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Showing 201 - 250Preparing for Steep Increase in Breast Cancer Among the Elderly
“We are in the midst of a steep increase” in the incidence of breast cancer among women aged 65 years and older, Arti Hurria, MD, reported at the 19th Annual Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium, Chicago.1 “Are we prepared as a health-care system and as providers to address this burgeoning need?” she...
A Vivid Look Back, a Cogent Look Forward
Cancer memoirs come in a variety of literary styles and voices. Not surprisingly, the most poignant cancer memoirs are by those who are writing, in essence, their final words before departing this earth. The most widely read of that variety has been the beautifully written best seller When Breath...
Seattle Children’s Opens Trial for Children and Young Adults With Leukemia That Targets CD22 and CD19 Proteins Simultaneously
Seattle Children’s has opened the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell immunotherapy trial in the U.S. for children and young adults with relapsed or refractory CD19- and CD22-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that will simultaneously attack two targets on cancer cells. With ...
The Man in the Vest
It had been an uneventful Sunday morning, and I was writing my final note for the day, hopeful to make a stealth exit and perhaps join my family at church. But as I closed the chart and looked up, I saw Ruthie, my oncology fellow, approaching with a grim expression. “I just left the room of a...
A Revolutionary Technology Offers Hope and Ethical Concern
Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 dystopian novel Brave New World pictures an eerie future where humans are genetically bred, altered to create worthy citizens. Welcome back to the future. First there was the astounding feat of sequencing the entire human genome; now, thanks to a revolutionary...
Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst Launches 10 Clinical Trial Projects
Stand Up To Cancer has awarded 10 Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst clinical trial projects in which researchers from more than 30 institutions collaborate across academic and corporate borders on clinical trials studying correlated translational research. The inaugural Stand Up To Cancer Catalyst...
Cancer Has Robbed Me of a Life I Loved
I always knew cancer was a real possibility for me. Both my mother and father died of the disease—my mother of lung cancer and my father of bone cancer—so when I started having chronic throat and chest infections, I was diligent about seeking immediate medical attention and felt relieved each time ...
Tales From the OR: A Pediatric Surgeon’s Memoir
CARING FOR sick children brings with it a set of emotional and physical challeneges that differ from those with the adult patient population. In a new book, Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories From the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine, Kurt Newman, MD, draws on more than 30 years of his...
ASCO, CCF Congratulate 2017 Grant and Award Recipients
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO (CCF) presented more than $6.3 million in grants and awards to 247 promising oncology researchers at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting. CCF and ASCO congratulate the recipients on their contributions to the field of oncology and offer their profound thanks to the...
Unraveling the Complexities of Cellular Immunotherapy and Its Potential to Cure Some Cancers
This past fall, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle opened an all-encompassing 9,222-square foot outpatient cellular immunotherapy clinic, specifically designed to serve patients participating in the center’s novel immunotherapy clinical trials, which mainly focus on chimeric...
Sylvia
The following essay by Howard A. (Skip) Burris III, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org....
Effect of BRAF V600E Mutation on Outcome in Pediatric Low-Grade Gliomas
An analysis reported by Lassaletta et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed that BRAF V600E mutation is associated with a poor outcome in pediatric low-grade gliomas treated with standard adjuvant therapy. Study Details The study involved patients with low-grade gliomas with long-term...
Analysis Reveals Genomic Alterations, Oncogenes Driving Medulloblastoma Subtypes
The most comprehensive analysis yet of medulloblastoma has identified genomic changes responsible for more than 75% of the brain tumors, including two new suspected cancer genes that were found exclusively in the least understood disease subgroups. The study from an international research...
Pediatric Cancer Pain May Be Misunderstood and Largely Undertreated
Cancer pain in children poses certain unique challenges. Over the past decade, insightful research into pediatric cancer pain has focused on pain management that incorporates nonopioid therapies into standard care. To shed light on this important issue, The ASCO Post spoke with Christine T....
Incorporating the ‘Goals of Medicine’ With the ‘Goals of Care’
In both inpatient and outpatient medical settings, the physician-patient communication process can become more difficult as a disease progresses. Conflicts due to a misunderstanding of therapeutic goals and/or a patient’s values can slowly arise over time among patients, their surrogates, and...
Making American Research Great Again
In the past 10 years, we have made remarkable advances in how we fight cancer. One of the most powerful new tools in our arsenal is cancer immunotherapy, which reawakens our own immune system to produce stunning results for many suffering from advanced cancer. Immunotherapy saved President Jimmy...
Celebrating Cancer Survivorship
Sunday, June 4, 2017, marks the 30th anniversary of National Cancer Survivors Day. Here’s a look at the progress that has been made over the past 2 to 3 decades in reducing cancer incidence and cancer deaths and the challenges that remain. Increasing Rates of Cancer Survivorship In 1971, the...
For Eric P. Winer, MD, Empathy and a Sense of Purpose Lead to a Career in Oncology
Eric Paul Winer, MD, was born in Boston in 1956, a year when gasoline was 22 cents a gallon and IBM released the world’s first computer with a hard drive. His grandfather on his mother’s side had hemophilia and died 5 years before Dr. Winer was born. Although there was a 50% chance that Dr. Winer...
At the Forefront of Cancer Genetics, Bert Vogelstein, MD, Calls for Focus on Early Detection and Prevention
Bert Vogelstein, MD, was born on June 2, 1949, at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, the same renowned institution where he would later make his mark in the field of cancer genetics. As a young teen, he was an enthusiast and independent consumer of books, one of which helped shape...
Renowned Hematologist Mojtaba Akhtari, MD, Reflects on a New Era in Treating Blood Cancers
The nationally recognized hematologist-oncologist Mojtaba Akhtari, MD, was born and reared in Tehran, Iran. “In my early years, I had a couple of cousins who were medical students. When I visited them in their homes, I was fascinated with the images in their medical text books. I would flip the...
First-in-Human Clinical Trial in Children and Young Adults With Leukemia
After phase I results of Seattle Children’s Pediatric Leukemia Adoptive Therapy (PLAT-02) trial, published by Gardner et al in Blood,1 showed T-cell immunotherapy to be effective in sending 93% of patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) into complete initial...
First-In-Human Clinical Trial Aims to Extend Remission for Children and Young Adults With Leukemia Treated With T-Cell Immunotherapy
After phase I results of Seattle Children's Pediatric Leukemia Adoptive Therapy (PLAT-02) trial, published by Gardner et al in Blood, showed T-cell immunotherapy to be effective in sending 93% of patients with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) into complete initial...
Update to Guideline for Management of Fever and Neutropenia in Children With Cancer and HSCT Recipients
An update to the 2012 International Pediatric Fever and Neutropenia Guideline Panel recommendations for management of fever and neutropenia in children with cancer and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) recipients was reported by Lehrnbecher et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology....
Saving My Hair Changed My Perception of Having Cancer
Getting a callback after a routine screening mammogram in 2013 did not set off any alarm bells. Having dense breasts has almost guaranteed receiving the dreaded callback ever since I started getting annual screenings. But when I got a second callback after additional images of a suspicious lesion...
ELCC 2017: Osimertinib Improves Symptoms in Advanced Lung Cancer
Osimertinib (Tagrisso) improved cancer-related symptoms in patients with advanced lung cancer, according to an analysis of patient-reported outcomes from the AURA3 phase III clinical trial presented by Lee et al at the 2017 European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC, Abstract 85O). “With my...
Practice-Changing Research: Making Palliative Care a Routine Part of Cancer Care in the United States and Abroad
With its recently issued clinical practice guideline update, reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, ASCO has spoken: Interdisciplinary palliative care teams improve the outcomes of cancer care; patients live longer and feel better.1 There is no doubt. Multiple well-designed studies show the...
Coping With an Uncommon Cancer
In April 2014, I was so sick with uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea and severe abdominal and chest pain that I had to be hospitalized for 5 days. As I was in my late 20s and in otherwise good health, there was no easy explanation for my symptoms. After I was released from the hospital, my...
Online Symptom-Management Curriculum May Improve Depression and Fatigue in Breast Cancer Survivors
With thousands of devices to track and manage health and wellness, eHealth tools are beginning to transform modern health care and research, demonstrating quantifiable improvements in patient outcomes. According to the results of a randomized controlled trial (Reimagine), breast cancer survivors...
Busulfan and Melphalan vs Carboplatin, Etoposide, and Melphalan in High-Risk Neuroblastoma
In a phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ladenstein et al found that high-dose chemotherapy with busulfan and melphalan vs carboplatin, etoposide, and melphalan was associated with an improved event-free survival in patients with high-risk neuroblastoma and adequate disease response to ...
Cisplatin-Based Chemotherapy in Pediatric Extracranial Malignant Germ Cell Tumors
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Shaikh et al, of the Children’s Oncology Group, found that event-free survival rates were not maintained with the use of reduced and compressed cisplatin-based regimens in children and adolescents with intermediate-risk extracranial...
Expert Point of View: Selina Luger, MD, Stephanie Lee, MD, and Gabriela Hobbs, MD
Speaking at the 2016 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, before the hold on pacritinib was lifted (in January 2017), Selina Luger, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, commented, “I think the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) needs to revisit ...
Oliver Smithies, PhD, Nobel Laureate Who Discovered Gene Targeting, Dies
The ability to artificially alter DNA opens the door to new scientific understanding and treatments for various diseases. Oliver Smithies, PhD, made the crucial discovery that a disease-causing gene could be modified. For that and other groundbreaking work, he, along with two other scientists, was ...
The Cost of a Patient’s Last Ride
It was a call from a referring physician who wanted the patient to be transferred to our major academic center. The patient had a history of a lethal malignancy in a very advanced stage. The patient was already outside the bell curve, for she had survived far longer than expected for a malignancy...
What Cancer?
If they are honest, most oncologists who’ve practiced medicine for more than 15 years will tell you they’ve learned much more from their patients than their patients have learned from them. The life lessons I’ve learned from treating this complicated, resilient, and often cruel disease are many....
Telemedicine: Transforming Health Care One Computer at a Time
Telehealth is the delivery of health care remotely via telecommunication tools. Its aim is to increase access to care, especially for patients with chronic diseases such as cancer and for populations for whom care is not always available. With the growing availability of broadband and portable...
Predicting Outcomes in Older Patients With Cancer
In the French ELCAPA14 study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ferrat et al found that four frailty classifications performed well in predicting outcomes in a cohort of patients aged ≥ 70 years with various cancers. Study Details The study involved 763 in- or outpatients with...
Weekly Vinblastine in Chemotherapy-Naive Children With Progressive Low-Grade Glioma
In a phase II Canadian Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium Study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lassaletta et al found that vinblastine monotherapy was associated with response or stable disease in most children with chemotherapy-naive low-grade glioma. Vinblastine monotherapy has shown ...
Treating the Whole Person
Twenty-five years ago, I was a physically fit woman of 45 in training to run a marathon, which had been a lifelong goal. I was feeling fine and had no hint of the illness that would nearly take my life and has forever changed it. While ramping up to go the 26.2-mile distance, I decided to have a...
Profound Answers to Simple Questions
A few years ago, I had the good fortune to join a research team that intended to create a device to help dying children express their wants and needs despite communication challenges. The brain tumor team at SickKids [also known as The Hospital for Sick Children] had cared for several children...
The Future of Health Care in America: Which Corridor?
It was mid-morning, and I was walking along one of the long corridors in our hospital, attending to clinical duties. From a distance, I noticed this elderly couple walking in the opposite direction. As we got closer, it became obvious that the elderly gentleman appeared winded and was looking...
Anti–PD-1 Contenders in Advanced Urothelial Cancer
Immunotherapy with anti–PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1) and anti–PD-L1 (programmed cell death ligand 1) agents continues to advance in metastatic urothelial cancer, with positive showings in two clinical trials presented at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress. The...
ASCO Quality Improvement Grant Spotlight: The Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care
In 2016 and 2017, a team from The Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care (RLCCC) is participating in an ASCO Quality Improvement Grant program, which is supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. The grant program aims to improve the delivery of cancer care in medically underserved communities by...
Resuscitation During Surgery
During the 1890s, aseptic principles were extended only to the operative area of the patient, not the surgeon, although some surgeons did advocate the use of special white or colored uniforms, and hand washing had already been established. In 1895, just 7 years after Arpad Gerster, MD, published...
Let’s Win: Innovative Online Community Offers Guidance to Patients With Pancreatic Cancer and Their Families
Let’s Win is an online community for persons with pancreatic cancer (www.letswinpc.org), but it is far more than a typical support group. Let’s Win propels interested users toward cutting-edge research, based on its founders’ commitment that no patient with pancreatic cancer should settle on the...
Talking to Children With Cancer: Sometimes Less Is More
I still remember the day I met Kensie. It was Valentine’s Day. I had sneaked out of the hospital to get my wife a Valentine’s Day card, taking my place among scores of other husbands and boyfriends in front of the rapidly emptying rack of cards. As I started browsing, my beeper sounded. It was the ...
A Cancer Diagnosis Brings Two Sisters Back Together
Elizabeth Lesser is an award-winning writer and co-founder of the Omega Institute, the largest adult education center in the United States focusing on health, wellness, spirituality, and creativity. She is the author of several acclaimed books including Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help...
When Breath Becomes Air: Dr. Lucy Kalanithi Reflects on Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s Life and Writing
Perhaps more than any other book in recent memory, When Breath Becomes Air has struck a chord among readers, both inside the medical community and among the public, desiring an honest and philosophical consideration of death. The autobiographical account of Paul Kalanithi, MD, a physician diagnosed ...
Retrospective Studies Confirm Survival Benefit of Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy in Early-Stage NSCLC
Stereotactic body radiation therapy is becoming more widely adopted for the treatment of early-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Along with its increasing uptake, survival has significantly increased over the past decade, according to two large retrospective studies presented at the 58th...
Susan M. O’Brien, MD, Embraces the Challenge of Balancing Patient Care With Clinical Trial Investigation
Susan M. O’Brien, MD, one of the nation’s foremost leukemia experts, told The ASCO Post that she wanted to become a doctor since her earliest memories. “The idea of being able to help sick people always appealed to me,” said Dr. O’Brien, who was born in Manhattan but spent her formative years in...
ASTRO 2016: Widespread Adoption of SBRT Has Improved Survival Rates for Elderly Patients With Early-Stage Lung Cancer
Survival rates for elderly patients who received stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for early stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) rose from roughly 40% to 60% over the past decade, concurrent with the increasing adoption of SBRT, according to research presented by Dalwadi et al...
