In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sven Borchmann, MD, of the German Hodgkin Study Group, University Hospital of Cologne, and colleagues found that pretreatment vitamin D deficiency was associated with significantly poorer progression-free and overall survival in patients...
Partners HealthCare President and Chief Executive Officer, Anne Klibanski, MD, unveiled a 5-year strategic plan and announced plans for rebranding its health-care system. Partners HealthCare, which serves more than 1.5 million patients and receives nearly $2 billion in research funding annually,...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) recently announced publication of the newest genetic risk assessment recommendations for breast, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines®) for Genetic/Familial High-Risk Assessment:...
Recent studies show that at least one-quarter of our nation’s health-care expenditures are being consumed by waste, fraud, and abuse. Moreover, since 2004, annual reports from the Commonwealth Fund have consistently rated the performance of our health-care system last among high-income countries,...
Earlier this month, the American Society of Hematology (ASH) published new state-of-the-art guidelines on the treatment of immune thrombocytopenia. The guidelines were published in the journal Blood Advances.1 The 2019 ASH Clinical Practice Guidelines on Immune Thrombocytopenia, developed in...
Although pancreatic cancer survival rates have slowly improved over the past few decades for all stages of pancreatic cancer combined, the 1-year rate is 20%, and the 5-year rate is about 9%. There is no single diagnostic test to detect pancreatic cancer, and less than 20% of tumors are confined to ...
Despite the unprecedented improvement in clinical outcomes with the advent of immune checkpoint blockade for cancer,1,2 robust biomarkers for therapeutic success as well as novel strategies to increase their efficacy are urgently needed. In addition to exploring novel immune checkpoints and other...
Carolyn C. Meltzer, MD, neuroradiologist, nuclear physician, and leader in organized radiology, joined the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Board of Directors earlier this month at the Society’s annual meeting in Chicago. She will serve as the board liaison for science. “I am delighted ...
Multiple myeloma expert Nina Shah, MD, was born and reared in the Northeast. During grade school, she developed a passion for science that would lead to an early decision to pursue a career in medicine. “My ninth-grade biology class really got me interested in human biology, and that’s when I...
Mary Jo Turk, PhD, has been named the O. Ross McIntyre, MD, Professor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College. Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and Co-Director of the Immunology and Cancer Immunotherapy Program at Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center, Dr. Turk joined the...
In January 2019, Linda D. Bosserman, MD, FACP, FASCO, began her tenure as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP). An Assistant Clinical Professor and staff physician at City of Hope, Dr. Bosserman has served on the ASCO Board of Directors and was a founding member of the TAPUR...
For the country, and for me personally, 2001 was a watershed year. In May, my mother died; the following month my brother, Dom, then 57, called to tell me he had just been diagnosed with multiple myeloma. Except for some fatigue Dom had complained about at our mother’s funeral, there were no...
Patients with follicular lymphoma who have been treated and are in remission for at least 2 years may no longer be incurable based on highly sensitive testing. This may mean they no longer need therapy or active follow-up, according to findings presented by Sarraf Yazdy et al at the 2019 American...
At the recent 2019 Symposium on Clinical Interventional Oncology (CIO) in Miami, course directors Constantino Peña, MD, FSIR, and Ripal Gandhi, MD, FSIR, FSVM, had a lot to say about this burgeoning field of oncology. In particular, interventional oncology is making inroads in therapeutic...
Angela Lamarca, MD, PhD, of the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, United Kingdom, served as European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) commentator for the ClarIDHy trial in a press briefing held during the ESMO Congress 2019. Dr. Lamarca acknowledged, “The reported median...
About 4 decades ago, as a young physician, I observed that most surgeons were numerator doctors; they remembered their successes and their failures, but they did not remember the frequency of either. There was no denominator. Worse, the approach to any specific surgical problem was always the...
Joshua Richter, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology at the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai in New York, offered his thoughts on the CANDOR study, noting that the findings point to “a new and exciting treatment regimen for our patients with relapsed and...
For older patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the prospects for success of a stem cell transplant can often be predicted based on the particular set of leukemic genetic characteristics, according to results presented by Murdock et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual...
A new analysis of Medicare claims data presented by Kilgore et al at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition (Abstract 793) has provided the first real-world evidence using claims data available after the approval of autologous anti-CD19 chimeric antigen...
More than three out of four patients with relapsed multiple myeloma, or myeloma that was refractory to at least two therapies, remained in remission 7 months after treatment with a novel chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy targeting two proteins that are frequently found on myeloma...
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that women who use permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners may have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who do not use these products. The study, published by Eberle et al in the International Journal of Cancer, ...
For opioid-tolerant patients with advanced cancer experiencing pain, relief does not necessarily have to come from a higher dose of opioids, according to findings presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium.1 The results of a retrospective analysis of 300 patients with advanced...
Does nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer really exist? Although it is considered a disease category, it turns out that the definition depends on the type of imaging used. Many patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer who were categorized as “nonmetastatic” on conventional...
In a phase I/II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Geoerger et al found little activity of atezolizumab alone in pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed or refractory malignancies (including solid tumors, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Hodgkin lymphoma) with known or expected programmed...
Oncologists have become accustomed to seeing pneumonitis associated with immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), requiring intervention by pulmonologists in the management of severe cases. At CHEST 2019, the annual meeting of the American College of Chest...
As the Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan wrote, “The times they are a-changin’.” Heather Cheng, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Washington, Associate Member, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Director, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic, quoted this line in...
In the post-trastuzumab era, a number of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved targeted agents for metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer are available, but there is no preferred option for third-line treatment and beyond. At the 2019 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium, Shanu Modi, MD,...
A secondary analysis of the phase II NRG-RTOG 0424 trial—which initially reported a 73.1% 3-year overall survival rate—has shown a decline in neurocognitive function for half of the trial participants with high-risk, low-grade gliomas up to a year after receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy with...
A study comparing the prognostic value of the Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score in male and female patients with early-stage estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer has found that the score is associated with mortality in male patients at a much lower threshold than female patients. The...
In 2018, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute launched a large, ambitious screening study called (PROMISE; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03689595) to identify people with premalignant precursor conditions of multiple myeloma, to understand the molecular signs of progression to myeloma...
Older adults with blood cancers may benefit from a team-based, holistic evaluation before undergoing transplantation, according to a study published by Derman et al in Blood Advances. The study, which reported on a multidisciplinary clinic at the University of Chicago Medical Center, found that...
Researchers have identified a new genetic mutation that may cause a type of familial thyroid cancer. According to the researchers, DUOX2 is the first and only mutation associated with familial thyroid cancer to be identified in a gene that is primarily expressed in the thyroid gland. These findings ...
In a Canadian phase II crossover trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kim N. Chi, MD, and colleagues found that time to second prostate-specific antigen (PSA) progression from start of treatment was longer with crossover from abiraterone acetate/prednisone to enzalutamide vs the reverse sequence...
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) has named three investigators as the recipients of this year’s Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. The award recognizes scientists for their accomplishments in the area of cancer research. The winners for 2019 are Nathanael S. Gray, PhD; Joshua...
Each year, we ask ASCO members to place their votes to select our Society’s leaders and Board Members. The ASCO Nominating Committee, which is itself elected by ASCO members, took on the challenge of selecting this year’s candidates for the open seats on the ASCO Board of Directors and Nominating...
Patrick J. Loehrer, MD, FASCO, of the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center, and Everett E. Vokes, MD, FASCO, of the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, were selected by the ASCO Nominating Committee as candidates for President-Elect. Below, they discuss...
The National Academy of Medicine has announced the election of 90 regular members and 10 international members during its Annual Meeting. Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding ...
William G. Kaelin, Jr, MD, Sidney Farber Professor of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, admits that early in his research career, he and his late wife, Carolyn, would have fun...
In 1999, a team of researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College advocated the use of a then-novel practice: low-dose radiation CT screening for lung cancer. It captures a full thoracic image in a single breath hold, and can recognize a tumor in its earliest stages when the chance for cure is...
“There is clear evidence that patients are more likely to exercise if their oncologist tells them to do so,” reported representatives from 17 organizations participating in the Second Roundtable on Exercise and Cancer Prevention and Control. In an article published in CA: A Cancer Journal for...
Two Michigan cancer programs are joining forces to find new solutions for prostate cancer. The University of Michigan (U-M) Rogel Cancer Center and the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University have received a $9.2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The...
Although many commentaries on studies featured in The ASCO Post call for scrutiny of the fine points, this is not the case for the recent report by Antonia et al in The Lancet Oncology (reviewed in the current issue of The ASCO Post).1 This article serves as a well-deserved victory lap for the...
In an analysis reported in The Lancet Oncology, Scott J. Antonia, MD, PhD, of Duke Cancer Institute, and colleagues identified long-term survival rates with nivolumab therapy in patients with previously treated advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including comparative outcomes vs...
Charles L. Loprinzi, MD, Regis Professor of Breast Cancer Oncology at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnesota, discussed the abstract on oncology massage to treat chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy. He said that although massage therapy shows promise for this patient population, its...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has selected Thomas Gajewski, MD, PhD, to receive the 2019 ESMO Award for Immuno-Oncology. The award is given in recognition of his groundbreaking work elucidating why some patients are resistant to immunotherapy and how to restore the anticancer...
Older adults are the fastest-growing segment of our population, and more than 65% of patients with newly diagnosed cancer are 65 years of age or older. Although we now recognize the special needs of older patients with cancer, the field of geriatric oncology emerged quietly, with early growing...
“I could not have written this book when I was 30 years old. It is not because of any great discoveries I have made or research papers I have published since. It is because of the experience the intervening decades have given me as I cared for thousands of cancer patients and accompanied many to...
Immunotherapy with checkpoint inhibitors offers a proportion of patients a chance at long-term disease control, resembling cure in some patients. Among the many questions about immunotherapy that remain to be resolved is whether patients who discontinue therapy and develop progressive disease can...
American patients are suffering from an obesity crisis, where it is estimated that 300,000 deaths per year are due to obesity.1 The obesity trend is predicted to worsen, where it is projected that 85% of U.S. adults will be overweight or obese by 2030.2 Consequently, obesity-related illnesses are...
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Navneet S. Majhail, MD, MS, about his journey from India to the Cleveland Clinic, where he is Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program. He is also President of the American Society for...