For the treatment of locally advanced rectal cancer, the optimal timing between the end of neoadjuvant chemoradiation therapy and surgical resection appears to be 60 days, according to an analysis of the National Cancer Database presented at the 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 An interval ...
What initially drew me to read the eloquent essay by Paul Kalanithi, MD, in The New York Times—“How Long Have I Got Left?”—was its provocative title.1 What kept me there was the moving description of his quick transition from healthy physician with a brilliant career in neurosurgery to terminally...
Steven L. D’Amato, BSPharm, BCOP, became President of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) at its 41st Annual Meeting on March 18, 2015, in Arlington, Virginia. He is Executive Director of New England Cancer Specialists and a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Tufts...
Editor’s note: We regret to announce that Paul Kalanithi, MD, passed away on March 9, 2015. Dr. Kalanithi was Chief Resident in Neurological Surgery at Stanford University when he shared his story, reprinted here, with The ASCO Post just over 1 year ago, in March 2014. We extend our deepest...
A growing body of literature indicates that the incidence of colorectal cancer is rising among people under age 50, according to Jason A. Zell, DO, MPH. Dr. Zell is the corresponding author of one of the two recent studies finding significant increases in colorectal cancer among adults aged 20 to...
In the winter of 2013, my son, Dmitriy, now 26, had a cough that wouldn’t go away. After several rounds of antibiotics failed to halt the persistent problem, a pulmonologist we consulted ordered a chest x-ray, which showed a large tumor lodged between Dmitriy’s lungs. Although the doctor said the...
BookmarkTitle: The Cost of Cutting: A Surgeon Reveals the Truth Behind a Multibillion-Dollar IndustryAuthor: Paul A. Ruggieri, MDPublisher: Berkley BooksPublication date: September 2014Price: $16.00; paperback, 320 pages The woman seated on the exam table was lean and fit and seemed perfectly at...
Bookmark Title: Pandora’s DNA: Tracing the Breast Cancer Genes Through History, Science, and One Family TreeAuthor: Lizzie StarkPublisher: Chicago Review PressPublication date: October 2014Price: $26.95; hardcover, 336 pages If we wish to learn more about cancer, we must concentrate on the cellular ...
The phase III CRYSTAL trial showed that the addition of cetuximab (Erbitux) to first-line FOLFIRI (fluorouracil, leucovorin, and irinotecan) significantly improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and objective response rates in patients with KRAS codon 12/13 (exon 2) wild-type...
In the Institute of Medicine’s 2014 report Dying in America,1 the report’s authors found that while frequent clinician-patient conversations about end-of-life care, goals, and preferences are necessary to avoid unwanted treatment, most patients do not have those conversations with their physicians. ...
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has named Thomas E. Merchant, DO, PhD, as Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology. Dr. Merchant will hold the Baddia J. Rashid Endowed Chair in Radiation Oncology. “Dr. Merchant is a proven leader in pediatric radiotherapy and will be instrumental in...
Jim Hu, MD, has been appointed Director of the LeFrak Center for Robotic Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and recruited as the Ronald Lynch Chair of Urologic Oncology at Weill Cornell Medical College. He assumed his new role on February 1. Dr. Hu is an expert in the use...
James P. Allison, PhD, Chair of Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, has received the 2015 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in recognition of his work in the field of immunotherapy. “In immunotherapy, it’s not the tumor but the immune system that is targeted....
The search is on in prostate cancer to identify predictive and prognostic biologic and genomic markers that go beyond traditional ones. Several groups are working in this area. One marker that has received much attention is a splice abnormality in the androgen receptor (AR) called AR-V7. Two...
The Gairdner Foundation named the winners of the 2015 Canada Gairdner Awards, recognizing some of the most significant medical discoveries around the world. The awards provide a $100,000 (CAD) prize to each scientist for his or her work. The aim of the Gairdner Awards is to promote a culture of...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) recognized six oncologists making valuable contributions to their fields with awards at the Association’s Annual Meeting 2015, held in Philadelphia from April 18–22. William C. Hahn, MD, PhD, was awarded with the 39th Annual AACR–Richard and Hinda ...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) honored Lewis C. Cantley, PhD, with the 9th Annual Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015. Dr. Cantley is the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor in...
Dana-Farber President and CEO Edward J. Benz, Jr, MD, has announced he will retire from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) in 2016, after 16 years running the organization. Dr. Benz will also vacate the positions as Director and Principal Investigator of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center...
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital announced the departure of Scientific and Comprehensive Cancer Center Director, Richard Gilbertson, MD, PhD. Dr. Gilbertson will be Director of the Cambridge Cancer Centre at the University of Cambridge. Since joining St. Jude in 2000, Dr. Gilbertson has led...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) honored Owen N. Witte, MD, Founding Director of the Eli & Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine & Stem Cell Research, and Distinguished Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at the University of California,...
ASCO International’s mission is to optimize care for every patient with cancer in the world. To achieve that goal, it is critical to establish collaborations in all sectors of the health-care system. ASCO International’s newest course, Cancer Control in Primary Care, helps to address this need by...
In an analysis from the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) 89803 adjuvant trial reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues found consistent trends suggesting benefit of aspirin use and cyclo-oxygenase-2...
Richard Pazdur, MD, Director of the Office of Oncology and Hematology Products at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was named one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine. The list also included names such as Pope Francis, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Chief Justice of the United...
Girls who are overweight as young children and teens may face increased risk for colorectal cancer decades later, regardless of what they weigh as adults, suggests a new study published by Xuehong Zhang, MD, ScD, Instructor at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues in Cancer Epidemiology,...
When meeting with patients to discuss adjuvant endocrine therapy for breast cancer, the question often arises, “How will I know that the treatment is working?” While the efficacy of these treatments has been demonstrated for the majority of patients in multiple large randomized clinical trials,...
Dr. Are extended to me the opportunity to make additional comments about his article. I am the husband of the most wonderful Mrs. X he discusses. As always, Dr. Are’s comments are very kind and generous. Three Roles Based on my experience and observations, I would like to mention three roles a...
The first time I met Mrs. X and her husband was to discuss the surgical treatment options for pancreatic cancer. She had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at her local hospital and was being referred to a tertiary care center for operative management. Mrs. X and her husband were no...
Even though today I’m cancer-free, the experience of getting a cancer diagnosis and going through treatment leaves an indelible mark on your psyche—as well as your body—that time doesn’t erase. Once you have cancer, you become a cancer survivor, and that status doesn’t change. I’ve known many...
Robert L. Coleman, MD, Professor, Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, started his 1-year term as the 47th President of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) and 5th President of the Foundation for Gynecologic...
Physicians are being “bombarded” with changes in health care and beyond, Richard R. Barakat, MD, FACS, noted in his Presidential Address at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer. These changes are being precipitated by steeply rising health-care costs amid...
Although varying levels of existential distress are near-ubiquitous among patients with cancer, evidence-based interventions in this clinical area remain somewhat elusive. Seeking to explore novel approaches in the palliative care environment, New York University (NYU) School of Medicine principal...
Treatment of childhood cancer is remarkably successful, but still, 2,000 children die of it each year, and for some forms of the disease, no progress has been made at all, said Otis Brawley, MD, Chief Medical Officer, American Cancer Society (ACS). “At least half of all pediatric cancer survivors...
In March 2013, 60 Minutes aired a devastating piece about a Massachusetts compounding center that shipped an injectable steroid contaminated with fungus. One of the many ripple effects from this story of horrendous patient suffering was felt in Maryland, where it sparked legislative action in the...
“Immunosignatures” may be well suited to enable the detection of ovarian cancer, researchers reported at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 20th Annual Conference.1 “We developed a new concept for disease detection based on immunosignatures. From a drop of blood, HealthTell’s...
The quality and quantity of original research presented at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) Annual Conference continue to grow since poster sessions debuted a few years ago. The ASCO Post offers summaries for just a few that caught our eye, out of more than 65 presented this year....
As clinical research struggles to keep up with the pace of new immunotherapies, one of the burning questions is how best to combine the new drugs. A new study found that the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) is superior to ipilimumab alone as front-line therapy for untreated ...
In March, ASCO published its second annual report, The State of Cancer Care in America: 2015.1 Its findings show a mixed landscape, on the one hand, spotlighting advances in therapy and improving survival rates, but on the other, describing a cancer care system under stress from increasing demand...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) proved superior to ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of unresectable advanced melanoma in the global phase III KEYNOTE-006 trial. Pembrolizumab significantly improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and overall response rate compared with ipilimumab, which...
At this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO, will begin her term as the Society’s 51st President. It is fitting that the meeting will be held in Chicago, the city where the first seven visionaries met over lunch in 1964 to formulate a medical organization centered on cancer...
The Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (HOPA) has elected Scott Soefje, PharmD, MBA, BCOP, FCCP, to serve as President for the 2015–2016 term. His term began at the 11th HOPA Annual Conference, held March 25–28. Dr. Soefje has served as President-Elect since March 2014. Dr. Soefje is a...
BOOKMARKTitle: p53: The Gene That Cracked the Cancer CodeAuthor: Sue ArmstrongPublisher: Bloomsbury PublishingPublication date: November 20, 2014Price: $19.98; hardcover, 288 pages Completed in April 2003, the Human Genome Project was one of the greatest feats of scientific exploration, an inward ...
Nicholas J. Petrelli, MD, Bank of America Endowed Medical Director of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute at Christiana Care Health System, received the 2015 Service Award from the Delaware Bio Science Association. Delaware Bio Science is a trade association focused solely on ...
The article “Shining a Spotlight on Epithelioid Hemangioendothelioma,” written by Jane Gutkovich and published in the April 10, 2015, issue of The ASCO Post, generated an enthusiastic response from the patient and advocate community of individuals with this rare cancer. Here, we are pleased to...
Few people have impacted cancer clinical research in the past quarter century as much as Mark Green. His expertise in lung cancer and clinical trial design led to the successful completion of seminal studies combining radiation and chemotherapy that forever changed the management of patients with...
Andrew Parsa, MD, PhD, the Michael J. Marchese Professor and Chair of the Departments of Neurological Surgery at Feinberg and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, passed away on April 13. He was 48 years old. “We are all shocked and saddened by this great loss. Dr. Parsa was a distinguished scholar, an...
I first met Michael Katz, MBA, in 2004, 3 years after my brother, Dom, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and we were at a crossroads in his care and needed advice. Although an experimental regimen of thalidomide (Thalomid) and dexamethasone had successfully put Dom in remission for a year (the...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO). These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
Alan Alda’s passion and appreciation for science extend nearly as far back to his early life as his love of acting. The son of actor Robert Alda, Mr. Alda began his acting career at the age of 16. Although he has appeared in such widely acclaimed films as The Seduction of Joe Tynan, Crimes and...
No one ever expects to hear the words “you have cancer,” but over the course of the day, over 5,000 people in the United States are given that news.1 I first heard those words in the summer of 2007 and have been living with cancer ever since. At the time of my diagnosis, I knew this would forever...
The following essay by Kishore K. Dass, MD, is adapted 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 thebigcasino.org. Born in...