Dafna Bar-Sagi, PhD, of New York University Langone Medical Center, summarizes a panel discussion she moderated on skills the cancer research community brings to bear on the coronavirus pandemic, how the influx of funding will affect future priorities, and ways to capitalize on the surge of...
Deaths from cancer accounted for more than 4 million potential years of life lost in 2017, according to a study published by Minkyo Song, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. While the cancer types with the highest death rates per capita accounted for the...
Therese Marie Mulvey, MD, FASCO, Director of Quality Safety and Value at the Massachusetts General Hospital North Shore Cancer Center, Boston, told The ASCO Post that this “provocative and elegant” study underscores the importance of listening to patients. “Baseline patient-reported symptoms are...
Kimberly Irvine was used to taking care of the people she loved. Conquering breast cancer—twice—forced the young mom to learn how to take care of herself in a whole new way. In the Your Stories episode “Being Your Own Advocate,” she shares with fellow philanthropist Riccardo Braglia, Board Member, ...
As the world continues to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, ASCO is committed to providing the most current information and resources to its members and the larger oncology community to help ensure that patients with cancer receive high-quality care. Here, members of the ASCO International Affairs...
Michaela A. Dinan, PhD, has been appointed Co-Leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at Yale Cancer Center, beginning January 1, 2021. Dr. Dinan was also named Associate Professor in the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and will...
Medical memoir dramas, especially those centered in the emergency room (ER), are often met with the anticipation of top-rated medical shows portrayed on TV, in which there is nonstop blood-and-guts action and sizzling tensions between shouting doctors and nurses. In her recently published memoir,...
The Advanced Practitioner Society for Hematology and Oncology (APSHO) presented the third annual Mary Pazdur Award for Excellence in Advanced Practice in Oncology to Christina Cone, DNP, APRN, ANP-BC, AOCNP, of Duke Cancer Institute, at this year’s JADPRO Live Virtual conference, an annual...
Coronary artery calcification scores based on routine computed tomography (CT) scans used for planning radiotherapy therapy may be able to predict which women with breast cancer have a high probability of developing cardiovascular disease. The promise of this research is that once high-risk...
Geriatric oncologist and researcher Enrique Soto Pérez de Celis, MD, MSc, was born in Mexico City and grew up in the nearby city of Puebla. “There were no physicians in the family who might have influenced my decision to become a doctor, but both of my parents were academics; my mother was a...
With the worst 5-year overall survival of all cancers and the second-leading cause of cancer death, pancreatic adenocarcinoma remains a dismal prognosis for the vast majority of patients. However, more accurate tumor staging and better understanding of distinct molecular subgroups have started to...
A “blood-first” approach could soon shift the diagnostic paradigm in advanced lung cancer, replacing tissue biopsy with minimally invasive assays. According to Natasha B. Leighl, MD, MMSc, FRCPC, FASCO, there is rapidly mounting evidence that liquid biopsy serves a prognostic function in advanced...
Sonali M. Smith, MD, FASCO, the Elwood V. Jensen Professor in Medicine, Interim Chief of Hematology/Oncology, and Director of the Lymphoma Program at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told The ASCO Post that communication between the patient and the caregiving team has become increasingly...
Identifying patients at risk for adverse outcomes and intervening with intensive clinical services may improve cancer care while saving billions of dollars in avoidable emergency department (ED) visits. And, in fact, cancer centers may already have all the information they need to do so, according...
Reducing the financial impact of cancer diagnosis and treatment may save not only bank accounts but lives as well, according to recent data. Two separate survey studies presented during the 2020 ASCO Quality Care Symposium have highlighted the pervasiveness and deadliness of financial toxicity,...
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Nedal Estfan, MD, a noted Syrian oncologist who was at the forefront of his county’s earliest efforts to establish a national cancer care system during a time of political and military turmoil....
The CURE Media Group, a multimedia platform devoted to cancer updates and research that reaches more than 1 million patients, recently announced four recipients of the inaugural 2020 Lung Cancer Heroes awards and the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award. The 2020 Lung Cancer Heroes are:...
As in past years, the results from ASCO’s 2020 National Cancer Opinions Survey showed a startling dichotomy in the perceptions of Americans on a variety of health-care issues. As expected, the two major events this year, the COVID-19 pandemic and a national reckoning over racial injustice,...
Older women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer have poorer survival than younger women, but this gap might be closed by offering surgery to women over age 70 who are fit and have resectable tumors. According to a study presented at the 12th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC 12),...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) announced the appointment of Beth Gaffney, MBA, as the new Vice President of U.S. and Global Business Development. In this role, Ms. Gaffney will oversee both U.S. and global business activities and the development of the NCCN brand worldwide. Ms....
Sharing their thoughts on KEYNOTE-355 were Amy Tiersten, MD, Professor of Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, and Erika Hamilton, MD, Director of the Breast and Gynecologic Research Program at Sarah Cannon Research Institute/Tennessee Oncology, Nashville, who presented...
“Triple-negative breast cancer has multiple different subtypes, and there are targeted therapies that can be used based on the biomarkers that we identify for each patient,” Kari B. Wisinski, MD, noted in a review of recently approved and emerging therapies at the 2020 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer...
Karen E. Knudsen, MBA, PhD, is the new President of the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI). She began her 2-year term at the close of the virtual 2020 AACI/Cancer Center Administrators Forum (CCAF) Annual Meeting. A member of AACI’s Board of Directors since 2016, Dr. Knudsen chaired ...
Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah recently announced leadership appointments for two long-standing cancer center members. Brad Cairns, PhD, has accepted an appointment as Chief Academic Officer at HCI, and Alana Welm, PhD, has accepted an appointment as Senior Director of...
Yet another blow has been dealt for the alkylating agent trabectedin in advanced ovarian cancer. The international phase III INOVATYON study found no improvement in overall or progression-free survival for trabectedin plus pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PEG-LD) vs carboplatin/PEG-LD in patients...
Formal discussant of the abstract, Monika K. Krzyzanowska, MD, a medical oncologist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto, said this study extends the evidence base on geriatric assessment in oncology and shows that geriatric assessment should be...
As the number of older patients with cancer continues to rise, interventions that reduce the high rates of symptoms, toxicity, and distress in this population are urgently needed. Research presented during the 2020 ASCO Quality Care Symposium has added to the growing body of evidence supporting...
Drawing on several lines of ongoing research, David A. Tuveson, MD, PhD, has created a theoretical framework to consider while developing clinical trials in pancreatic cancer. In his keynote lecture at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer, ...
Despite the increasing use of hematopoietic stem cell transplant as curative therapy for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases, new research suggests that children who undergo a transplant for cancer may be more likely to die of treatment-related complications if they live in...
The innovaTV 204 trial’s invited discussant, Ana Oaknin, MD, PhD, Head of the Gynecologic Cancer Program at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, was encouraged by the study’s findings. “Of note, the response rate was 24%, the time to response was short, and the median duration of...
A nonsurgical treatment option for rectal cancer that preserves quality of life may be safe for selected patients, according to a new study comparing it with standard surgical treatment. These findings were published by Beard et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons and were...
The advent of effective combination chemotherapies has changed the treatment landscape for metastatic pancreatic cancer, extending median survival and leading to durable responses in a subset of patients. However, perpetual chemotherapy is cumulatively toxic, leading to progressive bone marrow...
The long-term results of the pivotal SOLO-1 trial have shown that maintenance olaparib more than doubles the 5-year disease-free survival time for patients who have newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer with BRCA mutations, according to an update presented at the European Society for Medical...
A new study finds that the racial composition of clinical trials involving radiation therapy does not match that of the U.S. population. Examining trials from the past 23 years, researchers found that roughly 12% of trial participants were Black, which is less than the 13% population composition of ...
Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) may represent a new standard of care for patients with four or more brain metastases, replacing whole-brain radiation therapy (WBRT) in this setting, according to a phase III study presented at the virtual 2020 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual...
Editor’s Note: The ASCO Post learned of the death of Patrick Beauregard due to colorectal cancer on September 6, 2020. Just weeks after my wedding in late summer of 2017, I had a sudden bout of abdominal pain so severe that it sent me to the emergency room. I was just 29 years old and in great...
Joan H. (Rosen) Marks, a pioneer in genetic counseling, died on September 14, 2020. She was 91. Ms. Marks received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, in 2019, in recognition of her contributions and leadership to the College and to society, the ...
International business leader Riccardo Braglia has experienced great losses due to cancer. In “The Family Business,” he shares with ASCO Chief Executive Officer Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, how the perspective he gained inspires what he gives to help patients everywhere. “My grandmother, my ...
Kala Visvanathan, MD, MHS, is working to prevent cancer in every patient. With the help of donor-supported grants, including a Career Development Award from Conquer Cancer®, the ASCO Foundation, Dr. Visvanathan researches cancer prevention and strategies to prevent cancer recurrence. “To be...
Among the success stories in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in children and young adults is the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. The field of cellular immunotherapy was still in its infancy in 2012 when Emily Whitehead, then 7, became the first...
At the recent General Assembly of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), which was held virtually for the first time, Anil D’Cruz, MD, of India, was welcomed as the organization’s new President. Full member organizations also elected the 2020–2022 Board of Directors, including...
“The summons came in the middle of the night. He was awake at the first harsh jangle of the telephone…. Always a light sleeper, Lieutenant Colonel Stewart Francis Alexander attributed the trait to his father, an old-fashioned family practitioner whose response to every late-night distress call was...
Over the past decade, a prolific number of cancer memoirs have been published, and some have been award-winning bestsellers. When entering a crowded genre, it is best to have something that sets your story apart. Judith Dwyer Fugate did just that with a memoir about a rare tumor that has rarely if...
Cleveland Clinic recently announced the following additions to its oncology staff: Ruth Keri, PhD, has joined Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute Department of Cancer Biology. She will study breast cancer, focusing on identifying the molecular processes that control the formation of breast...
Checkpoint inhibitors can be lifesaving for many patients with advanced melanoma, but those who experience disease progression currently have few treatment options. The combination of a tyrosine kinase inhibitor and an anti–PD-1 agent may offer some hope in this setting, according to a study of...
“Imagine that it’s 5 years from now, and we are in a situation where the cost of cancer care has flattened, and costs are even going down,” said Clifford Goodman, PhD, a Senior Vice President at the Lewin Group, turning to a panel of oncology and policy experts at his side. “What policies got us...
Isabelle Tabah-Fisch, MD, a medical oncologist in Paris who contributed greatly to drug development, died August 28, 2020, at age 64. An announcement about Dr. Tabah-Fisch’s death was made by GamaMabs, where she served as Chief Medical Officer until her retirement in March 2020. Under her...
Lesley Solomon, MBA, Senior Vice President for Innovation and Chief Innovation Officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has received the 2020 Extraordinary Women Advancing Healthcare Award from The Commonwealth Institute, a nonprofit organization devoted to advancing women in leadership positions....
Radiation oncologist Abigail T. Berman, MD, was born and reared in Philadelphia, the daughter of an orthopedic surgeon whose passion for his work was an early influence on her decision to pursue a career in medicine. “My father absolutely adored his job and worked very hard, which inspired me to...
The KEYNOTE-177 invited discussant, Chiara Cremolini, MD, PhD, of the University of Pisa, Italy, welcomed the patient-reported outcomes of the study, noting that such data are frequently missing. “Unfortunately, quality of life is an often-disregarded issue in colorectal cancer clinical trials,”...