BOOKMARK Title: Therapeutic Revolution: The History of Medical Oncology From Early Days to the Creation of the SubspecialtyAuthor: Pierre R. BandPublisher: Bentham SciencePublication date: 2014Price: $39.00 (eBook); $78.00 (print on demand); 213 pagesAvailable at: eurekaselect.com According to...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies of people with lung neoplasms, including stage I and II small cell and non–small cell lung cancers. The studies include phase Ib, II, III, observational, and interventional trials...
Testicular cancer is one of oncology’s true success stories. It is a highly treatable disease, usually curable, that most often develops in young and middle-aged men. Despite the success in testicular cancer, there are still clinical challenges ranging from staging to optimum therapeutic...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO has received a major commitment of support for the development of CancerLinQ™ from Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Inc (CTCA), a national network of five cancer hospitals. The donation is the largest received to date in support of CancerLinQ, a...
The formal discussant of the study presented by James et al at the ESMO 2014 Congress was Bertrand Tombal, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Division of Urology and Associated Professor of Physiology at Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels. He praised the STAMPEDE trial as “wonderful, because it...
Regarding this confirmatory analysis presented by Ryan et al at the ESMO 2014 Congress, formal discussant Bertrand Tombal, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Division of Urology and Associated Professor of Physiology at Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, said, “COU-AA-302 profoundly impacted the way ...
The study was well performed and was a good representative sample of patients with cachexia,” said formal discussant Florian Scotté, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist in the Department of Oncology at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital, Paris, regarding the study presented by Temel et al at the ESMO ...
A record number of 19,859 attendees at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2014 Congress discussed changes to oncology that will soon have a positive impact on the care of patients around the world. “We are particularly pleased to see participants from 131 countries at the congress...
Progress has recently been swift in the development of new drugs to improve the response to hormone therapy in breast cancer, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education at the University of California, San Francisco, Helen...
Last fall, Richard R. Barakat, MD, FACS, the Ronald O. Perelman Chair in Gynecologic Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was named to the new position of Deputy Physician-in-Chief for the Memorial Sloan Kettering Regional Care Network and Cancer Alliance, a new initiative meant to...
Recent discoveries in biology, therapy, and (most importantly) the interplay between these two have led to groundbreaking advances in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). These advances underline the impact of the “translational” approach to cancer management in general. Standard of Care...
The 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded with one half to John O’Keefe, PhD, of University College London, and the second half jointly awarded to May-Britt Moser, PhD, and Edvard I. Moser, PhD, of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, for their...
"Impressive,” “outstanding,” and “unprecedented” are among the terms used to describe the 56.5-month overall survival for women with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer receiving first-line treatment with pertuzumab (Perjeta) in combination with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and docetaxel in the...
The following essay by Julie Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories (May 2014), coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org. When I met Cindy, she was...
BOOKMARK Title: Shrinkage: Manhood, Marriage, and the Tumor That Tried to Kill MeAuthor: Bryan BishopPublisher: Thomas Dunne BooksPublication date: April 29, 2014Price: $25.99; hardcover, 336 pages At 30 years old, Bryan Bishop was having the time of his life. Known to millions of radio fans as...
This is an exciting time for cancer research. We are beginning to see breakthroughs for patients with advanced melanoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma, lung cancer, and many other forms of cancer. Even so, cancer is projected to increase by about 45% and to become the leading cause of death in America ...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies of people with colon or rectal cancer in the newly diagnosed and metastatic settings. The studies include phase I, Ib, II, observational, and interventional trials investigating new drug...
Personalized medicine is an established treatment concept for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and molecular characterization of tumors is crucial for choice of (first-line) therapy. As of right now, we have U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs for two...
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the award of more than $30 million in fiscal year 2014 funds to develop new approaches that engage researchers, including those from backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical sciences, and prepare them to thrive in the NIH-funded workforce. These...
At the third annual Blueprint for Drug/Diagnostic Co-Development forum, cohosted by Friends of Cancer Research in Washington, DC, and the Alexandria Center for Life Science in New York, two panels tackled considerations in simultaneous development of drugs and companion diagnostics. Friends of...
Evaluating a Patient’s Sexual Health—The National Cancer Institute suggests designating and training a member of the oncology team, such as an oncology nurse or social worker, as the expert on sexual health issues. When assessing general quality-of-life concerns, relationship and sexuality should...
Building on a successful 3-year pilot project, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded more than $64 million to six individuals at five research institutions to create a database of human cellular responses—the Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS)....
Adenocarcinoma of the pancreas is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in men and women in the United States. This year, about 46,000 people in this country will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and more than 39,000 will die of the disease. The ASCO Post recently spoke with Margaret A....
At the opening press conference of the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), 2014 President Bruce G. Haffty, MD, FASTRO, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at Rutgers–Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Associate Director at the...
Hope S. Rugo, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education for the University of California, San Francisco, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discussed the two studies on maintenance bevacizumab (Avastin) for metastatic breast cancer...
The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and Moffitt Cancer Center have joined forces to create the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network (ORIEN), the largest collaboration of its kind designed to accelerate discoveries in cancer research. Members of this alliance of cancer...
To kick off the second national Turning the Tide Against Cancer conference, sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC), and Feinstein Kean Healthcare, Edward Abrahams, PhD, President of PMC, noted that U.S. health-care costs are unsustainable...
Over the past 50 years, there have been incredible changes in the field of colorectal cancer,” Emily K. Bergsland, MD, noted in opening the colorectal cancer session at the Best of ASCO meeting in Chicago. Dr. Bergsland is a gastrointestinal oncologist at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive...
The “graying of America” poses increasing challenges for the cancer community in terms of rising numbers of cases of cancer and costs associated with geriatric care. The scope of this problem and potential solutions were explored by Andrew E. Chapman, DO, FACP, at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium in ...
Over the past decade, there has been growing concern in the oncology community about overdiagnosis and overtreatment of cancers that prove to be indolent and nonlethal, resulting in unnecessary and sometimes harmful procedures. At this year’s ASCO Quality Care Symposium in Boston, this important...
Advances in science and medicine have led to humans living longer than at any other time in history. According to a new report1 on mortality from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy in the United States is at an all-time high of...
I read with great interest your interview with Virginia LeBaron, PhD, APRN, about barriers to adequate pain control (“Despite Growing Awareness, the Global Crisis of Untreated Cancer Pain Persists,” The ASCO Post, October 15, 2014). Having served as the medical director of a hospice, I am...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has published the 20th annual edition of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), one of the eight original NCCN Guidelines published in November 1996. “Since the first NCCN...
I know it sounds odd, but the past 10 years spent living with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been very productive, wonderful years. It is not the life I had before my diagnosis, but it is the life I remember most clearly, and knowing how deadly this cancer is, I’m grateful for every day of ...
When Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, heard of Roentgen’s discovery of the x-ray, he directed his research staff to create x-ray tubes and better screens on which to view the images. Edison owned America’s first industrial research laboratory and could easily supply the know-how,...
BOOKMARKTitle: Being MortalAuthor: Atul Gawande, MDPublisher: Metropolitan BooksPublication date: October 7, 2014Price: $26.00; hardcover, 304 pages Mortality is the invisible observer in the oncology exam room. When people hear the three words, “You have cancer,” they see their world as they...
A collaborative team of leaders in the field of cancer immunology from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has made a key discovery that advances the understanding of why some patients respond to the CTLA-4 blocking antibody ipilimumab (Yervoy), an immunotherapy drug, while others do not. A...
"This year was actually a boon for the patient and survivor care section,” Arif H. Kamal, MD, said at the Best of ASCO meeting in Seattle, where he reviewed the leading abstracts and gave some of his own perspective. “What you see is a lot of the limitations of research in the palliative care and...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recently announced the election of four new members to its Executive Committee, the governing body of the organization, for terms beginning after the 2014 ASH Annual Meeting, which will be held December 6–9 in San Francisco. Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, will...
While primary malignant brain tumors account for only 2% of all adult cancers, these deadly neoplasms cause severe cancer-related disability; the 5-year survival rates for brain tumors rank third lowest among all cancers, with those for pancreas and lung cancers being first and second lowest,...
What’s the best way to treat rectal cancer? Consult any of five top clinical guidelines for rectal cancer and you will get a different answer, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Their findings were published online in the journal...
On this historic year, as ASCO proudly commemorates its 50th anniversary and decades of evolutionary change and growth, it also celebrates the significant progress that has been made against cancer throughout history. ASCO’s anniversary website, CancerProgress.Net, chronicles these achievements and ...
To mark ASCO’s 50th anniversary, the Society called on the oncology community to select the five most pivotal advances in cancer research and patient care over the past 50 years. Now, with more than 2,000 votes cast, ASCO has announced the results on CancerProgress.Net, its interactive website on...
With approximately 22,000 diagnoses annually in the United States, ovarian cancer isn’t among the most commonly occurring cancers. Yet, the mortality rate for women who have ovarian cancer hovers above 60%. For Pamela Kreeger, PhD, a University of Wisconsin–Madison Assistant Professor of Biomedical ...
The Harvard Global Equity Initiative is a research program at Harvard University that is dedicated to promoting equitable global development, with a strong emphasis on health-care issues. This initiative brings together scholars, policymakers, advocates, and practitioners from around the world to...
Evidence indicates that the use of surgical safety checklists results in marked improvements in patient outcomes. Unfortunately, their adoption in the field of medicine has largely been limited to equipment operations or parts of specific treatment algorithms. Yet they have tremendous potential to...
A countdown of the top 5 breakthrough therapies in the treatment of advanced lung cancer was presented by D. Ross Camidge, MD, PhD, at the 2014 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology.1 Dr. Camidge is Director, Thoracic Oncology Clinical and Clinical Research Programs, and...
This year’s European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) meeting held in Madrid was attended by 19,000 delegates, and it was encouraging to see among that number so many young oncologists being given time off for education and discussion. There has never before been a time when so much new...
Trastuzumab (Herceptin) has been the cornerstone of therapy for HER2-positive tumors, which comprise about 20% of all breast tumors. Additional therapies targeted to other HER2 pathways or other targets to be used in combination with trastuzumab are being explored in both the adjuvant and...
Although Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, MD, harbored fantasies as a young child of becoming an ice deliveryman when he grew up, his love of chemistry and biology, as well as admonitions from his mother, Isabel, “to become a doctor,” propelled him toward a career in medicine. Now, more than 6 decades later, ...