Misinformation is everywhere. Direct your patients to visit www.cancer.net/blog to learn what is science fact and what is science fiction in this blog post on nine common cancer myths. Also, order ASCO Answers Fact Sheet—Myths and Facts About Cancer for your practice at www.cancer.net/estore....
In mid-May, ASCO launched Practical Tips for the Oncology Practice, 6th Edition, a comprehensive resource providing answers to the most commonly asked questions regarding billing, coding, reimbursements, coverage questions, and regulatory policies that affect the day-to-day practice of oncology....
Internationally renowned oncologist David Kerr, MD, DSc, will serve as founding Editor-in-Chief of the new ASCO publication, Journal of Global Oncology (JGO). JGO will be the first journal focused exclusively on cancer research, treatment, and care delivery in middle- and low-resource countries...
At its 152nd Annual Meeting on April 28, 2015, the membership of the National Academy of Sciences voted to change the name of the Institute of Medicine to the National Academy of Medicine. The newly named National Academy of Medicine will continue to be an honorific society and will inherit the...
Neal Shore, MD, FACS, of Atlantic Urology Clinics, LLC, was recently appointed President-Elect of the Large Urology Group Practice Association (LUGPA). “I am honored to be appointed to this prestigious position within [the Association] and look forward to furthering the organization’s goal,...
The George Washington University (GW) School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), the GW University Hospital, and the GW Medical Faculty Associates announced the appointment of Eduardo M. Sotomayor, MD, as the inaugural Director of the GW Cancer Center (GWCC). He will also serve as a Professor...
The recently published results of the CUSTOM (Molecular Profiling and Targeted Therapies in Advanced Thoracic Malignancies) trial, reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, describe a basket trial focused on identifying molecular biomarkers in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), small...
An analysis of Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG) studies recently reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Tewari and colleagues and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post showed a survival benefit of intraperitoneal chemotherapy vs intravenous chemotherapy over long-term follow-up in women...
Active surveillance has become a viable option for many men with low-risk prostate cancer who choose not to undergo active treatment such as surgery or radiotherapy. Four studies evaluating the effectiveness, trends, and other considerations for active surveillance in managing prostate cancer were...
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in American men, yet controversy over the utilization and frequency of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening methods remains, due to the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of men with low-grade, less-aggressive forms of the disease. At the 110th...
Data from two phase III studies led by the Children’s Oncology Group show that augmenting or intensifying therapy for children with high-risk Wilms tumor improved relapse-free survival. These children are deemed to be at high risk due to a specific chromosomal abnormality that confers worse...
New data from a phase III Alliance trial weighs in on a longstanding debate in the treatment of brain metastases: Should whole-brain radiation therapy be added to stereotactic radiosurgery? The study found that although whole-brain radiation therapy improved local tumor control in patients with...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is making inroads into head and neck cancer, with encouraging results in heavily pre-treated patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, according to a report on the expansion-cohort KEYNOTE-012 study presented at the 2015 ASCO...
Anti–programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) immunotherapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) extended survival in patients with the most common form of lung cancer—nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Patients whose disease progressed on standard platinum doublet therapy who were treated with...
Neil Howard Segal, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, who discussed the study at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, emphasized that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) exerted a “clear benefit in patients with mismatch repair deficiency,” based on the “very impressive response rate of...
A genetic marker to predict response to anti–PD-1 (anti-programmed cell death protein 1) antibodies may have emerged in colorectal cancer, a tumor type that is a newcomer to the anti–PD-1 ballgame. In a phase II study of colorectal cancer patients treated with pembrolizumab (Keytruda), the presence ...
“What’s past is prologue.” —William Shakespeare Today, a cancer drug under study in a clinical trial is commonly provided for a finite period of time after the study closes to accrual. If that drug were not yet U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved when the study began, the complimentary ...
In advanced melanoma, combination treatment with nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) more than doubled the median progression-free survival time over ipilimumab alone in the CheckMate 067 trial. That said, single-agent nivolumab proved almost as powerful in patients expressing the programmed ...
A study presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting showed decreased sexual activity in women following treatment for gynecologic cancers, down from 6 to 7 times per month before treatment to 3 to 5 times per month after treatment (abstract 9592). “[Sexual dysfunction] is a topic that not many people want ...
As a medical writer specializing in oncology, an ASCO member, and someone who tries to build sensitivity to patients into all my work, I was concerned about the cartoon I saw in the May 10, 2015, issue of The ASCO Post. On page 46, there is a cartoon of someone being thrown off a cliff because he...
ASCO Answers: Managing the Cost of Cancer Care explains the various costs associated with cancer treatment, including health-care coverage through the Affordable Care Act. It also provides a list of financial resources available to help offset expenses related to care and tips for organizing...
JUNE ASCO Review 2015June 26 • Cleveland, Ohio For more information: www.clevelandclinicmeded.com/live/courses/2015/ASCO15/default.asp 2nd EACR Special Conference on Cancer GenomicsJune 28-July 1 • Cambridge, United Kingdom For more information: www.eacr.org IO360–Immuno-Oncology 360oJune 29-June...
The ability to interrogate cancer cells at the genomic, proteomic, immunologic, and metabolomic levels will transform oncology care from one that relies mainly on trial-and-error treatment strategies based on the anatomy of the tumor to one that is more precisely based on the tumor’s molecular...
Through the Lens of Oncology History: A Century of Progress The text and photographs on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology Tumors & Treatment: A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS. The photo below is from the volume titled “The Radium...
Ovarian cancer is the second most common gynecologic malignancy in the United States, with an estimated 21,290 new cases expected this year. Ovarian cancer causes 5% of all cancer deaths in women, making it responsible for the highest number of gynecologic cancer deaths.1 Age, family history, and...
In 2014, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York opened the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology with the sole purpose of expediting the translation of novel molecular discoveries into clinical innovations to turn the goal of precision oncology care into...
In a move that reverberated through much of the cancer research community, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently announced that it had removed all prostate-specific antigen (PSA) data from its current Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data submission and associated...
Direct your patients to www.cancer.net/blog for podcasts with ASCO experts discussing the research that was presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting. This series of “Research Round Up” podcasts provides the latest information on treatment and care for people with cancer and will help your patients ...
The ASCO Annual Meeting highlights the latest research and treatment advances in oncology, with more than 28,000 oncology professionals attending each year. ASCO wishes to acknowledge the volunteers on this year’s Cancer Education and Scientific Program Committees, and thank them for their time and ...
The ASCO Community Research Forum (CRF) is a solution-oriented venue for community research sites to overcome barriers to conducting clinical trials. Each year, the CRF council, comprising ASCO member volunteers, selects topic areas and specific solution-oriented projects for working groups to make ...
Registration is now open for the Community Research Forum (CRF) Annual Meeting, which will take place on September 20 to 21, at ASCO Headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. Join fellow physician investigators and research staff from all types of community-based research sites and programs to discuss...
ASCO has issued an updated and expanded set of treatment and survivorship care plan templates for oncology care professionals and patients with cancer. The templates serve to enhance ASCO’s existing suite of tools to help providers and patients fully plan a course of cancer treatment, from...
ASCO released a proposal to significantly improve the quality and affordability of care for cancer patients. ASCO’s Patient-Centered Oncology Payment: Payment Reform to Support Higher Quality, More Affordable Cancer Care (PCOP) proposal is designed to simultaneously improve services to patients and ...
For the first time, a large randomized trial has suggested that overall survival is improved by the addition of adjuvant chemotherapy to androgen suppression and radiotherapy in men with localized, high-risk, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Docetaxel has been used to treat metastatic...
The addition of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to standard therapy with bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) significantly reduced the risk of disease progression or death and overall response rates compared with bendamustine/rituximab alone in previously treated chronic lymphocytic leukemia...
Patients with cancer who develop venous thromboembolism are at high risk of such obstructive disease recurring despite adequate anticoagulation. A prespecified analysis of the CATCH trial identified two major predictors of recurrence: venous compression by the tumor and a diagnosis of hepatobiliary ...
Eribulin (Halaven), a cytotoxic agent approved for advanced/metastatic breast cancer, may improve overall survival for patients with two common and difficult-to-treat forms of advanced/metastatic sarcoma, investigators reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Eribulin is a microtubule inhibitor...
Lynn Schuchter, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, a designated ASCO expert, commented at the press briefing that the results might apply to a select group of patients concerned about lymphedema but not yet to the broader population. “I would say that this is a really important...
Complete lymph node dissection did not improve survival in melanoma patients randomized to this practice, vs sentinel lymph node biopsy alone, German investigators reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “This is the first study that tested the typical recommendation of complete lymph node...
Taking additional tissue circumferentially around the cavity left by partial mastectomy (“cavity shave margins”) cut the rate of positive margins by nearly 50% and the rate of reexcision for margin clearance by more than 50% compared with standard partial mastectomy with or without the surgeon...
Joseph A. Sparano, MD, Professor of Medicine and Women’s Health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, was the formal discussant of the study and commented, “These findings confirm the strong signal observed in the phase II PALOMA1 trial, and there were no subgroups that did not...
Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD, Director of the Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis Program, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and New York Presbyterian Hospital, served as the study’s discussant. She called the 29% response rate in this heavily pretreated or refractory population...
Heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma achieved rapid, durable, and deepening responses to the anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody daratumumab, in a phase II study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “Daratumumab showed remarkable single-agent activity in heavily pretreated and...
Defining and ensuring the delivery of high-value oncology care has been one of ASCO’s major goals for more than a decade. In 2007, ASCO formed the Task Force on the Cost of Cancer Care, now called the Value in Cancer Care Task Force, to identify the drivers of the increasing costs of oncology care...
Precision cancer medicine entails treating patients based upon the molecular characteristics of their tumor. One could argue that we have been tailoring therapeutic regimens based upon tumor characteristics for years, whether it be treating patients based upon disease subtypes determined by...
Elective neck dissection of node-negative early-stage oral cancer at the time of primary surgery improves overall survival and disease-free survival compared with therapeutic neck dissection (ie, therapeutic neck dissection at the time of nodal relapse, or “watch and wait” approach), according to a ...
Frederick Pei Li, MD, who helped inaugurate the era of cancer genetics by demonstrating that people can inherit a genetic susceptibility to develop certain malignancies, died on June 12 at the age of 75. A Professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard T.H. Chan...
“Patients, their families, and oncologists recognize the administration of chemotherapy near death as aggressive and poor-quality care,” William F. Pirl, MD, MPH, and colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, wrote in the Journal of Oncology Practice. “However, rates have been slowly...
Issuing advice for high-value care in screening for five common cancers, the High Value Care Task Force of the American College of Physicians (ACP) stated: “The target audience for this paper is all clinicians. The target patient population is average-risk, asymptomatic patients.” “What we tried...
Finding agreement on high-value cancer screening among organizations publishing screening guidelines, the American College of Physicians (ACP) issued advice listing the least-intensive screening strategies that all the organizations recommend—as well as strategies not recommended—for five common...