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Showing 2451 - 2500Expert Point of View: Genomics Projects Plumb Breast Cancer’s Inner Workings
Charles M. Perou, PhD, the May Goldman Shaw Distinguished Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, commented on the research being conducted by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC). “The TCGA and ICGC efforts...
What Were the Take-home Messages from the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium?
Richard M. Goldberg, MD, of The Ohio State University Medical Center, chaired the steering committee of the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, which attracted approximately 4,000 registrants who viewed data from some 700 scientific abstracts. The ASCO Post asked Dr. Goldberg...
Inefficient Markets Impede Cancer Pain Relief
The potent analgesic property of morphine was first isolated in 1804, and after more than 2 centuries morphine is still the gold standard for moderate to severe pain. It is relatively easy to produce, and compared to most pharmaceuticals, morphine is dirt-cheap. Therein lies the cruel conundrum:...
A Visionary Call for the ‘Creative Destruction’ of Medicine
According to nationally regarded cardiologist and geneticist Eric Topol, MD, Chief Academic Officer of Scripps Health, the next frontier of the digital revolution can create exponentially better health care. Dr. Topol, who is also Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute and...
Some Patients Using Complementary and Alternative Therapies May Be Receiving ‘Parallel’ Rather Than Integrative Care
Most patients with cancer receiving complementary and alternative medicine do so not as part of integrative care, but rather as “parallel care,” according to Lynda Balneaves, RN, PhD, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia, School of Nursing in Vancouver. Dr. Balneaves is lead...
AACR Urges Congress to Maintain, Preferably Increase, Cancer Research Funding
December 23, 2011, marked the 40th anniversary of the National Cancer Act. To mark that occasion, on February 2, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) held a Congressional briefing, attended by about 100 legislative aides, to remind Congress that the war on cancer is far from over....
Expert Point of View: Answer to Secondary Cancers with RAF Inhibitors May Be Concomitant MEK Inhibition
“The development of nonmelanoma skin cancers secondary to RAF inhibitor treatment has been recognized since 2005, having been seen initially with sorafenib (Nexavar),” noted Mario E. Lacouture, MD, of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Commenting on recently published studies in this setting,...
Expert Point of View: Next-generation Sequencing in Metastatic Triple-negative Breast Cancer Yields Rewards
Hope Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, commented on Dr. O’Shaughnessy’s presentation on molecular pathways in triple-negative breast cancer at the 2011 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. “The really exciting thing is that we have moved from intrinsic subtyping of breast...
GU Symposium 2016: Cabozantinib Improves Upon the Standard of Care for Advanced Kidney Cancer
New analyses from a phase III clinical trial of patients with previously treated advanced kidney cancer demonstrated that patients of all risk levels experience more benefit from cabozantinib (Cometriq) than from the current standard of care, everolimus (Afinitor). The greater activity of...
SIDEBAR: Internet Tool to Calculate ‘Risks to Fertility'
The risk calculator available at the Fertile Hope website (www.fertilehope.org) lets patients know whether specific treatment regimens would put them at high, intermediate, low, very low/no risk, or unknown risk for azoospermia or amenorrhea. Both Fertile Hope and the ASCO fertility recommendations ...
Options for Preserving Fertility Should Be Considered Early to Maximize the Likelihood of Success
Most cancer survivors prefer to have biologic offspring despite concerns about the possible effects of cancer treatment on the child, the child’s lifetime cancer risk, or their own longevity, according to an ASCO panel that developed guidelines on fertility preservation in patients with cancer.1...
ASCO’s Blueprint Sets Goals for Accelerating Cancer Progress
ASCO recently issued a report, Accelerating Progress Against Cancer: ASCO’s Blueprint for Transforming Clinical and Translational Cancer Research, which outlines the Society’s 10-year plan for improving cancer outcomes. Central to achieving that goal are three steps, including (1) therapy...
Cancer Informatics: A Future Necessity, but Challenges Abound
The National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently convened a workshop on cancer informatics to examine and discuss needs and challenges facing biomedical researchers, which will in turn affect the way oncology is practiced in the future. “This is a time of huge scientific ...
NCCN Announces New Guidelines for Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) announced that it has issued new NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Oncology.1 Adolescent and young adult patients are defined in the guidelines as individuals 15 to 39 years of age at initial cancer...
Targeting KRAS in GI Cancers: The Hunt for the Holy Grail in Cancer Research
The RAS oncogenes are the most frequently mutated class of oncogenes in human cancers, and this has prompted a search for Ras inhibitors to effectively treat tumors with these mutations. Despite intensive efforts, however, none has materialized clinically because K-Ras is proving to be a very...
‘We Need an Index of Biologic Aging’
As a retired elderly (soon to be 83-year-old) oncologist, I read the recent article on the subject of geriatric oncology, in the March 15 issue of The ASCO Post, with great interest ("Moving the Field of Geriatric Oncology Forward," by Stuart M. Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO.) This was particularly so...
Our Patients, Our Teachers
There is no greater professional satisfaction than the knowledge that you have cared for a patient and the care brought an improvement in the patient's health. Regardless of the level of appreciation, whether the patient is cured or not, and even if the patient's sense of well-being may be...
Constructing a Top Five List in Oncology
The American Society of Clinical Oncology has joined the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation and eight other medical specialty societies to take a collective stand in improving patient care and addressing rising health-care costs. As part of the ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely®...
JCO Presents New Training Seminar for Authors
Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) recently launched a training seminar for potential authors, entitled, “Publishing Your Research: A Seminar From the Editors of JCO.” The first seminar was held in January prior to the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco. Daniel G. Haller, MD,...
Expert Point of View: Novel Multikinase Inhibitor Improves Survival in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
The results of the CORRECT trial created some degree of “buzz” at the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, with experts predicting that regorafenib will become FDA-approved and have strong clinical utility. While numerically, the benefit appeared small, “There is a real difference with this...
I Refuse to Let Cancer Win
My battle with cancer started with a simple sore throat in June 2005. Despite two rounds of an antibiotic to clear up the problem, within 2 months my throat hurt so much I couldn’t swallow, and a mysterious lump had suddenly appeared on my tongue. By the end of August, I was diagnosed with stage...
Novel Initiative to Address Oncology Drug Crisis
Much has been written about the oncology drug shortage crisis in the United States. In the spirit of being part of the solution to that problem, a group of oncologists has formed the Citizen’s Oncology Foundation (COF). The goal of the start-up not-for-profit association is two-pronged: to find...
Oncology Practices Recognized for Important Work in Clinical Trials
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO is recognizing six oncology practices from around the country for their work in improving access to clinical trials for patients in their communities. In addition, three ASCO State Affiliate societies are being honored for new projects that enhance cancer care...
American Lung Association Provides Guidance on Lung Cancer Screening
The American Lung Association has released new interim guidelines to assist physicians, patients, and the public in their discussions about lung cancer screening. Developed by the American Lung Association’s Lung Cancer Screening Committee chaired by Jonathan Samet, MD, MS, from the University of...
Regional Infusion of Designer T Cells to Treat Intrahepatic Metastases
Designer T cells are modified from normal T cells to express specific immune receptors that allow them, via antibody-directed recognition or other mechanisms, to kill malignant cells bearing particular antigens. The Surgical Immunotherapy Lab at the Roger Williams Medical Center, Providence, Rhode...
Choosing Wisely® Campaign
ASCO recently published a detailed review of the “Top Five” opportunities to improve the quality and value of cancer care by curbing use of common tests and treatments that are not supported by clinical evidence. Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 the article coincided with the...
FDA-led Research Team Discovers Autoimmune Mechanism for Drug-induced Adverse Reactions
A team of researchers led by the FDA has discovered a new mechanism for identifying and understanding drug-related autoimmune reactions. In an article available online in the journal AIDS, the team reported that in certain at-risk patients, the anti-HIV drug abacavir (Ziagen) causes the immune...
International Photodynamic Medicine Symposium: Shedding New Light on an Old Therapy
This past May, a collaborative think tank of researchers was convened at The Ohio State University, Columbus, to share their expertise in a somewhat older treatment that is reemerging on many fronts: photodynamic therapy. Participants from the United States, Great Britain, and Japan took part in...
Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation Initiatives Are Leading to More Effective Targeted Treatment
In 1996, at just 37, the last thing Kathy Giusti expected to hear was that she had the fatal blood cancer multiple myeloma. An executive at Searle Pharmaceuticals and the mother of an 18-month-old daughter, Giusti was told she probably had 3 years to live. At the time, treatments for the disease...
Markers in Cancer 2012, to be Held October 11–13, Will Seek to Move the Field of Biomarkers to the Next Phase
There are hundreds and hundreds of papers published on biomarkers in cancer each year, but very few make it over the hurdles necessary to be used in actual patient care, said James L. Abbruzzese, MD, Chair of the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson ...
Risk Stratification and Targeted Therapy, Abetted by Collaboration, Improve Outcomes for Children with Cancer
Outcomes for children with cancer have “improved over the course of the years incrementally, mostly not from the development of new drugs, because virtually all the drugs that we use now in leukemia were available in the 1970s. It is really through better understanding of the heterogeneity of the...
Can Whole-genome Sequencing Predict Cancer Risk and Improve Public Health?
If, as expected, the cost of whole-genome sequencing continues to drop, perhaps down to the $1,000 vicinity, it may become an alluring option for consumers who want to know about their risks for cancer and other diseases. But can genome sequencing really provide practical information about...
Special Anniversary Issue: Narratives in Oncology
The ASCO Post is pleased to present this special anniversary edition in recognition of the publication's 3rd year serving the oncology community. We hope you enjoy this special commemorative issue profiling several of the many leaders in the oncology community. In coming issues ofThe ASCO Post and...
Multicenter Phase II Trial Supporting Approval of Brentuximab Vedotin in Anaplastic Large-cell Lymphoma
Systemic anaplastic large-cell lymphoma (ALCL) is an aggressive T-cell lymphoma subtype characterized by uniform expression of CD30. Apart from low- to intermediate-risk patients with ALK-positive disease, patients with ALCL have a poor prognosis when treated with conventional, anthracycline-based...
Older Breast Cancer Drugs Prove Superior to Newer Ones
In the treatment of metastatic breast cancer, established older agents outperformed newer, more expensive drugs in two studies that made news at the 2012 ASCO Annual Meeting. Microtubule Inhibitors In the phase III open-label CALBG 40502/NCCTG N063H trial of 799 chemotherapy-naive patients with...
Sarcoma Foundation of America Teams with Conquer Cancer Foundation to Fund Potentially Life-saving Research
When Matthew Alsante signed on to serve as Executive Director of the Sarcoma Foundation of America (SFA) 6 years ago, he had a visceral understanding of the importance of the organization’s work. Mr. Alsante had lost his father to lung cancer in 1999. “Right up until the last day of his life, if...
New Study on Communicating Bad News, from the Patient’s Perspective
There is limited evidence in the literature about how oncologists should discuss bad or serious news with their patients. A recent study sought to understand what patients with cancer value when their doctors communicate news of recurrence.1 The ASCO Post spoke with the study’s lead author, Anthony ...
The Affordable Care Act Stands: Now What?
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law—a hotly contested bill that enacted sweeping changes to the U.S. health-care system. The debate over the Affordable Care Act continued all the way to the Supreme Court, spearheaded by the case Florida...
Conquer Cancer Foundation Honors Oncology Professionals forHigh-quality Research in Breast Cancer
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO recently announced the recipients of its 2012 Breast Cancer Symposium Merit Awards, which recognize leading oncology professionals for their work in the area of breast cancer research. This year, the Foundation honors 16 individuals for their research in the...
New Assessment Tools in Development to Guide Care for Older Patients
More than 1,400 people from 62 countries attended the 2012 Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO) International Symposium on Supportive Care in Cancer, held in New York last June. One of the featured sessions, which was jointly...
Antidepressant Drug Has ‘Clinically Meaningful’ Effect on Chemotherapy-induced Painful Neuropathy
The oral antidepressant duloxetine (Cymbalta) at 60 mg/d improved chemotherapy-induced painful neuropathy in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III trial.1 Overall, 59% of patients treated with duloxetine experienced some pain relief, 33% reported at least a 30% decrease in pain, ...
Clinicians to Benefit from New JCO Initiatives
Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) has recently launched several new features for readers under the direction of Stephen A. Cannistra, MD, who began his tenure as Editor-in-Chief in June 2011. These initiatives include the creation of two new article types: Rapid Communications (RC) and...
‘Young and Strong’ Program Addresses Multiple Needs of Women in 40s and Younger Diagnosed with Breast Cancer
“Young and Strong” is an exportable model of a program developed at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to address the significant challenges facing young women with breast cancer. The new model has been designed to “serve young women with breast cancer who are...
Supportive Care Research Runs the Gamut from Genetic Markers of Treatment Side Effects to Neuropathic Pain Therapies
Attendees from around the world gathered for the Multinational Association for Supportive Care in Cancer/International Society of Oral Oncology (MASCC/ISOO) International Symposium on Supportive Care in Cancer, held June 28–30 in New York. Below are highlights from the meeting, representing...
Rethinking the Role of PSA Screening in Public Health
Population screening to identify preclinical disease is considered a central factor in the decades-long decrease in mortality seen in certain cancers. However, hope in the face of deadly disease can sometimes blind us to the scientific evidence. According to the recent U.S. Preventive Services Task ...
Kidney Cancer Association Works with Conquer Cancer Foundation to Stimulate Breakthrough Research
For any nonprofit cancer organization, a key challenge is how to balance the enormous task of supporting cancer patients with the latest information about current treatments while helping to advance the search for new breakthroughs in therapeutic options. For the past 6 years, the Kidney Cancer...
Biomarker-driven Adaptive Trial Design Proving Informative in Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer
Biomarker-driven adaptive trial design is an accelerated strategy for targeted drug development that is proving informative in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Chief of Medical Oncology and Associate Director of Translational Research at Yale Cancer Center,...
Faculty Q&A Discussion: Brentuximab Vedotin
Dr. Armitage: It is no surprise that brentuximab vedotin is really an exciting agent, and it gives us a new opportunity in treating classical Hodgkin lymphoma. What if this person Dr. Engert just presented was at the same point with nodular lymphocyte-predominant lymphoma and no CD30 positivity....
SIDEBAR: A Tough Call: The T1a HER2-positive Tumor
The optimal adjuvant management of T1a HER2-positive breast cancers is uncertain and requires an individualized approach, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director, Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center....
SIDEBAR: Does Lapatinib Prevent CNS Metastases in HER2-positive Breast Cancer?
Lapatinib has shown some efficacy against existing brain metastases in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer but not in preventing them in the first place, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director, Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education at the UCSF Helen Diller...
