A workforce shortage of geriatricians and other health professionals certified in caring for older patients with cancer is colliding with the aging of the population and the increasing number of older Americans with cancer. After describing factors contributing to these dual challenges, Arti...
All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) plus arsenic trioxide bested the already high remission rates achieved by ATRA with chemotherapy, the standard of care for acute promyelocytic leukemia, in a phase III multicenter trial among patients with low-to-intermediate risk acute promyelocytic leukemia....
“Ridaforolimus delayed tumor progression to a small statistically significant degree in patients with metastatic sarcoma who experienced benefit with prior chemotherapy,” according to results of an international phase III trial. The large randomized placebo-controlled phase III trial evaluated the...
The use of androgen deprivation therapy was significantly associated with an increased risk of acute kidney injury among men with newly diagnosed nonmetastatic prostate cancer, according to a study published in JAMA. The study was motivated by the increasing use of androgen deprivation therapy in...
Consistent use of sunscreen is one of the key messages of SUNSPORT (Stanford University Network for Sun Protection, Organization, Research, and Teamwork). The program is geared towards reducing sun exposure among students playing in National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) sports. “The...
The addition of tomosynthesis to standard digital mammography resulted in a 30% reduction in overall recall rates among women being screened for breast cancer, according to a new study published online in Radiology.1 The results demonstrate that digital tomosynthesis is an effective tool in...
The National Institutes of Health will fund up to $24 million per year for 4 years to establish six to eight investigator-initiated Big Data to Knowledge Centers of Excellence. The centers will improve the ability of the research community to use increasingly large and complex datasets through the...
Evidence shows that diets high in red and processed meat are associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Marjorie L. McCullough, ScD, Strategic Director of Nutritional Epidemiology, and colleagues from the Epidemiology Research...
In response to scientific advances and the evolving regulatory and policy environment, ASCO recently released an update to its 2003 policy statement on tobacco cessation and control. The statement reviews advancements that have been made since 2003 and outlines a refined set of recommendations...
The past 10 years have seen dramatic advances in cancer care, especially in better screening methods and earlier detection, genomic sequencing, and more effective therapies, which have led to increased survival rates in both childhood and adult cancers. According to the National Cancer Institute...
According to a report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s GLOBOCAN project, one woman dies every minute from breast cancer and one woman dies every 2 minutes from cervical cancer.1 The majority of these deaths occur in developing countries, where access to health care is limited ...
The overuse of imaging in oncology workup and surveillance is a timely concern, as health-care dollars shrink and the risk for second malignancies becomes clearer. At this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, several studies showed that although many routine imaging studies may be unnecessary, physicians...
Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. —Helen Keller, Optimism, 1903 Shortly past 8:00 AM on July 1977, Diane E. Meier, MD, FACP, began the first day of her medical internship. Within minutes she would experience another first: the death of a patient...
For the first time since the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine became available for adolescent girls in 2006, the vaccination rate for teenagers has stalled, according to data published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The data...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently posted its final evidence report and draft recommendation statement on screening for lung cancer. The Task Force is providing an opportunity for public comment on this draft recommendation statement until August 26. All public comments will be...
That the United States spends twice as much on health care than other industrialized countries—about $2.8 trillion in 2012—without reaping appreciably better outcomes1 is not news. The topic has been dissected on the front pages of leading newspapers for years and was the subject of the entire...
For patients with unresectable metastatic colorectal cancer, maintenance treatment with capecitabine (Xeloda) and bevacizumab (Avastin) significantly delayed disease progression and improved overall survival in the phase III CAIRO3 study by the Dutch Colorectal Cancer Group. Miriam Koopman, MD,...
Barbara L. McAneny, MD, is a board-certified medical oncologist/hematologist with a robust community practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dr. McAneny, who has held many leadership roles in oncology associations, became a delegate to the American Medical Association (AMA) from ASCO in 2002, was...
I read the study by Barton and colleagues in Journal of the National Cancer Institute with great interest. Ginseng seems potentially to be one treatment for cancer-related fatigue, a poorly understood but debilitating symptom that patients experience during and after treatment.1 I am impressed that ...
Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, is the Neumann M. and Mildred E. Harris Professor and Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. She grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota, a small town nestled on the banks of the James River. Mitchell is home to the Corn Palace,...
Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in the world. In the United States alone, an estimated 228,190 new cases of lung cancer and 159,480 deaths from lung cancer will occur in 2013. These are alarming statistics when compared to the next four common causes of cancer-related...
Studies presented at this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting suggest that despite the wealth of amazing oncolytics on the market, drug shortages persist, drug substitutions are common, off-label use of drugs occurs frequently, and patients find their costs burdensome. Drug Shortage Persists The shortage of ...
The combination of the investigational histone deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat (Faridak) with bortezomib (Velcade) and dexamethasone was able to recapture responses in 34.5% of heavily pretreated, bortezomib-refractory patients with multiple myeloma in the phase II PANORAMA 2 trial. The 55...
Thyroid ultrasound imaging could be used to identify patients who have a low risk of thyroid cancer for whom biopsy could be deferred, according to a retrospective case-control study reported in JAMA Internal Medicine. Reviewing 11,618 thyroid ultrasound imaging examinations from 8,806 patients...
Indoor tanning, defined as using a tanning booth, sun bed, or sunlamp, is common among non-Hispanic white female high school students and young adults, despite risks of melanoma and nonmelanoma skin cancer, according to a study published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. Using data from the 2011...
A study from the Mayo Clinic Center for the Science of Health Care Delivery finds that advances in imaging technologies, including ultrasound, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, are fueling an epidemic in the diagnosis and treatment of thyroid cancers that are unlikely to ever...
VeriStrat, a serum-based protein assay, can help select which patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) not known to have epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations might benefit from an EGFR-targeted agent, according to a study presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting by Vanesa Gregorc, ...
A strong positive association with shiftwork and elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level was found in an analysis of three National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) studies. “Our data support the notion that sleep or circadian disruption is associated with elevated PSA,...
Mindfulness-based cancer recovery was shown to be superior to supportive-expressive group therapy “for decreasing symptoms of stress and also for improving overall quality of life and social support” among women who had stage I to III breast cancer and were assessed as experiencing distress,...
Guest Editor Integrative Oncology is guest edited by Barrie R. Cassileth, MS, PhD, Chief of the Integrative Medicine Service and Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. The Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering...
The Republic of Botswana is slightly smaller than the state of Texas and with a population of just over 2 million people it is one of the world’s most sparsely populated countries. Botswana was among Africa’s poorest countries at the time it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1966....
Adult alcohol consumption during the previous year is related to breast cancer risk, and breast tissue is particularly susceptible to carcinogens between menarche and first full-term pregnancy. In a study reported in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Ying Liu, MD, PhD, of Washington...
Pazopanib (Votrient) and sunitinib (Sutent) have been shown to provide progression-free survival benefit compared with placebo or interferon in phase III trials in metastatic renal cell carcinoma. In a noninferiority trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Robert J. Motzer, MD, of...
At the 14th International Lung Cancer Congress, held recently in Huntington Beach, California, Tony S.K. Mok, MD, Professor of Clinical Oncology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, was the honored recipient of the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation Award. The award was presented by Ms....
“It was a very exciting session this year, particularly for cervical cancers,” said Paul Haluska MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, in speaking of the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting’s gynecologic oncology session and the abstracts highlighted recently at Best of ASCO in Chicago. In one...
German investigators reported at the 2013 Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco that an abridged magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocol can accurately detect cancers among women whose mammographic screenings were negative.1 MRI, therefore, may reveal the type of tumor that mammography...
One of the more significant problems in modern oncology practice is to provide increased value at a time when costs are spiraling upward, and new parameters of “success” are being introduced into the equation—most visibly, inside the Beltway in Washington, DC. Thus, oncologists will need to address ...
Evidence has long been accumulating that radiotherapy involving the heart can result in premature ischemic heart disease, but interest peaked last spring when a case control study published in The New England Journal of Medicine1 found an increased risk for cardiac-related deaths in breast cancer...
Results of the two rounds of annual incidence screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) vs radiography in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) were recently reported by Denise R. Aberle, MD, Professor of Radiology and Bioengineering at the University of California at Los Angeles and...
Cabozantinib (Cometriq) is an inhibitor of hepatocyte growth factor receptor (MET), vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2), and rearranged during transfection (RET) tyrosine kinases. In a phase III trial reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rossella Elisei, MD, of University of ...
Cancer advocates and clinical trialists, for some time, have been proposing a radical change to the laborious drug development process—that industry, academia, funding sources, and other stakeholders actually pool their brain power and financial means and work together, not separately, to develop...
Impaired sleep quality is a concerning problem for many patients with cancer, and pharmacologic treatments come with many negative effects. Several small studies indicate that yoga improves persistent fatigue, sleep disturbance, anxiety, and quality of life, in addition to reducing the need for...
It is estimated that 30% to 90% of patients with cancer experience impairment of sleep quality post-treatment, and such impairment can be severe enough to increase morbidity and mortality. Preliminary evidence indicates that yoga may improve sleep in cancer patients. In a study reported in the...
The PrefHer trial provides notable data showing that > 90% of patients favored the quicker subcutaneous administration of trastuzumab (Herceptin) compared to the standard intravenous infusion. The primary reasons for this preference, as per patients in the trial, included that it was timesaving...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Timothy Key, DPhil, of Oxford University, and colleagues in the Endogenous Hormones and Breast Cancer Collaborative Group analyzed data from seven prospective studies to determine associations between sex hormones and risk of breast cancer in...
Interim data from a Phase IB trial evaluating the investigational anti-PD-1 immunotherapy, MK-3475, in patients with previously treated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were presented recently at the 15th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Sydney, Australia. Edward Garon, MD, Director of Thoracic ...
All medical care should seek to achieve one or more of three goals: to relieve suffering, to prevent future suffering, or to prolong life. Care for cancer is no exception, and minimizing suffering from cancer and prolonging life has primarily resulted from advances in treatment. Although there are...
The investigational drug brivanib is a dual inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor and fibroblast growth factor signaling, both implicated in hepatocellular carcinoma. The agent was recently evaluated in two phase III trials, one comparing first-line brivanib with sorafenib (Nexavar) in...
The 2013 European Cancer Congress (ECC), held September 27 to October 1 in Amsterdam, was jointly sponsored by the European Society of Medical Oncology, the European Cancer Organization, and the European Society of Radiation Oncology. With the Congress theme being “Reinforcing Multidisciplinarity,” ...
Analysis of data from 58,172 patients identified from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries as having stage I or II endometrial adenocarcinoma found that pelvic radiotherapy and lymphadenectomy were associated with statistically significantly reduced noncancer mortality,...