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Showing 1351 - 1400Experts Address Cancer Health Disparities in Facebook Live Session at AACR Meeting
Although it has long been known that certain cancer types disproportionately affect individuals from underserved and underrepresented populations, the sources of these disparities are still not entirely clear. In a “Facebook Live” session at the 2017 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)...
Tackling the High Cost of Cancer Care
AT THE 2017 ASCO ANNUAL MEETING, the leaders of the newly formed Value in Cancer Care Consortium (vi3c; vi3c.org) met to discuss the group’s plan to study how to improve the affordability of cancer drugs and make them more accessible to patients. The goal of the Value in Cancer Care Consortium is...
Role of the E7 Gene in High-Risk HPV
NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) researchers have found that for the most common high-risk type of human papillomavirus (HPV) to cause cervical cancer, an important viral gene may need to have a precise DNA sequence. The findings, published by Mirabello et al in Cell,1 contribute to a better...
The Man in the Vest
It had been an uneventful Sunday morning, and I was writing my final note for the day, hopeful to make a stealth exit and perhaps join my family at church. But as I closed the chart and looked up, I saw Ruthie, my oncology fellow, approaching with a grim expression. “I just left the room of a...
Restorative Effects of Painting Offset the Demands of Oncology
Oncologists are apt to give patients the worst news of their lives: You have cancer. Yet studies show that, by and large, despite the stressful aspects of treating people with a life-threatening disease, oncologists report one of the highest percentages of professional satisfaction among medical...
Expert Point of View: Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD
Invited discussant Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, of the University Hospitals Leuven in Belgium, put the JACOB trial findings in context of what is known for HER2-positive metastatic gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer, where two targeted agents are approved: trastuzumab (Herceptin) in the first...
FDA Approves CAR T-Cell Therapy for Adults With Certain Types of Large B-Cell Lymphoma
ON OCTOBER 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta), a cell-based gene therapy, to treat adult patients with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma who have not responded to or who have relapsed after at least two other kinds of treatment....
IDEA Trial: ‘Going Beyond Statistics’ in Stage III Colon Cancer
According to Alberto Sobrero, MD, Head of Medical Oncology at Ospedale San Martino in Genova, Italy, the results of the pivotal IDEA trial, which evaluated the optimal duration of adjuvant chemotherapy for stage III colon cancer, were not clear to clinicians.1 The combined analysis of six...
Pathologic Complete Response Rates Not Improved With Neoadjuvant Letrozole/Palbociclib
As neoadjuvant treatment of women with high-risk luminal breast cancer, the combination of letrozole and palbociclib (Ibrance) did not reduce the residual cancer burden or improve the rates of breast-conserving surgery, in the phase II UNICANCER- NeoPAL study presented at the 2017 European Society ...
Where Are We Now in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer?
The treatment of triple-negative breast cancer is rapidly evolving, as clinical trials continue to test chemotherapy agents and combinations and immunotherapy studies promise potentially “game-changing” interventions early in the course of disease, Joyce O’Shaughnessy, MD, reported at the 19th...
Clinical Relevance of Minimal Residual Disease Monitoring Limited in Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Although a majority of major cancer centers may test for minimal residual disease (MRD), a recent survey conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, suggests most oncologists remain uncertain about what to do with the results. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network®...
Are African American Women With Type 2 Diabetes at Increased Risk for ER-Negative Breast Cancer?
A prospective study by Palmer et al assessing the relationship of type 2 diabetes and the incidence of estrogen receptor–negative and estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer among African American women has found statistically significant evidence of an increased risk of estrogen...
Paul Neiman, MD, PhD, Founding Member of Fred Hutch, Dies at 78
PAUL NEIMAN, MD, PhD, a founding member of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch), transplant physician, and cancer biologist, died on October 11 of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 78. Dr. Neiman was also one of the founders and leaders of the Basic Sciences Division,...
Higher Risk of Breast Cancer Does Not Motivate Cancer Screening in Many Women
Some women, because of genetic predisposition, personal, or family history, have a higher-than-average lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. For those women, earlier magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is recommended for cancer screening. But according to new findings presented at the American...
ASCO Cites Evidence That Alcohol Is Linked to Cancer, Calls for Reduced Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol use—whether light, moderate, or heavy—is linked with increasing the risk of several leading cancers, including those of the breast, colon, esophagus, and head and neck, according to evidence gathered by ASCO. In a statement released November 7 identifying alcohol as a definite...
Fat Cells May Inactivate Chemotherapeutic Drug and Contribute to Poorer Survival in ALL
It is well established that obesity increases the risk for cancer mortality, although no mechanisms have been proven to explain the reason for this association. Now a laboratory study investigating how obesity might alter the effectiveness of daunorubicin in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic...
Life After Treatment: Managing Lymphoma Survivors
According to Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data, patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) have 5-year survival rates of 86% and 71%, respectively.1 Although the increased number of survivors is welcome proof of the success of new treatment regimens, it also ...
Immunotherapeutic Approaches for B-Cell Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia
New therapeutic agents for acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) have led to dramatic improvement in remission rates, but questions concerning the proper sequencing and combination of these agents remain. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) 13th Annual Congress: Hematologic...
Pembrolizumab Benefits Patients With Recurrent Metastatic Head and Neck Cancer, Mainly High PD-L1–Expressing Tumors
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) may be a better choice than standard of care for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, especially those whose tumors express programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) in 50% or more of cells, suggest results of the phase III KEYNOTE-040...
No Additional Benefit Found for Routine, Early Palliative Care in Mesothelioma
Early routine specialist palliative care for patients recently diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma did not impact quality of life, an international multicenter study has found.1 “Regular early specialist palliative care for patients was not associated with improved quality of life, as...
ENDEAVOR Trial Endeavors to Make Case for Carfilzomib: Despite Survival Advantage, Should We Be Surprised?
LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION! That’s what home buyers are frequently cautioned about before purchasing a property. For trialists, and more importantly, practicing oncologists, a study’s design, akin to a property’s location, must be taken into account prior to buying into the results and changing ...
AACR-NCI-EORTC: Noninvasive Computational Imaging Approach May Help Predict Response to Immunotherapy
A computational imaging-based signature of immune-cell infiltration in and around a tumor could predict patients’ responses to treatment with anti–programmed cell death protein 1/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-1/PD-L1) immunotherapies, according to data from a study presented by Sun et...
Documentary Film Takes a Walk on the Wild Side With Oncology Pioneers
Oncology luminaries. Thought leaders. The soul of chemotherapy. These are just a few of the phrases used to describe Emil Frei, MD, FASCO, Emil J Freireich, MD, FASCO, James F. Holland, MD, FASCO, Georges Mathé, MD, and their historic contributions to the world of oncology. Inspired by these...
Funding the Future of Cancer Research Led by Women Making an Impact
WOMEN WHO CONQUER CANCER (WWCC) funds the promising careers of the best and brightest women researchers through the Conquer Cancer Foundation’s Young Investigator Award (YIA) program. Thanks to the generosity of supporters, five awards were granted in 2017. Right now, gifts to the WWCC Endowment...
Abiraterone or Docetaxel: Which Is Optimal for Hormone-Sensitive High-Risk Prostate Cancer?
ABIRATERONE ACETATE (Zytiga) plus prednisone and docetaxel have moved up from the castrate-resistant metastatic setting to earlier in the course of disease as treatment of high-risk hormone-sensitive prostate cancer in men who are initiating androgen-deprivation therapy, based on level 1 evidence...
Could the Rising Rates of Colorectal Cancer in AYAs Be Linked to HPV Infection?
TWO STUDIES published this year examining the incidence of colorectal cancer in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) show an undeniable and sobering trend: Colorectal cancer rates are increasing in this age group, and younger people are dying of the cancer at slightly higher rates than in previous...
Engaging Patients in Value-Based Care
Turning the Tide Against Cancer is an annual conference sponsored by the Personalized Medicine Coalition, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), Feinstein Kean Healthcare, and CancerCare. Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), AACR Chief Executive Officer, introduced the proceedings for the 2017...
FDA Approves CAR T-Cell Therapy to Treat Adults With Certain Types of Large B-Cell Lymphoma
On October 18, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta), a cell-based gene therapy, to treat adult patients with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma who have not responded to or who have relapsed after at least two other kinds of treatment....
Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst Launches 10 Clinical Trial Projects
Stand Up To Cancer has awarded 10 Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst clinical trial projects in which researchers from more than 30 institutions collaborate across academic and corporate borders on clinical trials studying correlated translational research. The inaugural Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst...
IASLC 2017: Early Palliative Care Provides No Quality-of-Life Benefits for Patients With Recently Diagnosed Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma
Early specialist palliative care for patients that were recently diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma does not impact quality-of-life measures, according to research presented by Fraser Brims, MBcHB, MRCP, MD, FRACP, of Curtin University in Australia, at the International Association...
Role of the E7 Gene in High-Risk HPV
National Cancer Institute (NCI) researchers have found that for the most common high-risk type of human papillomavirus (HPV) to cause cervical cancer, an important viral gene may need to have a precise DNA sequence. The findings, published by Mirabello et al in Cell, contribute to a better...
Cord Blood Transplantation Proves Beneficial in High-Risk Patients With Leukemia
Studies show that only about one-third of patients with acute myeloid leukemia who have detectable amounts of cancer cells in their blood at the time of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation will be alive 3 years later, compared with nearly three-quarters of those patients without minimal...
Abemaciclib Plus Endocrine Therapy Extends Progression-Free Survival in First-Line Therapy for Advanced Breast Cancer
THE VALUE OF cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitors in advanced breast cancer became ever more certain with the announcement of interim data from MONARCH 3, which evaluated abemaciclib in combination with endocrine therapy as first-line therapy for hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative...
Can We Have a Successful Vaccine Against Cancer?
EARLY IN our careers, few of us imagined that a vaccine could one day prevent cancer. Now, there is a vaccine that keeps the risks from human papillomavirus (HPV) at bay, and yet universal adoption of the HPV vaccine has been incomplete. As a result of misinformation about the vaccine—and its...
Increasing Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Oncology Workforce
Although significant progress has been made in cancer incidence and mortality in the United States over the past 2 decades—the death rate fell 23% between 1991 and 20121—not everyone is benefiting equally. According to the American Cancer Society, blacks have the highest death rate and shortest...
Obtaining a Second Graduate Degree During Fellowship: Things to Consider
KAH POH (MELISSA) LOH, MBBCh BAO Institution: Fellow, University of Rochester Medical CenterMember since: 2013ASCO activities: Trainee Council Hematology and oncology fellowship training requires at least 3 years to complete. For fellows who wish to single board in either hematology or oncology, a ...
The Dark Side of Medicine: Physician Suicide
The statistics on physician suicide are stark: Physicians are more than twice as likely to take their own lives as nonphysicians, and more than 400 physicians commit suicide each year in the United States. Moreover, young physicians at the early part of their training are reported to be...
Preexisting Dementia and Survival in Older Patients With Stage III Colon Cancer
A pre-existing diagnosis of dementia was associated with increased risk of death for older patients with advanced colon cancer; however, some of the effects of dementia on survival could be mediated by receipt of chemotherapy, according to results of a study published by Chen et al in Cancer...
How a Child With Cancer Moved From Vulnerability to Resilience
At the time this article was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Danaher was practicing at Monash -University, -Melbourne, Australia; Drs. Brand and Mack, at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston; Dr. Pickard, at the Imperial College -Healthcare NHS Trust, London; and Dr. Berry,...
Overdiagnosis of Those in Higher Income Brackets
According to researchers from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, being in a high-income bracket may lead to overdiagnosis of cancer and the subsequent harms associated with unnecessary medical treatments. To shed light on this interesting finding and its broader...
Talking About Physician Burnout: Practical Strategies for Starting the Conversation
Would you rather explain the benefits of three cycles of bleomycin, etoposide, and cisplatin to a hostile crowd of bored teenagers than talk to your program director, supervisor, or colleagues about feeling burned out? It is an understandable feeling. Professional burnout is a difficult concept to...
Balancing Harms and Benefits of Cancer Screening: The Debate Continues
Over the past several decades, widespread cancer screening has saved lives from various cancer types. However, despite advances in early-detection technologies, many cancers still remain undetected until they become symptomatic, conferring poor prognoses and outcomes. Moreover, some methods of...
How Early Palliative Care May Benefit Patients With Incurable Cancer
Palliative care provided soon after a patient is diagnosed with incurable cancer not only helps improve the patient’s overall quality of life but also improves communication about the patient’s wishes for end-of-life care, according to a study by Jennifer S. Temel, MD, Clinical Director of Thoracic ...
Update on Nonimmunotherapy Advances in Endometrial, Cervical, and Ovarian Cancers
AT THE 12TH ANNUAL New Orleans Summer Cancer Meeting, Thomas Herzog, MD, Deputy Director of the University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute and Professor of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, delivered an update on nonimmunotherapy advances in...
ESMO 2017: Patients With High-Risk Prostate Cancer May Benefit From Addition of Docetaxel or Abiraterone/Prednisolone to Long-Term Hormone Therapy
Patients with high-risk prostate cancer starting long-term hormone therapy may benefit from two new treatments, according to late-breaking results from the STAMPEDE trial presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress in Madrid (LBA31_PR). Long-term hormone therapy...
ESMO 2017: DNA Sequencing Could Open Up New Drug Indications for Patients With Rare Cancers
Due to DNA sequencing, patients with rare cancers for which no standard treatment is available could receive existing therapies that work in patients treated for different cancers but who carry the same genetic mutations. The first results of a multidrug and multitumor clinical trial (Abstract...
ESMO 2017: ICON8 Trial Reaffirms Standard Chemotherapy Dosing in Ovarian Cancer
Caucasian women with ovarian cancer can safely stick to the standard every-3-week dosing schedule for paclitaxel rather than boosting up to a weekly dose-dense regimen, according to results of the phase III ICON8 trial presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress in...
FDA Pilot Program Aims to Encourage Students to Pursue STEM Careers
When I was in high school, I spent summers working as a restaurant dishwasher, grocery store stock boy, and gardener in northwest Indiana. The idea of spending those weeks learning about science and medicine would not have been an option for me at that time. Yet it is precisely those students who...
Zika Virus Shows Oncolytic Activity Against Glioblastoma Stem Cells in Preclinical Trial
Although Zika virus causes devastating damage to the brains of developing fetuses, it someday may prove to be an effective treatment for glioblastoma. New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California San Diego School of Medicine showed that...
Control
Many Type A personalities deal with problems by controlling all aspects of the problem. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it works for a while. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all. The health-care system—hospitals, clinics, and doctors’ offices—have policies (specific office hours and strict...
