High-throughput sequencing of T-cell receptors may be a solution to some of the challenges confronting oncologists who treat cutaneous T-cell lymphomas. According to experts who presented talks on high-throughput sequencing of T-cell receptors at the 3rd World Congress of Cutaneous Lymphoma...
Elizabeth Lesser is an award-winning writer and co-founder of the Omega Institute, the largest adult education center in the United States focusing on health, wellness, spirituality, and creativity. She is the author of several acclaimed books including Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help...
Perhaps more than any other book in recent memory, When Breath Becomes Air has struck a chord among readers, both inside the medical community and among the public, desiring an honest and philosophical consideration of death. The autobiographical account of Paul Kalanithi, MD, a physician diagnosed ...
Nivolumab (Opdivo) maintains function and reduces symptoms in treatment of relapsed metastatic head and neck cancer, according to results from the CheckMate 141 trial presented by Harrington et al at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress in Copenhagen, Denmark (Abstract...
The release of a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Safety Communication “alerting women about the risks associated with the use of tests being marketed as ovarian cancer screening tests”1 and recommending against using these tests comes not as a result of startling new studies, but from an...
An international leader in harnessing a patient’s own stem cells to fight cancer and autoimmune diseases joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin (UW) Carbone Cancer Center on September 1. Jacques Galipeau, MD, FRCP(C), came from the Winship Cancer Center at Emory University, where he...
Caregivers of patients with cancer provide invaluable health-care services, but they are an underserved and undervalued group, with many unmet needs. Early palliative care may provide important benefits to these often tireless individuals, according to J. Nicholas Dionne-Odom, PhD, RN, ACHPN, of...
A session at the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium focused on the special needs of cancer caregivers. In a large survey, caregivers of persons with cancer reported higher levels of stress and significantly more duties than caregivers of other patients. But, according to research from...
Medical students and practicing pediatricians in Uganda and other East African countries lack access to specialty pediatric training and education in oncology and hematology in their region, despite the need for doctors to provide care for patients with cancer and blood disorders. A new program of...
When it comes to pediatric cancer, there are so many signs of hope, starting with the fact that the childhood cancer 5-year survival rate has climbed all the way up to 83%. But while we celebrate the victories of all these children over cancer, little is known about the long-term health effects,...
A new study1 showing that just 1 in 20 terminally ill patients with cancer has sufficient understanding about the prognosis or purpose of treatment is highlighting the need for improvements in both the way oncologists communicate prognosis with their patients and in the development of educational...
Music therapy, an established adjuvant to standard cancer care, is offered in a growing number of cancer centers throughout the United States and internationally. Defined by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) as “the evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individual...
In 2012, my husband, Robert, and I were looking forward to starting the next phase of our lives and were feeling excited about the future. Although only in our 50s, we had decided to retire early from our full-time careers, move to our cabin in Hayward, Wisconsin, and find less stressful part-time ...
According to William C. McGaghie, PhD, Professor of Medical Education and Professor of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, the principles of today’s clinical medical education are rooted in a 19th century model that is no longer useful in a...
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) published its landmark report “The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding,” which recognized the scarcity of research in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals and the...
An analysis of data from more than 1,200 caregivers in the United States finds that cancer caregivers report a higher burden and spend significantly more hours per week caregiving, as opposed to individuals who care for people with other conditions. The analysis was based on survey data from the...
After the Vietnam War, close to a million refugees, known as “boat people,” fled Vietnam, hazarding the open ocean on dangerously overloaded vessels. The term “boat people” is often used generically to refer to all the Vietnamese (about 2 million) who left their country by any means between 1975...
Tumor shrinkage is not the only measure of a successful anticancer therapy. A University of Colorado Cancer Center article published by Serkova et al in Frontiers in Oncology describes a promising alternative: metabolic imaging. Tumors rush their metabolism to grow and proliferate. By recognizing a ...
At the 2015 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium in Boston, Vicki Jackson, MD, MPH, Chief in the Division of Palliative Care and Geriatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, Co-Director of the Harvard Center for Palliative Care, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School,...
Chemotherapy- and radiotherapy-induced gastrointestinal (GI) toxicities have risen alongside improved survival rates for many cancers, according to Jervoise Andreyev, MA, PhD, Consultant Gastroenterologist in GI Consequences of Cancer Treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. “For every...
Not only is breast cancer more than one disease, but a single breast cancer tumor can vary within itself, a finding that University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) researchers discovered has the potential to lead to very different patient treatment plans depending on the tumor sample and...
The U.S. health-care system is a $3 trillion behemoth of dizzying complexity. Government oversight, ever-changing regulations, mountains of paperwork, electronic health records, initiative after initiative, and so forth, all of which has reshaped the delivery of care, for the good and bad. But...
In support of the President’s Precision Medicine Initiative, on July 6, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued two draft guidances that, when finalized, will provide a flexible and streamlined approach to the oversight of tests that detect medically important differences in a...
Seven years ago, at age 44, I was the picture of health. I played tennis every day, went bike riding and lifted weights several times a week, and made sure I ate a healthy diet. The closest I had ever come to cancer was caring for my mother during her 2-year illness with esophageal cancer. As it...
The study statistics are alarming—and perplexing. According to an analysis of data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) colorectal cancer registry, colon cancer incidence among young adults aged 20 to 34 is expected to increase 90% by 2030, and the incidence of rectosigmoid...
Curtis Pesmen is a well-regarded writer who has authored six books of nonfiction as well as numerous articles for publications such as Esquire and The New York Times. He also has served as founding editor of LIVESTRONG Quarterly and often speaks and writes on patient advocacy. Shortly after...
Readers of the recently published memoir A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles: A True Story of Love, Science, and Cancer find out that the book has a happy ending on the cover page of chapter 1. Spoiler: I lived, writes the author, Mary Elizabeth Williams, an acclaimed journalist with a list...
In his new book, Sharks Get Cancer, Mole Rats Don’t: How Animals Could Hold the Key to Unlocking Cancer Immunity in Humans, James S. Welsh, MD, examines a wide array of animal and human biologic phenomena, searching for clues that might help us unlock the full power of the human immune system....
CancerLinQ LLC, recently announced that it has completed agreements with 36 vanguard oncology practices from around the country to begin implementing the tool. According to physicians at the vanguard practices, gaining access to the experience of oncology practices across the country motivated...
One billion lives. That is the estimated human death toll of tobacco use in the 21st century.1 Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide—20% of all deaths and 30% of cancer deaths in the United States are linked to tobacco use.2,3 Impacting this preventable public health...
Dense breasts are not an automatic indication for additional imaging. Instead, breast density generally provides an opportunity for improved risk assessment, according to Kevin Hughes, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. “More than 20 states have mandated that women be informed of...
My experience with cancer, or more accurately, cancers, is complicated. In 2002, after returning from a medical mission to Honduras, I noticed a bean-sized lymph node above my left clavicle. As an oncology-certified nurse, I knew not to ignore any unusual nodules that pop up on the body and asked...
There were once two patients with leukemia. Other than their diagnoses and their ages, these two men had nothing in common. Meet Michael Michael was an artist—a sculptor. He had large, sensitive, blue eyes and a quiet, pensive manner. His acute observational power led him to ponder deep questions...
Value framework tools made a splash in 2015, with five different groups unveiling methods to help physicians and patients compare therapies based on efficacy, toxicity, and/or cost. Now these potential users are beginning to examine and debate the tools, including how and whether they will work in...
An analysis of health claims data from 2007–2014 on more than 28,000 patients under the age of 65 found that a large proportion of patients with advanced solid tumors received at least one form of aggressive care within the last 30 days of life. The study was presented by Chen et al at...
Leonard Saltz, MD, was born in New York, New York, and reared in Westchester County, in the suburbs of the City. Terrance Archer, his high-school biology teacher, whom Dr. Saltz described as a “force of nature,” a wonderful human being, and a major role model, influenced his nascent curiosity in...
It is widely reported that the first use of sargramostim (Leukine) in humans (granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor; GM-CSF) was to treat victims of the Goiânia, Brazil, radiation accident in 1987. However, recently declassified documents show that sargramostim was first used a year...
Christine H. Chung, MD, Chair of the Department of Head and Neck-Endocrine Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, was born and reared in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Dr. Chung immigrated with her mother and two brothers to Los Angeles, where her family then resided. Dr. Chung did not speak ...
ASCO President-Elect Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, was born in Shelbyville, Indiana, a small city in the center of the state. “My dream was to become a high school basketball and track and field coach; my older brother wanted to be a doctor, and his ambitions also began in first grade,” revealed Dr....
Choosing a career path is one of life’s most challenging decisions, but for Allen S. Lichter, MD, FASCO, deciding to become a doctor was inherently natural. He was born with a great mentor and role model: his father. “I was born and raised in Detroit. My father was a general practitioner in...
This year, an estimated 180,890 men in the United States will be diagnosed with prostate cancer; about 21,120 men die of the disease each year. On top of these sobering statistics, from screening to diagnosis and treatment, prostate cancer is fraught with controversy, creating untoward anxiety...
The “collateral damage” of cancer treatment is a topic that is familiar to Susan Love, MD, MBA. As a breast cancer surgeon and chief visionary officer of Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation, she has learned much about the consequences of cancer treatment. But she came by an important aspect of her...
“This was a difficult study to conduct. It required 13 centers in 8 countries over 3 years to recruit these patients—that’s about 1 patient per site per year,” said Mayer Fishman, MD, PhD, of Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. “It’s an important study, because these patients are typically...
When Waun Ki Hong, MD, and his pregnant wife, Mihwa, made the journey from Korea to Manhattan in 1970, he had just $451 in his wallet, and the only job he could get was as an intern in Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center, a community hospital in the Bronx. The work was grueling—24-hour shifts every 2...
When Evelyn H. Lauder was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1989, she became a vocal spokesperson for women’s health, and in 1993, along with Larry Norton, MD, now Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Breast Cancer Programs and Medical Director of the Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center at Memorial Sloan...
“When we treat our patients, overall survival is the gold standard. We are all waiting for phase III overall survival data from CheckMate 067,” said formal discussant Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, Professor; Scientific Director of the Immunotherapy Platform; and Co-Director of the Parker Institute for ...
BookmarkTitle: Dying: A TransitionAuthor: Monika Renz, PhD; translated by Mark Kyburz and John PeckPublisher: Columbia University PressPublication date: October 2015Price: $38.00; hardcover, 176 pages The night before Julius Caesar was assassinated, he had dinner with his friend Marcus...
Women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and had contralateral prophylactic mastectomy had only marginal improvement in psychosocial well-being, such as feeling confident and emotionally healthy, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 Those who also had breast...
“In order to take advantage of today’s advancements in science, drug development, and patient treatment, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) structure needs reorganization to focus its resources and ensure the best outcomes for patients. Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) proposes...
I was the last one on the oncology team to meet Mel. He was 36 years old, and by then Mel had been living with metastatic colon cancer for several years. During that time, his clinicians had never referred him to our psycho-oncology team because of his strong attitude and outlook. Mel’s outward...