Appointed by the President and called “America’s Doctor,” the Surgeon General’s chief task is to protect and advance the health of the nation. Most of our Surgeon Generals have tiptoed around hot-button public health issues that might bruise political sensibilities and their own careers. C....
In August 2011, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania published their breakthrough findings of a pilot study showing sustained remissions of up to 1 year in a small number of patients with advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who had been treated with genetically engineered...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), with support from the NCCN Foundation and the LIVESTRONG Foundation and through collaboration with Critical Mass: The Young Adult Cancer Alliance (Critical Mass), recently announced the availability of the NCCN Guidelines for Patients: Caring for...
At the recent American Academy of Dermatology 71st Annual Meeting in Miami Beach, researchers presented interesting findings regarding melanoma and other skin cancers. The ASCO Post brings you the following news briefs on these topics. Melanoma Incidence Decreases among Adolescents and Children An...
Just 1 month after undergoing a mammogram that was deemed normal with some dense tissue in my left breast, my gynecologist felt a mass in that breast about the size of a cherry tomato during a routine well visit. After watching the lump for a month to see if it was cyclical, she sent me for another ...
The pages of medical history are dog-eared with breakthroughs that have transformed medicine and saved lives. One of those dog-eared pages belongs to Emil Frei III, MD, known to his colleagues and friends as Tom. In the dawn of oncology, Dr. Frei, along with his associate, Emil Freireich, MD, did...
High to severe levels of psychological distress are common among parents of children with advanced cancer, according to a study conducted at three children’s hospitals—Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Seattle Children’s Hospital. The cohort study was embedded in...
Most women with ovarian cancer are not receiving adequate treatment, as specified in National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Guidelines,1 and as a result are being deprived of the survival benefits correlated with guideline-recommended treatment, according to a study presented at the Society...
The supportive care of patients with cancer receiving radiotherapy is an important responsibility for the radiation oncologist, and complementary therapies are an integral component of many patients’ treatment strategy.A recent prospective study suggests that 54% of patients with breast cancer...
After a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer, I became so worried it would happen to me, I decided to perform regular breast self-exams so I could familiarize myself with the normal feel of my breasts, and quickly spot any changes. My friend’s diagnosis scared me, and that fear probably saved my ...
Despite today’s challenging economy, health care is one field that offers vast career opportunities. Oncology, with the impending workforce shortage, is especially eager for bright young doctors to join its ranks. But the rising costs of medical school can be a deterrent, leading the best and...
Nearly two-thirds of children receiving stem cell transplants returned to the hospital within 6 months for treatment of unexplained fevers, infections, or other problems, according to a study performed at Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. Children who received donor cells...
Follow-up care for female patients treated for cancer as children, adolescents, or young adults should include assessment and management of the late effects that therapy may have on reproductive health, as detailed in updated guidelines from the Children’s Oncology Group. “It is important for...
Twelve adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) have been treated with CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia by Carl June, MD, Richard W. Vague Professor in Immunotherapy, and colleagues. These were all end-stage...
Two small phase I studies at separate centers demonstrated encouraging results in the treatment of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using reinfused autologous genetically engineered T cells. Results of both studies were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for ...
According to ASCO President Sandra M. Swain, MD, FACP, an important part of her Presidential theme, “Building Bridges to Conquer Cancer,” is finding creative ways to ensure that we have enough oncologists to care for our burgeoning cancer patient population. Adding more women to the oncology...
The Budget Control Act of 2011, which calls for $1.2 trillion in federal funding cuts in national defense and nondefense programs, went into effect on March 1. The across-the-board cuts affect 21 agencies and programs directly involved in the health-care sector, including: Centers for Disease...
On March 1, the deficit-budget mechanism known as sequestration took effect, triggering $85 billion in across-the-board cuts to most federal agencies over the remaining 7 months in fiscal year 2013. The total federal deficit reduction budget under the Budget Control Act of 2011 calls for $1.2...
Although many major cancer centers have onsite-registered dietitians to provide patients with nutritional guidance while undergoing treatment and during survivorship, an estimated 64% of patients with cancer use the Internet to find nutritional advice.1 These websites can help provide patients with ...
Treating pediatric leukemia patients with a liposomal formulation of anthracycline-based chemotherapy at an intensified dose during initial treatment may result in high survival rates without causing any added heart toxicity, according to the results of a study published online in Blood.1 Acute...
Findings from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium Protocol 00-01, recently reported by Lynda M. Vrooman, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues in Journal of Clinical Oncology, indicate that postinduction dexamethasone and individualized dosing of Escherichia coli–derived...
Despite studies showing that a majority of patients prefer to die at home rather than in an institutional setting,1 in many parts of the country, over 30% die in nursing homes and over 50% die in hospitals, according to Ira Byock, MD, Director of Palliative Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical...
Mary K. Gospodarowicz, MD, FRCPC, is determined to help reduce the worldwide burden of cancer, a problem of epic proportions. Her approach is simple: adopt what works and reject what doesn’t. Much progress in the fight against cancer can be made without waiting for the next paradigm-changing...
Switzerland, a landlocked country with a population about that of New York City, has four geographic regions, each with its own official language. Internationally regarded lymphoma and breast cancer expert, Franco Cavalli, MD, FRCP, was born and raised in Locarno, a town in the Italian region of...
Charles M. Balch, MD, FACS, PhD (hc), was born in Milford, Delaware, where his father was a research chemist for DuPont during World War II. “My father was part of the team that developed rayon for parachutes. It was a top priority program because they couldn’t get nylon from the Philippines. After ...
The pages of medical history are dog-eared with breakthroughs that have transformed medicine and saved lives. One of those dog-eared pages belongs to Emil Frei III, MD, known to his colleagues and friends as Tom. In the dawn of oncology, Dr. Frei, along with his associate, Emil Freireich, MD, did...
Even as a child, Janet D. Rowley, MD, found the intellectual order and logic of science appealing. Born on April 5, 1925, in New York, Dr. Rowley’s parents, Hurford and Ethel Ballantyne Davison, moved the family to Chicago 2 years later. Both educators, the Davisons encouraged their only child in...
Among young adults with advanced cancer, developing a strong alliance with their oncologist was associated with greater perceived social support, a greater willingness to adhere to treatment, and greater adherence to oral medication, according to results of a study published in the Journal of...
Angelina Jolie, in a New York Times article entitled “My Medical Choice,”1 disclosed that having a BRCA1 mutation and an estimated 87% risk of breast cancer, “I decided to be proactive and minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.” She was writing...
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common cancer in children, and the incidence of the disease varies by ethnicity. Available evidence indicates an inherited predisposition to ALL, but the genetic basis of ALL susceptibility in diverse ancestry has not been examined in detail. Xu and...
Even before I had a colonoscopy to determine the cause of abdominal pains I had been having, I instinctively knew that the news wouldn’t be good. A colonoscopy and subsequent pathology report confirmed stage IIIC colorectal cancer. Because I was just 47 years old at the time of my diagnosis and had ...
A growing number of people with cancer are being treated on an outpatient basis. At the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York, to ensure that the psychosocial and psychiatric needs of these patients were being...
A study examining trends in x-ray computed tomography (CT) use in children in the United States has found that reducing unnecessary scans and lowering the doses for the highest-dose scans could lower the overall lifetime risk of future imaging-related cancers by 62%. The research was published...
Tumor control is frequently not achieved with standard immunochemotherapy in patients with primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma, requiring consolidation with mediastinal radiotherapy. However, radiotherapy is associated with serious late adverse effects and is still associated with disease...
Yogi Berra offered the comment “It’s déjà vu all over again” when he witnessed Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hitting back-to-back home runs in the early 1960s. His pithy remark neatly summarizes my reaction when I read the article, “Dose-Adjusted EPOCH-Rituximab Therapy in Primary...
Trudy Nan Small, MD, was a pediatric hematologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center who specialized in the diagnosis and care of children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies and those with life-threatening genetic disorders of the immune system....
When I was 9 years old, a bout of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain sent me to the emergency room. The physicians diagnosed appendicitis and rushed me to the operating room. But what the surgeon found instead was a 10-cm-wide, grade 2, immature teratoma. In 1968, treatment for malignant ovarian...
The amino acid imaging agent, O-(2-[18F]-fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine (F-18 FET), may improve upon standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and its diagnostic benefit for imaging pediatric gliomas when conventional MRI is not sufficient, said researchers at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular ...
At the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, The ASCO Post caught up with new President Clifford A. Hudis, MD, Chief of the Breast Cancer Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, for a glimpse of his plans for ASCO in the coming year, and his thoughts on being elected ASCO...
This is the first time I’m going public with the fact that I have advanced ovarian cancer. I thought I could avoid the fate of my mother and her mother, both of whom died of ovarian cancer in their 50s, and live well past my 60s and even 70s. But at 58, I’ve had to accept that that is not likely. I ...
I found out that I had stage III pancreatic cancer on Valentine’s Day in 2011, but I think the disease may have been brewing for a long time. For 19 years, I had experienced intermittent pain in the right upper quadrant of my abdomen. I had gallbladder surgery to relieve a bile duct obstruction,...
Looking over his 5 decades in clinical oncology and research, Joseph R. Bertino, MD, says his greatest professional satisfaction comes from seeing his former students and oncology fellows go on to achieve great success in their own medical and research careers. It is a fitting sentiment since Dr....
The most recent figures from the National Cancer Institute put the number of cancer survivors in the United States at nearly 14 million—by 2022, that number is expected to top 18 million. And for the vast majority of those survivors—more than 80%—returning to work after treatment is a top priority...
Since the National Institutes of Health Consensus Statement in 1997 concluded that the evidence to date suggests acupuncture is effective in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting,1 numerous additional indications for its use in relieving symptoms related to cancer or its...
About 70,000 adolescents and young adults (AYAs) between the ages of 15 and 39 are diagnosed with cancer each year, and in the past 30 years, there has been little or no improvement in survival in this population. In addition to the disease itself, they face many other challenges: reentry into...
The past 10 years have seen dramatic advances in cancer care, especially in better screening methods and earlier detection, genomic sequencing, and more effective therapies, which have led to increased survival rates in both childhood and adult cancers. According to the National Cancer Institute...
Partners for Cancer Care and Prevention holds that early detection and high-quality treatment of breast and cervical cancer save lives. The organization exists to build community capacity for the creation of high-quality, holistic breast and cervical health programs managed by the local health...
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. —Helen Keller, Optimism, 1903 Shortly past 8:00 AM on July 1977, Diane E. Meier, MD, FACP, began the first day of her medical internship. Within minutes she would experience another first: the death of a patient...
Parents and siblings of children with cancer have between a two- and four-times increased risk of developing cancer than first-degree relatives with no childhood cancer patients, according to a study published in the International Journal of Cancer.1 The study, led by Joshua Schiffman, MD, Medical...
Childhood cancer survivors with clinical infertility have a good chance of achieving pregnancy, according to new findings from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS). Study Background As a group, women who survive childhood cancer are known to have lower fertility rates. This study, however,...