LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr, MD, Promotes Hard Work and Education to Overcome Boundaries
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...
The Oncologist as Author: On Guiding Patients Through Cancer
When Tumor Is the Rumor and Cancer Is the Answer is the guidebook to cancer that Kevin P. Ryan, MD, FACP, COL, USAF (ret) wished his patients had during his 30 years of practicing oncology. The book, recently published by AuthorHouse, is an authoritative, inspiring, and even philosophical guide for ...
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Recognizes Childhood Cancer Awareness Month
Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease among young Americans. September marks Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, a time to highlight efforts to reduce the disease’s toll on children. At St. Jude, the past year has brought advances in understanding and treating childhood...
The Trials and Tribulations of a Revolutionary Cancer Drug
A modest brass plaque above a booth in the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, notes, “On this spot, on February 28, 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson declared the discovery of DNA with these words: ‘We have discoverewd the secret of life.’” Announcing a major scientific advance over a pint of ale is a far...
Cancer: Survivors in Focus Photo Exhibit Honors Cancer Survivors
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...
Celebrating 2 Decades as a Cancer Survivor
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 Direction of Immunotherapy Over the Next Decade
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...
Conquering Cancer by Encouraging Diversity in the Field of Oncology
As the Conquer Cancer Foundation Grants and Awards Program has grown over the last 30 years, so has its purpose. Not only does the Grants and Awards Program support young researchers, foster mentoring relationships, and improve the quality of cancer care around the world, it also works to increase...
Communicating the Promise Science Offers to Society
ASCO President Clifford Hudis, MD, FACP, will be serving during a particularly notable year: 2014, the Society’s 50th anniversary. This occasion brings with it much to reflect on, from the advances in the field of oncology to the growth of ASCO’s influence, but Dr. Hudis takes a moment to simply...
Potential Prognostic Significance Shown for Interaction of Follicular Lymphoma Cells with Immune Microenvironment
It has been shown that CD4 and CD8 tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in follicular lymphoma have impaired function and suppressed recruitment of critical signaling proteins to the immunologic synapse, and a number of studies have indicated the prognostic importance of the immune microenvironment in...
Lidia Schapira, MD: Bridging Communication Gaps Between Oncologists and Patients
Communicating the intricacies of oncology care to vulnerable patients with cancer and their caregivers requires a firm grasp of the nuances of language. One of the oncology community’s true champions in the art of breaking down communication barriers is Lidia Schapira, MD, a medical oncologist at...
The BEATRICE Study: Where Does Targeting Breast Cancer Vasculature Stand in 2013?
Antiangiogenic strategies using the anti–vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) monoclonal antibody bevacizumab (Avastin) gained traction in breast cancer with the publication of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) 2100 trial in 2007. That study demonstrated a progression-free survival ...
September Is National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month
During September, we observe National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month to recognize those who have died and recommit ourselves to helping the women who are fighting for their health. Every year, more than 20,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which is the fifth leading...
Timely Findings From the Ovarian Tumor Tissue Analysis Consortium
In the Ovarian Tumor Tissue Analysis Consortium Study recently published by Sieh et al,1 tissue microarrays from 2,933 cases of epithelial ovarian carcinoma demonstrated that progesterone receptor (PR) expression and estrogen receptor (ER) expression were associated with significantly improved...
Progesterone and Estrogen Receptor Expression Are Prognostic Markers for Endometrioid and High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer
Few markers of ovarian cancer prognosis have been established, perhaps because potential subtype associations are missed in studies including patients with all histopathologic subtypes. In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Weiva Sieh, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Research and...
Breast Cancer Researchers Awarded Komen for the Cure Grants
Susan G. Komen for the Cure recently announced it has awarded grant funding of more than $1.4 million to five researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine and a one-of-a-kind tissue bank. The grants will be part of the $42 million Komen will award in 2013 for cancer research. Grants Focus...
Pretreatment Lymph Node Dissection May Improve Survival in Advanced Cervical Cancer, But for Too Few?
Women with cervical cancer metastasized to para-aortic lymph nodes have historically had a poor prognosis, with 3-year overall survival rates of 25% to 40%.1-3 This has been attributed to the presence of occult systemic disease at the time of presentation and a high rate of distant recurrences...
What Para-Aortic Nodal Involvement Predicts About Survival in PET-CT–Negative Locally Advanced Cervical Cancer
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sebastien Gouy, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy and colleagues evaluated survival outcomes in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer and negative positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET-CT) imaging results who underwent...
Tamoxifen in Women With BRCA1 and BRCA2 Mutations: Another Option?
In analyses of pooled information from cohorts of women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations who have had a prior breast cancer diagnosis, Phillips and colleagues examined the association between tamoxifen use compared to nonuse on contralateral breast cancer risk.1 Tamoxifen use was associated with...
Undertreatment of Cancer Pain Remains a Persistent Problem in Oncology
Data indicate that for more than 2 decades, cancer pain has been undertreated in the United States. The paradox of this stubborn clinical problem is that oncology has the ability to manage the great majority of cancer pain. To clarify this issue, The ASCO Post recently spoke with nationally...
What Is the Optimal Treatment of Advanced Melanoma?
With exciting targeted and immunotherapeutic agents now part of the arsenal for metastatic melanoma, which drug should move to the head of the line? Mario Sznol, MD, Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, has been involved in key clinical trials of the...
High-Tech Imaging Contributes to Overdiagnosis, Overtreatment of Low-Risk Thyroid Cancers
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...
Three 'Game-Changers' in the Treatment of Melanoma
There have been three “game-changers” in the treatment of melanoma, Mark R. Albertini, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, contended at the Best of ASCO Chicago meeting. The first, he explained, was the recognition of different genetic driver...
SIDEBAR: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Reviewing a study on off-label use of chemotherapy, Monika K. Krzyzanowska, MD, MPH, of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre University of Toronto, reflected on what she called the good, the bad, and the ugly of off-label drug use. “Certainly there are some good aspects about off-label therapy,” she...
Prescribing of Off-Label Chemotherapy Is Common, and Most Off-Label Drug Use Meets NCCN Compendium Criteria
Off-label prescribing of drugs remains common in oncology, but about two-thirds of off-label prescribing is consistent with the National Comprehensive Care Network (NCCN) compendium, according to a study1 reviewed at the Best of ASCO® ’13 meeting in Chicago by Monika K. Krzyzanowska, MD, MPH,...
A Great Privilege to Die Beneath an Open Sky
It was 1:00 AM, and my beeping pager awakened me. When you’re a surgical oncologist, you know that a page from your chief resident at this hour of the morning usually means someone may need to go to the operating room. And, yes, it was the chief resident about a patient in crisis. Except in this...
Paging Dr. Google: Practicing Oncology in the Era of Social Media and Telemedicine
Over the past few decades, economic and political factors have reshaped oncology, especially in the community setting. To defray risk, we’ve seen a trend toward oncology practices partnering with hospitals or aggregating into larger networks. Moreover, the Internet and the advent of telemedicine...
Platinum Agents in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Encouraging New Data
For the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer, there is renewed interest in investigating the role of platinum chemotherapy, according to Melinda L. Telli, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Stanford University, Palo Alto. At the Best of ASCO meeting in Los Angeles, Dr. Telli reviewed the...
Platinum-Based Treatment of Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
The last issue of The ASCO Post reports encouraging results with platinum-based treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (September 15, 2013). We predicted these findings 4 years ago in a presentation at the 2009 Breast Symposium.1 We compared the activity of a series of agents (platinum, taxane, ...
To Die Beneath an Open Sky
I read the essay by Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, FRCS, FACS, published recently in The ASCO Post and found it both thoughtful and compelling (“A Great Privilege to Die Beneath an Open Sky,” The ASCO Post, September 15, 2013, page 1). Dr. Are made one statement with which I take exception, however, and...
Jane Weeks, MD, MSc, National Leader in Outcomes Research, Dies at 61
On September 10, Jane Carrie Weeks, MD, MSc, a prominent researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Center, died of cancer in her Boston home. She was 61. At the time of her death, Dr. Weeks was Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School...
'Doing Nothing' Is Not an Option
I applaud The ASCO Post for continuing to raise awareness about futile medical care at the close of life with the recent publication of a commentary by Dr. Chandrakanth Are (“A Great Privilege to Die Beneath an Open Sky,” The ASCO Post, September 15, 2013, page 1). I would suggest, however, that we ...
High-Quality Diet May Reduce Risk
Consuming a high-quality diet, consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005, may reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer, a dietary pattern analysis study found. “This finding contrasts with previous studies showing limited associations with specific foods or nutrients,” the authors...
Shiftworkers Likely to Have Increased Risk
A strong positive association with shiftwork and elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was found in an analysis of three National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) studies. “Our data support the notion that sleep or circadian disruption is associated with elevated PSA,...
Smoking App for Teens
E-cigarettes are one of the many issues addressed in the Tobacco-Free Teens app developed at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. “What we are trying to say to teens is that you might as well avoid trying any of the cigarettes, or small cigars, or nicotine delivery devices, such as e-cigarettes,”...
What You Need to Know About E-Cigarettes
“I’ve seen a lot of puzzled people,” Alexander V. Prokhorov, MD, PhD, said, referring to people who see others using electronic or e-cigarettes. That puzzlement can go beyond wondering why people are smoking in public places and whether they are breaking the law, or just being annoying, to...
How to Recognize and Manage Ipilimumab-Induced Dermatologic Adverse Events
Ipilimumab (Yervoy) is a fully humanized immunoglobulin (Ig)G1 monoclonal antibody that binds to and inhibits cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4). It acts as a T-cell potentiator, leading to increases in T-cell activation and interleukin-2 secretion. Ipilimumab is U.S. Food and...
Straight Talk: The Future of Medical and Health Research
Nearly 200 scientists and stakeholders in the research community attended Research!America’s National Health Research Forum on September 12, at the Newseum’s Knight Conference Center in Washington, DC. Research!America’s President and CEO, Mary Woolley, opened the program. “The theme for this...
For 2 Decades, Nancy Davenport-Ennis Has Worked to Ensure Access to Health Care for All Patients Diagnosed With Life-Threatening Illness
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...
Donatori di Musica Initiative Creates a Unique Environment for Oncology Patients
“Surely again, to heal men’s wounds by music’s spell.” —Euripides, Medea (480-406 BC) Commonly defined as organized sound, music has a unique power to stir human emotions, moods, and impressions. The salutary effect of music on the sick has been reported since antiquity. Aristotle and Plato wrote...
Focus on the Wisconsin Association of Hematology & Oncology
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...
Herb-Drug Interactions in Oncology
Guest Editor Integrative Oncology is guest edited by Barrie R. Cassileth, MS, PhD, Chief of the Integrative Medicine Service and Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. The Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering...
Advances in Medical Oncology Over the Next Decade
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...
Cancer Does Not Discriminate
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...
Protecting Hippocampus During Whole-Brain Radiation Substantially Reduces Rate of Cognitive Decline
Protecting the stem cells that reside in and around the hippocampus substantially reduces the rate of cognitive decline in patients during whole-brain radiotherapy without a significant risk of recurrence in that area of the brain, a new study shows. Results of the phase II clinical trial of...
Long-Term Androgen Deprivation in Patients With Intermediate-Risk Prostate Cancer Does Not Improve Overall Survival
Men with advanced prostate cancer typically receive hormonal therapy to reduce the level of androgens in their bodies. Although hormone therapy alone will not cure prostate cancer, lowering androgen levels can reduce the size of prostate tumors or stall their growth. A secondary analysis of the...
Radium-223 and Beyond in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
Metastasis to bone is the hallmark of prostate cancer and a major source of disease-related morbidity and mortality. In addition to prostate cancer cells, other major players in the vicious interactive cycle of prostate cancer bone metastasis are osteoblasts, osteoclasts, and mineralized bone...
View From a Cancer Ward in Botswana
Julie Livingston, PhD, MPH, is a Professor of History at Rutgers University. She is also an African historian with interdisciplinary training in public health and anthropology. Among other issues, her work considers the challenges of delivering oncology services in southern Africa, where there is a ...
