Cancer.Net provides timely, comprehensive, oncologist-approved information for patients from ASCO with support from Conquer Cancer®, the ASCO Foundation. Cancer.Net brings the expertise and resources of ASCO to people living with cancer and those who care for them to help patients and families make ...
At the recent 2019 Symposium on Clinical Interventional Oncology (CIO) in Miami, course directors Constantino Peña, MD, FSIR, and Ripal Gandhi, MD, FSIR, FSVM, had a lot to say about this burgeoning field of oncology. In particular, interventional oncology is making inroads in therapeutic...
About 4 decades ago, as a young physician, I observed that most surgeons were numerator doctors; they remembered their successes and their failures, but they did not remember the frequency of either. There was no denominator. Worse, the approach to any specific surgical problem was always the...
Joshua Richter, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai in New York, offered his thoughts on the CANDOR study, noting that the findings point to “a new and exciting treatment regimen for our patients with relapsed and...
The investigational bispecific antibody mosunetuzumab is showing activity in preliminary studies of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), including those who are refractory to or relapsed after third-line chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. If preliminary findings are validated by...
Clinical trials continue to demonstrate that combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy and other targeted therapies can improve survival for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, according to results presented at the 21st Annual Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium in Chicago. Nearly 700...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Richard T. Lee, MD, describes the symptoms associated with colorectal cancer...
As the Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan wrote, “The times they are a-changin’.” Heather Cheng, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Washington, Associate Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Director, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic, quoted this line in...
Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors is now considered a standard of care for the front-line treatment of advanced renal cell carcinoma. Despite better outcomes with these agents, there is still room for improvement. At the 2019 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium, Robert J. Motzer, MD, of...
People with risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (determined by traditional risk, 10-year artherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk score, and biomarkers) were also at higher risk for developing cancer compared to people with lower cardiovascular disease risk, according to research presented ...
Older adults with blood cancers may benefit from a team-based, holistic evaluation before undergoing transplantation, according to a study published by Derman et al in Blood Advances. The study, which reported on a multidisciplinary clinic at the University of Chicago Medical Center, found that...
Each year, we ask ASCO members to place their votes to select our Society’s leaders and Board Members. The ASCO Nominating Committee, which is itself elected by ASCO members, took on the challenge of selecting this year’s candidates for the open seats on the ASCO Board of Directors and Nominating...
Help fund breakthrough cancer research on behalf of someone you love this holiday season. Make a gift in honor or in memory of a loved one, and then send an e-card or mailed notification of your tribute. For many families, this time of year is marked by worry or grief rather than joy. With your...
Patrick J. Loehrer, MD, FASCO, of the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, and Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, of the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, were selected by the ASCO Nominating Committee as candidates for President-Elect. Below, they discuss...
The National Academy of Medicine has announced the election of 90 regular members and 10 international members during its Annual Meeting. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding ...
William G. Kaelin, Jr, MD, Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, admits that early in his research career, he and his late wife, Carolyn, would have fun...
I was just 39 in 2015 when I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. I have a wife and three young children whom I love, a challenging and fulfilling career, and I wasn’t ready to die. When I was first diagnosed, I met with a medical oncologist who had little experience treating this type of cancer....
Medical oncologist/hematologist Adetokunbo ‘Toks’ Oluwasanjo, MD, has joined Florida Cancer Specialists (FCS) in the new FCS Lake City office. For 3 years, she served on the faculty in the Department of Medicine of the Reading Health System (now Tower Health System). Dr. Toks received her medical...
The use of billed palliative care services among Medicare beneficiaries with hematologic malignancies has risen dramatically in recent years, but most encounters still occur within days of death, according to research presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium.1 The analysis of...
New exercise guidelines for patients with cancer can “improve physical and psychological outcomes from cancer diagnosis and for the balance of life,” concluded representatives from 17 organizations participating in the Second Roundtable on Exercise and Cancer Prevention and Control.1 Attention...
In 1999, a team of researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College advocated the use of a then-novel practice: low-dose radiation CT screening for lung cancer. It captures a full thoracic image in a single breath hold, and can recognize a tumor in its earliest stages when the chance for cure is...
“There is clear evidence that patients are more likely to exercise if their oncologist tells them to do so,” reported representatives from 17 organizations participating in the Second Roundtable on Exercise and Cancer Prevention and Control. In an article published in CA: A Cancer Journal for...
Although many commentaries on studies featured in The ASCO Post call for scrutiny of the fine points, this is not the case for the recent report by Antonia et al in The Lancet Oncology (reviewed in the current issue of The ASCO Post).1 This article serves as a well-deserved victory lap for the...
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Anesthesia Era: 1845–1875 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photograph appears courtesy of Stanley B. Burns, MD, and...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has selected Thomas Gajewski, MD, PhD, to receive the 2019 ESMO Award for Immuno-Oncology. The award is given in recognition of his groundbreaking work elucidating why some patients are resistant to immunotherapy and how to restore the anticancer...
Older adults are the fastest-growing segment of our population, and more than 65% of patients with newly diagnosed cancer are 65 years of age or older. Although we now recognize the special needs of older patients with cancer, the field of geriatric oncology emerged quietly, with early growing...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Navneet S. Majhail, MD, MS, about his journey from India to the Cleveland Clinic, where he is Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program. He is also President of the American Society for...
Earlier this year, ASCO published the results of its new study on oncologists’ perceptions and practice behaviors regarding obesity, weight management, and related lifestyle factors in their patients both during and after cancer treatment.1 The findings from the online survey of 971 oncology...
The invited discussant for the ATTRACTION-3 study was Ian Chau, MD, Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital, London and Surrey, United Kingdom. Dr. Chau first congratulated the investigators for successfully conducting a randomized phase III trial in metastatic esophageal...
Cancer survivors are at an increased risk of osteoporotic fractures due to the accelerated loss of bone mineral density as a result of their treatment. Bone loss from cancer therapy is faster and more severe than bone less from aging; rates of bone loss are up to sevenfold higher when they occur...
This year’s meeting of the World Cancer Leaders’ Summit: Cancer and Universal Health Coverage, held on October 15–17 in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, brought together more than 350 global health leaders, including ministers of health, first ladies, and industry leaders, from 82 countries to discuss how...
For Her Royal Highness Princess Dina Mired of Jordan, ensuring that every patient with cancer receives high-quality care is not an abstract goal—it is personal. Princess Dina saw firsthand the life-and-death differences that access to state-of-the-art oncology care makes in a patient’s life when...
Question 1 Which of the following statements about cytokine-release syndrome and neurotoxicity after tisagenlecleucel infusion is correct? Correct answer: B. The median time to onset of cytokine-release syndrome is 3 days. Expert Perspective Following tisagenlecleucel infusion, cytokine-release...
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” —Marie Curie The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology ...
The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab improved overall survival compared with chemotherapy as first-line therapy for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression of at least 1%, according to the results of CheckMate 227....
More Americans than ever are surviving lung cancer. While the disease remains the leading cause of cancer deaths among both women and men, over the past decade, the survival rate has increased. A new report from the American Lung Association—the 2019 State of Lung Cancer—examines this promising...
Today, the American Cancer Society (ACS) announced an update to the organization’s position on e-cigarettes, and the American Medical Association (AMA) called for a total ban on all e-cigarette and vaping products that do not meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval as cessation ...
For the last decade, medical experts have known that voriconazole—an antifungal medication used to prevent infections in patients with compromised immune systems—is linked to the development of particularly aggressive squamous cell carcinoma in skin exposed to ultraviolet (UV) rays. However, the...
Eduardo Bruera, MD, FAAHPM, Chair of the Department of Palliative, Rehabilitation, and Integrative Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, explained the rationale behind this treatment approach. “We know that the tumor mass and the tumor function talk to the brain...
For the treatment of BRAF V600-mutated advanced melanoma, we now have three BRAF/MEK inhibitor combinations that are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration: dabrafenib/trametinib, vemurafenib/cobimetinib, and encorafenib/binimetinib. Although the toxicity profiles for these combinations ...
Treatment with the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib delayed disease progression and appears to improve survival, compared with newer hormonal agents in men with pretreated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and homologous recombinant repair (HRR) genetic...
The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab improved overall survival compared with chemotherapy as first-line therapy for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression of at least 1%, according to the results of CheckMate 227....
At the ESMO Congress 2019, ovarian cancer was a topic of heightened interest, particularly due to findings reported in several important phase III studies of PARP inhibitors in front-line maintenance therapy for patients with newly diagnosed advanced disease—and not just those with BRCA mutations....
Immunotherapy has changed the treatment paradigms for melanoma, lung cancer, bladder cancer, and renal cancer. Now, checkpoint inhibitor therapy is making inroads in triple-negative breast cancer—one of the most difficult-to-treat aggressive types of breast cancer. Late-breaking results of the...
CDK4/6 inhibitors improve overall survival in advanced breast cancer, according to results of two important phase III trials reported at the ESMO Congress 2019. Dennis J. Slamon, MD, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles Women’s Cancer Research Program, presented the findings from the...
Help fund breakthrough cancer research on behalf of someone you love this holiday season. Make a gift in honor or in memory of a loved one, and then send an e-card or mailed notification of your tribute. For many families, this time of year is marked by worry or grief rather than joy. With your...
Although stem cells throughout the body acquire genetic mutations over time, usually these alterations do not affect how the stem cells function or cause disease. However, recent research in clonal hematopoiesis and aging has found an association between clonal expansion of hematopoietic cells with ...
Lung cancer remains the number one cancer killer, leading to about 150,000 deaths per year in the United States and accounting for approximately 25% of all cancer deaths in the nation. Early detection has improved survival in other malignancies such as breast, colon, and cervical cancers, but...
The Oncology Care Model was instituted in 2016 by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation as a move away from the fee-for-service payment model and toward value-based care. It has sparked discussion ever since. How should quality be defined? Whose and what values should it reflect? How...
Formal discussant Silke Gillessen, MD, of the Division of Cancer Sciences, University of Manchester, United Kingdom, agreed that this study is practice-changing. “The study was well designed and addressed an unmet clinical need that is commonly seen in the clinic. Until now we had no randomized...