Researchers have determined that children and adults with cancer often have different mutated genes driving their disease, which suggests they would likely benefit from different therapies. The finding, from a collaborative study led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and published by...
IN JANUARY 2018, ASCO launched the ASCO in Action Podcast, a new podcast series hosted by ASCO Chief Executive Officer Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO. This series features thought leaders and experts in oncology discussing the most pressing policy and practice issues impacting the cancer care...
In May 2017, I started to reflect on my own personal views of wellness and the importance of the team. Since that time, I have been fortunate to speak with members of front-line clinical teams from four different practices: Eric Tetzlaff, MSH, PA-C, and Michael Hall, MD, MS, of Fox Chase Cancer...
Kathleen M. Schmeler, MD, Associate Professor in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital, was given the “Heroes in Medicine” award from Physician’s Weekly in May 2016. Her primary work is in cervical cancer...
PRIYANKA SHARMA, MD, a breast cancer medical oncologist at The University of Kansas Cancer Center, has been named Vice Chair of SWOG’s Breast Committee. SWOG, formerly the Southwest Oncology Group, is a global cancer research community that designs and conducts publicly funded clinical trials. It ...
Law and Ethics in Oncology explores the legal and ethical issues oncologists must be aware of in this era of precision medicine and changing health-care policy, both to protect patients’ rights and to safeguard against potential legal jeopardy. Increasingly, across the United States, hospitals are...
Patricia A. Ganz, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, and this year’s recipient of the Ellen Stovall Award for Advancement of Cancer Survivorship Care, discusses her 30-year-long career researching and advocating for survivors and quality care.
Lynda M. Beaupin, MD, of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, discusses her findings on the factors contributing to adolescent and young adult cancer survivors not seeking follow-up care (Abstract 29).
At the heart of every ASCO program—every clinical practice guideline, every policy statement, every scientific meeting—is evidence. What do the data say? Evidence informs decision-making across the spectrum of cancer care, from the question a bench researcher will investigate to the treatment a...
The BBVA Foundation awarded its Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Biomedicine category to American immunologist James P. Allison, PhD, whose innovative research has almost single-handedly transformed cancer treatment. His seminal research in immunotherapy has paved the way for the development of ...
VIVIANE TABAR, MD, has been named the new Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Dr. Tabar has been a faculty member at MSK for more than 15 years and is currently the Theresa C. Feng Chair for Neurosurgical Oncology and the Vice Chair for...
IN INTERVIEWS with The ASCO Post and in discussions held during the meeting, several breast cancer experts weighed in on the findings of GeparSepto and CALGB 40502. Eric P. Winer, MD, FASCO, Chief of the Division of Women’s Cancers and the Thompson Senior Investigator in Breast Cancer Research at ...
ALTHOUGH PRECISION medicine may be a recent discovery in some fields, it is an old story in the field of breast cancer, and one that has been exceptionally important in terms of managing the disease, according to George Sledge, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine and Medical Oncologist at the...
DARATUMUMAB (DARZALEX) may be an effective treatment for systemic amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis, according to phase II studies reported at the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1,2 While the cohorts were small and the arms uncontrolled, the findings...
City of Hope recently announced the appointments of four new scientists to its research faculty. Jianjun Chen, PhD, joins the staff as Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Systems Biology. Before joining the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, Dr. Chen had been serving as...
What I thought after feeling a large, hard lump—similar to the feel of a granola bar—in my left breast was that I probably pulled a muscle while playing with my two young children, ages 7 and 5. Cancer never entered my mind until I asked my husband to feel the lump, and he immediately said, with...
Alexis A. Thompson, MD, MPH, an expert in sickle cell disease and thalassemia, will serve as President of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) for a 1-year term through December 2018. Dr. Thompson is Head of the Hematology Section of the Division of Hematology Oncology Transplantation and...
Holly G. Prigerson, PhD, Co-Director of the Weill Cornell Medicine’s Center for Research on End-of-Life Care, was born in Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, where her father had been a resident. Her family moved to Long Island, first living in Islip, where Dr. Prigerson’s father practiced medicine...
Kristen Fousek, PhD Candidate at Baylor College of Medicine, discusses her preclinical work on targeting CD19-negative relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, using CAR T cells that target three antigens simultaneously, a technique that addresses the growing problem of relapse (Abstract 121).
Understanding what consciousness is, and why and how it evolved, is perhaps the greatest mystery known to science. With its 100 billion or so neurons and a processing rate of about 4 billion bits per second, the human brain is a miraculously complicated entity, much of which is still under...
The days leading up to our daughter Emily’s diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) on May 28, 2010, when she was just 5, offered few clues about the terrifying, life-and-death months and years we were about to experience. She was happy and seemingly healthy, literally until the day before...
Ursula Matulonis, MD, has been named the first incumbent of the Brock-Wilson Family Chair at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Dana-Farber). The newly established Chair was created to advance gynecologic oncology research and support a highly dedicated faculty member at Dana-Farber. Dr. Matulonis is...
Mary Beckerle, PhD, Chief Executive -Officer and Director of Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, is this year’s recipient of the Alfred G. Knudson Award in Cancer Genetics from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The prestigious award is named after Alfred G. Knudson, MD, PhD, a...
FOR DAYS BEFORE HURRICANE HARVEY was expected to move toward Houston, Texas, on Sunday, August 27, 2017, after pummeling other cities in Texas and Louisiana, the leadership team at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson) in Houston strategized on how to ensure the...
Oncology occupational therapist Mackenzi Pergolotti, PhD, OTR/L, was born in Buffalo, New York. “I lived there until I was 6,” she shared. “Then my family moved around the state a bit, finally settling in the small town of Bath, situated near the Finger Lakes—a beautiful area in central New ...
Debuting this year, “Your Stories: Conquering Cancer” are unscripted conversations among doctors, patients, and caregivers who have been affected by cancer. The Conquer Cancer Foundation produced the mini-podcast series through the award-winning StoryCorps organization, a national nonprofit...
FOX CHASE CANCER CENTER is pleased to welcome Board-certified radiologist Laura Levin, MD, as Assistant Professor in the Department of Diagnostic Imaging. Dr. Levin assumed her new position on January 2, 2018. Dr. Levin comes to Fox Chase Cancer Center from a high-volume private practice in which ...
“There is huge potential to positively influence a patient’s experience and outcomes” by addressing concerns about sexual function after cancer treatment early in the course of treatment planning, Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, MA, stated in her keynote address at the 11th Annual Oncofertility...
The oncology community mourns the sudden passing of Jimmie C. Holland, MD, who died on December 24, 2017, at the age of 89. Dr. Holland’s achievements over her 40-year career are legend. They include the founding of the subspecialty of psycho-oncology, the establishment of a full-time Psychiatry...
Jimmie C. Holland, MD, died suddenly on December 24, 2017, at the age of 89 years. Dr. Holland was the Attending Psychiatrist and Wayne E. Chapman Chair at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center and Professor of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York....
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. For this installment in the Living a Full Life series of articles, Andrew D. Seidman, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
In 1996, Jimmie C. Holland, MD, the Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York, decided to launch the cancer center’s Lung Cancer Survivorship Program after she had a startling encounter with a patient. “The woman said to me, ‘Would...
Breast cancer specialist Katherine E. Reeder-Hayes, MD, MBA, was born on a farm in Morgan County, Alabama. “My family grew soybeans and cotton and raised cattle. None of my family members were in the medical field, but I always felt comfortable around people who were sick or had emergencies and...
Small victories matter when you are conquering cancer. Listen to a patient’s loved one detail the progress of treatment. You will hear the value they give to accomplishments that otherwise seem minor: She rested well last night. He managed to eat. The scan showed no new growth! It is easy,...
Xiuning Le, MD, PhD Assistant Professor The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer CenterSpecialty: Thoracic/head & neck cancer, breast cancer Of all the adjectives used to describe cancer, one in particular can be surprising: smart. In fact, one of the reasons cancer can be so hard to treat...
Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian announced that Florence Irving and her late husband, Herbert Irving, have given $700 million to the two institutions to advance research and clinical programs for the treatment of cancer. The Irvings’ historic gift will have a profound impact on research ...
AS REPORTED in The Lancet Oncology by Matthijs Oudkerk, MD, of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and colleagues, a European Union (EU) expert group has issued a position statement on low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer, proposing a near-term phased implementation ...
In 2017, the District of Columbia (DC) became the seventh jurisdiction in the United States to legalize medical aid in dying,1 which gives terminally ill patients the option of how and when they die. The new DC statute is nearly identical to earlier enacted medical aid in dying statutes in...
KIMBERLY BLACKWELL, MD, one of the nation’s leading breast cancer researchers, will join Lilly Oncology as Vice President of Early Phase Development and Immuno-oncology as of March 12, 2018. Dr. Blackwell is currently Professor of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology at Duke...
Immunotherapy in PD-L1–Positive Advanced Cervical Cancer Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) treatment was active in patients with programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–positive advanced cervical cancer enrolled in the phase Ib KEYNOTE-028 trial. The findings were reported by Jean-Sebastien Frenel, MD, of...
On November 8, 2017, the Chemotherapy Foundation held a benefit in New York City to raise funding to support an investigator in ovarian cancer research selected for the 2018 Research Grant Program. The event coincided with the 35th Annual Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium and honored oncology...
The discovery of my non–small cell lung cancer (NCSLC) in 2005 was serendipitous and completely unexpected. A never smoker and physically active my whole life, the only hint something might be amiss was a slight tickle in my throat, which I’m not even sure was related to my cancer diagnosis. In...
BOOKMARK Title: Cancer: What You Need to Know: Overcome the 10 Common Mistakes Patients MakeAuthor: Stephen A. Rosenberg, MDPublisher: Stephen Rosenberg, MDYear Published: November 2017Price: $9.99, paperback, 248 pages Stephen A. Rosenberg, MD, is Chief Resident in Radiation Oncology at the...
BOOKMARK Title: The Red Devil: To Hell With Cancer—and BackAuthor: Katherine Russell RichPublisher: CrownDate Published: October 1999Price: $23.95, hardcover, 256 pages Over the past year or so, there have been several best-selling memoirs of people fighting and ultimately losing their battle with ...
The following essay by Stan Winokur, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Dr. Winokur and -Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org. I looked into her...
University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher Barbara Savoldo, MD, PhD, has been awarded a $600,000, 3-year grant from to support research of an immunotherapy being developed. The grant will help fund clinical research into an investigational chimeric antigen...
Virginia Cancer Specialists, a practice within The US Oncology Network and a premier cancer care and research center in Northern Virginia with more than 40 years of service to patients, has announced that Stephanie Akbari, MD, FACS, has joined the practice. Dr. Akbari, the first dedicated breast...
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy burst upon the scene as an innovative approach to the treatment of hematologic malignancies, mainly for patients who have exhausted all other treatment options. Recently two CAR T-cell products were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration...
Nationally recognized lymphoma expert Sonali M. Smith, MD, was born and reared in Chicago to a mother who was a pediatrician and allergist, and a father who was an engineer. Her parents were first-generation immigrants from India who placed the value of education second to none. “I became used to...