BookmarkTitle: The Gene: An Intimate HistoryAuthor: Siddhartha Mukherjee, MDPublisher: ScribnerPublication date: May 2016Price: $32.00; hardcover, 608 pagesOn February 28, 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick entered The Eagle, a favorite watering hole for researchers working at the University of...
The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation (ALCF) has announced that it has appointed David LeDuc as its new Executive Director. Mr. LeDuc most recently served as the Senior Director of Strategic Alliances for the Addario Lung Cancer Medical Institute (ALCMI), a partner foundation to ALCF, where ...
The most recent (2013) ASCO/College of American Pathologists (AC) guidelines for HER2 testing resulted in different rates of HER2 positivity compared with the use of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or 2007 AC guidelines, according to a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology...
Photonics—the science of light—may not be associated with cancer in most people’s minds. But photonic technologies are: CT (computed tomography) scans and digital x-rays, for instance, are in everyday use, and next-generation oncology applications are in development. As the White House’s National...
I was raised to be an engineer. I grew up in an industrial community, worked summer jobs in a U.S. Steel chemical plant, and was good at science and math. My career choice was straightforward: I went to an engineering university. My first semester freshman year included a mandatory introduction...
At the 2015 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium in Boston, Vicki Jackson, MD, MPH, Chief in the Division of Palliative Care and Geriatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, Co-Director of the Harvard Center for Palliative Care, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School,...
With a $3 million annual commitment to support promising blood disease research amid limited National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, the American Society of Hematology (ASH) has announced the formal establishment of the ASH Bridge Grant program after an extended 4-year pilot study. ASH also...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Epclusa (sofosbuvir at 400 mg/velpatasvir at 100 mg) on June 28, 2016, to treat adult patients with chronic hepatitis C virus both with and without cirrhosis. For patients with moderate to severe cirrhosis (decompensated cirrhosis),...
On July 7, 2016, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Roche cobas HPV Test as the first test for human papillomavirus (HPV) that can be used with cervical cells obtained for a Papanicolau (Pap) test and collected in SurePath Preservative Fluid. The FDA approves HPV tests to be...
Juno Therapeutics, Inc., announced on July 12, 2016, that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has removed the clinical hold on the phase II clinical trial of JCAR015 (known as the ROCKET trial; clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT02535364) in adult patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN) is collaborating with National Decision Support Company (NDSC) to integrate the NCCN Imaging Appropriate Use Criteria (AUC) into NDSC’s CareSelect Imaging to allow for access to imaging recommendations, adapted from the NCCN Clinical Practice...
Charles B. Simone II, MD, has been named the new Medical Director of the Maryland Proton Treatment Center (MPTC). Dr. Simone will begin work in November 2016. As Medical Director, Dr. Simone will continue to define and implement processes ensuring that MPTC is integrated into the radiation...
A large study headed by researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC), Vanderbilt University, and Boston University received $12 million in funding to examine why African American women die at a higher rate from breast cancer and have more aggressive...
Image depicts hundreds of live cells from a tiny bit of skin on the tail fin of a genetically engineered adult zebrafish. The cells have been labeled with a new fluorescent imaging tool called Skinbow. It uniquely color codes cells by getting them to express genes encoding red, green, and blue...
American cancer centers promoting their services dramatically increased their advertising spending from 2005 to 2014, with the bulk of the spending by for-profit organizations, according to the results of a study published by Vater et al in JAMA Internal Medicine.1 Small Percentage Responsible for...
The addition of the anti–CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte–associated protein 4) checkpoint inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy) to etoposide/platinum did not improve overall survival in the first-line treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), according to a phase...
Study Title: A Pilot Study of a Protein-Sparing Modified Fast for Weight Loss in Obese Endometrial Cancer Survivors Study Type: Pilot/interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, National Cancer Institute Purpose: To study whether the...
AUGUST The 33rd World Congress of Internal Medicine (WCIM)August 22-25 • Bali, IndonesiaFor more information: www.wcimbali2016.org 16th World Congress on Cancers of the SkinAugust 31-September 3 • Vienna, Austria For more information: www.wccs2016.com 12th National Lymphedema Network International...
The facts are well known: Although clinical trials are regarded as the gold standard to investigate whether a new treatment is safe and effective in patients—and have resulted in advances in cancer cures and increases in cancer survivorship—only 3% to 5% of patients enroll in these studies.1 The...
At the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee (CTAC) meeting held on July 13, 2016, 13 recipients were presented with the 2016 NCI Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award (CCITLA). The award recognizes and supports outstanding...
OmniSeq, a subsidiary of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, received New York State Clinical Laboratory Evaluation Program (CLEP) approval for its OmniSeq Comprehensive panel, a 144-gene, pan-cancer, next-generation sequencing tumor-profiling diagnostic panel to guide oncology treatment...
Andrew Olshan, PhD, Associate Director of Population Sciences and Co-Leader of the Epidemiology Program at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, has been elected President of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, the oldest and largest general epidemiology society in North America. He will ...
Quyen D. Chu, MD, MBA, FACS, this year’s recipient of ASCO’s Humanitarian Award, lives by the axiom that “One person can make a positive difference in the lives of others.” Although the term has become cliché, the experiences in Dr. Chu’s life and oncology career prove just how profound and...
Abhishek Aphale, MD, has been appointed Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Aphale earned his medical degree from the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of Rutgers University. He completed his residency training at the University of Michigan and a Procedural...
Active pharmacovigilance in detecting and assessing the safety signals related to drugs and devices, and disseminating those findings to relevant stakeholders, is an important component in delivering safe, high-quality care in the cancer setting. To reach a better understanding of this issue,...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to ribociclib in combination with letrozole for the treatment of hormone receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Ribociclib...
In a retrospective study analyzing patients' medical records, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) found that race significantly affected longevity by increasing the likelihood of death after receiving androgen-deprivation therapy. These findings were published by Kovtun et al in...
Recent years have seen the publication of a considerable amount of scientific literature questioning the effectiveness of mammography screening in decreasing breast cancer mortality.1-4 This article explores how the Israeli experience has demonstrated the efficacy of organized national...
Renal cell carcinomas (RCC) positive for the protein programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) from patients who did not respond to treatment with the anti–PD-1 therapeutic nivolumab (Opdivo) had significantly higher expression of genes associated with metabolism, compared with PD-L1–positive...
Next-generation sequencing of recurrent or metastatic head and neck tumors at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has provided insight into the molecular characteristics of these tumors, which may aid in the implementation of precision treatment. Morris et al reported these findings in...
In a National Cancer Data Base analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Seisen et al found that high-intensity local treatment was associated with an overall survival benefit in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. Study Details The study included data from...
In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Brose et al found that vemurafenib (Zelboraf) had antitumor activity in patients with BRAF V600E–positive recurrent or metastatic papillary thyroid cancer refractory to radioactive iodine. Study Details In the study, 26 patients without...
There was a time when transplantation across human leukocyte antigen (HLA) barriers was fraught with so much difficulty that many thought it was impossible and we should stop trying. However, most patients do not have an HLA-matched sibling donor, and death was therefore certain if they had a...
In an analysis of the observational database of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nilanjan Ghosh, MD, PhD, of Levine Cancer Institute, Carolinas Healthcare System, Charlotte, North Carolina, and colleagues found that...
A large study by Hartz et al examining whether Internet-based research approaches effectively engage participants from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds has found engagement in this type of research to be low among participants without a high school education, those living below the...
The global economic crisis beginning in 2008 was associated with substantial public health effects, especially with respect to mental health.1–3 Nevertheless, there is also evidence of a paradoxical association between recessions and reduced all-cause mortality, in part because of reductions in...
The global economic crisis has been associated with increased unemployment and reduced public-sector expenditure on health care. In a study reported in The Lancet, Mahiben Maruthappu, MA, of Imperial College London, and colleagues found that the global economic crisis beginning in 2008 was...
Ten distinguished members of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) have been named ASTRO Fellows, in the 10th anniversary year that the designation has been awarded. The 2016 class of Fellows will be recognized at an awards ceremony during ASTRO’s 58th Annual Meeting, to be held...
Women Who Conquer Cancer is a group dedicated to advancing cancer research by supporting young women researchers early in their careers through Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Young Investigator Awards (YIAs). These 1-year grants give promising researchers the boost they need to get started on...
“Are you a member of ASCO?” I distinctly remember being asked that question in 1984, during my second year as a fellow at what was then the Sidney Farber (now Dana-Farber) Cancer Institute. My first reaction: “What’s an ASCO?” Turned out it was a) the Society that many of my mentors had or would...
ASCO offers a product that combines provider and patient information about cancer survivorship. Providing High Quality Survivorship Care in Practice: An ASCO Guide aims to assist oncologists and other clinicians with implementing high-quality survivorship care programs within their practice. The...
In 1995, Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, gathered with several other oncologists at a conference center in San Francisco to begin writing the first-ever ASCO guidelines on cancer treatment. He and his colleagues felt like pioneers scouting uncharted frontier. “I’ll never forget, that first hour or so, ...
ASCO Chief Executive Officer Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FASCO, and CancerLinQ LLC Chief Executive Officer Kevin Fitzpatrick attended Vice President Joe Biden’s Cancer Moonshot Summit at Howard University on Wednesday, June 29, 2016. Along with leaders and stakeholders across the cancer research and...
Integrated care, a focus on prevention and screening, and acknowledgment of comorbidities on the impact of treatment all play a critical role in the cancer survivorship of older patients, according to Martine Extermann, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida....
In a genome-wide association study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Li et al identified genetic variants associated with the risk of nasal-type extranodal natural killer T-cell lymphoma (NKTCL). This rare aggressive malignancy is seen predominantly in Asian and Latin American populations;...
Obesity and being overweight were associated with an increased risk of cardiotoxicity in women receiving treatment with anthracyclines and sequential anthracyclines/trastuzumab (Herceptin) for breast cancer, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical...
In a population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Greenlee et al found that rates of obesity have increased more in patients with a history of cancer than in the general population. These rates were particularly high among survivors of colorectal and breast cancers and black ...
Management of chemotherapy-induced vomiting has improved with the use of antiemetics, but chemotherapy-induced nausea remains a major clinical problem, according to Alex Molassiotis, RN, PhD, Professor and Head of the School of Nursing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. And, he added, the...
Prophylactic use of dexamethasone mouthwash significantly minimized the incidence of all grades of stomatitis in postmenopausal women receiving everolimus (Afinitor, Zortress) and exemestane for the treatment of hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer, according to data presented by...
Chemotherapy- and radiotherapy-induced gastrointestinal (GI) toxicities have risen alongside improved survival rates for many cancers, according to Jervoise Andreyev, MA, PhD, Consultant Gastroenterologist in GI Consequences of Cancer Treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. “For every...