The addition of norethandrolone as maintenance therapy improved survival in patients aged ≥ 60 years with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to a French phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Pigneux et al. Norbert Ifrah, MD, of CHU d’Angers, France, is the...
In a matched retrospective analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Zhao et al identified and validated a 24-gene predictor of response to postoperative radiotherapy in prostate cancer. Felix Y. Feng, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, is the corresponding author of The Lancet...
In the phase III PICASSO III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Christopher W. Ryan, MD, of Oregon Health & Science University, and colleagues found that adding palifosfamide to doxorubicin did not prolong progression-free survival among patients with metastatic soft-tissue...
Mir et al found that regorafenib (Stivarga) was active in patients with advanced nonadipocytic soft-tissue sarcoma previously treated with an anthracycline, according to a French-Austrian phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology. Regorafenib, a kinase inhibitor, should be evaluated further in ...
In an exploratory analysis of the REACH trial in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma reported in JAMA Oncology, Andrew X. Zhu, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, and colleagues found a borderline survival benefit of second-line ramucirumab (Cyramza)...
Treatment with the multikinase inhibitor cabozantinib (Cabometyx) alone or with erlotinib (Tarceva) improved progression-free survival vs erlotinib alone in second- or third-line treatment of advanced nonsquamous epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) wild-type non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC),...
FEBRUARY Immuno-Oncology 360°February 1-3 • New York, New YorkFor more information:http://theconferenceforum.org/conferences/immuno-oncology-360/overview/ 14th APOS Annual ConferenceFebruary 15-18 • Orlando, Florida For more information: apos-society.org/annual-conference/ Genitourinary Cancers...
Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, an expert in multiple myeloma, will serve as President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) for a year-long term through December 2017. Dr. Anderson is Director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and the Jerome Lipper Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber...
Two breast cancer researchers in the Baylor College of Medicine’s Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center, part of the Dan L. Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, have been awarded grants from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to support their research in drug efficacy in treating triple-negative breast...
Phase I Study Title: Ethacrynic Acid Elimination in Nonmuscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Patients Undergoing Transurethral Resection Study Type: Phase I/interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: University of Kansas Medical Center Purpose: To provide quantitative...
On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) describing cases of a rare lung infection in five young gay men in Los Angeles. The men had other unusual infections as well, indicating their immune systems were compromised....
Julien Edeline, MD, of the Centre Eugène Marquis, discusses in French study findings on gemcitabine and oxaliplatin vs surveillance following surgery for localized biliary tract cancer (Abstract 225).
Ovarian cancer, the deadliest of gynecologic cancers, is usually diagnosed after the disease has spread. Susan Evans was a secondary English and remedial reading teacher for 32 years in Bradford, Pennsylvania. She was on several advisory boards and was recognized by the Pennsylvania Senate and...
On January 9, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved morphine sulfate extended-release tablets with abuse-deterrent properties (Arymo ER), a C-II drug for the management of pain severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment and for which alternative...
Although initiation of palliative care from the time of cancer diagnosis produces optimal outcomes for patients, this strategy is often not practiced. A recent Canadian study conducted in patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers examined the opinions of patients with advanced cancer and...
Eastern Maine Medical Center Cancer Care, located at the Lafayette Family Cancer Center, is the newest member of the Dana-Farber Cancer Care Collaborative. Participation in the Collaborative reflects a demonstrated commitment to excellence by meeting a wide array of standards and best practices. As ...
ASCO has released the “ASCO Principles for Patient-Centered Health-Care Reform,” seven recommendations designed to ensure access to high-quality cancer care amid the changing U.S. health-care delivery landscape. The principles aim to assist the new Congress and Administration, so, as they consider...
In October 2015, ASCO launched the Health Policy Fellowship program to help the next generation of oncologists with an interest in health policy to develop the skills and experience necessary to achieve their goals and shape cancer care policy in an increasingly complicated and diverse care...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN) has published the NCCN Guidelines for Patients® and NCCN Quick Guide™ sheets for Brain Cancer–Gliomas, the first in a series of patient education resources focused on brain cancer. Published by NCCN through the support of the NCCN Foundation and in...
Telehealth is the delivery of health care remotely via telecommunication tools. Its aim is to increase access to care, especially for patients with chronic diseases such as cancer and for populations for whom care is not always available. With the growing availability of broadband and portable...
Joan Font-Burgada, PhD, has joined Fox Chase Cancer Center as Assistant Professor in the Cancer Biology Program. A researcher who focuses on liver cancer and regenerative medicine, Dr. Font-Burgada is a current recipient of the prestigious National Cancer Institute Pathway to Independence Award, a ...
Pamela Laszewski, RN, OCN, Clinical Leader of Radiation at the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, will receive the notable 2017 Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) Excellence in Radiation Therapy Nursing Award during the Annual ONS Congress May 4–7, 2017, in Denver. The award was created to...
Carolinas HealthCare System’s Levine Cancer Institute has earned a Planetree Designation, a hallmark of exceptional patient-centered care. The Planetree Designation is a key award that recognizes excellence in person-centeredness across the continuum of care and is based on evidence and standards...
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 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is pleased to announce that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded the organization a 5-year, $1.125 million grant to continue providing clinical fellow and junior faculty clinical researchers the opportunity to learn the essentials of...
“As a medical student, I often felt marginalized from my medical community. I have been told that my name is ‘not American,’ fallen prey to being confused for support staff such as a janitor (even while wearing my white coat) and been asked questions like, ‘Where are you really from?’ or ‘How old...
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Assistant Professor Jie Deng, PhD, RN, has been awarded a $789,000 research scholar grant by the American Cancer Society to develop and test a self-care program for head and neck cancer survivors diagnosed with secondary lymphedema/fibrosis....
ASCO’s State Affiliate Council serves as an advisory group to ASCO’s Board of Directors on issues relating to its State/Regional Affiliates and their members, and serves as a vehicle for effective communications between the Board and domestic membership. The Council is made up of physician...
The 2017 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium was held from January 19–21. Direct your patients to www.cancer.net/blog to read about the recent findings in esophageal and colorectal cancers. In addition, the Cancer Survivorship Symposium is being held from January 27–28. Visit the Cancer.Net blog to ...
JCO Clinical Care Informatics (JCO CCI) will be the first ASCO journal devoted to applications of biomedical informatics to cancer care. Debra Patt, MD, MPH, MBA, the Editor-in-Chief of JCO CCI, understands how important biomedical informatics research is to the oncology field. Dr. Patt coauthored ...
ASCO has launched a new journal dedicated to precision oncology, JCO Precision Oncology (JCO PO). JCO PO features original clinical research, scientific reviews, and editorials on genomics. James M. Ford, MD, the journal’s Editor-in-Chief, said JCO PO offers precision oncologists a place to...
Although, in the past, patients with cancer were often counseled by their physicians to rest and reduce their physical activity, according to the American Cancer Society, emerging data are showing that exercise is not only safe and possible during cancer treatment, it can improve patients’...
ASCO submitted comments to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on the agency’s final rule detailing the Quality Payment Program, which, under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), changes the way physicians are reimbursed for services provided under Medicare...
Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, a long-time member and volunteer, has been elected to serve as President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2018. She will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2017. Additionally, three new members were elected to the ASCO...
Each year on February 4, people around the world come together to celebrate World Cancer Day. Founded in 2008 by the Union for International Cancer Control, World Cancer Day strives to raise awareness of and education about cancer as well as to encourage governments and individuals to take action....
What if more patients with lung cancer could benefit from immunotherapy? Although progress in this area of research is exciting, unfortunately, a vast majority of patients with thoracic malignancies do not respond to this pioneering form of treatment. Vamsidhar Velcheti, MD, Assistant Professor of ...
On December 16, a set of joint guidelines developed by ASCO, the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP), and the College of American Pathologists (CAP) on standardizing the interpretation and reporting of sequence variants in cancer was published online, ahead of the January print issue of The...
The first phase III trial of an inhibitor of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) yielded unprecedented results in treating ovarian cancer. The trial was presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Copenhagen, Denmark, and electronically reported concurrently in The New England ...
In a phase III trial (ENGOT-OV16/NOVA) reported at the 2016 ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology) Congress and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Mansoor R. Mirza, MD, of the Rigshospitalet–Copenhagen University Hospital, and colleagues, maintenance therapy with the PARP (poly...
According to the American Cancer Society, in the United States, thyroid cancer is the most rapidly increasing cancer, tripling in the past 3 decades, and is commonly diagnosed at a younger age than most other adult cancers. A study by Blackburn et al examining whether survivors of thyroid cancer...
New York University (NYU) Langone Medical Center has announced that surgeon and scientist Diane M. Simeone, MD, will join its Perlmutter Cancer Center on March 1, 2017, to serve as Associate Director for Translational Research and to lead its newly established Pancreatic Cancer Center. Currently...
The field of epigenetics emerged in the 1990s and has been described with somewhat variable meanings. In 2008, a meeting at the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory arrived at a definition of epigenetics by consensus: “A stably heritable phenotype resulting from changes in a chromosome without...
Pediatric oncologist Paul Sondel, MD, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, has been awarded a top prize in the field of cancer immunology. The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) announced that Dr. Sondel has received the group’s top award—the Richard V. Smalley, MD,...
UMass Memorial Medical Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have notified the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission that UMass Memorial Medical Center intends to become the first academic medical center to join the Dana-Farber Cancer Care Collaborative. The agreement, for adult medical oncology ...
Sir Donald Munger: “You have been on holiday, I understand. Relaxing, I hope?” James Bond: “Oh, hardly relaxing, but most satisfying.” (Diamonds Are Forever) As tyrosine kinase inhibitors became the mainstay of therapy for patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), our assumption has been that...
Cynthia L. Sears, MD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, summarizes her keynote talk on microbes, microbiota, and colon cancer. Next-generation sequencing combined with biologic studies suggests that most colorectal cancer cases have specific microbiome associations.
Sarah E. Hoffe, MD, of the Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses the controversial role of radiation in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, recent advances in delivering short courses of high-dose stereotactic body radiation therapy, and how best to integrate this new modality in borderline and locally...
Masanori Terashima, MD, PhD, of Shizuoka Cancer Center, discusses phase III study findings evaluating bursectomy for patients with subserosal/serosal gastric cancer (Abstract 5).
Brendan J. Guercio, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses results from a study of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who took part in weekly physical activity and its impact on their disease progression and overall survival (Abstract 659).