Philip Agop Philip, MD, Head of the Multidisciplinary Team for Gastrointestinal and Neuroendocrine Oncology and Neuroendocrine at Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University, Detroit, was the formal discussant of the paper at the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. He said the positive...
In patients with treatment-naive metastatic pancreatic cancer, the addition of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) to gemcitabine improved overall survival vs gemcitabine alone, in an international study presented at the 2013 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 New Standard “We...
The FDA approved a new use of imatinib (Gleevec) to treat children newly diagnosed with Philadelphia chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). ALL is the most common type of pediatric cancer, affecting approximately 2,900 children annually, and progresses quickly if untreated....
March Hematology and Medical Oncology Board Review: Contemporary Practice from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer CenterMarch 1-5, 2013 • New York, New YorkFor more information: www.mskcc.org/hemoncreviewcourse International Congress on Targeted Anticancer TherapiesMarch 4-6 • Paris, FranceFor more...
Treatment of colorectal cancer is complicated by the potential difference in molecular profiles between the primary tumor and metastases. Miranda and colleagues from the Humanitas Clinical and Research Center in Milan, Italy, recently assessed the presence of molecular heterogeneity during...
Mutational activation of BRAF is the most prevalent genetic alteration in melanoma, with ≥ 50% of tumors expressing the BRAF(V600E) oncoprotein. Vemurafenib (Zelboraf) produces tumor regression and improved survival in patients with late-stage BRAF-mutated melanoma. However, most patients relapse...
World leaders from governments, cancer organizations, and the private sector joined together recently for the first Global Women’s Cancer Summit to address the challenge of reducing the global burden of women’s cancers. The summit was hosted by Susan G. Komen for the Cure and underwritten by GE...
David J. Kuter, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Center for Hematology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, commented on the findings for The ASCO Post. “TOPPS is a good attempt to address whether transfusions are helpful as prophylaxis in patients...
If you are like the many supporters of the Conquer Cancer Foundation, you may have reached a point where you would welcome the opportunity to influence not only the future ownership of your possessions, but the meaning that others assign to your life. One way to accomplish this is by considering...
Tell your patients about Stopping Tobacco Use After a Cancer Diagnosis, Cancer.Net’s newest Spanish language booklet designed to help patients understand the benefits of quitting in the context of a cancer diagnosis. This booklet explains how patients can talk with their doctor about their tobacco...
ASCO has released the preliminary findings of a far-reaching research initiative to collect and analyze oncology workforce demographic and practice data. This initiative will help guide the Society’s response to the ever-changing business and political landscape in which oncologists care for people ...
The 13th Annual Oncology Career Fair at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting offers a convenient way for attendees to learn more about employment opportunities available in the rapidly developing oncology profession. In addition, the Career Opportunities and Other Medical Meetings posting boards, located...
To support all of our valuable programs for patients and physicians, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology partners with organizations of every size and scale, and every partnership has a lasting impact. Recently, the Foundation began working with a new...
Despite the extremely difficult clinical challenges posed by brain tumors, mortality rates in this disease have decreased somewhat over the past several decades due, in part, to advances in surgical techniques and therapies. The ASCO Post recently discussed contemporary issues in neuro-oncology...
Two gastrointestinal cancer experts commented on the findings in interviews with The ASCO Post. Axel Grothey, MD, Professor of Oncology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, noted, “The PEAK and SPIRITT trial were decently designed, decently powered randomized phase II trials, and the results...
The FDA approved pomalidomide (Pomalyst) an oral immunomodulatory agent, to treat patients with multiple myeloma whose disease progressed after being treated with other cancer drugs. Pomalidomide is intended for patients who have received at least two prior therapies, including lenalidomide...
Athough the majority of the more than 69,000 adolescents and young adults (AYAs) diagnosed with cancer each year will survive their disease, many of them will experience interruptions in their education and a derailment in their career tract, curtailing their lifetime earning potential and reducing ...
March 1 marked the beginning of sequestration, the unprecedented automatic budget cuts that immediately take effect across the federal government—after months of futile negotiations by the President and Congress. Sequestration will have a shattering impact on the entire cancer enterprise in the...
“Smokers lose at least one decade of life expectancy, as compared with those who have never smoked,” and the increased risk of death from cigarettes smoking “are now nearly identical for men and women,” according to two separate studies published online by TheNew England Journal of Medicine. One...
Positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with iodine-124 (124I) –girentuximab “can accurately and noninvasively identify” clear cell renal cell carcinoma, according to a phase III multicenter study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. In addition, “PET/CT with...
Waiting a short period of time for laboratory results to better characterize acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and design therapeutic approaches is a reasonable strategy, researchers in Toulouse, France, found after a retrospective review of 599 newly diagnosed AML patients treated by induction...
Patients ≥ 50 years old with leukemia/lymphoma are increasingly undergoing allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplants, raising questions about whether they might have better outcomes with transplants from younger allele-level 8/8 human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched unrelated donors than from...
While carrying a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 mutation was associated with a better prognosis in the 3-year period after diagnosis of invasive ovarian cancer, this short-term survival advantage did not lead to long-term survival benefit, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer...
In a multicenter phase II study, trametinib showed “significant clinical activity” in a cohort of BRAF inhibitor–naive patients with BRAF-mutant cutaneous melanoma previously treated with chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy. Only minimal clinical activity, however, was observed among a cohort of...
“Receiving a cancer diagnosis represents a ‘teachable moment’ for delivering smoking cessation and relapse prevention interventions,” concluded a study in the journal Cancer1 about smoking relapse in patients with thoracic cancer or head and neck cancer. Previous research by two of the study’s...
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. Patients with head and neck or lung...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) reported with sadness the loss of Zora Brown, a trustee for the AACR Foundation for the Prevention and Cure of Cancer, a breast and ovarian cancer survivor, and a pioneering advocate for cancer research and breast cancer awareness among...
For more than 2 decades, the guiding principle of the Medical Oncology Association of Southern California (MOASC) has been to ensure the continuation of the private practice of medical oncology and to provide the highest quality care to cancer patients. Founded in 1990, MOASC is the largest...
March Emerging Trends Conference: Reactivation of Hepatitis BMarch 21-22 • Arlington, VirginiaFor more information: www.aasld.org/additionalmeetings/Pages/emergingtrends.aspx 5th Thyroid Neoplasms ConferenceMarch 21-23 • Houston, TexasFor more information: www.mdanderson.org/conferences Community...
Self-identified smokers directly connected to a tobacco cessation quit line are 13 times more likely to enroll in a treatment program as compared to smokers who are handed a quit line referral card and encouraged to call on their own, according to a new study published online in JAMA Internal...
While IBM’s Watson supercomputer may have defeated two former champions on the TV game show Jeopardy! 2 years ago, it is now facing its greatest challenge yet: deciphering huge amounts of scientific data and interpreting clinical information to help oncologists make personalized evidence-based...
The practice of oncology advances incrementally; each step forward, no matter how painfully small at times, leads to the next. The oncology community readily offers tribute to predecessors in the field who took those first steps into the uncharted regions of cancer care, without which today’s...
After 10 years at City of Hope, in Duarte, California, former FDA acting Commissioner Michael A. Friedman, MD, has decided to retire from his position as Chief Executive Officer, and the Board of Directors has selected current President Robert Stone, JD, to assume the dual role of President and...
Helen Piwnica-Worms, PhD, a leader and scientist whose success in cancer research spans the spectrum from basic science discovery through arduous preclinical follow-up and delivery of potential new drugs to clinical trial, will lead science research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...
A risk assessment to identify how errors occur when oral chemotherapies are used by pediatric patients at home (and to propose risk-reduction strategies) relied on input from those primarily in charge of oral chemotherapy use at home—the parents. A total of 18 parents were recruited at three...
An oral chemotherapy prescription-writing module grafted to a shared electronic medical record is part of a series of quality improvement efforts undertaken at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to prevent errors in prescribing oral chemotherapy agents. While oncologists have readily accepted...
When Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast last October, the magnitude of devastation it left in its wake exceeded even the most dire predictions. Eighty mile per hour winds and record storm surges destroyed antiquated electrical grids and flooded subway stations, leaving much of New York...
The FDA has expanded the approved use of regorafenib (Stivarga) to treat patients with metastatic or unresectable gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) that no longer respond to treatment with imatinib (Gleevec) or sunitinib (Sutent). Regorafenib, a multikinase inhibitor, blocks several enzymes...
Art Levinson, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, and Yuri Milner recently announced the launch of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, recognizing excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending human life. The prize will be administered by...
Responding to the results of the ACOSOG Z1071 study, Seema A. Khan, MD, Professor of Surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, urged caution in adopting the practice of sentinel lymph node surgery after chemotherapy for some patients with breast cancer at this time....
Clifford A. Hudis, MD, Chief of the Breast Cancer Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, commented after the presentation, “It strikes me that these findings are parallel to those shown with PAM50 by Liu et al at this meeting.” In that study,1 based on the Cancer and...
J. Randolph Hecht, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, commented to The ASCO Post that it is premature to accept this algorithm in the absence of its correlation with clinical outcomes. The one...
The Pancreatic Cancer Action Network has named four new members to the organization’s Medical Advisory Board. The newest advisors are leading clinicians in the field of pancreatic cancer: Joseph M. Herman, MD, MSc, Johns Hopkins University; George A. Fisher Jr, MD, PhD, Stanford University; James...
While some progress has been made in understanding the molecular pathogenesis, genetic risk factors, and genomics of pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the disease remains one of the most challenging malignancies. According to Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) figures, 44,000 people were...
The median age of patients diagnosed with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has steadily increased in recent years and is presently 70 years. Despite this, the elderly are significantly underrepresented in clinical trials. A recent study published in the March 2013 issue of the...
One of the strengths of the Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology is our relationships with others who want to join us in creating a world free from the fear of cancer. Our ability to do meaningful work is made possible by the individuals and organizations that...
Cancer.Net provides several new resources to help patients and their caregivers learn about the importance of safe storage, handling, and disposal of cancer medications, particularly those prescribed to relieve pain. These materials include a special article and related podcast available at...
The Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP), published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), has recently been accepted for inclusion in MEDLINE®, the premier bibliographic database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM). Journals accepted to MEDLINE undergo a rigorous review...
QCP™: Recognizing Excellence The QOPI® Certification Program (QCP™) recognizes medical oncology and hematology/oncology practices that are committed to delivering the highest quality of cancer care. QCP evaluates an individual practice’s performance in areas that affect patient care and safety. The ...
As a global community of cancer care providers in more than 100 countries around the world, ASCO is uniquely positioned to improve cancer patient outcomes worldwide—an opportunity that it has seized since the organization’s inception through numerous innovative programs. Building upon this...