Search Results
Your search for ,had matches 18488 pages
Showing 15201 - 15250Continued Survival Benefits Seen With Radical Prostatectomy vs Watchful Waiting in Long-Term Follow-up of the SPCG-4 Trial
The long-term benefits of radical prostatectomy vs watchful waiting in men with localized prostate cancer has remained a debated issue. As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Anna Bill-Axelson, MD, of Uppsala University Hospital, and colleagues, additional long-term follow-up in the...
Demanding More From Clinical Trials
“The function of the formal controlled clinical trial is to separate the relative handful of discoveries that prove to be true advances in therapy from a legion of false leads and unverifiable clinical impressions, and to delineate in a scientific way the extent of and the limitations that attend...
Phase III Study Explores Addition of Nintedanib to Docetaxel in Second-Line Treatment of Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer
In a phase III trial (LUME-Lung 1) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Reck et al assessed the addition of nintedanib to docetaxel in second-line treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).1 The combination significantly improved progression-free survival in all patients and improved overall...
Cancer Chemotherapy Use During Pregnancy
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the FDA and its policies and procedures. In this installment, National Toxicology Program scientists Kembra L. Howdeshell, PhD, and Michael D. Shelby, PhD, discuss a recently completed monograph that reviews the published data on...
Supplemental New Drug Application Submitted for Ibrutinib in CLL
Pharmacyclics, Inc, and Janssen Biotech, Inc, have announced the submission of a supplemental New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), based on data from the randomized, multicenter, open-label phase III RESONATE study, a head-to-head comparison of single-agent ibrutinib ...
FDA Approves First HPV Test for Primary Cervical Cancer Screening
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA test that can be used as a primary cervical cancer screening test for women aged 25 years and older. The test also can provide information about the patient’s risk for developing cervical cancer in the...
FDA Approves Ceritinib for Late-Stage Lung Cancer
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted accelerated approval to ceritinib (Zykadia) for patients with a metastatic anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who were previously treated with crizotinib (Xalkori). Ceritinib is an ALK tyrosine kinase...
Ceritinib Highly Active in Patients With ALK-Rearranged Advanced NSCLC
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring ALK rearrangement is sensitive to the ALK inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori), but resistance ultimately occurs. In a phase I study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Boston, and...
Postmastectomy Radiotherapy Benefits Women With Breast Cancer That Has Spread to One to Three Lymph Nodes
In women with breast cancer who had between one and three positive lymph nodes, radiotherapy reduced the recurrence rate by 32% and the breast cancer death rate by 20%. Giving radiotherapy to these women led to nearly 12 fewer recurrences of breast cancer per 100 women after 10 years, and eight...
The Affordable Care Act: NCCN Panelists Rate It ‘Average’
Oncologists and third-party payers are already experiencing changes as a result of the Affordable Care Act, which earned an “average” rating by a panel of providers, payers, and patients assembled at the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) in Hollywood,...
Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, on Treating the Elderly Lymphoma Patient With Elevated Bilirubin
At the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), lymphoma expert and NCCN Panel Chair on Lymphoma, Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, fielded questions from oncologists. The ASCO Post was there to capture his recommendations for a common clinical scenario—treating the...
Belinostat Moves Forward in Trials for Two Aggressive Cancers
In February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted belinostat (Beleodaq), a targeted histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, priority review status based on a pivotal phase II trial in peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Just 1 month later, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in...
Promoting Health Behaviors Among Cancer Survivors
Promoting healthy behaviors among cancer survivors is associated with improved quality of life according to many studies. But how to translate that evidence into community practice remains a huge question, and the need for answers is growing. It’s not only the lack of consensus on how to help...
I-SPY 2 Trial ‘Graduates’ Neratinib to Phase III Study in HER2-Positive, Hormone Receptor–Negative Breast Cancer
In the targeted-therapy era, it is important to identify subsets of patients who can benefit from novel agents and combinations as quickly as possible. The I-SPY 2 trial is designed to expedite this goal and to change the way that targeted agents are studied and approved. This innovative adaptive...
FGFR Inhibitors of Interest in Bladder and Lung Cancer
Fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitors are an emerging area of interest in cancer therapeutics. Studies presented at the 2014 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego provided early encouraging data for two investigational pan-FGFR inhibitors for the...
Early Data for AG-221 Show Unprecedented Activity in Acute Myeloid Leukemia and Myelodysplastic Syndrome
Although the data are preliminary, experts were impressed with responses to a novel IDH2 inhibitor called AG-221 in patients with hematologic malignancies. In the first clinical trial of AG-221, there were three complete remissions, two complete remissions with incomplete platelet count recovery...
Blood Test Can Identify Prostate Cancer Patients Who Are Not Likely to Respond to Enzalutamide
A simple blood test may be able to identify men with castration-resistant prostate cancer who will not respond to enzalutamide (Xtandi). The presence of the splice variant androgen receptor (AR) V7 in circulating tumor cells identified men who were unlikely to respond to enzalutamide and whose...
Lymphedema Lingers Long After Sentinel Lymph Node Dissection for Early Breast Cancer
Patients with early-stage breast cancer who underwent sentinel lymph node dissection experienced lymphedema with increasing incidence over time, according to a presentation at the 2014 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Cancer Symposium in Phoenix.1 In women who took part in the American College of ...
Survival Analysis of Contralateral Prophylactic Mastectomy Sparks Discussion
Contralateral prophylactic mastectomy improved breast cancer patients’ odds of overall survival by 23% compared with single mastectomy alone, according to a retrospective analysis of nearly 170,000 patients in a U.S. database, but surgical breast cancer specialists warned that the data needed to be ...
Reflecting on the Past Year and Looking Ahead to the Next
On assuming the Presidency of ASCO a year ago, I recognized that one of our greatest challenges as a professional society is helping the American public understand the value of cancer research, especially now, when scientific advances are accelerating but resources are contracting. This is partly...
ASCO Develops New Strategy to Increase Value in Cancer Care
Last January, ASCO held a leadership summit in Washington, DC, with representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, insurance payers, patient advocates, and physicians to address the skyrocketing costs of new drugs and technologies used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Although costs are ...
Ernest Louis Mazzaferri, Sr, MD: September 27, 1936–May 14, 2013
Ernest Louis Mazzaferri, Sr, MD, MACP, of Henderson, Nevada, passed away peacefully at home on May 14, 2013 after a short illness, surrounded by his family. He was born September 27, 1936 in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Mazzaferri spent most of his medical career at The Ohio State University, serving as...
Jane Weeks, MD, MSc: August 12, 1952–September 10, 2013
On September 10, 2013, 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...
Janet L. Rowley, MD: April 5, 1925–December 17, 2013
Dr. Janet L. Rowley’s groundbreaking research in the translocation of genetic material bucked scientific convention and heralded a new understanding that cancer is indeed a genetic disease. Her research was largely responsible for the discoveries that led to the development of the targeted cancer...
Geoffrey P. Herzig, MD: December 6, 1941–December 20, 2013
Many of the advances that have bettered mankind are attributed to those who were driven by a primary passion. Geoffrey P. Herzig, MD, lived the better part of his life with a primary passion: conducting research to increase the cure rate of leukemia and lymphoma patients. His friend and colleague,...
Donald L. Morton, MD: September 12, 1934–January 10, 2014
Donald L. Morton, MD, transformed the management of melanoma and breast cancer by introducing the sentinel node biopsy, giving surgeons an accurate roadmap for treatment, and sparing generations of cancer patients from the morbidity associated with unnecessary surgery. Throughout his distinguished...
Peter Jacobs, MD, PhD: 1934–2013
Peter Jacobs, MD, PhD, regarded as the father of hematology in his native country of South Africa, began each day at 3 AM in the gym. During his workout, Dr. Jacobs would routinely call the nursing staff for updates on patients in his ward. Before sunup, Dr. Jacobs was on his way to the hospital....
ASCO’s Visionary Founders
On April 9, 1964, seven physicians—Jane Cooke Wright, MD, FASCO; Arnoldus Goudsmit, MD, PhD; Fred J. Ansfield, MD, FASCO; Harry F. Bisel, MD, FASCO; Herman H. Freckman, MD, FASCO; Robert W. Talley, MD, FASCO; and William Wilson, MD, FASCO—met for lunch at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. They...
David A. Karnofsky: The Man Behind the Karnofsky Memorial Award and Lecture
David A. Karnofsky, MD, dedicated himself to the pursuit of scientific excellence and the investigation of more effective therapies for cancer for nearly 30 years, from the time he was a young resident at the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital for Cancer Research of Harvard University, until...
Understanding the Relationship Between the Lab and the Clinic is Key to 2014 Karnofsky Memorial Award Honoree’s Success
The island nation of Curaçao is nestled in the southern Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan coast. Curaçao was first settled by the Arawaks, an Amerindian people that inhabited the island for hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans. Amid one wave of settlers from Portugal and Spain that...
Enthusiasm and Vision Guide the Head of FDA’s Oncology Office
In 2005, Richard Pazdur, MD, was named the FDA’s Director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products. By any measure, being arbiter of the nation’s oncology drug pipeline is a daunting prospect, but Dr. Pazdur sees it as an opportunity to encourage his talented staff to work for the greater ...
Internationally Renowned Oncologist Blazes a Trail in Breast Cancer Genetics and Risk Assessment
Olufunmilayo Falusi Olopade, MD, FACP, the daughter of an Anglican pastor, was born in Nigeria. Dr. Olopade’s interest in oncology first surfaced while in medical school at the University College Hospital in Ibadan, where she helped care for patients with Burkitt’s lymphoma, which is common in...
Nationally Renowned Surgeon and Researcher, John E. Niederhuber, MD, Relishes the Challenges That Lie Ahead
John E. Niederhuber, MD, was born and grew up in Steubenville, Ohio, a steel mill town located along the Ohio River. Dr. Niederhuber had a childhood interest in engineering and chemistry, but it was the town’s general practitioner who made a lasting impact on his career path. “He was an old-style...
Barbara L. McAneny, MD, Is Dedicated to Designing a Better Health-Care System
Barbara L. McAneny, MD, grew up on the outskirts of Alton, a small city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois. It is an area rich in history, famous as the site of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas’s last debate and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. “We...
A Coast-to-Coast Road to an Illustrious Career in Radiation Oncology
Nationally regarded radiation oncologist and lymphoma expert Richard Hoppe, MD, was reared in Seaford, a small town hugging the South Shore of Long Island, New York. “I grew up in the early part of Long Island’s suburban sprawl, and my childhood was a fairly typical experience for that time,”...
ASCO Past President and Breast Cancer Researcher Works to Unite the Oncology Community in the Fight Against Cancer
World-renowned breast cancer researcher, Nancy E. Davidson, MD, was born in Denver, Colorado, the daughter of two geologists. “My mother was a geologist beginning in the 1940s, a time when women really didn’t pursue that kind of career. So, I was reared in a very scientifically oriented...
International Leader in Multiple Myeloma Was Inspired by an Early Mentor’s Lessons in Wisdom and Compassion
Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, grew up in Auburn, a small historic town in central Massachusetts that was settled by the English in 1714. His desire to become a doctor bloomed early. “My decision to possibly pursue a career in medicine was first inspired by my mother, who was a registered nurse, and by...
An Early Calling to Medicine That Never Wavered: ASCO President Peter P. Yu, MD
The road leading to a career in medicine is often a stepwise journey of multiple decision points and influences. However, sometimes the decision to become a doctor is hardwired from birth. Such was the case with 2014-2015 ASCO President Peter P. Yu, MD. Since his days in nursery school, Dr. Yu...
Remembering Selma Ruth Schimmel
My last conversation with Selma Schimmel was 2 months ago. She had been uncharacteristically out of touch for a few weeks, and I had a nagging feeling the severe pain in her psoas muscle caused by advancing ovarian cancer—which had plagued her for months and she described as in a “league of its...
Congress Celebrates 50 Years of ASCO: Special Order on House Floor Honors Society’s Mid-Century Anniversary
The U.S. House of Representatives recently held a Special Order in honor of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. During the event on the House floor, Members of Congress highlighted critical advancements in cancer care over the past 50 years and...
Increased Hospice Use Among Minority Patients Treated in Provider-Based Research Networks
Minority patients with lung cancer who receive treatment in practices affiliated with provider-based research networks “have greater hospice enrollment than those treated in academic and community practices,” concluded Dolly C. Penn, MD, MSCR, and colleagues at the University of North Carolina...
Speaking Up Against High Cancer Drug Prices
Physicians have a duty to speak up against high cancer drug prices,” Hagop M. Kantarjian, MD, resolutely stated in an interview with The ASCO Post. “We should speak up because high drug prices are harming patients.” A leader in the effort to drive down the cost of drugs needed to treat patients...
High Macrophage Inhibitory Cytokine-1 Levels and Colorectal Cancer Risk
Chronic inflammation is implicated in the development of colorectal cancer, and the plasma inflammatory biomarker macrophage inhibitory cytokine-1 (MIC-1, GDF15) may have a direct role in tumorigenesis. As reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Mehta and colleagues found that...
Water Pipe Smoking May Increase Risk for Cancer
Young adults who smoked water pipes in hookah bars had elevated levels of nicotine, cotinine, tobacco-related cancer-causing agents, and volatile organic compounds in their urine, and this may increase their risk for cancer and other chronic diseases, according to a study published in Cancer...
Oncology Advanced Practitioners in the Midst of Growth, Change
The number of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) in community cancer practices is growing, according to ASCO’s annual census of oncology practice, published in March 2014.1 As though to illustrate that finding, a new professional society—the Advanced Practitioner Society for...
Cancer Has Robbed Me of My Physical Beauty but Not My Inner Strength
I’ve been plagued with various ailments all my life. Physically and emotionally abused by my stepfather as a child, over the years I’ve developed severe psychological issues including depression and anxiety disorder. I am also in constant physical pain from cervical degenerative disc disease,...
Bringing Palliative Care Services to Local Community Clinical Practices and Health Facilities Throughout the World
In 2007, the Billings Clinic Cancer Center in Billings, Montana, became one of 15 community-based oncology centers nationwide to receive funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to expand programs for clinical trials, health-care disparities outreach, survivorship and palliative care,...
Randomized Trials vs Meta-analyses: Which Is the Better Bet?
Two surgical oncology experts who squared off in a “Great Debate” at the 2014 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Annual Cancer Symposium in Phoenix. Heidi Nelson, MD, Professor of Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, argued for the superiority of randomized controlled trials in...
Arizona Oncology Announces Retirement of Kenneth Luk, MD
Brian Schade, Executive Director of Arizona Oncology, recently announced the retirement of Kenneth Luk, MD, a well-respected radiation oncologist in Phoenix for over 20 years. Dr. Luk is a Fellow of the American College of Radiology and Clinical Professor at the Midwestern University School of...
17-Gene Assay Is a Significant Predictor of Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness
Results from three studies published recently in European Urology indicate that the 17-gene Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score is a significant predictor of disease aggressiveness at the time of diagnosis before intervention with radiation or surgery.1 The test provides precise and individualized...
