The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has selected 17 distinguished members to receive the ASTRO Fellows designation. The 2015 class of Fellows will receive the recognition at the Awards Ceremony at ASTRO’s 57th Annual Meeting on Tuesday, October 20 in San Antonio, Texas. ASTRO...
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Long et al1 have reported the final overall survival analysis of the COMBI-d phase III trial comparing combination therapy with the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and the MEK inhibitor trametinib (Mekinist) to monotherapy with dabrafenib alone,...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation’s Young Investigator Award (YIA) provides research funding to promising physicians to support the transition from final years of training to faculty appointment and to encourage and promote quality research in clinical oncology. The online application for 2016 YIAs is...
It’s been 10 years since floodwaters washed away lives in New Orleans—for most, figuratively or temporarily, but for more than 1,800, literally. We who call this place home all lost something—homes, possessions, jobs, pets, loved ones, our sanity. Mold and muck marked our days for a long time, but...
Pasquale W. Benedetto, MD, the Leonard M. Miller Professor of Medicine at the University of Miami/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, recently spoke at the 2015 New Orleans Summer Cancer Meeting about his approach to diagnosing and treating germ cell tumors in men.1 The ASCO Post was there to...
Emerging laboratory technology will be “moving the bar forward” in terms of molecular markers, genomics, and gene-expression profiling, with the potential for huge payoffs to oncologists and patients, according to Mark Pegram, MD, the Susy Yuan-Huey Hung Professor of Medicine at Stanford School of...
For breast cancer patients with robust family histories, medical oncologists should be testing not only for BRCA1/2 mutations, but also for large duplications and deletions as well as for PALB2 mutations. “These [findings] have proven utility in testing breast cancer patients,” said Louise E....
In the phase III COMPLEMENT 1 trial reported in The Lancet, Peter Hillmen, MB, ChB, of St. James’s University Hospital, Leeds, and colleagues found that the addition of the anti-CD20 antibody ofatumumab (Arzerra) to chlorambucil (Leukeran) increased progression-free survival among patients with...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences is partnering with Sage Bionetworks for “Up for a Challenge (U4C): Stimulating Innovation in Breast Cancer Genetic Epidemiology.” This prize competition aims to explore the genomic basis of breast cancer in...
In recent years, patients with cancer have had the benefit of much high technology: proton-beam radiotherapy, intensity-modulated radiation therapy, various minimally invasive surgery techniques, and robots in the operating room. They all receive hype in the professional and public press, and...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On August 17, 2015, brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) was approved...
You can’t control the wind, but you can adjust your sails,” said Mindy Greenstein, PhD, consulting psychologist and author, to begin her talk at the 2015 World Congress of Psycho-Oncology, held in July in Washington, DC. The sense of this proverb pervaded the entire session on cancer and aging....
Suicidal thoughts and impulses are among the most challenging symptoms in patients with cancer, and they may occur both during and after treatment. It has long been known that a cancer diagnosis carries an increased risk for suicide, but the problem is not widely addressed. Suicide is one of the...
The International Psycho-Oncology Society (IPOS) has partnered with the American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) for the 17th World Congress of Psycho-Oncology, held in late July 2015 in Washington, DC. Its theme, “From National to Global: Implementing the Standard of Psychosocial Care in...
Detectable oral HPV16 DNA in oral rinses post treatment for oropharyngeal cancer appears to be a harbinger of poor prognosis and can predict recurrence. Oral HPV16 DNA rinses are a potential tool for long-term tumor surveillance, according to a study selected for the Best of ASCO® 2015.1 “The goal ...
Two separate retrospective studies have further refined our understanding of the respective contributions of surgery and radiotherapy in the treatment of breast cancer. However, these studies are not definitive, and “gold standard” trials are needed to arrive at definitive recommendations. Both...
There is no consensus as to whether it is better to treat immediately or to delay androgen-deprivation therapy in patients with a rising prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level (“biochemical relapse”) after curative therapy for prostate cancer. A phase III study, selected for the Best of ASCO® 2015,...
Two low-cost, low-tech options may lead to a survival benefit in metastatic colorectal cancer, according to separate retrospective studies selected for the Best of ASCO® 2015. The first study suggested that vitamin D supplementation is worthy of investigation in this regard,1 and the second study...
Two “firsts” in studies of colorectal liver metastases were highlighted at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting: the first prospective randomized trial to evaluate radiofrequency ablation plus chemotherapy1 and the first large randomized phase III trial to study liver-directed selective internal radiation...
With a growing number of options for follicular lymphoma, clinicians may wonder whether there is one best regimen. James O. Armitage, MD, FACP, FRCP, Professor of Medicine at the University of Nebraska, Omaha—and Editor-in-Chief of The ASCO Post—tackled this question and offered recommendations at...
With immunotherapy changing the face of lung cancer, is there still a place for targeted therapy? Two experts from Emory University debated this issue at the 2015 Debates and Didactics in Hematology and Oncology Conference held in Sea Island, Georgia. Fadlo Khuri, MD, was recently named President...
What first intrigued Fadlo R. Khuri, MD, FACP, about the prospect of becoming the 16th President of the American University of Beirut (AUB) in Lebanon was the chance to give back to an institution and a country that had given him so much. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1963, Dr. Khuri was raised ...
A few weeks ago, I read an op-ed1 in The New York Times written by Stan Collender, a patient with Merkel cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive type of skin cancer. In his article, he described his participation in a clinical trial for a new drug he is hoping will stem progression of his cancer and...
The long wait for monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of multiple myeloma is over. In the landmark ELOQUENT-2 study, reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Lonial and colleagues convincingly demonstrate the effectiveness of elotuzumab, a monoclonal antibody directed against SLAMF7, in the...
In an interim analysis of the phase III ELOQUENT-2 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Sagar Lonial, MD, of Emory University School of Medicine, Meletios Dimopoulos, MD, of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and colleagues found that the addition of elotuzumab to...
A multicenter, randomized, open-label, phase III trial among the difficult-to-treat population of patients aged aged 65 and older with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with > 30% bone marrow blasts “showed that azacitidine was associated with a clinically meaningful improvement” in median overall...
Two studies of third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors among patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who had progressive disease following treatment with a first-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor “show encouraging results,” according to...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO). These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
Gianni Bonadonna, MD, was considered the “Father of Italian Oncology,” but his scientific contributions to the field and his generous collegial spirit extended far beyond the shores of his native land. Dr. Bonadonna was at the forefront in the battle to convince the surgical establishment that...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Mark E. Robson, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a policy statement update on genetic and genomic testing for cancer susceptibility.1 The statement, commissioned by ASCO’s Cancer Prevention and Ethics...
BOOKMARK Title: The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-life CareAuthor: Angelo E. Volandes, MDPublisher: BloomsburyPublication date: January 13, 2015Price: $26.00; hardcover, 240 pages A quick Google search on books about end-of-life care will yield pages of hits on the subject. The...
BOOKMARK Title: 10% Human: How Your Body’s Microbes Hold the Key to Health and HappinessAuthor: Alanna CollenPublisher: Harper CollinsPublication date: April 27, 2015Price: $39.99; hardcover, 400 pages "As I walked back through the forest that night in the summer of 2005, with twenty bats in...
Physical medicine and rehabilitation in oncology care explores the benefits of cancer rehabilitation in oncology clinical practice to screen survivors for physical and cognitive impairments along the care continuum to minimize survivors’ disability and maximize their quality of life. According to a ...
Statin use has been associated with improved outcomes in prostate cancer. In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Lauren C. Harshman, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues found that statin use at the time of the initiation of androgen-deprivation therapy was associated with...
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Chlebowski and colleagues1 reported differing patterns of breast cancer risk during or after hormonal therapy with estrogen plus progestin2 or estrogen alone,3 in an analysis of two Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trials. This recent update on risk...
In an analysis of Women’s Health Initiative trials reported in JAMA Oncology, Rowan T. Chlebowski, MD, PhD, of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and colleagues found differing patterns of breast cancer risk among women receiving menopausal hormone therapy with estrogen plus progestin or estrogen alone.1...
In a phase I cohort expansion trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Scott N. Gettinger, MD, of Yale Cancer Center, New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues found that monotherapy with the anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) checkpoint inhibitor antibody nivolumab (Opdivo)...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently awarded Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah and The UNM Cancer Center (UNMCC) at the University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center status. An NCI-Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center must demonstrate depth and breadth of...
Bristol-Myers Squibb and AbbVie recently announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted for priority review the Biologics License Application for elotuzumab, an investigational signaling lymphocyte activation molecule (SLAMF7)-directed immunostimulatory antibody, for the...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) as post–autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation consolidation treatment for patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma at high risk of relapse or progression, Seattle Genetics has announced. The approval is...
We’ll provide the resources. You provide the voice. The Campaign to Conquer Cancer is raising $150 million to support a world free from the fear of cancer. Our potential to raise money increases with every new person who learns about our work. We need the most trusted leaders in the oncology...
When Tucker Davis was diagnosed with fibrolamellar hepatocellular carcinoma (FL-HCC) in 2008, there was very little information about this very rare cancer and, as Tucker would soon discover, even fewer treatment options available. An annoying cough and sharp pain radiating down his back leg...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has selected seven leading physician-researchers to receive a total of $675,000 in awards and grants to advance radiation oncology research. Together, the grants will support studies in cancer biology, radiation physics, translational research,...
Carl H. June, MD, an internationally recognized leader in the growing field of immunotherapy, was awarded the Watanabe Prize at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) on September 11 on the campus of Indiana University–Purdue University...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has chosen three radiation oncology physicians and researchers to receive the 2015 ASTRO Gold Medal: Carl R. Bogardus, Jr, MD, FASTRO; Carl M. Mansfield, MD, ScD (Hon), FASTRO; and James B. Mitchell, PhD, FASTRO. Drs. Bogardus, Mansfield, and...
St. Barnabas Hospital is located in the heart of Bronx, New York, and as such, it has a culturally diverse, largely poor, patient population. The backbone of successful palliative care services is the doctor-patient communication bonding process. However, many of the patients with late-stage cancer ...
The standard of care for malignant pleural mesothelioma may be poised for change, judging by results from a study by the French Cooperative Thoracic Intergroup. The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) in the first-line setting to the current standard of care, pemetrexed (Alimta)/cisplatin, improved...
Radiation oncologists dream of a day when, faced with a new patient sitting in their office, they can quickly consult a computer database offering specific treatment recommendations based on accurate, freshly updated data from millions of previously treated patients with cancer. To hasten that day, ...
Febrile neutropenia is of particular concern in high-risk patients who have undergone stem cell transplant, according to William J. Hogan, MB, BCh, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Hogan delivered an update on febrile neutropenia management in this...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On September 2, 2015, rolapitant (Varubi) was approved for use in...