The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology Tumors & Treatment: A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The Antiseptic Era: 1876–1900.” The photograph...
Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, has been elected to serve as the President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2019. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2018. Additionally, five members were...
The Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) 8th annual Trending Now in Cancer Care survey, conducted in partnership with Advisory Board’s Oncology Roundtable, has identified current and emerging trends across U.S. cancer programs. When asked to identify the top threats to future cancer ...
Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, has been elected to serve as the President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2019. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2018. Additionally, five members were...
Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, a long-time member and volunteer, has been elected to serve as the President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2019. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2018. Additionally, five...
The first consensus recommendations on the recognition and clinical management of immune-related side effects from cancer immunotherapy were recently published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC).1 The article, “Managing Toxicities Associated With Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors:...
Virginia Cancer Specialists, a practice within The US Oncology Network and a premier cancer care and research center in Northern Virginia with more than 40 years of service to patients, has announced that Stephanie Akbari, MD, FACS, has joined the practice. Dr. Akbari, the first dedicated breast...
Postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer who took the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole for 2 years after an initial 5 years of adjuvant endocrine therapy received an equal benefit to those who took the drug for 5 additional years. The trial results suggest that a...
Oncologists are apt to give patients the worst news of their lives: You have cancer. Yet studies show that, by and large, despite the stressful aspects of treating people with a life-threatening disease, oncologists report one of the highest percentages of professional satisfaction among medical...
SIXTEEN DISTINGUISHED ASCO members have been selected by the ASCO Nominating Committee as candidates for open leadership positions within the Society, including: The offices of President-Elect and Treasurer Four seats on the Society’s Board of Directors Two seats on the Nominating Committee...
Trastuzumab (Herceptin) therapy for breast cancers that express the HER2 protein does not increase the risk of complications at the surgical site in women who undergo immediate breast reconstruction after mastectomy, according to findings published by Shammas et al in the Journal of the American...
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology Tumors & Treatment: A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The Anesthesia Era: 1845–1875.” The photograph...
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this special feature on the worldwide cancer burden. Each installment focuses on a country from one of the six regions of the world, as defined by the World Health Organization (ie, Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, and...
Although thyroid cancer is among the five most common carcinomas diagnosed in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) between the ages of 15 and 39—thyroid cancer is more common in young women than young men and is the most common cancer diagnosed in females between the ages of 15 and 29 and the second ...
Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide, and the global burden is on an inexorably upward trajectory. For the year 2012, there were 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million cancer-related deaths worldwide.1 It is predicted that by the year 2035, there will be 23.9 million new...
SAI YENDAMURI, MD, FACS, Chair of the Department of Thoracic Surgery at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, received the prestigious Brompton Prize at a recent international gathering of thoracic surgeons. The award, given by the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons, is for the year’s best thoracic...
The text and photograph on this page are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology Tumors & Treatment: A Photographic History, by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photo below is from the volume titled “The X-Ray Era: 1901–1915.” The photograph appears...
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this special feature on the worldwide cancer burden. Each installment focuses on a country from one of the six regions of the world, as defined by the World Health Organization (ie, Africa, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe, Eastern Mediterranean, and...
Postponing lymph node biopsy more than 30 days after melanoma diagnosis does not adversely impact long-term clinical outcomes, according to findings published by Nelson et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Today, management of high-risk melanomas starts with surgical removal...
In the past decade, advances in surgical oncology have been echoed in the field of geriatric oncology. The current literature regarding older people with cancer includes mainly retrospective cohort studies, focusing on alternatives to radical surgery in comorbid patients. More recently, work has...
NewYork-Presbyterian has established the William Rhodes and Louise Tilzer-Rhodes Center for Glioblastoma. Launched with an initial $5 million gift from William Rhodes, the new state-of-the-art program conducts groundbreaking research and provides cutting-edge treatments for glioblastoma and other...
Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a rare cancer, but its incidence has been rising. This cancer is usually associated with asbestos exposure, and patients have a median life expectancy of only 13 to 15 months. All patients relapse despite initial chemotherapy, more than 50% of them within 6 months...
In an early clinical trial, 33 out of 35 (94%) patients had clinical remission of multiple myeloma upon receiving immunotherapy with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells targeting B-cell maturation protein, or BCMA. Most patients had only mild side effects. The study was presented by Fan et al...
Ronald P. DeMatteo, MD, FACS, has been named Chair of the Department of Surgery in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He will assume his new post July 1, 2017, and will lead a department that includes 130 faculty across 11 divisions who provide advanced patient care ...
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology featured an ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline on the management of small renal masses reported by Finelli and colleagues.1 This comprehensive guideline is written by a group of well-regarded and...
On April 25, ASCO issued a provisional clinical opinion on the use of second-line hormonal therapy for men with castration-resistant prostate cancer who have not yet received chemotherapy. The recommendations of this provisional clinical opinion were informed by evidence from a systematic review of ...
New results presented at the 2017 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting from a large, community-based, multicenter clinical validation study conducted at Kaiser Permanente confirmed that the Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score (GPS) test is a strong independent predictor of prostate...
The standard of care for patients with bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)-unresponsive, high-risk non–muscle invasive bladder cancer is radical cystectomy. Novel therapies that allow patients to preserve their bladder are urgently needed. SWOG (formerly the Southwest Oncology Group), a member of...
Avelumab (Bavencio) achieved durable responses in patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, according to longer-term follow-up of the phase II JAVELIN study, the largest study conducted to date in this relatively rare orphan cancer.1 Results were presented at the 2017 American Association for ...
Mark S. Soberman, MD, MBA, FACS, was elected as the 2017–2018 President of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) during its 43rd Annual Meeting on March 31, 2017, in Washington, DC. Dr. Soberman brings a wealth of experience in thoracic surgery, thoracic oncology, and value-based...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present this special focus on the worldwide cancer burden. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the world. For the convenience of the reader, each issue will focus on one country from one of the six regions...
A “watch-and-wait” approach to treating rectal cancer patients with complete responses to chemoradiotherapy resulted in a 3-year survival rate of 91%, which is similar to historic survival rates after surgical resection, according to an analysis of the International Watch & Wait Database.1 For ...
Recurrences of early-stage (stage II) melanoma are more often detected by patients and their physicians than by routine imaging tests, according to study results published by Berger et al in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. “We are most concerned about patients who have stage ...
The 2016–2017 ASCO Leadership Development Program recently welcomed 16 new participants to its ranks. The Leadership Development Program is a yearlong program designed to shape future leaders by teaching them valuable leadership skills and providing them with networking and mentorship opportunities ...
It was a call from a referring physician who wanted the patient to be transferred to our major academic center. The patient had a history of a lethal malignancy in a very advanced stage. The patient was already outside the bell curve, for she had survived far longer than expected for a malignancy...
The first phase III trial of an inhibitor of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) yielded unprecedented results in treating ovarian cancer. The trial was presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Copenhagen, Denmark, and electronically reported concurrently in The New England ...
Moffitt Cancer Center has appointed Robert Wenham, MD, MS, FACOG, FACS, as the new Gynecologic Oncology Program Chair. Dr. Wenham has served as the Interim Chair over the past several months. He was recruited to Moffitt in 2004, after completing his fellowship in gynecologic oncology at the Duke...
The American Cancer Society announced the election of three new members—Amit Kumar, PhD, Joseph M. Naylor, and William D. Novelli—to the 2017 American Cancer Society Board of Directors. In addition, the new key officer leadership positions were announced, which include Arnold M. Baskies,...
The diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer have long been a source of controversy among the oncology community, the political sector, and patient advocacy groups. Most notably, the decision to biopsy a man’s prostate gland rests largely on his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test numbers, the...
Matt Ewend, MD, FACS, has been named President of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Physicians. In this role, Dr. Ewend will oversee the physician clinical enterprise of UNC Health Care, which includes more than 2,400 physicians and 600 advanced practice providers in 450 practices spanning...
Steven K. Libutti, MD, FACS, has been named the new Director of Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and will serve as Vice Chancellor for Cancer Programs for Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences at Rutgers University. When he takes on his new roles in early 2017, Dr. Libutti will be the third ...
Christine Laronga, MD, FACS, a surgical oncologist specializing in breast cancer at Moffitt Cancer Center, has been named President of the Association of Women Surgeons. The international organization has more than 1,800 members and represents 21 countries. “I am thrilled to be in this new...
Charles Rosser, MD, MBA, FACS, Professor and Director of the Clinical Trials Office and Director of the Clinical and Translational Research Program at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, received a 5-year National Cancer Institute (NCI) R01 grant worth more than $3 million. The grant is for...
An article in The New York Times about women who had chosen not to have reconstruction following breast cancer surgery might prompt questions from newly diagnosed patients considering their options.1 Deanna J. Attai, MD, FACS, told The ASCO Post that whenever an article on breast cancer appears in...
A “nascent movement to ‘go flat’” is how an article in The New York Times characterized the decisions by some women to opt out of reconstruction following surgery for breast cancer.1 The article examined the reasons several patients made that decision, which included avoiding multiple surgeries and ...
It was mid-morning, and I was walking along one of the long corridors in our hospital, attending to clinical duties. From a distance, I noticed this elderly couple walking in the opposite direction. As we got closer, it became obvious that the elderly gentleman appeared winded and was looking...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present this special focus on the worldwide cancer burden. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the world. For the convenience of the reader, each issue will focus on one country from one of the six regions of ...
The Commack, Long Island–based hospital of Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center was opened in 2002, providing personalized cancer care closer to home for individuals living on eastern Long Island. Now, more than 14 years later, MSK is reinforcing its commitment to the local community in...
The first evidence-based consensus statement on cancer immunotherapy for the treatment of patients with the most common type of kidney cancer, renal cell carcinoma, has been published by the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer by Rini et al. The...
Twelve distinguished ASCO members have been selected by the Nominating Committee as candidates for open leadership positions within the Society, including the office of President-Elect, three seats on the Board of Directors, and two seats on the Nominating Committee. Biographical information and...