The Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium, held October 9–10, 2015, in Boston, Massachusetts, brought together more than 670 members of the cancer care community, including oncologists, radiologists, palliative care specialists, nurses, and patient advocates. Sessions delivered information on...
Patients who received chemotherapy after surgical resection of pancreatic cancer have fewer distant disease recurrences and longer overall survival than those who also had adjuvant chemoradiation therapy. While a course of radiotherapy in addition to chemotherapy and a cancer operation reduced the...
Nova Southeastern University (NSU), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, announced the appointment of Johannes W. Vieweg, MD, FACS, as Founding Dean of NSU’s College of Allopathic Medicine. The new college is aiming to welcome its first class of MD candidates in 2018, subject to achieving accreditation. Dr....
Patients with throat cancer exposed to both human papillomavirus (HPV) and tobacco smoke demonstrate a pattern of mutations along several key cancer genes, according to research presented by Zevallos et al at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium (Abstract 1). These distinct...
Bookmark Title: The Death of Cancer: After Fifty Years on the Front Lines of Medicine, a Pioneering Oncologist Reveals Why the War on Cancer Is Winnable—and How We Can Get There Authors: Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, MD, and Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publication date:...
A 70-year-old female patient underwent a cardiac procedure to repair her mitral valve, and at the same time, she also underwent a coronary artery bypass grafting. She had an uneventful course for the first four postoperative days. On the sixth postoperative day, she started complaining of abdominal ...
Ismail Jatoi, MD, PhD, FACS, and Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACS, discuss the role of ovarian suppression and hormonal therapy in premenopausal women.
Ismail Jatoi, MD, PhD, FACS, of the University of Texas Health Science Center and Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute discuss the increasing movement away from breast conservation toward bilateral surgical procedures.
Through the Lens of Oncology History 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...
The ASCO Post is pleased to introduce this special focus on the worldwide cancer burden, beginning in this issue with a close look at the cancer incidence and mortality rates in the United States. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the...
Many breast cancer–focused meetings and conferences are held each year, but the Breast Cancer Symposium, which takes place this year in San Francisco, September 8–11, is one of the few that takes an interdisciplinary approach to delivering practical, how-to clinical information for attendees from...
Over the past 15 years, practice guidelines have become an accepted tool to help physicians optimize patient care by offering informed assessment of the benefits and potential harms associated with various care options. However, a plethora of new guidelines have entered the market, many of which...
The health of Americans, the economy, the debt crisis, and the action or inaction in Washington are all seriously interrelated. Decades ago, the bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he robs banks. His famous answer, “Because that’s where the money is,” succinctly describes the approach that...
Like a breeze rippling across a lake, the end of your career is approaching and you cannot escape its path. You can see it coming, and before you know it the inexorable movement will rush past you. You have two choices: Build a sail so that you can capture the energy and move with it, or remain...
The editors gratefully acknowledge all contributors to The ASCO Post and thank the columnists who contributed to Volume 2, January–December 2011: Al B. Benson III, MD, FACP Richard Boxer, MD, FACS Carlton G. Brown, RN, PhD, AOCN Barrie R. Cassileth, PhD E. David Crawford, MD Emil J. Freireich, MD, ...
The electronic health record system offered by vendors is more like a filing cabinet, not the sophisticated, interactive database needed by busy oncologists, according to Kevin S. Hughes, MD, FACS, Co-Director, Avon Comprehensive Breast Evaluation Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, who...
A sizable proportion of bladder cancer patients who would benefit from neoadjuvant chemotherapy are not receiving it, researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, concluded. Their conclusion was based on their assessment of the neutrophil/lymphocyte...
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...
Mortality rates for breast cancer have declined steadily in the United States since 1990, resulting in an improvement in survival. Multiple factors have contributed to this positive trend, one of which is the combination of earlier detection and more sophisticated surgical techniques. The ASCO Post ...
There is no greater professional satisfaction than the knowledge that you have cared for a patient and the care brought an improvement in the patient's health. Regardless of the level of appreciation, whether the patient is cured or not, and even if the patient's sense of well-being may be...
Designer T cells are modified from normal T cells to express specific immune receptors that allow them, via antibody-directed recognition or other mechanisms, to kill malignant cells bearing particular antigens. The Surgical Immunotherapy Lab at the Roger Williams Medical Center, Providence, Rhode...
Over 1,300 breast surgeons attended the 13th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons, held May 2–6 in Phoenix. Presentations included investigations on recurrence after lumpectomy, gender differences in breast cancer, and the potential role of infrared thermography in diagnosing...
As the world’s most common cancer among women, and the most likely reason around the globe that a woman will die of cancer, breast cancer affects countries at all economic levels. Despite the common misconception that breast cancer is primarily a problem of high-income countries, the majority of...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently issued a recommendation statement advising against the use of prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-based testing for prostate cancer,1 leaving many in the oncology community concerned that decades of clinical progress will be stalled, and setting ...
Upon graduation from medical school, doctors are given a gift that lasts a lifetime—the gift of respect. That respect needs to be re-earned every day, but it is accompanied by other rewards that come with caring for people: the ability to gain another’s trust, to reverse illness that alters the...
Upon graduation from medical school, doctors are given a gift that lasts a lifetime—the gift of respect. That respect needs to be re-earned every day, but it is accompanied by other rewards that come with caring for people: the ability to gain another’s trust, to reverse illness that alters the...
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) recently announced the names of 70 new members and 10 foreign associates during its 42nd Annual Meeting, in Washington, DC. Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have...
Although patients may feel anxious waiting weeks from the time of their first doctor visit to evaluate their breast until they have breast cancer surgery, new findings from Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia show that these waits are typical in the United States. Results were published...
Two new physicians have joined a growing team of cancer experts at Carolinas HealthCare System’s Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina. Joshua S. Hill, MD, surgical oncologist, joins Levine Cancer Institute after completing a fellowship in surgical oncology at The University of Texas ...
The accountable care organization was introduced into our lexicon during a public meeting of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission in 2006, and the term became ubiquitous when it was specified in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. After the November 6 election, accountable...
The 21-gene recurrence score significantly predicted the risk of recurrence and death in node-positive, estrogen receptor–positive patients treated with adjuvant chemoendocrine therapy, but it did not predict benefit from the addition of paclitaxel to the regimen in a subset of patients from the...
George Salti, MD, FACS, Surgical Oncologist and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has joined the Edward Cancer Center in Naperville, Illinois. Dr. Salti will serve as the Co-Medical Director of the Edward Cancer Center and Medical Director of the Edward...
Charles M. Balch, MD, FACS, PhD (hc), was born in Milford, Delaware, where his father was a research chemist for DuPont during World War II. “My father was part of the team that developed rayon for parachutes. It was a top priority program because they couldn’t get nylon from the Philippines. After ...
The ASCO Post is pleased to present this special anniversary issue in recognition of the publication’s 4th year serving the oncology community. We hope you enjoy this commemorative supplement profiling several of the many leaders in the oncology community. In coming issues of The ASCO Post and in...
The American medical education system was in a state of crisis in 1910 when Abraham Flexner published his treatise, Report on Medical Education in the United States and Canada (Carnegie Foundation Bulletin Number Four).1 A century later, we face another crisis in medical education—not in terms of...
Richard I. Fisher, MD, has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Dr. Fisher will also hold the title of Cancer Center Director of Fox Chase, serving as the Principal Investigator on the Cancer Center Support Grant from the National Cancer...
Partners for Cancer Care and Prevention holds that early detection and high-quality treatment of breast and cervical cancer save lives. The organization exists to build community capacity for the creation of high-quality, holistic breast and cervical health programs managed by the local health...
The International Agency for Research on Cancer developed the GLOBOCAN project to provide contemporary estimates of the incidence of, mortality, prevalence, and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from major type of cancers, at national level, for 184 countries of the world. For more...
According to a report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s GLOBOCAN project, one woman dies every minute from breast cancer and one woman dies every 2 minutes from cervical cancer.1 The majority of these deaths occur in developing countries, where access to health care is limited ...
The overuse of imaging in oncology workup and surveillance is a timely concern, as health-care dollars shrink and the risk for second malignancies becomes clearer. At this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting, several studies showed that although many routine imaging studies may be unnecessary, physicians...
Reminiscing about his 65 years in medicine, LaSalle Doheny Leffall, Jr, MD, FACS, cites three events in his early childhood that would ultimately lead him to his position today as the Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, DC. First, he was...
It was 1:00 AM, and my beeping pager awakened me. When you’re a surgical oncologist, you know that a page from your chief resident at this hour of the morning usually means someone may need to go to the operating room. And, yes, it was the chief resident about a patient in crisis. Except in this...
I read the essay by Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, FRCS, FACS, published recently in The ASCO Post and found it both thoughtful and compelling (“A Great Privilege to Die Beneath an Open Sky,” The ASCO Post, September 15, 2013, page 1). Dr. Are made one statement with which I take exception, however, and...
David W. Chang, MD, FACS, an authority on the surgical treatment of lymphedema, was recently appointed Professor of Plastic Surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine. Dr. Chang has played a key role in introducing the procedure known as lymphaticovenular bypass, a novel treatment for...
The primacy of science and the overwhelming belief in medical research by the American people has sustained the research community and improved quality of life roughly since the turn of the 20th century. Almost without exception, the American people have voted for politicians who promise improved...
Is more care better care? It is often said, by Americans, that the United States has the best care in the world. However, there are many population-based statistics that do not support that humble opinion. We certainly spend more money than any other nation by far. In fact, we may spend more money ...
Trebananib, an investigational antiangiogenesis inhibitor with a different mechanism of action than bevacizumab (Avastin), significantly improved progression-free survival in recurrent platinum-resistant and partially platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer in the phase III TRINOVA-1 trial. The addition...
A 72-year-old, obese male patient and a poor operative candidate is diagnosed with esophageal carcinoma. He has multiple comorbidities and a past history of colon carcinoma. His staging workup, which included a colonoscopy, revealed recurrent colon carcinoma. Thus, we have a patient who we...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology has announced the four recipients of the inaugural 2014 International Innovation Grant, which is a new program that underscores the Foundation’s continued commitment to improving the care of patients worldwide. The 1-year...
Ornish et al at the University of California in San Francisco and the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, performed a 5-year study1 including 35 men on active surveillance (10 in a lifestyle-intervention group and 25 in a control group) with low-risk prostate cancer....