On January 15, 2019, WebMD, an online and print health-care resource for consumers, presented its 2018 Health Heroes Award in New York City to 7 people who are making a difference in oncology care. The honorees include Karen M. Winkfield, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology at Wake...
Two recent publications in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and the resulting drug approval applications that have already been filed, lead to concern that the basis of medical practice on valid evidence may be corrupted. Each involves statistically shaky analysis leading to a striking...
The Johns Hopkins Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute awarded research grants to four projects that focus on bladder cancer treatments in women and how biology could offer new targets for cancer therapy.The Institute awards grants of $25,000 to $50,000. David McConkey, PhD, Director of the...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. In this installment of Living a Full Life, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP,...
Researchers have shown that testosterone replacement may slow the recurrence of prostate cancer in low-risk patients. Findings from the study were presented by Towe et al at the European Association of Urology (EAU) 2019 Congress (Abstract 646). Practitioners have long regarded testosterone as a...
In 2015, ASCO and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) introduced value frameworks that utilize algorithmic scales to evaluate the clinical benefit of cancer therapies and provide an objective assessment of outcomes and treatment toxicities experienced by patients.1,2 Although the two...
In the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a companion diagnostic assay, granted Breakthrough Device and Breakthrough Therapy designations, and extended the review period of a proposed treatment. The agency also published four draft guidances and one final guidance...
Treatment with conformal radiation therapy immediately following surgery in children with ependymoma may greatly improve survival. The findings were published by Merchant et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Historically, children under the age of 3 with ependymoma have a worse...
In a Dutch study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Jansen et al found that 5% fluorouracil cream was the best of four field-directed treatments for actinic keratosis, the most common premalignant skin disease in the white population. Study Details The study examined the...
Researchers have found that some commercial cancer cell lines used for laboratory studies have mislabeled ancestry when it comes to minorities. These findings were published by Hooker et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “A lack of diversity is prevalent in every level...
MY BREAST CANCER was probably a decade in the making, although I only became aware that there might be a problem in 2014, when I noticed some slight pain in my left breast. A routine mammogram and ultrasound found benign cysts in my dense breasts, which most likely explained the pain, I was told,...
JUST 2 MONTHS before Congress passed what to this day is America’s most sweeping anticancer legislation, President Richard Nixon came to Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, to declare his administration’s historic commitment to the fight. “I have come here today for the purpose of making an...
Prosecuting health-care fraud is a top priority for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and other federal government agencies.1,2 After all, the government earns a $6 return for every $1 that it spends on enforcement. In December 2018, the DOJ announced that it had obtained more than $2.5 billion...
THE TREATMENT approaches for multiple myeloma, both newly diagnosed and relapsed disease, continue to undergo major transformation as new agents and combinations are being introduced.1 This change has been driven by the introduction of novel drug classes such as monoclonal antibodies, as well as...
The findings of the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), reported in 2011, revealed that participants who received low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) scans had a 20% lower risk of dying of lung cancer than participants who received standard chest x-rays. Despite these results,...
Shortages of essential chemotherapy drugs for children undergoing cancer treatment have been an increasingly frequent obstacle for patients and hospitals in the United States. These shortages can result in increased medication errors, delayed administration of life-saving therapy, inferior...
A qualitative study yielded nine patient-driven recommendations across circumstances that include changes to insurance, supportive services, and financial assistance to reduce long-term, breast cancer–related economic burden. The study was published by Dean et al in Cancer. Unique...
While artificial intelligence (AI) systems for skin cancer detection have shown promise in research settings, there is still a lot of work to be done before the technology is appropriate for real-world use. This was the topic of a scientific session at the 2019 American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) ...
All homes and all families have or have had their own cancer experiences. Speaking about it dissolves the taboo and allows for earlier diagnosis, less discrimination, increased awareness, and higher commitment by authorities. It also helps those struggling with the disease feel like part of a...
I am a radiation oncologist from Zambia, where we only have one cancer center offering radiotherapy—and I will beat cancer. This bold statement often evokes a look of surprise. However, if the conversation is allowed to go on, I’ll say cancer is beatable even where resources are thin. I am...
As reported by Betty R. Ferrell, PhD, MA, FAAN, FPCN, of the Division of Nursing Research and Education, City of Hope Medical Center, Duarte, California, and colleagues in the Journal of Palliative Medicine, the National Consensus Project (NCP) of the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative ...
First launched in 2014, the Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium introduced a nascent interdisciplinary approach to the treatment of both the physical and psychological symptoms of cancer to improve disease outcome and quality of life for patients. Today, it has evolved into a leading forum for...
Following identification of a positive sentinel lymph node, surgical axillary lymph node dissection and axillary radiation therapy provide comparable locoregional control and survival, according to a 10-year follow-up of the large European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer AMAROS...
Several breast cancer experts said the findings of the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG) meta-analysis and the AERAS study are in line with data emerging from other studies of extended treatment with aromatase inhibitors. All of these studies suggest that extended...
Neuroendocrine tumors appear resistant to single-agent immunotherapy, according to the results of the KEYNOTE-028 trial of pembrolizumab. “Pembrolizumab monotherapy showed limited antitumor activity but a manageable safety profile in patients with previously treated, advanced neuroendocrine...
Although diagnostic errors date back to antiquity, in recent years, they have begun to receive attention as an important patient safety issue. This culminated in the National Academy of Medicine’s 2015 landmark report, which concluded that most people in the United States would experience at...
The proportion of early-stage drug trials tackling the most common tumor types has declined sharply since the early 1990s, as less common cancers receive increasing attention in trials, according to new research presented by Sato et al at the TAT 2019–International Congress on Targeted...
INVESTIGATORS FROM Australia have identified a genetic mutation that causes resistance to the targeted drug venetoclax in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to research presented at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition1 and...
IN A PHASE III TRIAL reported during the Plenary Session at the 2018 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition and published in The New England Journal of Medicine, single-agent ibrutinib and ibrutinib/rituximab were associated with superior progression-free survival vs...
HAVE YOU ever wondered what makes a patient trust a doctor with her life? Jason Luke, MD, gets the chance to ask that question to his patient, Addison, a melanoma survivor, in this month’s feature Your Stories podcast: “Ice Cream Makes Everything Better.” Produced by ASCO’s Conquer Cancer...
“IN THIS era of immunotherapy, it is highly possible, and potentially probable, that radiation therapy may become not just a form of locoregional and palliative treatment, but an essential component of our systemic treatments of cancer,” according to Zachary S. Morris, MD, PhD, Vice-Chair,...
SOME PATIENTS with advanced head and neck cancer may achieve durable responses with immunotherapy, and recent trial results suggest first-line immunotherapy may increase survival among patients with recurrent or metastatic disease. However, concerns remain about selecting patients most likely to...
REPORTERS FOR The ASCO Post captured the following summaries of noteworthy studies presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. In HER2-Negative Metastatic Disease, CTCs Frequently HER2-Positive ALMOST HALF of all patients with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer have circulating...
INVITED STUDY discussant Michael J. Overman, MD, Professor of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, is a co-investigator on CheckMate 142, which led to the approval of another immunotherapy doublet—nivolumab plus ipilimumab—in patients...
IN 2017, ASCO issued its recommendations for addressing the oncology care needs of sexual and gender minority cancer survivors and the unique challenges they face.1 There are myriad reasons for cancer disparities in this population compared to heterosexual cisgender cancer survivors, including...
THERE IS little doubt that the U.S. health-care system is under assault from many directions.1 It is clear that the costs of health management are no longer sustainable, and the United States has one of the highest per capita health costs among the 36 member nations of the Organisation for...
ANDREW X. ZHU, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School, noted that Prep-02/ JSAP-05 is the first study to show the value of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma. However, the findings are applicable only to Asian ...
SEVERAL STUDIES presented at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium evaluated the benefits of neoadjuvant treatment in patients with pancreatic cancer—and in patients deemed fully resectable, not just “borderline” resectable.1-3 Although the standard of care for resectable pancreatic ductal...
The results of a recent pilot study suggest that low-dose rituximab provides similar efficacy to standard-dose rituximab for the treatment of acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), a finding that could point to potential cost savings for patients in the nonlymphoma setting. According...
BOOKMARK Title: Severed Trust: Why American Medicine Hasn’t Been FixedAuthor: George D. Lundberg, MD, With James StaceyPublisher: Basic BooksPublication date: March 2001Price: $28.00, hardcover, 336 pages Pathologist George D. Lundberg, MD, served as Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of the American...
Bacteria may play an important role in whether a woman develops cervical cancer, according to global health research published by scientists from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in mBio. Part of a growing body of research...
The first symptom of my multiple myeloma appeared 6 months before I received the official diagnosis. I began having some discomfort, not pain exactly, in my right hip, and developed a pronounced limp. I had recently left my medical practice to launch Global Girls Global Women, a nonprofit...
Women diagnosed with breast cancer at age 50 or younger had twice the risk of developing either osteoporosis or osteopenia after adjuvant treatment than did women of the same age who did not have cancer, according to a study led by researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,...
Physician wellness is emblazoned upfront in the news with attention-seeking headlines on a daily basis. The fact that one or two physicians commit suicide every day in this country sometimes elicits more of a sympathetic acknowledgment than a committed call to address it. Moreover, these sobering...
A study published in Nature Medicine found that an artificial intelligence program could distinguish between the histologic diagnosis of adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma.1 Experienced pathologists often struggle to differentiate these tumor types without confirmatory tests. The artificial ...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. In this installment of the Living a Full Life series of articles, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, interviewed Norman E. ...
Jason A. Efstathiou, MD, DPhil, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the debate over treating muscle-invasive bladder cancer with radical cystectomy vs trimodality therapy.
A combination of two drugs could become a new standard first-line treatment for patients with metastatic kidney cancer, according to results from the JAVELIN Renal 101 trial presented at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium (Abstract 544) and simultaneously published in The New England...
The idea of team-based cancer care most often focuses on involving primary care physicians in the care of cancer survivors, but research has shown patients are also discussing initial cancer treatment options with their primary care doctors. Now, a new study by Wallner et al in Cancer has...
The 2019 Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research will be awarded to Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, of the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The prize, awarded annually by the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR), recognizes Dr....