At the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, the phase III E3805 (CHAARTED) trial presented at the Plenary Session showed that the addition of docetaxel to standard hormone therapy extended survival by more than 1 year in men with newly diagnosed, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.1 The survival benefit of...
Results from the STAMPEDE trial showed that the addition of docetaxel to standard hormone therapy improved overall survival by a median of 10 months over hormone therapy alone in men with newly diagnosed, advanced, hormone therapy–naive prostate cancer.1 The study also showed that zoledronic acid...
Ronald Piana is an independent writer and reporter with more than 20 years of experience in oncology communications and publishing. In addition to the profiles published in this special supplemental issue of The ASCO Post, Ron has written more than 100 news and feature articles, interviews, and...
John “Jack” Harris Saiki, MD, Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico Department of Medicine, Hematology/Oncology Division, lived the history of modern-day oncology with a career spanning 44 years. In the early days of his career, with the support of a grant from the federally funded New ...
Dorothy “Dottie” Thomas was wife and research partner to 1990 Nobel laureate E. Donnall Thomas, MD, pioneer of the bone marrow transplant and former Director of the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Dr. and Mrs. Thomas formed the core of a team that proved bone...
One of the early giants in the field of cancer prevention, Lee W. Wattenberg, MD, published in 1966 what would be regarded as a landmark paper in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) journal Cancer Research. During his research, he reviewed 36 years of animal studies, looking at the...
In 1971, then Surgeon General Jesse L. Steinfeld, MD, took Big Tobacco to task, stating, “Let me suggest that certain purveyors of cigarettes stop making remarks about how some young mothers in childbirth might welcome smaller babies. The mother who smokes is subjecting the unborn child to the...
John Michael Fitzpatrick, MCh, FRSCI, was one of Europe’s most highly regarded medical opinion leaders. He studied medicine at University College Dublin and did his clinical internship at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin. While doing his residency at St. Vincent’s, he decided to become a urologist, ...
Eddie Reed, MD, was a pioneer in the molecular pharmacology of DNA-damaging anticancer agents and the clinical development of paclitaxel for ovarian cancer. He graduated from Yale University School of Medicine in 1979, completed his internship and residency at Stanford University in 1981, and was...
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. —Theodore Roosevelt Longevity, in and of itself, is not an accomplishment. Luck and good genes are just human lottery tickets. Most people fortunate enough to live long lives have a productive sweet ...
JUNE 13th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML)June 17-20 • Lugano, Switzerland For more information: www.lymphcon.ch/imcl/index.php2 Yale ASCO® Review 2015: Highlights of the Annual MeetingJune 19 • New Haven, Connecticut For more information:...
Robert C. Young, MD, ASCO Past President, longtime leader of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and an internationally recognized expert in lymphoma and ovarian cancer, is a forward-looking doctor who is confident about something not in his future: retirement. “I’ll never quit working; I’m just not wired...
Dear Dr. Wilson: I am writing to express our family’s deepest and heartfelt appreciation for the lifesaving care you and your team provided for our son, Patrick…. I don’t know how widely it is known that you save lives at the National Cancer Institute—offering hope to people like Patrick, who have...
At the end of the day, I’m still a kid from South Philly,” Andrew C. von Eschenbach, MD, former Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told The ASCO Post. Dr. von Eschenbach is the product of a closely knit yet culturally...
John L. Marshall, MD, a global leader in the research and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers, grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, in a family that put high value on education. As a young boy, science was already on his mind; he enjoyed the explorative nature that chemistry and biology offered....
The Tampa Bay area of Florida is a haven for golfers and fishermen looking to unwind under the warm tropical skies. And the clean highways stretching through the scenic west coast of Florida are also a perfect excuse for weekend motorcycle enthusiasts, such as Alan F. List, MD, the President and...
Due to childhood health issues, Sandra J. Horning, MD, formed an opinion about doctors at a young age: They were good people who helped other people. By her early teens, Dr. Horning began to ponder a career in medicine, which offered the possibility of blending her love of science with a career...
As a young boy growing up in the Bronx, Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, MD, admired the local iceman, a thick-muscled guy known as Nunzi, who used to carry a big block of ice on his shoulder with a set of tongs, and effortlessly slide it into the DeVitas’ icebox. “A friend once asked me what I wanted to be...
Numerous challenges and milestones mark the course of an oncology career. Community doctors remember special patients, often speaking about a singular bond that is unique among a profession that deals with life and death daily. Researchers recount long hours of seeming futility and then the...
At the 2007 ASCO Annual Meeting, Lodovico Balducci, MD, received the inaugural B.J. Kennedy Award and Lecture for Scientific Excellence in Geriatric Oncology. Called the “patriarch of geriatric oncology,” Dr. Balducci is widely known in the oncology community for his warm humor and thick Italian...
In 1985, Carolyn R. “Bo” Aldigé founded the Prevent Cancer Foundation in honor of her father, who had died the previous year of head and neck cancer. She started the Foundation in her kitchen with a typewriter, a sheath of carbon copy paper, and a telephone. “I quickly rented an office because a...
ASCO announced its first-ever clinical trial, which will offer patients with advanced cancer access to molecularly targeted cancer drugs and collect “real-world” data on clinical outcomes, to help learn the best uses of these drugs outside of indications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug...
A population-based cohort study “indicates that more extensive lymph node clearance during surgery for esophageal cancer may not improve survival,” Maartje van der Schaaf, MD, PhD, of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, and colleagues reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute....
Using imatinib to treat chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML) first line, with selective switching to nilotinib (Tasigna) “leads to excellent molecular response and survival” and “may be preferable to universal first-line use of more potent agents, considering efficacy, toxicity, and...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Chacon and colleagues found that ex vivo manipulation of the tumor microenvironment could enhance expansion of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for use in adoptive cell therapy. The addition of an agonistic anti–4-1BB antibody during initial tumor...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Church and colleagues assessed whether proofreading mutations in POLE (which encodes the DNA polymerase epsilon catalytic subunit) were associated with prognosis in endometrial cancer. Such mutations have been reported in...
Gene fusions resulting in androgen receptor–modulated ERG gene overexpression can be found in up to 70% of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Attard and colleagues assessed the effect of ERG rearrangement on outcomes in...
Does the finding that the incidence of fractures is “compellingly higher” after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation mean that physicians counseling patients about transplant should feel compelled to discuss the fracture risks? Huifang Linda Lu, MD, PhD, the corresponding author of the study...
The incidence of fractures is “compellingly higher” after receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, according to a retrospective study of patients receiving transplants for treatment of multiple myeloma, other hematologic malignancies, and some solid tumors (mostly breast and ovarian) as...
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard announced a $10 million gift from the Gerstner Family Foundation, which will expand cancer research at Broad Institute and broaden collaborations with Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The research will focus on the...
ASCO Answers: Managing the Cost of Cancer Care explains the various costs associated with cancer treatment, including health-care coverage through the Affordable Care Act. It also provides a list of financial resources available to help offset expenses related to care and tips for organizing...
My first experience with cancer was when I was just 9 years old, and a lump the size of an egg popped out on the right side of my neck. A biopsy of the tumor found that it was Hodgkin lymphoma, and I was given huge doses of external-beam radiotherapy applied to my neck, chest, and underarm lymph...
Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), CEO of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), was honored for her “dedication and commitment to solving cancer through research” and for her “passionate advocacy for increased federal funding for cancer research and biomedical science,” at Massachusetts...
Meir Wetzler, MD, Chief of the Leukemia Section at Roswell Park Cancer Institute and University at Buffalo (UB) Professor of Medicine, died on February 23 from injuries sustained during a skiing accident in Colorado. He was 60 years old. Nationally prominent in his field, Dr. Wetzler helped set...
Carol A. Kruse, PhD, a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) scientist and recognized leader in immunologic therapy for brain cancer, recently passed away in Los Angeles after a 6-month battle with an aggressive form of cancer. She was 61. Dr. Kruse was a UCLA Professor of Neurosurgery and...
Alan C. Sartorelli, PhD, Alfred Gilman Professor of Pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine, Past President of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and a Fellow of the AACR Academy, died on April 30, 2015. A pioneer in cancer chemotherapy, Dr. Sartorelli was one of the...
JUNE The International Society of Ocular Oncology (ISOO) MeetingJune 16-19 • Paris, France For more information: http://www.isoo.org 13th International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML)June 17-20 • Lugano, Switzerland For more information: www.lymphcon.ch/imcl/index.php2 Yale ASCO® Review...
Martin McMahon, PhD, will join Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah in August 2015 as Professor in the Department of Dermatology and HCI Senior Director of Preclinical Translation. Dr. McMahon is currently the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor of Cancer Biology at the...
During the Wyss Family Symposium, hosted by Nationwide Children’s Hospital May 11–12, Jonathan L. Finlay, MB, ChB, FRCP, Director of Neuro-Oncology at Nationwide Children’s, was announced as the first recipient of the Elizabeth and Richard Germain Endowed Chair in Pediatric Cancer. Dr. Finlay is...
An $8.8 million grant from the New York State Stem Cell Science Program (NYSTEM) will accelerate efforts by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to develop new stem cell-based treatments for chemotherapy-resistant blood cancer and other genetic blood disorders. Increasing Stem Cells...
Charlene M. Dewey, MD, MEd, FACP, Assistant Dean of Educator Development; Associate Professor of Medical Education and Administration; and Associate Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, offers these suggestions for effectively communicating feedback to...
Providing students and residents with feedback on their medical performance is a key element in their learning and development and ensures that high standards are met, according to Charlene M. Dewey, MD, MEd, FACP, Assistant Dean of Educator Development; Associate Professor of Medical Education and ...
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced 26 of the nation’s top biomedical researchers as investigators for the Institute. These scientists will receive the flexible support necessary to move their research in creative new directions. The initiative represents an investment in basic biomedical ...
The phase III RAISE trial—reported by Tabernero and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—demonstrated that ramucirumab (Cyramza), a fully human IgG1 monoclonal antibody to the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) extracellular domain, in...
In the phase III RAISE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, Head of Medical Oncology at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, and colleagues found that the addition of the antiangiogenic anti–vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) antibody...
The LUNGevity Foundation has announced Nancy Brinker, Founder and Chief of Global Strategy of Susan G. Komen, as the May LUNGevity Hero in recognition of her decades-long dedication and trailblazing work in the fight against cancer. A true pioneer of the advocacy movement, Ms. Brinker gave a...
Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, FACP, Distinguished Professor and Physician-in-Chief of the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), received the 2015 Wallace A. Reed, MD, Award on May 29 from the Arizona Medical Association (ArMA). The award recognizes his accomplishments in advancing innovative...
Roswell Park Cancer Institute recently announced a restructuring of its leadership. “In many cases, these new appointments represent Roswell Park Cancer Institute parlaying our own existing strengths and talents,” says President and CEO Candace Johnson, PhD. “Restructuring some of these positions...
Investigators for the nationwide trial, NCI-MATCH: Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (EAY131), have announced that the precision medicine trial will open to patient enrollment in July. The announcement was made recently during ASCO’s Annual Meeting in Chicago. The MATCH trial seeks to determine ...
On April 1, 2015, Douglas R. Lowy, MD, became Acting Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), succeeding Harold Varmus, MD, who left NCI to join the faculty of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. (See “The Next Step in a Storied Career,” in the May 25, 2015 issue of The ASCO Post.)...