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Showing 4351 - 4400My Cancer Is Incurable, but My Future Is Limitless
Cancer has nearly always been part of my life. When I was 6 years old, I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The doctors told my parents that unless I was treated immediately, I wouldn’t live longer than a month. Over the next 3 years, I underwent intensive courses of chemotherapy and...
SIDEBAR: Patient Advocates Form Huge Presence at EMCC 2011
Patient advocate and two-time breast cancer survivor Kathi Apostolidis from Greece spoke at a session on patients’ and physicians’ use of social media. “Social media is not a fad. It has real value,” she said. She uses social media to connect with oncologists and policymakers across the globe, and...
Twitter Dominates Social Media Buzz at Stockholm Meeting
There was a time when clinical trial results were disseminated mainly through peer-reviewed journals that appeared in your mailbox. Computers and prompt reporting from medical conferences changed that, and same-day postings on medical websites brought “breaking news” a step closer. But the...
ASCO Helps Survivors Transition into Life after Treatment with New Booklet
Progress against cancer has helped save or extend the lives of millions of patients. Thanks to advances in medical research, there are about 12 million cancer survivors today in the United States. For patients transitioning back into everyday life after surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or...
Breast Cancer Experts Voice Opinion and Express ‘Disappointment’ over FDA Decision
Gabriel N. Hortobagyi, MD, Chair of Medical Breast Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, said he was “disappointed but not surprised” at the FDA decision to withdraw the bevacizumab (Avastin) indication in breast cancer. “Once the FDA put this in the hands of ODAC, ...
FDA Announces Bevacizumab Decision: Agency Will Revoke Breast Cancer Indication
On November 18, FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, MD, said she is revoking the agency’s approval of the breast cancer indication for bevacizumab (Avastin) after concluding that the drug has not been shown to be safe and effective for that use. Bevacizumab will remain on the market as an...
The Newly Diagnosed Patient with Cancer and Access to Care
A study presented at the 2011 ASCO Annual Meeting raised concerns that newly diagnosed cancer patients are having trouble seeing an oncologist. Interviews with several cancer centers and community practices, however, suggest that the process runs smoothly, for the most part. Majority of Patients...
Young Investigator Award Renamed to Honor ASCO Founder Jane C. Wright, MD
At the 2011 Annual Meeting, the Conquer Cancer Foundation renamed one of its annual awards to honor the legacy of one of ASCO’s groundbreaking founders. The Jane C. Wright, MD, Young Investigator Award (YIA) recognizes Dr. Wright’s leadership at ASCO, her contributions to the field of oncology, and ...
Conquer Cancer Foundation Programs for Medical Students and Residents Support Diversity in Oncology Workforce
The Conquer Cancer Foundation funds two programs, the Medical Student Rotation (MSR) and the Resident Travel Award (RTA), to facilitate the recruitment and retention of individuals from populations underrepresented in medicine to cancer careers, with a special focus on the development of clinical...
SIDEBAR: ‘Can’t Stomach Cancer’ Seeks to Jump-start Research, Raise Awareness
In April 2008, Debbie Zelman was 40 years old. The mother of three young children, married to a physician, and a practicing attorney with her own firm, she began to experience a strange sensation upon swallowing food. She was told that this was due to stress, but a few months later, she became very ...
Update on Novel Treatments for Peripheral T-cell Lymphoma
At the recent Pan-Pacific Lymphoma Conference in Kauai, Hawaii, Julie M. Vose, MD, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, discussed novel treatments for peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL). PTCL is a heterogeneous group of aggressive T-cell/natural killer (NK) cell non-Hodgkin...
CLEOPATRA Trial Finds Dual HER2 Blockade Improves Progression-free Survival in Advanced Breast Cancer
Women with HER2-positive advanced breast cancer are much less likely to have disease progression or die when two agents are used instead of one to target the HER2 signaling pathway, investigators for the international phase III CLEOPATRA trial found. The 808 women studied were randomly assigned to...
Integrative Oncology: Essential to Cancer Care
During the 1960s and 1970s, the concept of an expanded approach to oncologic treatment encompassing “body, mind, and spirit” grew in patient popularity and morphed into two basic categories: “alternative” and “complementary” therapies. Together, these later became known by the acronym CAM, for...
BOLERO-2: Everolimus Thwarts Resistance to Hormonal Therapy in Advanced Breast Cancer
Adding an inhibitor of the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) to hormonal therapy for advanced breast cancer effectively circumvents resistance, suggest updated results of the randomized BOLERO-2 trial. With a median follow-up of 12.5 months, the likelihood of disease progression or death among...
Don’t Take Away Our Hope
After experiencing the loss of my wife Dina’s first pregnancy during her second trimester, we naturally worried that something would go wrong when she became pregnant again. But when our son Will was delivered at full term, we thought we could finally relax. Born at a whopping 10 lb, Will seemed...
Studies Reveal that Hormonal Factors Influence Lung Cancer Risk in Women
In an effort to understand lung cancer risk factors and develop prevention strategies for the disease, Christina S. Baik, MD, MPH, thoracic oncologist and staff scientist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, has examined epidemiologic trends in lung...
First Genomic-based Pediatric Trials Launched in Neuroblastoma
Last November, Dell announced it was donating an initial $4 million including cloud-computing technology to speed up development of personalized medicine trials for children with neuroblastoma and other pediatric cancers. According to the American Cancer Society, about 650 children under the age of ...
Expert Point of View: U.S. Perspective
“The practice of rebiopsy at relapse and metastasis is becoming increasingly common in the United States,” said Hope Rugo, MD, Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. “More than 20% of patients have differing results from the primary tumor to rebiopsy at disease progression. It ...
Changes in Receptor Status during Breast Cancer Progression Warrant Rebiopsies at Relapse and Metastasis
Oncologists should be aware that common clinical tumor markers (denoting hormonal and HER2 status) change as breast cancer progresses, because these changes can affect treatment selection. Estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and HER2 receptor status was changed from the time of the...
Single-agent Lapatinib Arm Discontinued in ALTTO
The Adjuvant Lapatinib and/or Trastuzumab Treatment Optimization (ALTTO) study, which is evaluating various anti-HER2 therapy approaches in breast cancer, has discontinued the single-agent lapatinib (Tykerb) arm, according to study sponsor GlaxoSmithKline. Following a preplanned interim analysis...
Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy or Surgery First: Outcome Not Affected
Chemotherapy can be delivered before breast-conserving therapy or after surgery, without influencing long-term local-regional recurrence, a large study from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center confirmed. The data were presented at the 2011 Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco.1 “A ...
Acupuncture Continues to Secure Position within Integrative Oncology
More than 14 years after an NIH Consensus Panel finding of “efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting,” an informal show-of-hands poll at the Eighth International Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) Conference indicated acupuncture was not yet fully...
NIH Director Calls for Rigorous Evaluation of Integrative Medicine to Provide Evidence of Efficacy
“Many new frontiers exist in integrative medicine,” NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, stated in his keynote address at the Eighth International Conference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) in Cleveland. “The evidence is overwhelming that these approaches are being used by many...
‘New Science, New Solutions’ Explored at Society for Integrative Oncology Conference
“Innovating Integrative Oncology: New Science, New Solutions” was the title of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) Eighth International Conference. Topics ranged from molecular biology to mitigation of treatment toxicity to mind-body medicine. A total of 505 people attended the conference,...
NIH Panel Endorses Active Surveillance in Low-risk Prostate Cancer
Active surveillance of localized prostate cancer is a viable management option that should be offered to low-risk patients in place of immediate treatment, said a panel of experts convened by the National Institutes of Health. A fairly new concept, active surveillance takes a more proactive...
Resection of Metastatic Lesions Extends Survival in Multiple Tumor Types
Surgical oncologists urged other cancer providers to appreciate the potentially curative role that surgery can play in the management of many stage IV solid tumors, in a session during the American College of Surgeons 97th Annual Clinical Congress in San Francisco. Pulmonary Metastases Stephen G....
Oncology Research a Strong Presence at the American College of Surgeons Meeting: New Data in Pancreatic, Rectal, Thyroid, and Breast Cancers
Research in cancer staging, surgical procedures, outcomes, and medical treatment was included among the 2,000 abstracts presented at the 97th Annual American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress in San Francisco. The ASCO Post was there to capture the latest findings. Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in...
Gene Classifier Spots Different Recurrence Patterns in Patients with ER-positive Breast Cancer
A new gene classifier differentiates between women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer who go on to develop metastases early vs late, possibly paving the way for tailored adjuvant therapy. Using pretreatment tumor biopsies, a team led by Minetta C. Liu, MD, of the Georgetown...
Bevacizumab Breast Cancer Indication Rescinded: What Are the Downstream Implications?
Leading up to FDA’s resolution to revoke the breast cancer indication for bevacizumab (Avastin), the debate over the drug’s clinical value was imbued with contentious ideologic overtones, which culminated in a 2-day public hearing that exposed deep divisions not only in the scientific community,...
SIDEBAR: Expect Questions from Your Patients
When patients and family members have concerns about depression, they often bring them up with the staff, not with the treating oncologist. “I think that people with cancer don’t want to distract their medical oncologist or their surgeon by talking about their mood,” Dr. Massie noted. “Some people ...
Depression Is Dangerous among Patients with Cancer, but Talking and Pharmacologic Treatments Can Be Effective
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. “Depression is a very dangerous...
ASCO Membership Categories Offer a Place for Everyone
If your work touches those who have cancer, you have a place within ASCO. That’s the message that the organization, during its 48 years, has gotten across in many ways, not the least of which is its membership categories, which have expanded right along with the field of cancer care. “ASCO is...
I Never Expected to Get Lung Cancer
When intermittent chest pains sent me to the emergency room nearly a decade ago, I worried that I was having some kind of cardiac event. The ER doctor wanted to make sure that I didn’t have a pulmonary embolism, so in addition to ordering a complete cardiac workup, she also ordered a chest x-ray to ...
Ablation of Small Primary Breast Tumors: The Next Step in Local Therapy?
Local treatment of breast cancer is trending toward less invasive procedures that achieve comparable outcomes to standard interventions. What will the next step along this continuum be? According to Michael S. Sabel, MD, a surgical oncologist at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer...
Study Questions Use of Partial Breast Brachytherapy in Older Women
Partial breast brachytherapy is less effective and more toxic than whole-breast irradiation when used after lumpectomy, suggests an analysis of Medicare claims data. In the 2000–2007 study of more than 130,000 older women with breast cancer—the largest of its kind to date—the rate of mastectomy in...
AVEREL Trial Shows Benefit of Bevacizumab in HER2-positive Locally Recurrent or Metastatic Breast Cancer
In findings likely to intensify the debate about the role of bevacizumab (Avastin) in advanced breast cancer, the AVEREL trial concludes that adding this antiangiogenic antibody to standard therapy prolongs progression-free survival by about 3 months in women with HER2-positive locally recurrent...
Expert Point of View: Next-generation Proteasome Inhibitors Will Improve Outcomes in Bortezomib-refractory Myeloma Patients
Myeloma experts agree that the new proteosome inhibitors are particularly welcome because they are at least as effective as bortezomib (Velcade) but produce much less neuropathy. Dramatic Results “The activity of MLN 9708 is very encouraging,” said Paul G. Richardson, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer...
A Second Chance for Gemtuzumab in Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Gemtuzumab ozogamicin (Mylotarg) may have a second chance for regulatory acceptance, as studies presented at ASH 2011 demonstrated that gemtuzumab can be safely and effectively given by adjusting the dosing and treatment schedule. Gemtuzumab ozogamicin was approved for the treatment of acute...
Three Novel Agents Show Promise in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
Susan O’Brien, MD, Professor in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, has a special interest in novel developments in the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). At the 2011 ASH Annual Meeting, she discussed her picks of top newsmakers in ...
Expert Point of View #2: Can Molecular Profiling Identify ER-positive Patients Destined for Relapse?
Understanding the different relapse patterns within estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer is important for guiding treatment decisions, said Laura Esserman, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, Medical Center. Women who fall into the two separate categories may have different ...
Can Molecular Profiling Identify ER-positive Patients Destined for Relapse?
Estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer often recurs years after the initial diagnosis, and understanding the patterns of timing regarding relapse could identify patients needing more aggressive treatment. At the 2011 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, several investigative teams reported...
Expert Point of View: Bevacizumab Progression-free Survival Benefit Upheld in AVEREL Trial
Modest benefit reported from AVEREL1 triggered comments among trialists about the future of bevacizumab (Avastin) in breast cancer. “Although there’s controversy about the recent revoking of FDA approval of bevacizumab for metastatic breast cancer, I think there is a consensus in our disappointment ...
A Patient with Cancer Saw a Need and Left a Living Legacy
It is well documented that the rigors of delivering cancer care can unintentionally supersede valuable doctor-patient communication. Before he died in 1995, Kenneth B. Schwartz, a patient with cancer at Massachusetts General Hospital, recognized this phenomenon and founded the Kenneth B. Schwartz...
Expert Point of View: Peripheral Blood or Bone Marrow as Unrelated Donor Stem Cell Source
This large randomized, controlled trial took a lot of time and extensive resources, and yet survival was the same between the two types of unrelated donor transplant sources, noted Stephanie J. Lee, MD, Professor of Medicine at Washington University and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. ...
Career Development Award Recipient Susan K. Parsons, MD, Supports Next Generation of Researchers
Like all pediatric oncologists, Susan K. Parsons, MD, MRP, knows that when a child is diagnosed with cancer, it happens to the whole family. Siblings must cope with everything from disruption of routine to reduced parental attention, to the often-new possibility of mortality. Parents must navigate...
SWOG S0226 Findings Revive Interest in Combination Hormonal Therapy
Two hormonal therapies combined are more efficacious than one when used as first-line treatment for hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer in postmenopausal women, finds Southwest Oncology Group trial S0226. Results of the phase III trial, reported at the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio...
Lung Cancer Alliance Announces National Framework for Lung Cancer Screening Excellence
The Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) moved lung cancer screening to a national platform by announcing a Framework for Lung Cancer Screening Excellence, which includes a bill of rights for the at-risk public and guiding principles for lung cancer screening sites. “The science is indisputable: Screening...
Surviving Cancer Means Making Many Difficult Decisions
The best advice I received after getting a diagnosis of stage I invasive lobular carcinoma in my left breast was from my radiologist, who told me, “Remember, be your own best advocate.” Those words have stayed with me through my 6-year struggle with breast cancer and its aftermath. Extraordinary...
Some Patients Using Complementary and Alternative Therapies May Be Receiving ‘Parallel’ Rather Than Integrative Care
Most patients with cancer receiving complementary and alternative medicine do so not as part of integrative care, but rather as “parallel care,” according to Lynda Balneaves, RN, PhD, Associate Professor, University of British Columbia, School of Nursing in Vancouver. Dr. Balneaves is lead...
AACR Urges Congress to Maintain, Preferably Increase, Cancer Research Funding
December 23, 2011, marked the 40th anniversary of the National Cancer Act. To mark that occasion, on February 2, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) held a Congressional briefing, attended by about 100 legislative aides, to remind Congress that the war on cancer is far from over....
