The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies of people with colon or rectal cancer in the newly diagnosed and metastatic settings. The studies include phase I, Ib, II, observational, and interventional trials investigating new drug...
In September, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its report Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. The report argues that the U.S. health-care system subjects patients to too many—and often futile—interventions near the end of life, often ...
Studies show that all cancers and related treatments have the potential to affect sexuality and sexual function. Surgery, chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, bone marrow transplantation, and radiation therapy can physically impact sexual health in myriad ways, including vaginal dryness, dyspareunia,...
A randomized clinical trial of patients with advanced metastatic melanoma treated with ipilimumab (Yervoy), an immune checkpoint inhibitor, in combination with sargramostim (Leukine), an immune stimulant, vs ipilimumab alone, has found a 1-year survival rate of 68.9% vs 52.9% in the ipilimumab-only ...
The image of aging that Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, expresses in his essay, “Why I Hope to Die at 75,” in the October issue of The Atlantic,1 is bleak indeed and one that has contributed mightily to the negative views of aging imbedded in our society. But I refute his description of growing older as...
Advances in science and medicine have led to humans living longer than at any other time in history. According to a new report1 on mortality from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy in the United States is at an all-time high of...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes clinical studies actively recruiting people with Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), including AIDS-related NHL, as well as studies that are also recruiting patients with multiple myeloma and mantle cell lymphoma....
I know it sounds odd, but the past 10 years spent living with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been very productive, wonderful years. It is not the life I had before my diagnosis, but it is the life I remember most clearly, and knowing how deadly this cancer is, I’m grateful for every day of ...
The following seven recipients of the 2014 Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Awards in Palliative Care were honored at the 2014 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium for their work in improving the care of people living with cancer around the world. Erin Alexi, MD, Virginia Commonwealth...
The overriding consensus from the 2014 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium: Patient-Centered Care Across the Cancer Continuum held in Boston was that achieving optimal high-quality cancer care requires both state-of-the-art cancer therapy and the integration of palliative care principles...
A 4-year study1 involving 461 patients with advanced stages of lung, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, breast, and gynecologic cancers has found that providing early outpatient palliative care vs standard oncology care alone improved quality of life and patient satisfaction. The study participants...
Each year, about 70,000 adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are diagnosed with cancer in the United States, almost six times the number of cases diagnosed in children up to 14 years of age. While overall cancer survival rates continue to rise—according to the American Cancer Society, there are...
On December 3, 2014, Robert S. Miller, MD, FACP, FASCO, will start his new position as Medical Director of ASCO’s Institute for Quality (iQ). Established in 2012 to oversee the development of clinical practice guidelines, the Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI), the QOPI Certification...
ASCO issued its new Policy Statement on Medicaid Reform on November 17, which calls for major changes to the program to ensure access to high-quality cancer care for all low-income individuals. The Society’s recommendations call for Medicaid expansion in all 50 states to close coverage gaps,...
The ASCO Post wishes to acknowledge and thank all contributors to the publication during 2014. Here we recognize those who shared their personal thoughts in our Op-Ed department. If you are interested in contributing to The ASCO Post in 2015, write to editor@ASCOPost.com. Robert Peter Gale, MD,...
Although Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, MD, harbored fantasies as a young child of becoming an ice deliveryman when he grew up, his love of chemistry and biology, as well as admonitions from his mother, Isabel, “to become a doctor,” propelled him toward a career in medicine. Now, more than 6 decades later, ...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes details of actively recruiting clinical studies of children and adults with various types of soft-tissue sarcoma, including non-rhabdomyosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, gastrointestinal stromal tumor, and Kaposi sarcoma. The studies...
The second annual JADPRO Live: Transforming Oncology Practice was held October 30 to November 2 in Orlando, Florida. The conference drew nearly 400 nurse practitioners, physician assistants, clinical nurse specialists, advanced-degree nurses, hematology/oncology nurses, pharmacists, and...
On November 1, 2014, 29-year-old Brittany Maynard ended her life through physician-assisted death, reigniting the controversy surrounding Death With Dignity laws, which allow physicians to prescribe life-ending drugs to terminally ill patients. Diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme in January, Ms. ...
Fatigue is such a common—and ongoing—problem among cancer survivors, last spring, ASCO published a clinical practice guideline1 to address screening, assessment, and treatment approaches for the management of fatigue after patients have completed treatment. Among the strategies included in the...
In 2013, I was at the top of my professional game. I was a lead performer in the hit Broadway show Motown: The Musical, playing singing legend Diana Ross, which earned me a Tony Award nomination. Performing eight shows a week is exhausting, but I had no problem meeting the physical demands of the...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies of children and young adult cancer survivors. The studies include phase I, I/II, III, observational, and interventional trials investigating genomic profiling to personalize treatment;...
The following five abstracts, which include four clinical studies and one basic research study, were named the top abstracts at the 2014 International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology. Therapeutic Effects of Lyophilized Leech Saliva Extract Hassona MDH, Ammar AE, Gao TY, et al: In ...
There were several aspects of the 11th International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO), held October 26-28, 2014, in Houston, that distinguished it from past years. One major change was that this year’s conference was held in collaboration with The University of Texas MD...
Although cancer rehabilitation has been a part of oncology clinical practice for several decades, it has largely gone unrecognized as an integral part of palliative medicine and survivorship care. Now, the role of physical medicine and rehabilitation in oncology care may increase as patients with...
“I learned a lot of things in medical school, but mortality wasn’t one of them,” writes Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, in his new book on the medicalization of aging and dying, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End (Metropolitan Books, 2014). In the book, Dr. Gawande critiques the American...
A study by researchers at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and The Ohio State University in Columbus of whole-genome sequencing on patients found to have BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations as well as on those who were not carriers of a BRCA1/2 mutation has found cancer risk of...
Epithelioid hemangioendothelioma is a rare and devastating vascular sarcoma that affects between 100 and 200 people, mostly young adults, each year in the United States. The cancer may arise as a solitary lesion but more commonly presents with metastatic involvement, usually in the liver and lungs. ...
In the fall of 2010, I developed a sore throat and tonsillitis while on a hike in North Carolina. Although it was not uncommon for me to have sore throats accompanied by some swelling on my tonsils, this time much of the inflammation and swelling were centered on just my left tonsil. After 7 days...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with newly diagnosed or recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. The studies include pilot, phase I, I/II, III, and observational trials investigating chemoradiation therapy;...
ASCO recently released its report, Clinical Cancer Advances 2015: An Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer, and for the first time announced its cancer Advance of the Year: gains made in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The report credited improvements in CLL care with four...
Two years ago, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), the nonprofit organization that evaluates and accredits more than 9,000 medical residency programs in the United States, began phasing in implementation of its Next Accreditation System for graduate medical education,...
I come from strong physical stock and inherited a sort of “tough it out mentality” when it comes to coping with the usual aches and pains that creep up as you age. So by the time I realized that my legs had become so swollen and my breathing so labored it was difficult for me to walk, I could...
Soon after publication of The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner) in 2010, the book’s author Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, PhD, received a call from Laura Ziskin, a film producer and cofounder of Stand Up To Cancer, who was interested in obtaining the film rights to Dr....
Acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The Central Park Five, and The Roosevelts: An Intimate History) has been making films for more than 35 years. His most recently completed project, scheduled to air on PBS this spring, is Ken Burns Presents Cancer: The Emperor of All...
Ken Burns Presents Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, A Film by Barak Goodman will be broadcast on PBS on March 30, March 31, and April 1. Check local listings for broadcast times. Like the book it’s based on, the television documentary Ken Burns Presents Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, A...
Two years ago, ASCO collaborated with the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine to develop the Virtual Learning Collaborative, a virtual quality improvement program intended to address the complex care needs of patients with advanced cancer and the care quality for all patients with...
Recent research1 conducted by Robert H. Pierce, MD, and his colleagues investigating why PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) inhibitors result in remarkably durable clinical remissions in some patients with melanoma, whereas others reap a short-term benefit or no benefit at all is showing that...
I had every classic brain tumor symptom in the book—severe headaches, dizziness, morning nausea—which plagued me for 16 years, starting when I was 8. In college, if I allowed myself to sleep more than 4 hours a night, the morning headaches, which were centered on the top of my head, were so severe, ...
A recent analysis of 55 Internet websites marketing a broad range of tests and services that promise the ability to personalize cancer treatment has found that the websites often overemphasize their purported benefits and downplay their limitations. In addition, the study results show that the...
A variety of studies, including one published this past year in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 have showed that clinicians who care for seriously ill patients are at high risk for diminished personal well-being, including high rates of burnout; moral distress, defined as the inability to act in ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has announced the election of Nancy E. Davidson, MD, Director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and UPMC CancerCenter in Pittsburgh, as its President-Elect for 2015–2016. Dr. Davidson will officially become President-Elect at the...
What initially drew me to read the eloquent essay by Paul Kalanithi, MD, in The New York Times—“How Long Have I Got Left?”—was its provocative title.1 What kept me there was the moving description of his quick transition from healthy physician with a brilliant career in neurosurgery to terminally...
Editor’s note: We regret to announce that Paul Kalanithi, MD, passed away on March 9, 2015. Dr. Kalanithi was Chief Resident in Neurological Surgery at Stanford University when he shared his story, reprinted here, with The ASCO Post just over 1 year ago, in March 2014. We extend our deepest...
In the Institute of Medicine’s 2014 report Dying in America,1 the report’s authors found that while frequent clinician-patient conversations about end-of-life care, goals, and preferences are necessary to avoid unwanted treatment, most patients do not have those conversations with their physicians. ...
In January, ASCO released its report, Clinical Cancer Advances 2015: An Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer,1 which details research advances over the past decade that have led to longer survival and better quality of life for the more than half-a-million people diagnosed with cancer each...
The first inkling I had that something could be seriously wrong occurred just over a year ago, when I was suddenly inflicted with such severe heartburn it kept me awake at night. Prescriptions from my doctor for ranitidine (Zantac) and meloxicam (Mobic) not only failed to tamp down the fiery pain,...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation’s 2015 International Innovation Grants were awarded to the following five organizations conducting research in India, Mexico, Nigeria, Romania, and Uganda: Tata Medical Center (Kolkata, India). This grant is funding a randomized clinical study testing the success of...
In 2014, the Conquer Cancer Foundation awarded four inaugural International Innovation Grants to aid novel research projects in Colombia, Myanmar, Nigeria, and Tanzania. The program, which supports a 1-year research grant of up to $20,000 to a nonprofit organization or governmental agency in a low- ...
The greatest health threat to people living in low- and middle-income countries is no longer infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, which has seen a 33% decline in the global rate of new infections since 2001.1 It is the rise of noncommunicable diseases (including cancer, cardiovascular disease, and...