The positive findings from the NOVEL trial add to the debate about how intravenous (IV) chemotherapy stacks up against intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy when treating ovarian cancer and the role of dose-dense approaches in general, according to Jonathan S. Berek, MD, of the Stanford Women’s Cancer...
"It’s become clear that the PARP inhibitors in general … are active in this disease, and we are just trying to find out the level of activity and … get to the point hopefully where at least one of these agents will be approved for use” in ovarian and related cancers, commented Jonathan S. Berek,...
Research reported at this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting shows major strides in treating ovarian and cervical cancers, suggesting the potential of new agents and adding evidence in areas where optimal management is unclear, according to Jonathan S. Berek, MD, of the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center,...
Developing early-phase clinical trials that incorporate combinations of novel agents targeting different pathways in the hematologic cancer multiple myeloma is a leading focus of the work of Sagar Lonial, MD, Professor of Hematology and Vice Chair of Clinical Affairs in the Department of Hematology ...
Tell your patients about Cancer in Older Adults, Cancer.Net’s newest Spanish language booklet for older adults and their family and friends. The content of the booklet is adapted from the ASCO University Module, Cancer Care for Older Patients. It provides information on the physical and emotional...
ASCO’s CancerProgress.Net (www.CancerProgress.Net), a dynamic website demonstrating four decades of progress against cancer, has added new resources that will enable site users to learn more about progress in cancer treatment, prevention, screening, and diagnosis. Interactive Cancer Timelines...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology supports one-on-one training and research grants for the brightest minds in cancer care around the world through the Long-term International Fellowship (LIFe) and other programs. Through this 1-year fellowship, early-career...
Kanti R. Rai, MD, and his wife Susan have been loyal donors to the Conquer Cancer Foundation for the past 9 years, but in 2012, a momentous occasion in his career inspired Dr. Rai to make a unique gift. A Moment of Reflection In the spring of 2012, Dr. Rai, an internationally recognized expert on ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) mourns the loss of Arlen Specter, who represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate from 1981 to 2011. With his passing, the cancer research and biomedical science community lost one of its greatest supporters and promoters. During his five terms...
The ASCO Post asked AACR President Frank McCormick, PhD, Director, UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, about the ongoing problem of health-care disparities among minorities and other subpopulations. First, can the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act lessen these...
Over the past few years, we have gone from famine to feast.… We now have sorafenib [Nexavar] and sunitinib [Sutent], temsirolimus [Torisel], and everolimus [Afinitor], and interferon plus bevacizumab [Avastin] for treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma. If these drugs [in COMPARZ] are...
Pazopanib (Votrient) is poised to become another option for first-line therapy of metastatic renal cell carcinoma based on results of the phase III COMPARZ trial reported at the 2012 ESMO Congress in Vienna.1 The study met its primary endpoint by demonstrating that pazopanib was noninferior to...
In a separate presentation at the 2012 ESMO Congress, Fiona Blackhall, MD, Manchester University and Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK, reported findings from the European Thoracic Oncology Platform (ETOP) Lungscape Project.1 This is the first large European dataset to evaluate ...
The effect of duration on cardiac events was a key question for the PHARE and HERA trials to answer. In general, longer duration of treatment was associated with more cardiac events, especially declines in left-ventricular function, but overall the risks were low. Cardiac Endpoints In the PHARE...
Commenting on the PHARE trial and HERA update presented at ESMO, ASCO President Sandra M. Swain, MD, of Washington Hospital Center’s Washington Cancer Institute, said “Today we have seen that 12 months of trastuzumab is better than 6 months, and 12 months is the same as 2 years of treatment, so...
The FDA has approved paclitaxel protein-bound particles for injectable suspension, albumin-bound (nab-paclitaxel, Abraxane) for use in combination with carboplatin for the initial treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who are not candidates for ...
November 2012 AACR-NCI-EORTC Molecular Targets and Cancer TherapeuticsNovember 12-16 • San Francisco, California For more information: www.aacr.org Connective Tissue Oncology Society 17th Annual MeetingNovember 14-17 • Prague, Czech Republic For more information: www.ctos.org Controversies in the...
In his 1990 Nobel Prize Lecture, Eduard Donnall Thomas, MD, with characteristic humility, acknowledged that the success he celebrated “was made possible by the work of many others in this and related fields.” Dr. Thomas, whose groundbreaking work in bone marrow transplantation marked a new era in...
The University of Tennessee Medical Center officially opened its new Cancer Institute in Knoxville at a ceremony attended by hundreds of patients, physicians, staff, and community leaders. At 108,000 square-feet, the new building nearly triples the size of the medical center’s previous cancer care...
As Drs. James Mohler and Donald Trump noted in their September 15 letter to The ASCO Post (“More Thoughts on PSA,” 3[14]:2, 2012), Richard Ablin, PhD, discovered a “prostate-specific antigen” of unknown properties, but his PSA is not the antigen in the PSA test we know today. Since Dr. Ablin has...
“We have not had a randomized controlled trial of weight loss among people at risk for cancer who don’t yet have the disease, where we can show that weight loss reduces the risk for cancer. And we never will,” Rachel Ballard-Barbash, MD, MPH, told The ASCO Post. “We know from a number of very...
Increased awareness of the strong association between obesity and higher rates of cancer recurrence and mortality needs to be transmitted from oncologists to patients, but the message needs to concern more than just weight, according to Rachel Ballard-Barbash, MD, MPH, Associate Director of the...
The rise in obesity in the United States coincides with greater recognition of the role of obesity in cancer and other diseases.1 While decades of research have indicated a strong association between obesity and cancer, “several forces have made that association increasingly recognized,” according...
Richard L. Schilsky, MD, Chief of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine and Deputy Director of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been named to the newly created position of Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of ASCO. A former ASCO President and Fellow of the American...
The Susan G. Komen for the Cure® Brinker Awards for Scientific Distinction in Basic Science and Clinical Research will be presented to Hyman B. Muss, MD, Professor of Medicine and the Director of the Geriatric Oncology Program at University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) recently announced the election of new leaders of its Board of Directors. These five new officers started their terms at the Annual Business Meeting at ASTRO’s 54th Annual Meeting in Boston, which was held October 28-31, 2012. “Exceptional...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recently announced the election of four new members to its Executive Committee, the governing body of the organization, for terms to begin in January 2013. At the same time, ASH President-elect and Vice President will begin their tenures as ASH President and ...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recently announced the first-ever recipients of its Quality Care Symposium Merit Awards. This year’s recipients will be recognized at ASCO’s inaugural Quality Care Symposium, taking place November 30 and December 1 in ...
LKB1 is a serine/threonine kinase that has been found to be mutated in approximately 20% to 30% of patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). LKB1 acts as a tumor suppressor by activating AMPK, and loss of LKB1 by point mutation or deletion suppresses AMPK, leading to increased mTOR...
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently announced the names of 70 new members and 10 foreign associates during its 42nd Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC. Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have...
The number of patients with multiple primary cancers is increasing so that second malignant neoplasms now represent approximately 16%, or 1 in 6 cancers reported to the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. While some second malignant neoplasms are treatment-related, others...
Accuray Incorporated has announced that the company received 510(k) clearance from the FDA for its new CyberKnife M6 Series. The CyberKnife M6 Series features expanded clinical capabilities and reduced treatment times. The new CyberKnife M6 FIM and FM Systems, featuring the InCise Multileaf...
The FDA recently approved a 90-minute infusion for rituximab (Rituxan) starting at cycle 2 for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) who did not experience a grade 3 or 4 infusion-related adverse reaction during cycle 1. Patients with clinically significant cardiovascular disease and high...
The FDA has expanded labeling to include the results of an additional trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of pemetrexed (Alimta) for the initial treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic, nonsquamous, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) followed by pemetrexed maintenance in...
Trials with pazopanib (Votrient) have “provided significant efficacy, toxicity, and tolerability data for pazopanib to be established as a first-line standard of care” for renal cell carcinoma,” Tim Eisen, PhD, of the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, stated at the 11th International Kidney...
Stereotactic radiosurgery may hold potential as a therapeutic option for patients with localized primary renal cancer who are considered poor surgical candidates and who do not have a prior history of pelvic or abdominal radiation, according to data from a safety and toxicity study recently...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation funds research focused on finding new therapeutics to conquer cancer and is also committed to funding research that other organizations may not, such as in palliative care, rare cancers, pediatric cancers, and high-risk areas. With donations from supporters like you,...
Conquering cancer requires the faith, talent, and resources of all members of our community. It requires the innovation of researchers and the insight of clinicians. It requires the courage of our worldwide community of patients and survivors, and it requires the generosity of everyone who believes ...
In ambulatory patients with cancer, the risk of catheter-related deep-vein thrombosis can be reduced by almost half with anticoagulation prophylaxis, according to a single-center French study presented at the 2012 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Vienna.1 Catheters implanted ...
Donald I. Abrams, MD, Chief of Hematology-Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and Integrative Oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, has been investigating and incorporating integrative medicine approaches in his clinical treatment...
InSightec Ltd announced that the FDA has approved ExAblate MRI-guided focused ultrasound as a therapy to treat pain from bone metastases in patients who do not respond or cannot undergo radiation treatment for their pain. This is the second FDA approval for ExAblate since it was approved in 2004 as ...
AVEO Oncology and Astellas Pharma, Inc, recently announced that AVEO has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the FDA for tivozanib, in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Tivozanib is a potent, selective, long half-life inhibitor of all three vascular endothelial growth factor...
Breast cancer is highly unlikely to develop in the contralateral breast of women treated for primary breast cancer, yet many women continue to fear it and undergo prophylactic mastectomies. “Regardless, the perceived risk of developing and dying from a contralateral breast cancer is highly...
The FDA has approved omacetaxine mepesuccinate (Synribo) to treat adults with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) whose cancer has progressed after treatment with at least two tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Omacetaxine is injected subcutaneously twice daily for 14 consecutive days over a 28-day cycle...
At the Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference, held this year in Maui, Hawaii, Andreas Engert, MD, Chairman of the German Hodgkin Study Group, University Hospital of Cologne, Germany, led off the Hodgkin lymphoma section of the conference with a presentation on optimizing the use of BEACOPP (bleomycin,...
Widespread use of screening technologies has markedly increased early detection rates of cancer, saving countless lives. However, while screening technologies have remarkable sensitivity, their inability to identify which tumors will progress and which will not has created the phenomenon of...
The 35th European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Vienna broke all records for attendance, with about 16,000 attendees from all over the world. Some sessions were standing room only, including the Presidential Symposia, the ESMO-ASCO Joint Symposium on genomics in breast cancer, and ...
This supplement to The ASCO Post highlights the proceedings of a satellite symposium that was presented as a case-based roundtable discussion titled, Monitoring, Treatment Resistance, and Treatment Failure in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia: Breaking Barriers to Improved Outcomes and Looking Forward to a...
John Ridgway Durant, MD, ASCO’s 20th President, was born on July 29th, 1930, and died on October 28th, 2012. Dates that mark a person’s birth and passing are made all the more significant by how that person filled the days that link the two milestones. Dr. Durant will be remembered fondly as a man...
Margaret I. Cuomo, MD, is a board-certified radiologist who served for many years as an attending physician in diagnostic radiology at North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, New York. Dr. Cuomo is the daughter of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo and sister to Governor Andrew Cuomo. She is...