Thirteen years ago, at just 34 years old, I never expected that my life could be interrupted by cancer. A nonsmoker and nondrinker, I had always practiced a healthy lifestyle and wasn’t concerned initially when what looked like a cold sore popped up on the left side of my tongue. But as several...
Although the state of Delaware comprises just 2,489 square miles, giving it an area ranking of 49 out of 50 states, its small size gives its population of nearly 1 million an advantage many larger states do not have: ready access to local politicians to address complex issues such as improving...
The American Cancer Society announced the Society’s 100th birthday on May 22, 2013. Founded 100 years ago by 15 prominent physicians and business leaders in New York, the American Cancer Society, first known as the American Society for the Control of Cancer, launched the fight against a disease...
Lynn Etheredge’s career in shaping national health-care and social policy spans more than 4 decades and four Presidential administrations. He was the lead analyst in the development of health insurance proposals for Medicare and Medicaid while working in the White House Office of Management and...
“I’ve been living with melanoma for 7 years.” That’s a statement that, at the outset of her diagnosis, Joanne Maricle would have found surprising. Yet Joanne, who is featured in a video that is part of a new Patient and Advocate Video Series on ASCO’s CancerProgress.Net website, is able to lay...
When Patricia Hardenbergh, MD, moved from her academic position as a breast radiation oncologist at Duke University to a small, rural practice in Edwards, Colorado, she realized that being a community oncologist was a very different experience. She was an expert in treating breast cancer and also...
How much does diet and body weight influence the effectiveness of cancer treatment and reduce the risk of cancer recurrence? What is the optimal diet for patients with cancer and survivors to follow? There are currently no hard and fast rules, but some dietary clues are starting to emerge. Search...
In January, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center opened the Center for Lymphoid Malignancies, a 3,700 square foot outpatient clinic, in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. The Center is solely focused on the treatment of all forms of Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma,...
Despite studies showing that a majority of patients prefer to die at home rather than in an institutional setting,1 in many parts of the country, over 30% die in nursing homes and over 50% die in hospitals, according to Ira Byock, MD, Director of Palliative Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical...
“From bench to bedside” is a phrase that captures the essence of modern oncology: Researchers at the bench seek to solve the biologic puzzles of cancer that can translate into the development of therapeutics delivered at the bedside. Owen N. Witte, MD, has spent most of his career as a basic bench...
Born in Baghdad, Iraq, renowned prostate and bladder cancer specialist Maha H. Hussain, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine and Urology at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, remembers that she always wanted to become a doctor. She had strong role models in three uncles who were...
Mary K. Gospodarowicz, MD, FRCPC, is determined to help reduce the worldwide burden of cancer, a problem of epic proportions. Her approach is simple: adopt what works and reject what doesn’t. Much progress in the fight against cancer can be made without waiting for the next paradigm-changing...
Clara D. Bloomfield, MD, grew up in a steadfastly academic environment that spurned typical children’s entertainment such as comic books or television. Born in New York City during World War II, she moved to Washington, DC, with her family while her father, an expert on labor and industrial...
Charles M. Balch, MD, FACS, PhD (hc), was born in Milford, Delaware, where his father was a research chemist for DuPont during World War II. “My father was part of the team that developed rayon for parachutes. It was a top priority program because they couldn’t get nylon from the Philippines. After ...
ASCO President Clifford A. Hudis, MD, grew up in northeast Philadelphia in the 1960s, a robust period in U.S. history dominated by American industry and ingenuity. His early memories are of a hard-working blue-collar neighborhood of identical row and semidetached twin houses and of a time of...
Angelina Jolie, in a New York Times article entitled “My Medical Choice,”1 disclosed that having a BRCA1 mutation and an estimated 87% risk of breast cancer, “I decided to be proactive and minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.” She was writing...
Even before I had a colonoscopy to determine the cause of abdominal pains I had been having, I instinctively knew that the news wouldn’t be good. A colonoscopy and subsequent pathology report confirmed stage IIIC colorectal cancer. Because I was just 47 years old at the time of my diagnosis and had ...
With a roster of over 600 members that includes community and institutional oncologists, administrators, registered nurses, and patient navigators, the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology (GASCO) is one of ASCO’s largest State Affiliates. Founded in 1986, the Atlanta-based Society is active in...
Lynn Mara Schuchter, MD, the C. Willard Robinson Professor of Hematology-Oncology and Program Leader of the Melanoma Program at Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, commented on the wealth of promising agents now dotting the formerly barren landscape for...
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. Much of the news about immunotherapy ...
As a cancer care specialist, it can be easy to become hyperfocused on your area of expertise within your subspecialty. But that’s exactly what ASCO wants its members—in all specialties—to avoid. The theme of this year’s Breast Cancer Symposium—Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Clinical...
At the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, Selma Schimmel conducted a series of interviews with prominent oncologists, to get their perspectives on palliative care. These discussions can be viewed via The Group Room website here: http://thegrouproom.tv/category/cancer-topics/palliative-care/ All Vital...
This is the first time I’m going public with the fact that I have advanced ovarian cancer. I thought I could avoid the fate of my mother and her mother, both of whom died of ovarian cancer in their 50s, and live well past my 60s and even 70s. But at 58, I’ve had to accept that that is not likely. I ...
I found out that I had stage III pancreatic cancer on Valentine’s Day in 2011, but I think the disease may have been brewing for a long time. For 19 years, I had experienced intermittent pain in the right upper quadrant of my abdomen. I had gallbladder surgery to relieve a bile duct obstruction,...
Among the more than 200 types of cancer are those called “forgotten” or “orphan” cancers, with fewer than 40,000 new cases each year. They present treatment challenges in community cancer centers. Because of the low incidence of these diseases, such as chronic myeloid leukemia, acute promyelocytic...
The latest clinical trial looking at combining vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibition in metastatic colorectal cancer adds little to our overall understanding of the mechanisms for optimizing selection of patients to receive such therapies....
Internationally known for her research in the molecular genetics of cancer, Olufunmilayo I. Olopade, MD, FACP, first became interested in oncology during medical school in Nigeria, where she cared for patients with Burkitt’s lymphoma. After moving to Chicago in 1983 to continue her medical...
A number of breast cancer specialists commented on the value of the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) 0221 data. Charles Vogel, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Miami Health System, commented after the presentation, “This is a potentially important abstract because of the wide variety...
In the treatment of early breast cancer, outcomes are equivalent whether paclitaxel is delivered weekly or every 2 weeks, though the weekly schedule may be better tolerated, according to the results of a phase III trial presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 “The progression-free survival...
Follicular lymphoma is the second most common subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in the United States. Of the nearly 70,000 new cases of NHL anticipated in 2013,1 approximately 7,000 to 13,000 (10%–19%) will be follicular lymphoma, by recent estimates.2-5 For many years, the median overall...
In 1979, when I was just 35 years old, I started experiencing abnormal vaginal bleeding and lower back pain. When a Pap test came back normal, the gynecologist I saw said not to worry about anything, that I was fine. But I wasn’t fine. My symptoms quickly escalated, and I sought the opinion of...
An educator and scientist for over 30 years, David Sadava, PhD, became interested in the science of cancer while on sabbatical from Claremont Colleges, where he was teaching courses in molecular biology and biotechnology, and went to the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California, to study...
An “alarming difference” in survival outcomes between young, non-Hispanic white males and females with primary invasive melanoma (see accompanying article) is one of several skin cancer–related study findings in the news this summer. Other studies have concerned the rising rates of melanoma among...
An “alarming difference” in survival outcomes between young, non-Hispanic white males and females with primary invasive melanoma “highlights the urgent need for both behavioral interventions to promote early detection strategies in young men and further investigation of the biological basis for the ...
The most recent figures from the National Cancer Institute put the number of cancer survivors in the United States at nearly 14 million—by 2022, that number is expected to top 18 million. And for the vast majority of those survivors—more than 80%—returning to work after treatment is a top priority...
Now in its fifth year, the West Virginia Oncology Society (WVOS) is already having a major impact on cancer care in the state. In 2010, a joint initiative to develop a statewide cancer clinical trials network was launched by WVOS and the West Virginia University Cancer Center. With funding support...
Dr. Dawn Hershman, Associate Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center and leader of the Breast Cancer Program at Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, is committed to doing what she can to develop, encourage, and support the next generation of oncology...
The past 10 years have seen dramatic advances in cancer care, especially in better screening methods and earlier detection, genomic sequencing, and more effective therapies, which have led to increased survival rates in both childhood and adult cancers. According to the National Cancer Institute...
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. —Helen Keller, Optimism, 1903 Shortly past 8:00 AM on July 1977, Diane E. Meier, MD, FACP, began the first day of her medical internship. Within minutes she would experience another first: the death of a patient...
That the United States spends twice as much on health care than other industrialized countries—about $2.8 trillion in 2012—without reaping appreciably better outcomes1 is not news. The topic has been dissected on the front pages of leading newspapers for years and was the subject of the entire...
Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, is the Neumann M. and Mildred E. Harris Professor and Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, a small town nestled on the banks of the James River. Mitchell is home to the Corn Palace,...
Childhood cancer survivors with clinical infertility have a good chance of achieving pregnancy, according to new findings from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS). Study Background As a group, women who survive childhood cancer are known to have lower fertility rates. This study, however,...
Merkel cell carcinoma is a rare but aggressive skin cancer with poor outcomes and suboptimal therapeutic options. With a 46% mortality rate, it is three times more lethal than melanoma, and its reported incidence is rising. “Merkel cell carcinoma is a nasty cancer and we have zero FDA-approved...
Reminiscing about his 65 years in medicine, LaSalle Doheny Leffall, Jr, MD, FACS, cites three events in his early childhood that would ultimately lead him to his position today as the Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC. First, he was...
When Tumor Is the Rumor and Cancer Is the Answer is the guidebook to cancer that Kevin P. Ryan, MD, FACP, COL, USAF (ret) wished his patients had during his 30 years of practicing oncology. The book, recently published by AuthorHouse, is an authoritative, inspiring, and even philosophical guide for ...
A modest brass plaque above a booth in the Eagle Pub in Cambridge, notes, “On this spot, on February 28, 1953, Francis Crick and James Watson declared the discovery of DNA with these words: ‘We have discoverewd the secret of life.’” Announcing a major scientific advance over a pint of ale is a far...
This past June, I celebrated 20 years of being a cancer survivor by throwing myself a party. It was an interesting experience because I learned that many of the 100 guests I invited were also cancer survivors or were family members of cancer survivors, and so we celebrated their lives as well. Our...
Communicating the intricacies of oncology care to vulnerable patients with cancer and their caregivers requires a firm grasp of the nuances of language. One of the oncology community’s true champions in the art of breaking down communication barriers is Lidia Schapira, MD, a medical oncologist at...
Data indicate that for more than 2 decades, cancer pain has been undertreated in the United States. The paradox of this stubborn clinical problem is that oncology has the ability to manage the great majority of cancer pain. To clarify this issue, The ASCO Post recently spoke with nationally...
With exciting targeted and immunotherapeutic agents now part of the arsenal for metastatic melanoma, which drug should move to the head of the line? Mario Sznol, MD, Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, has been involved in key clinical trials of the...