Guest Editor’s Note: Pain is a debilitating symptom experienced by many patients with cancer that negatively impacts their quality of life. Massage therapy, historically used for relaxation and pain relief, plays an important supportive role in oncology settings. In this installment of The ASCO...
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is readily detectable in the plasma and cerebrospinal fluid of patients with central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma and is a strong prognostic biomarker for outcomes, a team of researchers from Germany and Stanford University reported at the 2021 American Society of...
Commenting on the update of RxPONDER presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium were Anne Blaes, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Minnesota and Co-Director of the Screening, Prevention, Etiology and Cancer Survivorship Program at the Masonic...
I was honored to contribute a chapter on the cancer care delivery system and how to improve it for the book A New Deal for Cancer: Lessons From a 50 Year War, edited by Abbe R. Gluck and Charles Fuchs, MD, MPH (Public Affairs, 2021). The book chronicles what has been accomplished in the 50 years...
Guest Editor’s Note: Mindfulness has gained immense popularity in recent years. Growing evidence suggests the benefits of mindfulness-based practices, which include concentration meditation and guided imagery, for managing symptoms associated with cancer and its treatments. In this article,...
“Nearly 2 years into this pandemic, with Omicron cases surging across the country, the American people should be able to count on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for timely, accurate, clear guidance to protect themselves, their loved ones, and their communities. Instead, the...
Julie Gralow, MD, FACP, FASCO, ASCO’S Chief Medical Officer, issued the following statement in light of World Cancer Day on February 4. “This year’s World Cancer Day theme, ‘Close the Care Gap,’ speaks to the heart of what it means to achieve progress against cancer today. In the shadow of COVID’s ...
On January 31, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a second COVID-19 vaccine, which has been known as the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, for the prevention of COVID-19 in individuals aged 18 years and older; the approved vaccine will be marketed as Spikevax. “The FDA’s approval of [the...
A new risk score may aid in identifying men and women younger than 50 who are most likely to develop a cancer of the colon or rectum, an international study published by Archaumbault et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute showed. More About Scoring The score—a number between 0 and...
In 2017, I was caring for my brother, who was suffering from respiratory failure due to complications from cerebral palsy, and working full-time as a registered nurse. I was feeling overwhelmed and exhausted all the time. I was also losing weight at an alarming rate—more than 70 pounds in just a...
Geraldine Jacobson, MD, MPH, MBA, FACR, FASTRO, founding Chair of the West Virginia University (WVU) Department of Radiation Oncology, was born in Fort Dix, New Jersey. Her father was a military officer, and his various duty posts offered an adventurous childhood for Dr. Jacobson. “One of my...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor, Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Quynh-Thu Le, MD, Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology and Co-Director of the Radiation Biology Program of the Stanford Cancer Institute, and one of the Group Chairs of the NRG Oncology...
Commenting on the update of RxPONDER presented at the 2021 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium were Anne Blaes, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Minnesota and Co-Director of the Screening, Prevention, Etiology and Cancer Survivorship Program at the Masonic...
A portable, rapid prostate cancer screening kit could provide early warning to populations with a higher incidence of prostate cancer and may particularly aid those with limited access to health care. The proof-of-concept test, described by Srinivasan et al in Current Research in Biotechnology, is...
More than 1 in 10 patients with localized prostate cancer experienced treatment-related regret, a study published in JAMA Oncology suggests. And the major driver of that regret seems to be a disconnect between patient expectations and outcomes.1 In an interview with The ASCO Post, the study’s lead...
Throughout my adolescence and early adulthood, I had been plagued with digestive issues, including bouts of gastritis and constipation, which seemed normal for me and wasn’t too concerning. But by the time I turned 30, in 2015, the acid reflux I had been experiencing became so frequent and...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) recognized three Choosing Wisely Champions—individuals working to tackle the overuse of hematology tests and treatments—at the 63rd ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition, held December 11–14 in Atlanta. Choosing Wisely is an initiative that seeks to advance a...
The COVID-19 pandemic may have changed some aspects of health care forever. At the 2021 JADPRO Live Virtual event, a panel discussion focused on how several cancer centers faced challenges, and what changes the participants view as positive.1 JADPRO Live is an annual educational conference for...
The text and photograph here 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 Burns...
“Good evening, doc; I wanted to check on you and update you on my mom” read the text message on a late Thursday afternoon. I recognized the sender; it was not uncommon for me to share my cell phone number with patients and their families. Having been a caretaker of my own parents’ medical needs, I...
In part 1 of this two-part review, we looked at early pioneers in the field of medical oncology in Europe, as well as the development of international cooperative trials and the formation of European oncology societies (see related articles below). In part 2, we explore how the field of medical...
Our goal with this review of the pivotal years of oncology in Europe is to acknowledge the tremendous contributions of the early leaders in the field and to help young investigators learn from the past to better cope with the inevitable challenges of today and tomorrow. “On ne connaît pas...
On November 4, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued an interim final rule requiring COVID-19 vaccination of eligible staff at health-care facilities that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)...
“It’s becoming more and more clear that increasing the cytotoxic effect of treatment and expecting to get a better outcome is an approach of the past,” said Nabil F. Saba, MD, FACP, the Lynne and Howard Halpern Chair in Head and Neck Cancer Research, Professor and Vice Chair ofHematology and...
Advances intreating breast cancer “increasingly create opportunities to consider where radiation therapy might safely be omitted,” Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, told participants at the 2021 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “But, I would encourage us,” she continued, “not to assume that women who...
For many, the way things are when you learn about them is assumed to be the way things have always been. For example, antibiotics are wonderful—but if you were practicing medicine when penicillin was discovered, it would have seemed like a miracle. For most of us, there have always been chemical...
Advances in treating breast cancer “increasingly create opportunities to consider where radiation therapy might safely be omitted,” Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, told participants at the 2021 Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium.1 “But, I would encourage us,” she continued, “not to assume that women who...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, spoke with Masakazu Toi, MD, PhD, a clinical breast cancer expert who is keen on research that translates basic science into clinical study. He is involved in various innovative research projects on the development ...
Tools that make it easier for patients to access care and for their physicians to monitor their health status have also emerged with the advent of digital resources. In the closing panel of the NCCN Policy Summit, participants described tools developed by their own organizations to improve quality...
Artificial intelligence, digital therapeutics, telehealth, biometric monitoring: the terms alone are enough to suggest that cancer care is entering a new age, one characterized by tools and practices based on technologic innovation. To explore the impact of these new tools, the National...
Low-dose lung cancer screening by computed tomography (CT) is associated with a 16% relative reduction in lung cancer mortality over no lung cancer screening of high-risk individuals, based on a meta-analysis conducted by investigators with the United Kingdom Lung Cancer Screening (UKLS) trial.1...
According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an estimated 19.3 million new cancer cases occurred worldwide in 2020, resulting in almost 10 million deaths. The IARC projects a 50% rise in global cancer incidence and mortality by 2040. To help control this looming crisis,...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a gene therapy for patients with β-thalassemia, and Fast Track designation to a SETD2 inhibitor for patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Priority Review: Betibeglogene Autotemcel for...
About 10 years ago, on a flight to Detroit, while returning from the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, I had a conversation with Lori Pierce, MD, FASTRO, FASCO, radiation oncologist at the University of Michigan, who went on to become ASCO President for the 2020–2021 term. I recall inviting her...
David Morse Livingston, MD, formerly the Charles A. Dana Chair in Human Cancer Genetics at Dana-Farber and the Emil Frei III Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, died unexpectedly on October 17, 2021. He was Deputy Director of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) ...
“A lot of times, younger bright physicians are afraid to say what they really think, out of fear of challenging the dogma. One of the things I do when mentoring is to ask why we are doing a particular therapy or intervention. I tell my mentees not to let the data interfere with your knowledge,”...
People with blood cancers are at a higher risk than healthy individuals for severe infection with COVID-19; furthermore, research suggests that they do not always achieve optimal protection from vaccination. A new study published by Pagano et al in the journal Blood—the first to report on...
Treatment with arginine, an amino acid, enhanced the effectiveness of radiation therapy in patients with cancer and brain metastases in a proof-of-concept, randomized clinical trial published by Marullo et al in Science Advances. The recently published paper reported the results of administering...
On October 29, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 to include children aged 5 through 11 years. The authorization was based on the FDA’s thorough and transparent evaluation of the data that...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Ademuyiwa et al, a survey of U.S. breast oncologists showed that physicians believe that Black women with breast cancer face more barriers to genetic counseling and testing compared to White women with breast cancer. Study Details The study...
Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) awaiting liver transplantation may benefit from noninvasive treatment with external-beam radiotherapy (EBRT) but are rarely given this therapy, according to a new analysis of U.S. national data. Findings were presented by Nima Nabavizadeh, MD, at the...
The time required to secure prior authorization approvals for radiation therapy equates to a financial impact of more than $40 million annually for academic medical centers, according to a new study presented by Bingham et al at the 2021 American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual...
The number of deaths related to breast cancer are increasing at an alarming pace worldwide. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) 2020 report, approximately 2,088,849 new cases and 627,000 deaths related to breast cancer occurred in 2018.1 More than 55% of these deaths occurred in low- to ...
In a perspective article published in The New England Journal of Medicine entitled “The Drug-Dosing Conundrum in Oncology—When Less Is More,” four authors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) argue for the need to jettison the “more is better” paradigm in dose selection for oncology...
The Association for Clinical Oncology (the Association) launched the ASCO Patient-Centered Cancer Care Certification, a new pilot that certifies outpatient oncology group practices and health systems that meet a single set of comprehensive, expert-backed standards for patient-centered care...
The Wistar Institute has announced the appointment of Italo Tempera, PhD, as Associate Director for Cancer Research Career Enhancement at the Institute’s Cancer Center. Dr. Tempera, who is also Associate Professor in the Gene Expression & Regulation Program, will lead the educational mission of ...
The resurging COVID-19 pandemic has reawakened challenges for patients and physicians—ones we all hoped were over—and presented stressful situations for patients and providers. Hospitals in some states, particularly those with lower vaccination rates, have faced levels of urgent illness that have...
Today’s life-saving chemotherapeutics originated from the vision and indefatigable work of pioneers in the field whose unwavering vision challenged the status quo. One such pioneer was Franco M. Muggia, MD, who, in a career lasting more than 50 years, had a hand in the development of some of the...
Given that death is a certain outcome in life, we seek the best way out as possible. What is a good death? According to Jeff Spiess, MD, author of the book Dying With Ease: A Compassionate Guide to Making Wiser End-of-Life Decisions, a good death is one in which pain and suffering are minimized and ...
Some of the most impressive data on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy have come from studies conducted in China. Attendees at the 2021 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference heard from one of the leading Chinese investigators, Peihua (Peggy) Lu, MD, of Lu Daopei Hospital, who described the...