Noting the significant progress in drug and vaccine development over the past 3 years, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, has provided a 3-year, $5.5 million grant to the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, to develop new treatments and...
Brian Schade, Executive Director of Arizona Oncology, recently announced the retirement of Kenneth Luk, MD, a well-respected radiation oncologist in Phoenix for over 20 years. Dr. Luk is a Fellow of the American College of Radiology and Clinical Professor at the Midwestern University School of...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 ASCO has endorsed the recently published Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) consensus guideline on margins for breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation in stage I and II invasive...
There are currently 172 computed tomography (CT)-based lung screening centers up and running in the United States, according to the Lung Cancer Alliance.1 In a presentation at the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego, Reginald Munden, MD, DMD, MBA, and Ralph...
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 April 29, 2014, ceritinib (Zykadia) was granted accelerated...
In April, ASCO Immediate Past President Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, urged Congress to recognize the need for further investment in medical research to protect this valuable infrastructure in testimony submitted to the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations. The testimony provided examples of how...
Over the past several decades, the convergence of scientific discovery, technology, and therapeutic developments has created an unparalleled opportunity to integrate our growing knowledge of genomics into the clinical practice of oncology. To shed light on the current state and future of...
Educational campaigns meant to dissuade college students from initiating hookah tobacco smoking may be more successful if they combat positive perceptions of hookah use as attractive and romantic, rather than focusing solely on the harmful components of hookah tobacco smoke, a new University of...
For young adults diagnosed with cancer, coping with the aftermath of the disease can be especially daunting. Although all cancer survivors share some common concerns and distress, for young adults grappling with body image, sexuality, peer pressure, dating, marriage, family planning, education, and ...
The Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG) continues to provide valuable clinically relevant and practice-influencing information garnered from individual patient-level data from numerous randomized trials in breast cancer. The large numbers of patients and long-term follow-up...
Meta-analyses have shown that postmastectomy radiotherapy reduces risks of recurrence and breast cancer mortality in the population of all women with node-positive disease, but outcomes in those with only one to three positive nodes have not been specifically examined. As reported by Paul McGale,...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) published its first guideline for sentinel lymph node biopsy in 2005.1 Since that time, many new randomized and cohort studies have been published investigating the indications and outcomes of the procedure. The updated 2014 guideline, recently...
ASCO recently convened an update committee of experts in medical oncology, pathology, radiation oncology, surgical oncology, guideline implementation, and advocacy to develop evidence-based recommendations that update the ASCO 2005 clinical practice guideline on use of sentinel node biopsy in...
In April, as part of the Obama administration’s work to make the U.S. health-care system more transparent, affordable, and accountable, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a vast amount of privacy-protected data on services and procedures provided to Medicare...
In an increasing spirit of cooperation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and several pharmaceutical companies are bringing to fruition the newest in a series of ways to expedite drug development and review. Breakthrough therapy is the designation instituted in 2012 by the FDA Safety and...
It’s the dawn of a new era in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), largely due to the development of agents targeting the BCR signaling pathway, according to John C. Byrd, MD, of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus. At the 19th Annual Conference of the...
Attendees at this year’s annual conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) not only got up to date on the Guidelines but left with a better understanding of how children deal with a parent’s cancer, and how oncology providers can best help. Panelists for the NCCN roundtable...
The 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), recently held in Hollywood, Florida, featured a number of scientific posters by member organizations and meeting sponsors. The ASCO Post captured some of the most interesting findings for our readers, including these...
One of the first studies to analyze the effectiveness of screening survivors of childhood cancer for early signs of impending congestive heart failure found improved health outcomes but suggests that less frequent screening than currently recommended may yield similar clinical benefit. The...
Finding salvageable colon cancer recurrence is akin to finding a needle in a haystack, rendering routine patient surveillance of little value. But finding that needle offers an opportunity for treating recurrent disease early, which makes surveillance worthwhile. These were the opposing views...
Amgen recently announced top-line results from the primary overall survival analysis of a phase III trial in melanoma, which evaluated the efficacy and safety of talimogene laherparepvec (also known as T-VEC) for the treatment of unresected stage IIIB, IIIC, or IV melanoma compared to treatment...
Great progress is being made in the battle against cancer, but a renewed commitment of federal support for medical research is needed to speed its eradication, according to leaders of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), commenting in connection with a recent Senate hearing on “The...
In the clinical array of brain tumors, glioblastoma is the most difficult to treat, and despite decades of research and the advent of new therapies, patients with glioblastoma continue to have a very poor prognosis. Leading brain tumor experts at the recent 25th Annual Cancer Progress Conference in ...
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 April 28, 2014, an oral suspension of mercaptopurine (Purixan) ...
Cryoablation of breast tumors, which destroys lesions by exposing them to extremely low temperatures, shows promise as an alternative to surgery in carefully selected women with early-stage disease, according to a study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting in Las...
“To our surprise, obesity had a negative prognostic effect on premenopausal patients with breast cancer but not on those who were postmenopausal. We need to consider these findings in the context of results from other data sources that suggest that obesity remains a negative prognostic feature in...
In men with prostate cancer and a prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-only recurrence after curative surgery or radiation, delaying androgen deprivation therapy for at least 2 years or until clinical progression (ie, new symptoms, metastasis by imaging techniques or short PSA doubling time) did not...
Commenting on the study by Jänne et al, ASCO President Peter P. Yu, MD, said that the issue of drug resistance is important to understand for all cancers, but it is difficult to overcome resistance. “This clinical trial has important implications not only for NSCLC patients but for all patients...
Preliminary evidence suggests that AZD9291, a novel mutant-selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor, may become a treatment option for patients with advanced, EGFR-mutant, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has progressed on standard EGFR inhibitors....
In his commentary on the ALTTO results, George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Oncology at Stanford University, reminded attendees that the announcement of the first results for adjuvant trastuzumab, which occurred at the 2005 ASCO Annual Meeting, was “a...
The highly anticipated results from the phase III ALTTO trial show no additional benefit for adding lapatinib (Tykerb) to trastuzumab (Herceptin) in the adjuvant treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer.1 The results were presented at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting’s Plenary Session by Martine J....
On April 30, 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) convened the Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) to assess the value of low-dose computed tomography (CT) lung cancer screening in the Medicare population. After a decades-long battle,...
Formal discussant of the E3805 study, Michael J. Morris, MD, Associate Member at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said that these results confirm the role of upfront chemotherapy along with androgen-deprivation therapy in men with newly diagnosed metastatic hormone-sensitive...
Adding docetaxel to standard androgen ablation therapy (ie, testosterone suppression) extended survival by more than 1 year in men with newly diagnosed metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer in the phase III E3805 trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health. As reported at the ASCO...
A very pleasant 68-year-old woman was referred to my clinic with biopsy-proven liver metastasis from primary colon cancer. She was initially diagnosed with colon cancer, which was resected, and she then received chemotherapy. A suspicious liver lesion was biopsied in the adjuvant setting, which...
In a 2010 interview, Eddie Reed, MD, a pioneer in the molecular pharmacology of DNA-damaging anticancer agents and the clinical development of paclitaxel for ovarian cancer, was asked what lay ahead. Before answering, Dr. Reed first acknowledged the esteemed mentors who gave him their most precious ...
Colorectal cancer screening is cost-effective and “should be considered well beyond age 75 years” for individuals not previously screened, according to a computer simulation study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The researchers noted that while the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force...
With the extensive media coverage of a study indicating that injections with the luteinizing hormone–releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist goserelin (Zoladex) may offer a new option for preserving fertility among women treated for breast cancer, physicians can expect questions from interested patients....
One of the most reported studies emanating from the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting involves the use of the luteinizing hormone–releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist goserelin (Zoladex) to reduce the risk of ovarian failure among women being treated with chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer, and to...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Stacy W. Gray, MD, AM, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues presented one of the first studies evaluating how academic oncologists perceive the incorporation of a...
It is a widely expressed belief that predictive multiplex somatic genomic testing represents the ability to transform cancer care by identifying targetable alterations in multiple cancer genes. Do oncologists share this belief? How do they intend to use such tests in practice? In a study reported...
The problematic rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s website, HealthCare.gov, made good political theater, but while much of the heated discussion centered on the plan’s need to enroll “young invincibles,” America’s cancer care system and the older patients it serves were also affected by parts of...
The Interagency Pain Research Portfolio (IPRP), a database that provides information about pain research and training activities supported by the federal government, has been launched by six federal agencies. “This database will provide the public and the research community with an important tool...
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has launched an initiative to improve cancer care and research through genomic analysis. The new program will reshape clinical trials and speed the translation of novel molecular discoveries into routine clinical practice. The Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis...
I would like to congratulate Corley and his colleagues for their seminal work on the association between adenoma detection rate and risk of colorectal cancer, advanced colorectal cancer, and colorectal cancer mortality. The impact of their findings—reported in The New England Journal of Medicine1...
For the past 40 years the story of breast cancer surgery in general, and for the past 20 years the management of the axilla in particular, has been one of increasing conservatism. To give our readers insight into the current and future direction of axillary management, The ASCO Post spoke with...
Approximately 20% of all breast cancers are human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive. Prior to the era of HER2-targeted therapy, HER2-positive breast cancer was characterized by a poor prognosis.1,2 The development of the first HER2-targeted therapy, trastuzumab (Herceptin), led to...
Approximately 15% of patients with breast cancer have tumors that overexpress the HER2 protein and these patients can benefit from HER2-targeted therapies. The American Society of Clinical Oncology recently released a clinical practice guideline on systemic therapy for patients with advanced...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO presented more than $5 million in grants and awards to more than 250 promising oncology researchers at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, held May 30 to June 3 in Chicago, Illinois. The Conquer Cancer Foundation and ASCO congratulate the 2014 grant and award...
ASCO is committed to providing people with cancer and their caregivers with top quality educational information and resources to help them manage their cancer care, treatment, and survivorship. This ongoing commitment is best reflected in its patient-facing educational website, Cancer.Net...