Kara Kelly, MD, has been appointed as the new leader of the joint program in pediatric hematology/oncology, a partnership of Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo (WCHOB), Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), UBMD Pediatrics, and the University at Buffalo (UB). WCHOB, RPCI, and UB have...
UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center member Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, has received a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Outstanding Investigator Award of $4.2 million in recognition of his research conducted in the development of new immunotherapies that utilize the human body’s own natural defenses ...
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) has announced that Michael J. Bennett, PhD, has been elected to serve on the AACC Board as President-Elect beginning in January 2016, followed by successive terms as the Association’s 68th President in 2017 and Past President in 2018. The AACC...
Over the past couple of decades, the oncology community has made great strides in mediating the psychosocial needs of our patients. However, a patient’s spirituality is a subjective and uncomfortable issue for many oncologists, which leaves a gap in the continuum of care. To reach a better...
DECEMBER American Society for Cell Biology Annual MeetingDecember 12-16 • San Diego, California For more information: http://ascb.org/2015meeting/ ESMO Asia 2015 CongressDecember 18-21 • Singapore For more information: www.esmo.org/Conferences/ESMO-Asia-2015-Congress JANUARY 2016 4th AACR-IASLC...
A Century of Progress 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. The photos below are from the volume titled “The Anesthesia Era 1845-1875.” To view additional...
Steven T. Rosen, MD, Provost and Chief Scientific Officer for City of Hope, has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF). The award recognizes Dr. Rosen’s longstanding commitment to advancing science and medicine and providing extraordinary patient care. Dr. ...
In a continuation of a 2014 conference that explored regulatory considerations and strategies for next-generation sequencing, the Friends of Cancer Research, with support from Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc, Pasadena, California, met to discuss the issues and problems of coordinating drug and ...
A clinical dilemma that is receiving a great deal of attention in the oncology community is the undue financial burden some patients face during their treatment and into survivorship. While much emphasis is put on methods to reduce and help patients navigate the complex payment system, little is...
Low- and middle-income countries bear a larger share of the global cancer burden than does the developed world,” said Greta Massetti, PhD, Associate Director for Science, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and Co-Chair of the National Cancer...
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this special feature on the worldwide cancer burden. In this issue, we feature a close look at the cancer incidence and mortality rates in Argentina. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the world. For ...
Evidence-based oncology practice is a systematic approach to problem solving for cancer care providers, characterized by the use of the best evidence currently available for clinical decision-making. Over the past several decades, the oncology community, led by its major organizations such as ASCO...
Tough initial treatment decisions have “long-lasting ramifications and affect the entire treatment paradigm” for women with ovarian cancer, according to Bradley J. Monk, MD, FACS, FACOG, of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, Phoenix. In a true collaborative presentation at the Annual JADPRO...
As we stood outside patient X’s room going over the vitals, from a distance, I saw the father of the patient by the side of her bed. I saw him standing there and looking down at his child conveying what I guess were words of reassurance and reinforcing the pillars of strength needed for her...
In 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 9 new drugs and biologics in the treatment of cancer and added 10 notable new indications or formulations to existing drug labels, marking a year of significant progress in improving the quality of cancer care in the United States. So...
The National Institutes of Health has awarded City of Hope a 5-year, $4.8 million grant to study the possible role of chemicals in the environment in the development of breast cancer during the menopausal transition in women. The coprincipal investigators on the study are two City of Hope...
JANUARY 2016 4th AACR-IASLC International Joint Conference: Lung Cancer Translational ScienceJanuary 4-7 • San Diego, CaliforniaFor more information: http://www.aacr.org/Meetings/Pages/MeetingDetail.aspx?EventItemID=74#.VbbijqTbJjo Genitourinary Cancers SymposiumJanuary 7-9 • San Francisco,...
Bookmark Title: The Laws of Medicine: Field Notes From an Uncertain Science Author: Siddhartha Mukherjee Publisher: TED Books/Simon & Schuster Publication date: October 13, 2015 Price: $16.99; hardcover, 96 pages The Emperor of All Maladies, written by the Indian-born American oncologist...
The 15th Annual Conference of the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) took place in Prague, Czech Republic, over 3 days (November 12–14, 2015). At the heart of the meeting were presentations on supportive care, comprehensive geriatric assessment and treatment—so that we fully...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with pancreatic cancer. The trials are investigating preoperative rehabilitation; chimeric antigen receptors; T-cell transplants; combination chemotherapy; chemoradiotherapy; ...
The first class of National Cancer Institute (NCI) Outstanding Investigator Award recipients showcases the cutting edge of oncologic research and the 43 investigators behind it. NCI’s Outstanding Investigator Award supports accomplished leaders in cancer research, who are providing significant...
Older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have high relapse rates after induction chemotherapy, low survival rates, and fewer treatment options compared with younger patients. One of the options for both younger and older patients is hematopoietic cell transplantation, but relatively few...
Question 1: Based on the rationale for the current “standard of care” for primary diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of the CNS, what is the optimal induction therapy? Correct Answer: C. A high-dose methotrexate–based regimen. Expert Perspective Untreated primary diffuse large B-cell lymphoma of the CNS ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an occasional feature that includes a case report detailing a particular hematologic condition followed by questions. Answers to each question appear on page 84 with expert commentary. In the November 10 issue of The ASCO Post, part 2 of ...
Here are several abstracts selected from the proceedings of this year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, highlighting therapeutics in acute leukemias and myelodysplastic syndromes. For full details of these study abstracts, visit...
Charles S. Abrams, MD, the Francis C. Wood Professor of Medicine, Pathology, and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania and Director of the Blood Center for Patient Care & Discovery at Penn and The Children’s Hospital ...
City of Hope recently announced the following new staff additions. Bart O. Roep, PhD Internationally recognized immunologist Bart O. Roep, PhD, has joined City of Hope as Chair of the Department of Diabetes Immunology within the Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute. An expert in the...
A new guidance statement from ASCO and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM) could potentially lead to more standardized primary palliative care delivery across oncology settings, according to Kathleen E. Bickel, MD, MPhil, who presented the study findings at the 2015...
Press conference moderator Virginia Kaklamani, MD, commented on these results from the ABCSG-18 trial: “It’s pretty clear that 3 years of adjuvant denosumab not only reduced fracture risk but improved disease-free survival. It’s also pretty clear that adjuvant bisphosphonates improve disease-free...
As health-care providers, we have an obligation and a responsibility not only to care for our patients, but also to educate them—and the general public—about their cancer risk and ways to reduce or prevent it. We are living in the golden era of cancer prevention and treatment, made possible by...
Rapidly dividing cells rely on an enzyme called Dicer to help them repair the DNA damage that occurs as they make mistakes in copying their genetic material over and over for new cells. Researchers have built on the discovery of Dicer’s role in fixing DNA damage to uncover a new potential...
In the phase III HELIOS trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Chanan-Khan et al found that the addition of the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) increased progression-free survival in patients with chronic lymphocytic ...
Novel strategies are being explored for difficult-to-treat and advanced head and neck cancer—the most heterogeneous group of malignancies that are generally associated with poor survival—and encouraging results have been presented in two trials at the first European Society for Medical...
A large prospective study of postmenopausal women investigating an association between periodontal disease and breast cancer risk has found that among all women in the study, the risk of breast cancer was 14% higher in women who had periodontal disease. Among women who had quit smoking within the...
Follow-up times of abnormal screening exams were shorter for breast cancer than they were for colorectal and cervical cancers, according to a recent study involving more than 1 million individuals who underwent these screenings. Recently published by Tosteson et al in the Journal of General...
Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, has been elected President of ASCO for the term beginning in June 2017. He will take office as President-Elect during the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago in June 2016. Additionally, four new members were elected to the ASCO Board of Directors, as well as three new...
In the phase III HELIOS trial, reported in The Lancet Oncology, Chanan-Khan et al found that adding the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to bendamustine (Treanda)/rituximab (Rituxan) increased progression-free survival in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or...
In the first study of its kind, University of Southern California (USC) researchers have found that colorectal cancer risk in Californian Latinos varies widely depending on the country of origin. Their study was published by Stern et al in Cancer Causes & Control. “Hispanics are a very...
Analysis of patient-reported outcomes, a secondary endpoint of the phase III NSABP B-35 clinical trial, in which anastrozole and tamoxifen were compared in postmenopausal women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) who underwent lumpectomy plus radiotherapy, found that there were no differences in...
Studies show that an estimated 67% of women aged 40 and older undergo screening mammography every 1 to 2 years. Over the course of 10 screening mammograms, the estimated cumulative probability of at least one false-positive result is 61% for women screened annually and 42% for women screened...
A study that tracked tens of thousands of middle-aged and older men for more than 20 years has found that vigorous exercise and other healthy lifestyle habits may cut their chances of developing a lethal type of prostate cancer by up to 68%. While most prostate cancers are clinically indolent, a...
A study analyzing data from a large, nationally representative U.S. health survey population comparing biomarkers of tobacco exposure in smokeless tobacco users and cigarette smokers has found the exclusive smokeless tobacco users have higher observed levels of exposure to nicotine and a...
Patients with rheumatoid arthritis treated with methotrexate had an increased risk of a second nonmelanoma skin cancer, and adding anti–tumor necrosis factor (TNF) may increase that risk, according to results of a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Dermatology. A similar association...
More children are surviving malignant brain tumors than in the past, thanks to the use of intense treatments using platinum-based chemotherapy (cisplatin and high-dose carboplatin). Unfortunately, the therapy has a known side effect of permanent hearing loss, resulting from damage to the inner ear. ...
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers have described costs across the entire care process for low-risk prostate cancer—from the time a patient checks in for his first appointment to his post-treatment follow-up testing—using time-driven activity-based costing. For the ...
After breast cancer surgery, women are prescribed adjuvant therapies such as chemotherapy and endocrine drugs to reduce the risk of the cancer returning. It has been assumed that the treatment effects of these therapies remain constant over time, but a new study from the Cancer Therapy &...
Although white women have historically had higher incidence rates of breast cancer than African American women, a new report by the American Cancer Society (ACS) finds that, in 2012, the rates converged. The incidence rates were significantly higher in black women than in white women in seven...
Although the CD19 antigen expressed on most B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemias (ALL) can be targeted with chimeric antigen receptor–armed T cells (CART-19), relapse rates among pediatric and adult patients with the cancer remain high. In this study by Sotillo et al, the researchers...
ASCO has called for comprehensive physician payment reform to support the full scope of services required by patients with cancer, rather than jeopardizing patient outcomes by reducing the available resources in a particular cancer care setting in an effort to achieve "site neutrality" in...
A nationwide online survey of 776 pediatricians and family physicians assessing the quality of their human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine recommendations to parents has found that a sizable minority of physicians—27%—said they do not strongly endorse HPV vaccination, and 26% and 39%...