While primary malignant brain tumors account for only 2% of all adult cancers, these deadly neoplasms cause severe cancer-related disability; the 5-year survival rates for brain tumors rank third lowest among all cancers, with those for pancreas and lung cancers being first and second lowest,...
What’s the best way to treat rectal cancer? Consult any of five top clinical guidelines for rectal cancer and you will get a different answer, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Their findings were published online in the journal...
The use of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors as human cancer therapy has focused on the impact of these agents on epigenetic regulation and gene transcription. However, the use of HDAC inhibitors in myeloma may be working through a different mechanism. Specifically, HDAC6 is known to regulate...
In 6 out of 10 cases, ovarian cancer is diagnosed when the disease is advanced and 5-year survival is only 27%. A new study suggests that a cancer-killing virus combined with a chemotherapy drug might safely and effectively treat advanced or recurrent forms of the disease. Researchers at The Ohio...
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 booklet to help patients learn how to manage weight gain after a cancer diagnosis is now available in Spanish. In addition, new information in Spanish has been added to Cancer.Net on obesity, weight, and cancer risk, as well as articles on nutrition and physical activity. Your patients can...
ASCO has issued a new template for health-care professionals to use when providing a survivorship care plan to patients who have completed curative cancer therapy. The survivorship care plan contains important information about treatment the patient received, the patient’s need for future checkups...
ASCO recently launched a new and redesigned version of Cancer.Net, its patient-facing website that includes timely, comprehensive, and oncologist-approved information. With support from the Conquer Cancer Foundation, Cancer.Net is able to bring the expertise and resources of ASCO to your patients...
To mark ASCO’s 50th anniversary, the Society called on the oncology community to select the five most pivotal advances in cancer research and patient care over the past 50 years. Now, with more than 2,000 votes cast, ASCO has announced the results on CancerProgress.Net, its interactive website on...
In the United States, it’s been a good 2 years for focused ultrasound. The technology, which uses multiple, intersecting ultrasound beams to treat cancer and other diseases, completed its first successful U.S. phase III oncology trial—to alleviate the pain of bone metastases—and received approval...
With approximately 22,000 diagnoses annually in the United States, ovarian cancer isn’t among the most commonly occurring cancers. Yet, the mortality rate for women who have ovarian cancer hovers above 60%. For Pamela Kreeger, PhD, a University of Wisconsin–Madison Assistant Professor of Biomedical ...
Mortality from colorectal cancer remains a public-health concern, being the second leading cause of cancer-related death for men and women combined. The major preventive measure for colorectal cancer is to screen for and remove adenomatous polyps. Average-risk individuals (ie, those who do not have ...
Dartmouth researchers have developed a fluorescence imaging technique that can more accurately identify receptors for targeted cancer therapies without a tissue biopsy. They report on their findings in a recently published article in Cancer Research.1 “Protein overexpression is a hallmark of...
A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, led by Mong-Hong Lee, PhD, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, has demonstrated the significance of CSN6 in regulating Myc which may well open up a new pathway for treating and killing tumors. The study results are...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Noelle Frey, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues reported achieving sustained remissions in children and adults with...
Unplanned cancer care—emergency department presentations and other unanticipated events—can result in poor outcomes that are potentially preventable. Suzanne Tamang, PhD, Stanford University, Stanford, California, addressed this important issue in her presentation at this year’s Quality Care...
At this year’s Quality Care Symposium, Lawrence N. Shulman, MD, Chief of Staff and Director of the Center for Global Cancer Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, looked at the issue of quality infrastructure development through the prism of several tools developed by the American...
Evidence indicates that the use of surgical safety checklists results in marked improvements in patient outcomes. Unfortunately, their adoption in the field of medicine has largely been limited to equipment operations or parts of specific treatment algorithms. Yet they have tremendous potential to...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recently announced the 20 hematologists and other medical professionals selected to participate in the 2014 ASH Visitor Training Program. This program provides talented hematologists, scientists, and laboratory staff from developing countries the opportunity ...
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,...
A countdown of the top 5 breakthrough therapies in the treatment of advanced lung cancer was presented by D. Ross Camidge, MD, PhD, at the 2014 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology.1 Dr. Camidge is Director, Thoracic Oncology Clinical and Clinical Research Programs, and...
Guidelines can be incorrect if they are not based on incontrovertible evidence. Such was the case with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) 1995 guidelines recommending 5 years of tamoxifen adjuvant therapy for stage I to III hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. With more definitive evidence,...
New therapies for multiple myeloma have dramatically improved life expectancy, but despite these advances, 5-year overall survival still remains below 50%. Investigators are in hot pursuit of new therapies that will extend remissions and improve survival. Thus far, monoclonal antibodies,...
In November 2013, ASCO initiated the development of CancerLinQ, a learning health system designed to transform cancer care and improve outcomes. At this year’s Quality Care Symposium in Boston, ASCO President Peter Paul Yu, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Cancer Research at the Palo Alto Medical...
This year’s European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) meeting held in Madrid was attended by 19,000 delegates, and it was encouraging to see among that number so many young oncologists being given time off for education and discussion. There has never before been a time when so much new...
Trastuzumab (Herceptin) has been the cornerstone of therapy for HER2-positive tumors, which comprise about 20% of all breast tumors. Additional therapies targeted to other HER2 pathways or other targets to be used in combination with trastuzumab are being explored in both the adjuvant and...
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, ...
Patients with untreated metastatic colorectal cancer who received FOLFOXIRI (folinic acid, fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, irintotecan) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) had improved survival compared with patients who received FOLFIRI (folinic acid, fluorouracil, irintotecan) plus bevacizumab in a phase III...
Final results from the phase I/II GAUGUIN study showed that obinutuzumab (Gazyva) monotherapy was active in patients with heavily pretreated relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia, European researchers reported in Blood. In phase II, median progression-free survival was 10.7 months,...
In partnership with the Regis Foundation for Breast Cancer Research, Regis Corporation, a leader in beauty salons and cosmetology, has announced that the Masonic Cancer Center at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, has established the Regis Chair for Breast Cancer Research. This milestone...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new use for ruxolitinib (Jakafi) to treat patients with polycythemia vera, a chronic type of bone marrow disease. Ruxolitinib, a JAK inhibitor, is the first drug approved by the FDA for this condition. Polycythemia vera occurs when too many red ...
The following essay by Fadlo R. Khuri, MD, FACP, is excerpted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories (May 2014), coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org. Life and hope are why we go...
The following list presents those articles published in 2014 that were observed most often by visitors to ASCOPost.com, as measured by the number of views.a To view the full version of the articles listed below, visit ASCOPost.com and enter the URL provided below each entry. 1. Continuous...
JANUARY 2015 Melanoma 2015: 25th Annual Cutaneous Malignancy UpdateJanuary 10-11 • San Diego, California For more information: www.scripps.org/events/melanoma-annual-cutaneous-malignancy-update-january-10-2015 7th Breast Gynecological International Cancer ConferenceJanuary 15-16 • Cairo, Egypt For ...
Bookmark Title: Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner Authors: Judy Melinek, MD, and T.J. Mitchell Publisher: Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc Publication Date: August 2014 Price: $25.00; hardcover, 272 pages Just as the sun came up over a...
Bookmark Title: Internal Medicine: A Doctor’s Stories Author: Terrence Holt, MD Publisher: Liveright Publishing Corporation Publication Date: September 2014 Price: $24.95; hardcover, 288 pages “This book is the story of a residency in internal medicine. I wrote it over a period of 10 years,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today granted accelerated approval to blinatumomab (Blincyto) for the treatment of patients with Philadelphia chromosome–negative, relapsed or refractory precursor B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-cell ALL). Blinatumomab is a bispecific...
The use of dietary supplements by patients with cancer has increased significantly over the past 2 decades despite insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness. Finding reliable sources of information about dietary supplements can be daunting. Patients typically rely on family, friends, and...
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...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) has announced five additional commonly used tests, treatments, and procedures in hematology that physicians and patients should question in certain circumstances. The additional items join an initial list of five practices to question that the Society...
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. ...
Matthew J. Ellis, MD, PhD, a renowned clinician scientist in the area of genomics and molecular profiling of breast cancer, was named the new Director of the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Ellis assumed his new role in September 2014, succeeding C. Kent...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to JCAR015, an investigational chimeric antigen receptor therapy developed by Juno Therapeutics. The designation applies for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia and was...
The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) awarded the Gold Medal, the organization’s highest honor, to three individuals at the RSNA 100th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting: Gary J. Becker, MD, of Tucson; Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, of Alexandria, Virginia; and Etta D. Pisano, MD, of...
ASCO has launched CancerLinQ.org to house all news and information about this cutting-edge health information technology platform that will provide real-time quality feedback to providers, uncover patterns that can improve care, and feed personalized decision support to physicians. Learn how the...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) final Guidance for Industry on Pathologic Complete Response in Neoadjuvant Treatment of High-Risk Early-Stage Breast Cancer incorporates two changes that ASCO had proposed in comments submitted to the agency on a draft guidance issued in 2012. The...
ASCO recognizes that an array of efforts are needed to fully integrate palliative care into the cancer care continuum, and the Society is committed to facilitating the integration of palliative cancer care into existing health-care systems worldwide in order to realize the vision of comprehensive...
In the past decade, much new knowledge about the molecular underpinnings of cancer has accumulated, and the array of molecular aberrations in each individual tumor can be assessed through genomic sequencing and other tests. The rationale for and feasibility of developing molecularly targeted...
A multicenter phase I study using an investigational immune therapy drug has found that the presence of the immune-suppressing protein PD-L1 in noncancerous immune cells can predict how patients with different types of advanced cancer will respond to treatment. The study, led by a Yale Cancer...
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...