Radiation therapy was associated with a lower risk of cancer recurrence in pancreatic cancer surgery patients, making it, like chemotherapy, an important addition to treatment, Mayo Clinic research found. Whether radiotherapy helps patients after pancreatic cancer surgery has been a long-standing...
A large observational study has found that men who take aspirin regularly may have a lower risk of dying from prostate cancer. Men who took aspirin regularly after their prostate cancer diagnosis were less likely to die from the disease. However, aspirin did not affect the overall incidence of...
Thomas J. Smith, MD, has joined Johns Hopkins as the Director of Palliative Care for Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Hopkins’ Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Before joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Smith served as the Medical Director of the Thomas Palliative Care Program and the Co-director of ...
Each year through its Special Awards Program, ASCO recognizes researchers, patient advocates, and leaders of the global oncology community who, through their work, have made significant contributions to enhancing cancer care. These recipients of ASCO’s highest, most prestigious awards collectively...
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...
When I found a large amount of blood on my toilet tissue just before Thanksgiving in 2010, I wasn’t too concerned. At just 45 years old, I was in excellent health, and other than the bloody stool I had no other symptoms signaling that something was seriously wrong. My primary care physician thought ...
As this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting was being planned, the NCI was developing and releasing its “Provocative Questions” project—an effort to stimulate the cancer community to ask itself 24 key questions in order to advance the treatment of cancer and provide better care. It quickly became clear to...
Studies led by Nathan Sheets, MD, and Mark Jesus Magbanua, PhD, were recently featured in the Genitourinary Cancers Symposium press program. Both researchers are 2012 Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Award recipients, and each has made noteworthy discoveries in prostate cancer....
ASCO continues to call for three specific actions by Congress to help avert shortages of essential treatments for children and adults living with cancer. ASCO President Michael P. Link, MD, outlined the priorities in February at an FDA news briefing on the recent methotrexate and liposomal...
Oliver Sartor, MD, Medical Director of Tulane Cancer Center, New Orleans, said that in his opinion, RTOG 94-08 had some flaws because outdated radiotherapy doses were employed. “The utility of hormone therapy is questionable with today’s doses,” Dr. Sartor said. “Using standard radiation doses at...
George Kovach, MD, became President of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) at its 38th Annual National Meeting in March 2012. Dr. Kovach is the medical director of the Genesis Cancer Center, Davenport, Iowa, and one of the founding members of the Iowa Oncology Society (IOS). “I am...
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...
Ronald D. Alvarez, MD, Professor and Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was elected the 44th President of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology at the society’s 43rd Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer held March 24-27, 2012, in Austin, Texas....
For over 30 years, Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, Kraft Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center and LeBow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, has focused his translational research on B-cell ...
I read with interest the front-page interview of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel by Jo Cavallo in the December 15, 2011, issue of The ASCO Post. Dr. Emanuel may have had some of the most prestigious positions in all of medicine, but his opinion of the Affordable Care Act is completely misguided. This...
In 2002, Tim F., a 17-year-old liver transplant patient, received 40,000 units of erythropoietin weekly, beginning immediately after his transplantation procedure.1 His family had purchased the product from the local CVS Pharmacy, upon his discharge from a Manhattan hospital. After each injection,...
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...
Scott M. Lippman, MD, has been named Director of Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, effective May 1, 2012. Dr. Lippman was previously Chair of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston. “As the new...
ASCO is recognizing researchers, patient advocates, and leaders of the global oncology community through its Special Awards Program at this year’s Annual Meeting in Chicago. Recipients of ASCO’s special awards collectively represent significant strides in cancer treatment and leadership in the...
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...
Although age is the major risk factor for developing cancer, geriatric oncology is still a relatively new discipline within the oncology community. To gain insight into this evolving component of cancer care, The ASCO Post recently spoke with a leader in the field, Stuart M. Lichtman, MD, FACP,...
In the late 1980s, researchers led by Alfred L. Goldberg, PhD, first isolated the large protein complexes now called 26S proteasomes, which are the sites where most cellular proteins are degraded back to amino acids. Protein degradation by the proteasome pathway is critical in regulating many...
ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) can be used to assess the quality of care in a statewide consortium of oncology practices and ultimately can lead to better care for patients with cancer, said ASCO Past President Douglas W. Blayney, MD, at a recent briefing on cancer care value...
Despite a number of new drug approvals in 2011, there are still major challenges in developing effective oncology therapeutics and drug combinations that demonstrate significant survival advantages. Mechanisms are needed to ensure that the next generation of oncology researchers has the necessary...
Thomas G. Roberts, MD, dedicates a shelf in his home to memories of patients—photographs, notes, expressions of gratitude, traces of lives linked with his through cancer treatment. He looks at it every day, he says, and the memories inform his mission. “In oncology, you become part of people’s...
With 1.22 billion people, India is the second most populous country in the world. Experts project that cancer incidence in India will increase by more than two-thirds over the next 20 years, to approximately 1.7 million new cases per year. Due to a range of economic and social issues, most of...
A study by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) reported that 5-year survival for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) among children treated through COG clinical trials increased from 83.7% during the period 1990-1994 to 90.4% in the period 2000-2005. The improvements in survival were observed among...
Four decades ago, Kanti R. Rai, MD, was determined to figure out why some of his patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) died within 2 years after their diagnosis, while others lived for 20 or even 30 years. At the time, Dr. Rai was a young scientist doing research in leukemia at...
Many of the almost 100 reports in various journals and newspapers refer to the lack of effect on overall mortality with screening in ERSPC in a very critical fashion. Clarification is necessary. Our trial did not intend to and is not powered to study the effect of screening on overall mortality....
Immunotherapeutic approaches, including vaccines, a monoclonal antibody, and a combination of low-dose interleukin (IL)-2 (Proleukin) and retinoic acid, are showing some success in clinical trials investigating the prevention of breast cancer recurrence in women at high risk, the treatment of...
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. Older women treated for invasive...
Egidio Del Fabbro, MD, has been named program director of palliative care at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center, effective May 1, 2012. A nationally recognized expert in palliative care, Dr. Del Fabbro comes to VCU Massey from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...
As part of our series explaining the benefits of ASCO’s various membership categories, in this issue we focus on the Full Membership Category Involvement in ASCO—the largest and most inclusive professional organization in oncology—allows those involved in cancer care to chart the very course of the ...
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...
The value of the targeted agent crizotinib (Xalkori) may not be restricted to the 5% of patients with non–small cell lung cancer who have abnormalities in the ALK gene. In a phase I study conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group consortium, crizotinib halted tumor growth and, in some cases,...
Internationally renowned clinical investigator Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD, FACP, attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse on the rural outskirts of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Polio was a scourge at the time, and Dr. Von Hoff recalled lining up with his skittish classmates to get the newly developed...
Sandra M. Swain, MD, Medical Director of the Washington Cancer Institute at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, and ASCO President for the 2012 to 2013 term, is a leading authority on breast cancer treatment with a global reputation in cutting-edge clinical research. The...
Lawrence N. Shulman, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, grew up in New York City. A product of the public school system, Dr. Shulman entered Syracuse University as a history major, only to realize that studying the past, although important, wasn’t for him. “I wanted a field...
David Khayat, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, was inspired to become an oncologist by an episode that could have been ripped from the pages of one of his best-selling novels. At the age of 18, Dr. Khayat was the witness at his best...
Hagop M. Kantarjian, MD, Chair of the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, was born in Lebanon. The only member of his family to have pursued a career in medicine, he received his medical degree from the American University of Beirut (AUB), which was founded...
Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, MD, FACP, ASCO Past President (2006-2007), grew up under the oppressive regime of communist Hungary during the Cold War. “As college-educated intellectuals, my family was among the ‘politically undesirables,’ and if we had not escaped Hungary, neither my two sisters nor I...
Jay R. Harris, MD, Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, helped pioneer the use of breast-conserving therapy in women with early-stage breast cancer. When asked why he chose to pursue a career in radiation...
Kathleen M. Foley, MD, began her life’s work in cancer pain management at a time when suffering was a universally accepted consequence of the disease. Since then, Dr. Foley’s tireless work in the clinic and public forum has advanced not only the clinical treatment of cancer pain, but also the...
Since May 1, 2005, Karen H. Antman, MD, has served as Dean of Boston University School of Medicine and Provost of the Boston University Medical Campus, located in the historic South End of Boston. Her road to this esteemed institution was paved with prominent positions, such as former ASCO...
“I echo the sentiments of many previous Nobel laureates when I say that the success we celebrate today was made possible by the work of many others in this and in related fields.” So ended the Nobel Lecture by E. Donnall Thomas, MD, the famed investigator and 1990 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or...
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...
Cancer science and information technology are advancing rapidly, but the way we care for patients today cannot fully capitalize on those advances. The proliferation of scientific results and novel treatments is a growing challenge for all oncology professionals as we enter the era of highly...
Formal discussant of the SWOG 9346 trial, William K. Oh, MD, Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, said that at least 23 phase II trials have suggested that intermittent androgen deprivation therapy was safe and effective and that this practice has been broadly...
Based on the controversial nature of the SWOG 9346 findings, presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting Plenary Session, ASCO intiated a pilot program at the meeting for a “town hall” type of discussion, where attendees could voice their concerns and questions, and where presenter Maha Hussain, MD,...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently issued a recommendation statement advising against the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based testing for prostate cancer,1 leaving many in the oncology community concerned that decades of clinical progress will be stalled, and setting ...