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Showing 2451 - 2500Stalked by Cancer: One Woman’s Story
Cancer has been stalking me all my life. My mother’s mother had died of breast cancer at a relatively young age. My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in the early 1960s, when she was 35 and I was just 5 years old. Although she was told that she probably wouldn’t live more than 2 years, she...
SIDEBAR: Expect Questions from Your Patients
The study of concurrent HPV and Pap testing for cervical cancer was widely reported even before the recent ASCO Annual Meeting. In an interview with The ASCO Post, Barnett Kramer, MD, was asked how physicians can respond to questions about the study from patients. “You can tell a woman over the...
Cervical Cancer Screening Study Should Reassure Physicians and Patients that a 3-Year Screening Interval Is Safe and Effective
Results of a large-scale cervical cancer screening study using concurrent human papillomavirus (HPV) and Pap testing should “reassure” women over 30 who test negative for HPV and have normal Pap tests that “it is extremely safe to go 3 years” before being tested again, Barnett S. Kramer, MD, MPH,...
My First of Many ASCO Meetings
In June, I attended my first ASCO Annual Meeting. Although I have been practicing and teaching urology for 35 years with a specific interest in genitourinary oncology and I have attended dozens of national meetings, the ASCO Annual Meetings were not on my radar. Focus on the Patient The...
A Prominent Oncologist Retraces Her Steps from Baghdad
Maha Hussain, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine and Urology, is the Associate Director for Clinical Research at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMCCC) and Co-leader of its Prostate Cancer/GU Oncology program. Dr. Hussain recently spoke with The ASCO Post about becoming a...
Special Award Recipients Honored at 2011 ASCO Annual Meeting
Each year, as a way to recognize enhancements in cancer care, ASCO honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the Society, the practice of oncology, and patients with cancer. At this year’s Annual Meeting, ASCO was pleased to recognize the 2011 Special Award recipients: Kenneth...
NCI Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Awards: Conversations in Gynecologic Oncology
The National Cancer Institute recognized Cheryl Saenz, MD, and Linda R. Duska, MD, among others, late last year with a Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award. The 2-year award includes $50,000 in funding for cancer research programs at NCI-designated cancer centers. The ASCO Post...
Are Clinical Pathways Inevitable in Oncology’s Future?
Our health-care system is undergoing a gradual but inevitable sea change, shifting from traditional fee-for-service to fee-for-value. A session at this year’s Association of Community Cancer Centers meeting in Washington, DC, shed light on how this trend will reshape incentives and the clinical...
A Conversation with Barrie R. Cassileth, PhD
Barrie R. Cassileth, PhD, Chief, Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York, recently spoke with The ASCO Post about her quest to stamp out the illegitimate use of alternative medicine in cancer care and the results from her latest research. A...
Evaluating Risk for Suicide in People Diagnosed or Living with Cancer
The challenges of life-threatening physical illness can sometimes lead to suicide. In fact, given the critical stressors that a person with cancer faces, we might expect suicide to be a more common reaction. Patients with cancer are at increased risk of completed suicide, though the prevalence of...
ASCO’s Oncology Slide Library Functions as a Share‑and‑Exchange Forum
ASCO’s Oncology Slide Library—which allows ASCO meeting attendees to upload and share their ASCO meeting presentation slides with slide-library subscribers—may only be a year old, but participation is already very high. This year’s Annual Meeting in June marked the first time ASCO gave each speaker ...
Rising Costs of Cancer Care: It's More Than Drugs
All parties—the government, payers, and consumers—agree that, left unchecked, rising health-care costs will eventually hamstring vital portions of our delivery system. For example, Medicare, which covers more than 50% of the nation’s patients with cancer, is marching headlong toward insolvency....
‘Unrealistic Optimism’ Poses Ethical Challenges, May Affect Informed Consent Process
Does a patient’s optimistic expectation of reaping a health benefit from participating in phase I and phase II oncology studies, even when he understands that these early trials are not designed to provide direct therapeutic benefit, compromise the informed consent process? And, does that...
A Conversation with Constance M. Chen, MD, MPH
Although incidence data vary widely, breast cancer–related lymphedema may affect as many as 54% of the 2.3 million survivors of breast cancer in the United States. The condition is often disabling and can result in both long-term devastating physical consequences for survivors, including the loss...
Screening for Ovarian Cancer Does Not Reduce Mortality and Leads to Unnecessary Tests for False-Positives
Formal discussant of this trial, Usha Menon, MD, Professor of Gynecological Oncology at the Institute for Women’s Health, University College, London, raised several important issues about the design of the PLCO trial particularly related to the dilution of the screening effect due to prolonged...
World Conference on Lung Cancer: Personalized Approaches to Treatment
The 14th World Conference on Lung Cancer hosted more than 7,000 attendees in Amsterdam recently, with the theme “Better Care through Personalized Medical Approaches.” The following are brief summaries of key data presented at the conference, with perspective provided by Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, of...
ASCO’s Immediate Past President Helps Build Future of Cancer Research and Care by Supporting Conquer Cancer Foundation
George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, has been treating patients with breast cancer, and pursuing research in the field, for more than 30 years—the last few electrified by a rapid proliferation of knowledge. “We have so much to offer our patients today,” says Dr. Sledge, who serves as Ballve-Lantero Professor...
A Conversation with Monica Morrow, MD, FACS
Over the past 15 years, practice guidelines have become an accepted tool to help physicians optimize patient care by offering informed assessment of the benefits and potential harms associated with various care options. However, a plethora of new guidelines have entered the market, many of which...
Palliative Care, Quality of Life, and Cost
More than half of our nation’s patients with cancer are Medicare beneficiaries, making the entitlement program ground zero in the heated debate on health-care spending. Total Medicare expenditures attributable to beneficiaries in their last year of life runs upward of 30%; this statistic serves as...
Giving Women a Fighting Chance When They Have Breast Cancer
I knew there was a chance I could get breast cancer, I just never thought it would really happen to me. I am one of 2.5 million breast cancer survivors living in our country today. Just weeks after getting a clean mammogram and my 41st birthday, I felt a lump in my breast. As a young and otherwise...
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Treating Cancer or Fear?
I read the article by Deb Stewart, “Acting on Fear” (The ASCO Post, August 15, 2011, page 1) with interest, disappointment, and empathy. “Acting on fear” in cancer treatment generally, and particularly in breast cancer, is not uncommon. Hence, I was most interested in the article’s major thrust, as ...
SIDEBAR: Who Should Manage Survivorship Care?
It has been suggested that after completing their treatment, cancer patients can be transitioned to primary care providers for continued “survivorship” care. But at the Best of ASCO meeting, speakers and audience members alike felt survivorship care is the domain of the treating oncologist. Few...
ASCO Study Shows Integrating Nonphysician Providers into Oncology Practices Is a Win for Patients and Providers
Is the expanded use of nonphysician providers (NPPs) a viable way to help ease the challenges oncology practices could feel if the number of oncologists entering the field does not keep pace with potential growth in the demand for their services? The ASCO Workforce Advisory Group thought the...
Important Briefs from the 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium
The 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium was recently held in San Francisco, bringing together a multidisciplinary group of specialists and sponsored by ASCO, the American Society for Radiation Oncology, the Society of Surgical Oncology, the American Society of Breast Disease, the American Society of...
GI Symposium Helps Oncologists Stay Abreast of Fast-moving Research
Gastrointestinal cancers are a key therapeutic area in research, and science is moving forward in that arena at a fast clip. But how are those who focus on gastrointestinal malignancies in the clinic supposed to stay on top of it all? One great way is to attend the annual Gastrointestinal Cancers...
Susan Halabi, PhD, Is Helping to Fund Future of Cancer Research
Susan Halabi, PhD, thinks in terms of probabilities. Based at Duke University School of Medicine, where she is an Associate Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Dr. Halabi specializes in the design and analysis of clinical trials, statistical analysis of biomarker and microarray data, and ...
AACR Issues Landmark Report on Cancer Progress
At a recent press conference in Washington, DC, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) assembled luminaries from the cancer research and care communities to discuss the salient points of the association’s newly released progress report on the current and future state of cancer research ...
Expert Point of View: European Perspective
Martine Piccart, MD, of the Institut Jules Bordet, Brussels, Belgium, and President-Elect of the European Society for Medical Oncology, was highly enthusiastic about the findings of the phase II T-DM1 study, but said, “We have to remember this is an open-label trial, and in a study like this,...
T-DM1: Antibody Drug Conjugate Outperforms Standard Anti‑HER2 Therapy in Metastatic HER2-positive Breast Cancer
The investigational antibody-drug conjugate T-DM1 improved progression-free survival over standard chemotherapy with docetaxel plus trastuzumab (Herceptin) when given as first-line treatment of HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, according to an open-label phase II study reported at the 2011...
Helping Cancer Survivors Return to Work
For many of the 12 million cancer survivors throughout the United States, remaining in the workforce is an important expectation that requires the support and attention of the oncology community. And while continuing employment can be critically important for economic reasons (especially in the...
Expert Point of View: Lessening Patients’ Suffering at the End of Life
In her interview with The ASCO Post, Judith Redwing Keyssar, RN, sheds light on easing the suffering of patients facing the end of life. Although what she says is appropriate for patients who are clearly dying, I would emphasize that palliative care is also pertinent to patients who are not...
Chemotherapy Generally Safe in Pregnancy
The diagnosis of cancer in a pregnant woman causes concerns for both the mother and her unborn child. But studies suggest that most chemotherapy regimens can be delivered with reasonable safety after the first trimester. Cancer is diagnosed in about 1 per 1,000 to 2,000 pregnancies, mostly breast...
Important Lessons for Oncology from the Front Lines of the AIDS Pandemic
On June 5, 1981, the CDC issued a warning about a rare type of pneumonia discovered among a small group of young gay men in Los Angeles, later determined to be AIDS-related, ushering in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Early on, AIDS-related malignancies brought the oncology community into this formidable...
The Art and Grace of Just Letting Go
Like a breeze rippling across a lake, the end of your career is approaching and you cannot escape its path. You can see it coming, and before you know it the inexorable movement will rush past you. You have two choices: Build a sail so that you can capture the energy and move with it, or remain...
SIDEBAR: Patient Advocates Form Huge Presence at EMCC 2011
Patient advocate and two-time breast cancer survivor Kathi Apostolidis from Greece spoke at a session on patients’ and physicians’ use of social media. “Social media is not a fad. It has real value,” she said. She uses social media to connect with oncologists and policymakers across the globe, and...
Twitter Dominates Social Media Buzz at Stockholm Meeting
There was a time when clinical trial results were disseminated mainly through peer-reviewed journals that appeared in your mailbox. Computers and prompt reporting from medical conferences changed that, and same-day postings on medical websites brought “breaking news” a step closer. But the...
Oncologists Need Hands-on Approach in Developing Next Generation of EHRs
The electronic health record system offered by vendors is more like a filing cabinet, not the sophisticated, interactive database needed by busy oncologists, according to Kevin S. Hughes, MD, FACS, Co-Director, Avon Comprehensive Breast Evaluation Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, who...
Optimizing HER2-directed Therapy in the Clinic
Seminal research in the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer has been led by Edith A. Perez, MD, the Serene M. and Frances C. Durling Professor of Medicine at the Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida. The ASCO Post asked Dr. Perez to share her approach to HER2-directed therapy. Testing...
The Newly Diagnosed Patient with Cancer and Access to Care
A study presented at the 2011 ASCO Annual Meeting raised concerns that newly diagnosed cancer patients are having trouble seeing an oncologist. Interviews with several cancer centers and community practices, however, suggest that the process runs smoothly, for the most part. Majority of Patients...
Young Investigator Award Renamed to Honor ASCO Founder Jane C. Wright, MD
At the 2011 Annual Meeting, the Conquer Cancer Foundation renamed one of its annual awards to honor the legacy of one of ASCO’s groundbreaking founders. The Jane C. Wright, MD, Young Investigator Award (YIA) recognizes Dr. Wright’s leadership at ASCO, her contributions to the field of oncology, and ...
Conquer Cancer Foundation Programs for Medical Students and Residents Support Diversity in Oncology Workforce
The Conquer Cancer Foundation funds two programs, the Medical Student Rotation (MSR) and the Resident Travel Award (RTA), to facilitate the recruitment and retention of individuals from populations underrepresented in medicine to cancer careers, with a special focus on the development of clinical...
Michael C. Perry, MD, 1945–2011
Michael C. Perry, MD, a renowned cancer clinician, educator, researcher, and administrator at the University of Missouri, Columbia, for more than 35 years, passed away October 23, 2011, after a long and courageous battle with polycystic kidney disease and cancer. He was 66. Dr. Perry served as...
SIDEBAR: ‘Can’t Stomach Cancer’ Seeks to Jump-start Research, Raise Awareness
In April 2008, Debbie Zelman was 40 years old. The mother of three young children, married to a physician, and a practicing attorney with her own firm, she began to experience a strange sensation upon swallowing food. She was told that this was due to stress, but a few months later, she became very ...
Don’t Take Away Our Hope
After experiencing the loss of my wife Dina’s first pregnancy during her second trimester, we naturally worried that something would go wrong when she became pregnant again. But when our son Will was delivered at full term, we thought we could finally relax. Born at a whopping 10 lb, Will seemed...
Studies Reveal that Hormonal Factors Influence Lung Cancer Risk in Women
In an effort to understand lung cancer risk factors and develop prevention strategies for the disease, Christina S. Baik, MD, MPH, thoracic oncologist and staff scientist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has examined epidemiologic trends in lung...
Advances in Gynecologic Cancer Surgery Continue to Improve Outcomes
Over the past several decades, advances in chemotherapy and surgery have begun to translate into improved survival in gynecologic malignancies. The ASCO Post recently spoke with Ginger Gardner, MD, a surgical oncologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who specializes in the management...
Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy or Surgery First: Outcome Not Affected
Chemotherapy can be delivered before breast-conserving therapy or after surgery, without influencing long-term local-regional recurrence, a large study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center confirmed. The data were presented at the 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco.1 “A ...
Conquer Cancer Foundation Grantees Advance Cancer Care
Each year, the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO funds Young Investigator Awards (YIAs) and Career Development Awards (CDAs). These research grants provide start-up funding for young physician-scientists as they embark on cancer research careers. Clearly, the programs are working: Six of the top...
Depression Is Dangerous among Patients with Cancer, but Talking and Pharmacologic Treatments Can Be Effective
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. “Depression is a very dangerous...
Drug Shortages Hit Oncology Hard: Experts Weigh in on Challenges and Solutions
Periodic drug shortages are an unavoidable reality in our complicated pharmaceutical supply chain; however, over the past several years, drug shortages have expanded to crisis levels, putting vulnerable patients at risk. In 2010, there were 178 drug shortages reported to the FDA, 132 of which were...
