John Mendelsohn, MD, President Emeritus of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, died of glioblastoma on January 7, 2019, at his home in Houston at age 82. He was an internationally acclaimed leader in the field of medicine and scientist whose research helped pioneer a new type of...
Waun Ki Hong, MD, FACP, FASCO, led numerous clinical trials showing that cisplatin-based chemotherapy and radiotherapy could effectively treat patients with cancer of the larynx while sparing their voice box. This seminal work also served as a model for organ-preservation strategies in many other...
In the summer of 2002, I was a physically active 17-year-old boy on the cusp of adulthood. I was about to enter my senior year in high school, and like other teens my age, I was excited about college and the promise of the undreamed-of opportunities that lay ahead. At first, the lethargy I was...
Thirteen years ago, at age 34, I was healthy and enjoying life. I went to the gym almost daily, and when I wasn’t at the gym, I was shooting hoops with my friends. During a gym workout while on a family vacation, I suddenly felt excruciating pain in my left shoulder and thought I must have strained ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
A study by Dominici et al investigated the long-term quality of life outcomes in young breast cancer survivors across three surgical strategies: breast-conserving surgery, unilateral mastectomy, and bilateral mastectomy. The researchers found that patients who underwent mastectomy had lower breast...
Despite the fact that I had to have open heart surgery at age 7 to fix a congenital heart defect and then more surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy to treat a diagnosis of rhabdomyosarcoma a year later, I never felt like I was a sick kid. Children don’t have the existential worries about...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
Elisha Waldman, MD, is a pediatric oncologist and Associate Chief in the Division of Palliative Care at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. He grew up in a Connecticut suburb, the son of a conservative rabbi. Early on, Dr. Waldman majored in religious studies and felt...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, ASCO’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his current position, Dr. Hudis served in a variety of roles at ASCO, including President during ASCO’s 50th anniversary...
In response to the opioid-overdose epidemic, several measures have been put in place, such as the reclassification of hydrocodone as a Schedule II opioid and new requirements for physician review of prescription drug–monitoring program databases in most states. Moreover, the Surgeon General and...
AS AN INTERNIST, I strived to give patients hope by prescribing therapies that increased their chance—their hope—of the best outcome and by encouraging them with hopeful words. My own hope was to care for patients until I was old. Just weeks after celebrating my 36th birthday, I was diagnosed with ...
BOOKMARK Title: Here We Grow: Mindfulness Through Cancer and BeyondAuthor: Paige DavisPublisher: She Writes PressDate: May 2018Price: $22.95, paperback, 154 pages Since the publication of Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s best-selling book, When Breath Becomes Air, about his diagnosis of cancer and untimely...
A health-care system is evaluated by various metrics: one is how it cares for its most vulnerable patients. The United States spends far more on health care than any nation in the world, yet access to high-quality oncology services remains elusive to certain minority populations—none more so than...
The text and photographs 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...
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor, Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Kanti R. Rai, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Karches Center for Oncology Research, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset; Professor of Medicine at Zucker School of Medicine at...
A pair of studies showcased the potentially devastating long-term health and financial consequences cancer has on adult survivors of childhood cancer compared with other adults, as well as survival disparities based on health insurance status.1,2 Despite increasing survival rates among the more...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
Long-term follow-up data on axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) in lymphoma, potential partners for nivolumab (Opdivo) in solid tumors, and a targeted agent for RET-altered cancers were featured during the developmental therapeutics program at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. At the Best of ASCO...
My male colleagues sometimes broach the topic of #MeToo or sexual harassment in medicine by saying how uncomfortable it makes them. Ah, yes. How uncomfortable the sexual harassment I have faced for years makes you. I casually bring up microaggressions—subtle verbal or nonverbal slights against...
Survey results released by the Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) show that general awareness about lung cancer has improved significantly over the past decade, with 94% of the public reporting familiarity with lung cancer. Despite this change in overall perspective, findings also indicate that lung cancer ...
Research grants are vital to the success of academic research and researchers apply for these grants at all stages of their career. This makes writing stand-out grant applications an incredibly valuable skill for clinical investigators—and an intimidating task for first-time grant applicants....
ASCO offers a portfolio of prestigious leadership training opportunities for those who are ready to take the next step in their careers. This includes the Leadership Development Program (LDP), a program that began in 2009 and was created to teach mid-career oncologists leadership skills and help...
The tumultuous history of modern South Africa has numerous stories that lie beneath the surface of the sociopolitical headlines, such as the story of lung cancer expert Leora Horn, MD. “I was born and reared in Johannesburg, South Africa, a second-generation African family. In 1987, because of the...
U.S. Senator from Arizona John McCain passed away on August 25, 2018. The cause of death was glioblastoma multiforme. A number of medical societies issued statements remembering Senator McCain, a few of which are reprinted below. The ASCO Post shares in remembering Senator McCain for his service to ...
BOOKMARK Title: The Cookie Cure: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of Cookies and CancerAuthors: Susan Stachler With Laura StachlerPublisher: SourcebooksPublication date: February 2018Price: $19.95, paperback, 320 pages Cancer memoirs vary in their voice and message. Some are slapstick humorous attempts to ...
In 2009, as Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, was preparing his Presidential Address for that year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, he came across his 6th grade essay titled “My Ambition,” which foretold with eerie specificity the career path he would follow over the next 6 decades. In the paper,...
United States Senator from Arizona John McCain passed away on August 25 of the brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Numerous medical societies issued statements in light of his death, reprinted below. ASCO ASCO President Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, FASCO, issued the following...
DATA FROM a new survey show that as many as 80% of oncologists have discussed medical marijuana use with their patients. According to the authors, this is the first nationally representative survey to examine oncologists’ practices and beliefs on the subject since the implementation of state...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
Two years ago, when I began having pain and bloody discharge in my left breast, I thought it was the return of a solitary intraductal papilloma I had had in that breast when I was a college student 6 years earlier, so the symptoms didn’t initially alarm me. It wasn’t until I noticed that the mass...
The Empire State Hematology & Oncology Society (ESHOS), a State Affiliate of ASCO, was formed in January 2017 as a merger of three separate hematology and oncology professional organizations in New York. Stuart P. Feldman, MD, of the New York State Society of Medical Oncologists &...
In February 2015, there was no indication that my life was about to radically change. I was a practicing attorney and happily raising two young children with my husband. At 40 years old, I was healthy—or so I thought—and had no physical symptoms to alert me to the devastating news that was about to ...
Gini Fleming, MD, had a peripatetic path to her destination as a gynecologic and breast cancer expert. As a child, she moved around a lot, living in about 10 or 12 different places, so she had no real sense of being born and reared in any particular place. “My parents married young, when my father ...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Mace L. Rothenberg, MD,...
Medicine is a family tradition for Hanna K. Sanoff, MD, MPH. “I was born and reared in a suburb just outside of Philadelphia and lived there my whole life until after college. I was one of those people who always knew they wanted to be a doctor. There were four generations of physicians on my...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed medical oncologist Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, FACP, Executive Director at the West Cancer Center, Memphis. Dr. Schwartzberg’s major research interests are new therapeutic approaches to breast cancer,...
The following essay by Sushil Bhardwaj, MD, is adapted, with permission, from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and...
Despite significant gains in improved access to public places, transportation, and job opportunities for people with disabilities since the enactment of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, the long history of discrimination in the social and medical treatment of people with disabilities is ...
When I was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in 2013, I used to joke that if I had to get cancer, this wasn’t a bad one to have. At just 32, I was otherwise healthy, and my prognosis for a cure was good, according to my oncologist. So I felt confident that once I underwent...
Valentina Nardi, MD, is a staff pathologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and her current clinical work includes implementing molecular assays for hematologic malignancies at the Center for Integrated Diagnostics. “I was born in Rome, but I did my high school and college education in Genoa. I ...
A career in oncology can be extremely rewarding. Fast-paced advances in research and treatment, exciting changes in the practice environment, and the opportunity to build strong relationships with and provide critical support to patients can be incredibly professionally satisfying—but they can...
Parents of adolescents believed that the potential to prevent certain types of cancer is the best reason for their children to receive the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, whereas other reasons health-care providers often give were far less persuasive. Findings from this study were published by...
The call from the dermatologist came at noon on Good Friday, just after my wife left with our two young daughters for a week on her family’s tree farm in Northern Michigan. I was on call for the hospital inpatient leukemia service, so I could not join them. When the dermatologist solemnly began,...
On June 11, the American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates voted 56% to 44% to reject a report by its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA) that recommended the AMA maintain its Code of Medical Ethics’ opposition to medical aid in dying. Instead, the House of Delegates...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
In the fall of 2015, I was feeling great. At age 37, I had just completed running my fourth half-marathon and regularly hiked trails near my home in Arlington, Texas, to stay fit in-between races. The only symptom that foretold what was in my future was some light watery discharge I was...
BOOKMARK Title: The Group: Seven Widowed Fathers Reimagine LifeAuthors: Donald L. Rosenstein, MD, and Justin M. Yopp, PhDPublisher: Oxford University PressPublication Date: January 2018Price: $28.95; hardcover, 192 pages Looking back, the cancer advocacy movement took shape in two waves: the first ...