The National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded SWOG clinical trials program has added 3.34 million years of life for patients with cancer in the United States because of successful therapies that were validated through its trials. When analyzed, the investment for each year of life gained since the...
Larotrectinib, an oral inhibitor of tropomyosin receptor kinase, showed “striking” activity in adult and pediatric patients with the genetic aberrations known as tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) fusion, researchers reported at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Of 55 patients treated with...
“No man is an island entire of itself; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” —John Donne (1624) This statement is almost certainly true—and sadly in a negative way not just for the UK but for...
When patients with metastatic cancer used a Web-based tool to self-report symptoms proactively during treatment, they lived 5 months longer than did patients assigned to usual care. In addition, they had improved quality of life and fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations compared with...
For a man aged 55 to 69 years, the decision to be screened for prostate cancer should be an individual one, based on the man’s own values and priorities and discussions with a clinician about the potential benefits and harms of screening, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) advised in ...
After undergoing nearly 5 years of intensive medical training, IBM’s Watson for Oncology cognitive computing system is starting to make good on its promise to accelerate personalized care for patients with cancer. The system has been trained by oncologists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ...
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...
Breast cancer surgeon Monica Morrow, MD, came from a town in the far northeast reaches of suburban Philadelphia. “I guess because there were only two girls in our family, I was the son my father never had, and he reared me that way. When we were playing catch, if I missed the ball and got hit in...
DREXEL UNIVERSITY has recognized the Chief Executive Officer of ASCO, Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, as a Drexel 100 member. Created in 1992 to celebrate Drexel’s centennial, inductees to the Drexel 100 are university alums celebrated for their significant contributions to their respective...
For an investment of $125 for each year of life gained since the 1950s, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded SWOG clinical trials program has added 3.34 million years of life for patients with cancer in the United States because of successful therapies that were proved through its trials....
Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University (Winship) is mourning the loss of an esteemed colleague: H. Jean Khoury, MD, died on May 22 at the age of 50, after a year spent battling cancer. His many colleagues and friends remember him as an outstanding physician, researcher, and educator and a...
BOOKMARK Title: What Patients Say, What Doctors HearAuthor: Danielle Ofri, MDPublisher: Beacon PressPublication date: February 2017Price: $24.95, hardcover, 288 pages Despite our scientific and medical advances, the single most important diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which is ...
BOOKMARK Title: The Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New MedicinesAuthors: Donald R. Kirsch, PhD, and Ogi Ogas, PhDPublisher: Arcade PublishingPublication date: January 2017Price: $24.99, hardcover, 328 pages Only about 1 in 100 drug discovery projects initiated by the pharmaceutical ...
Robert J. Cerfolio, MD, joined New York University (NYU) Langone on June 1 as Chief of Clinical Thoracic Surgery. He also will become the first Director of the Lung Cancer Center at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center. Dr. Cerfolio currently serves at the University of Alabama (UAB) Hospital in ...
In the phase III OAK trial reported in The Lancet by Achim Rittmeyer, MD, of Lungenfachklinik Immenhausen, Germany, and colleagues, treatment with the anti–programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody atezolizumab (Tecentriq) improved overall survival vs docetaxel in previously treated non–small ...
Nearly 2,500 children in the United States are diagnosed with brain tumors each year, making these malignancies among the most common solid tumors in children and adolescents. Despite advances over the past few decades, the treatment of brain tumors remains one of the most challenging clinical...
Geriatrics for the Oncologist is guest edited by Stuart M. Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO, and developed in collaboration with the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG). Dr. Lichtman is an Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Commack, New York, and Professor of...
ASCO is very fortunate to have an active member base eager to volunteer, share expertise, and give back to the oncology community. Currently, more than 2,000 volunteers are engaged on ASCO committees, subcommittees, working groups, panels, task forces, editorial boards, and in various training...
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...
Combining the kinase inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) with an investigational personalized cellular therapy known as CTL119 can lead to complete remission in patients with high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University...
ASCO President Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, released the following statement today: “ASCO congratulates Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, on the announcement of his continued service as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A renowned researcher and skilled administrator, Dr....
By adding an experimental drug to a standard chemotherapy regimen, a subset of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer had a significantly longer period before the cancer progressed as compared with those who received the standard treatment, according to a phase II clinical trial led by an...
David I. Quinn, MBBS, PhD, of the University of Southern California, gives his expert perspective on the planned survival analysis from a phase III open-label study of pembrolizumab vs paclitaxel, docetaxel, or vinflunine in recurrent, advanced urothelial cancer. (Abstract 4501)
Julie Vose, MD, MBA, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Bruce E. Johnson, MD, of the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss Dr. Johnson’s upcoming tenure as ASCO President and his goals for the year ahead.
Daniel A. Goldstein, MD, of Emory University and Rabin Medical Center, discusses his study findings that show nearly $1 billion in savings when patients receive personal weight-based doses instead of a predetermined fixed dose for treatment of PD-L1-positive non–small cell lung cancer. (Abstract...
Jame Abraham, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, gives his views on findings on abemaciclib in combination with fulvestrant in patients with HR+/HER2- advanced breast cancer who progressed on endocrine therapy. (Abstract 1000)
After he was not accepted into the University of Hong Kong, plan B for W.K. Alfred Yung, MD, was to leave his country and immigrate to the United States to attend the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis—a move he considers more exile than choice. Born on April 8, 1948, in Hong Kong, Dr. Yung...
Robert L. Comis, MD, FASCO, Co-Chair of the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, succumbed to a sudden illness at his home and died on May 10, 2017, at the age of 71. A giant in national and international clinical research since 1977, Dr. Comis is known as a champion of patient access to cancer...
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...
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...
Eliezer Robinson, MD, was born in Vienna, Austria, on June 17, 1931. At that time, Vienna, a bustling and prosperous city, was an important center of Jewish culture and education. Jews made up a large portion of the city’s professional class of doctors, lawyers, bankers, and artists. Dr. Robinson...
Keith Witmer received his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Otis/Parsons School of Design. He subsequently launched his career in advertising and publication with a commanding presence, initially using pen and ink and scratchboard mediums. Working with clients such as FedEx, pple Computer,...
Statement by 2016–2017 ASCO President Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FACP, FASCO: “The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) congratulates Scott Gottlieb, MD, on his confirmation as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). With more than 1.7 million new cancer diagnoses made in...
Lori J. Pierce, MD, FASCO, FASTRO, grew up in Washington, DC, and moved with her family to Philadelphia while in high school. She still considers the fast-paced DC–Philadelphia corridor her home, but her passion for a career in medicine, in part, took seed in a small town located in North...
Recipients of ASCO’s Notable Awards and Lectures are individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the research and treatment of patients with cancer. These individuals were honored during several special sessions held during ASCO’s 53rd Annual Meeting, where more than 30,000 physicians, ...
Robert Vonderheide, MD, DPhil, has been named the new Director of the Abramson Cancer Center (ACC) of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Hanna Wise Professor in Cancer Research at the Perelman School of Medicine and currently serves as the ACC’s Associate Director for Translational Research ...
Hyman Muss, MD, a pioneer in geriatric oncology, considers himself “a real Brooklyn boy.” His father was a dentist, and his uncle was a general practitioner. “They both practiced out of a small brownstone house in Brownsville-Crown Heights. It was sort of reminiscent of the famous movie The Last...
Anna T. Meadows, MD, an internationally distinguished pediatric oncologist who led paradigm-changing survivorship research and clinical care of children with cancer, had an unusual introduction to the United States. “My mother was traveling abroad on vacation and got married in Poland. Although...
Waun Ki Hong, MD, FACP, one of the nation’s leading experts in head and neck and lung cancers, was born in South Korea and grew up in a tiny village outside the nation’s capital of Seoul. Number six of seven siblings, Dr. Hong described his early life in the cozy village as blissful, until the...
George P. Canellos, MD, President of ASCO from 1993 to 1994, was born in Boston on November 1, 1934. “I came from a business family and never wanted to do business at all. As long back as I can remember, I always found medicine attractive—not only because you could help people, but you could also...
Daniel Von Hoff, MD, FACP—Distinguished Professor, Physician-in-Chief, and Director of Molecular Medicine at the Translational Genomics Research Institute—received a gold medal for excellence in clinical medicine from his alma mater, Columbia University. Columbia University College of Physicians...
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to many individuals whose research directly impacted the understanding of cancer: In 2008 to Harald zur Hausen, for his discovery of human papillomavirus causing cervical cancer In 2005 to J. Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall, for their...
David Baltimore, PhD, whose work profoundly influenced international science, was born on March 7, 1938, in Queens, New York, to Gertrude and Richard Baltimore. While he was in second grade, the family moved to Great Neck, New York, a middle-class suburb with top-notch public schools. “My father...
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...
Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University is mourning the loss of an esteemed colleague: H. Jean Khoury, MD, FACP, died on Monday, May 22, after a year spent battling cancer. His many colleagues and friends remember him as an outstanding physician, researcher, and educator, and a respected and...
Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, 2017–2018 ASCO President, was born in St. Peter, Minnesota, and grew up on a rural dairy farm. “Neither of my parents had college degrees, but working on a dairy farm with them gave me a solid work ethic. I was working outside on the farm before I was 10 years old. In...
In a nearly hour-long address to more than 4,500 attendees at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) on April 3, former Vice President Joe Biden lambasted President Trump’s proposed $5.8 billion budget cut to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and...
Research is still lacking to support a link between obesity and an increased risk of developing all types of cancer. Nevertheless, a review1 of more than 1,000 epidemiologic studies by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization, examining...
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Chair of Immunology, James Allison, PhD—whose pivotal insight to attack cancer by treating the immune system instead of the tumor revived cancer immunotherapy—has been named to the 2017 TIME 100 Most Influential People. His approach launched a...
Sir Richard Peto, FRS, will receive the William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture Award at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), to be held December 5–9. The McGuire Award was established in 1992 to honor William L. McGuire, MD, who, along with Charles A. Coltman, MD, founded SABCS in...