Even though cancer rates continue to fall in older populations, the disease is becoming ever more common among younger age groups. A recent analysis of data from 13 cancer registries in the United States published by Rosenberg et al in JAMA Network Open found that those born between 1965 and 1980...
I first met Lyn Denny, MD, PhD, in Ghana, in 2004, when she became the Secretary Treasurer of AORTIC and brought the organization back to life. We’ve been friends ever since. I equate Lyn’s unwavering dedication to bringing health equity to women in Africa to Nelson Mandela’s fight for social...
The global oncology and public health communities are mourning the death of Lynette Ann Denny, MD, PhD, a world-renowned gynecologic oncologist and a leading researcher in the prevention of cervical cancer in low-resource settings. Dr. Denny died on June 9, 2024, in Cape Town, South Africa, of...
Research has consistently shown that Native American and Alaska Native individuals are among the most underserved minority populations in the United States and are disproportionately affected by cancer. The results from a 50-year report by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium’s Alaska Native...
On May 30, 2017, 9 days before I turned 19 and soon after I had completed my sophomore year at college, I was diagnosed with aggressive acute lymphoblastic leukemia. But getting to the diagnosis was a tortuous process. I had been feeling fatigued and losing weight for several weeks prior to the...
In 2002, the federally funded Women’s Health Initiative (WHI),1 a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial investigating menopausal hormone therapy for healthy menopausal women, was abruptly halted when it was determined that taking estrogen and progestin hormones after menopause increased the ...
Research examining fertility and attempts at pregnancy among young women after a breast cancer diagnosis has been hampered by short-term follow-up and a lack of prospective assessment of pregnancy attempts. However, a long-term study investigating fertility outcomes among young women who reported...
In 1992, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instituted the Accelerated Approval regulations, which allow drugs that treat serious conditions, including cancer, and fill an unmet need to be approved early based on a surrogate endpoint.1 However, any drug approved under this pathway is still ...
The results from a phase Ib/II study of a five-drug regimen of venetoclax, ibrutinib, prednisone, obinutuzumab, and lenalidomide (ViPOR) in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) show the treatment produced durable remissions in patients with specific molecular...
Although improvements in the early detection and treatment of cancer have reduced cancer-related mortality rates and increased the number of cancer survivors in the United States to over 18 million, not all patients with the disease are benefiting from these advances. A recent study investigated...
Juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML) is a rare and aggressive hematologic malignancy affecting young children predominately under the age of 4. The disease is caused by mutations that increase RAS signaling output. While about 50% of patients with JMML are cured after undergoing hematopoietic...
Despite urgings from my primary care physician to get a colonoscopy screening after I turned 50, I resisted. As a health-care provider, and someone who is tuned into changes in my body, I thought I would instinctively know if I had a serious illness. I was wrong. Even after finally relenting to at...
When Jamie H. Von Roenn, MD, FASCO, graduated from high school in 1970 and enrolled at the University of Illinois in Champaign, she was determined to seek a career in special education, because she wanted to “help people through difficult situations.” Although Dr. Von Roenn ultimately decided to...
Several years ago, a visit to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, so fascinated and inspired Mace L. Rothenberg, MD, FASCO, about the history of flight, he wondered why there was not a similar museum showcasing the past and present achievements in science and medicine. The result...
Although advancements in the treatment of classical Hodgkin lymphoma have increased the 5-year relative survival rate of patients with the disease to nearly 90%, dose-intensified treatment strategies may increase the risk for acute and long-term toxicities. The German Hodgkin Study Group (GHSG)...
The CROWN study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03052608) of lorlatinib, a brain-penetrant, third-generation ALK tyrosine kinase inhibitor, vs crizotinib, an inhibitor of receptor tyrosine kinases (including ALK), in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced ALK-positive non–small cell...
Over the past 2 decades, the development of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) targeting the ATP-binding site of the constitutively activated tyrosine kinase in the fusion BCR::ABL1 protein has resulted in markedly improved treatment outcomes among patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)....
The profound progress in cancer care since President Richard Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971 into law is evidenced by the soaring number of cancer survivors since the law went into effect. In the 1970s, there were 3 million cancer survivors1; today, there are more than 18 million, and...
Serving as ASCO’s 60th President over the past year has been an honor and a privilege, said Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, FASCO, who will end her Presidential term during ASCO’s Annual Meeting, being held from May 31 to June 4, 2024, in Chicago, and welcome incoming President Robin Zon, MD, FACP, FASCO,...
An ASCO volunteer for nearly 30 years, Robin T. Zon, MD, FACP, FASCO, is humbled and honored to be elected ASCO’s 61st President, effective during the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting, May 31 to June 4, 2024, in Chicago and online. Dr. Zon began her 4-year term in June 2023 as President-Elect and will...
About 3 years ago, I woke up from a sound sleep and was having a hard time breathing. It felt like someone was sitting on my neck, constricting my airways. I could feel prominent swelling in my lymph nodes along my neck and clavicle, and I was scared. A trip to the emergency room proved fruitless, ...
In 2002, the federally funded Women’s Health Initiative—a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial investigating the effects of menopausal hormone therapy in healthy menopausal women—was abruptly halted when it was determined that taking estrogen and progestin hormones after menopause...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine was introduced in the United States in 2006, HPV infections that cause most HPV-related cancers and genital warts have decreased by 88% among teenage girls and 81% among young adult women. Now, ...
Research examining fertility preservation and pregnancy attempts among young women following a breast cancer diagnosis has been hampered by short-term follow-up and a lack of prospective assessment of pregnancy attempts. A new long-term study investigating fertility outcomes among young women who...
When combined with high out-of-pocket costs for cancer care, nearly 60% of working-age cancer survivors report experiencing at least one type of financial hardship, including being unable to afford medical bills, distress and worry, or delaying or forgoing needed care because of cost, according to...
A longitudinal cohort study published by Gottschlich et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention investigated the optimal interval between screening tests and the long-term risk of cervical precancer or worse (CIN2+). Researchers found that the risk of cervical precancer 8 years after ...
Despite the extraordinary progress against cancer in the United States—illustrated by the continuing decline in the overall mortality rate, which fell by 33% between 1991 and 2020, and the increasing numbers of cancer survivors (over 18 million and climbing)—the burden of cancer remains...
Cancer is not an unfamiliar disease to me. My mother died of cancer when I was 12. My oldest sister died of breast cancer, an aunt died of cancer (I don’t know which type), and my older brother is a prostate cancer survivor. So, when I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October 2021, the news...
A recent survey by ASCO measuring postpandemic burnout among oncologists in the United States shows that professional satisfaction and work-life balance have significantly deteriorated over the past decade, with 59% of respondents reporting one or more symptoms of burnout, compared with 34% in...
Research shows that the average cost of medical care and drugs can top $42,000 in the first year following a cancer diagnosis, with the cost of some treatments, including chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, exceeding $1 million. For many cancer survivors, these costs can have a lingering...
A blood-based, machine learning assay that combines cell-free DNA (cfDNA) fragmentomes and protein biomarkers was able to differentiate patients with ovarian cancer from healthy controls at a high specificity of more than 99%, according to study results by Medina et al.1 It noninvasively recognized ...
My maternal grandmother, mother, and two of my mother’s sisters were all diagnosed with breast cancer when they were relatively young, so I figured one day, the disease would come for me. Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed among Alaska Native women,1 and at a very early age, my...
Ovarian cancer is the eighth most-common cancer among women globally, and the eighth most-common cause of death from cancer worldwide. In the United States alone, in 2023, there were nearly 20,000 new cases of the cancer, and about 13,270 deaths from the disease. Ovarian cancer is largely...
According to recent studies, the incidence of early-onset cancers—often defined as those diagnosed in individuals younger than age 50—is on the rise, and not just in the United States but globally as well. Research shows that between 1990 and 2019, the global incidence of early-onset cancer...
In 1992, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instituted its Accelerated Approval regulations, which allow drugs that treat serious conditions and fill an unmet need to be approved early based on a surrogate endpoint. However, any drug approved under this pathway is still required to undergo ...
Nearly 21,000 new cases of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are diagnosed each year in the United States, about 80% of which occur in individuals aged 60 years and older. The cancer has the highest mortality rate among the different types of leukemia, and, in 2024, it is predicted that about 11,220...
About 8 years ago, I was just a few years into menopause when I noticed blood in my urine. It wasn’t accompanied by pain, frequent urination, or any other troubling symptoms, so initially I wasn’t too concerned. But when I started passing pieces of tissue, I became alarmed and made an appointment...
In 1996, at the age of 37, Kathy Giusti was diagnosed with the incurable blood cancer multiple myeloma and told she had about 3 years to live. In the mid-1990s, effective therapies for this second most common blood cancer were nearly nonexistent. Standard of care for myeloma consisted of oral...
Except for my right thigh being bigger than my left thigh, there was no hint that I was harboring advanced alveolar soft-part sarcoma when I was diagnosed with the cancer in 2019. I initially chocked up the discrepancy in my legs to the vigorous workouts I had received during my cheerleading days,...
When Pat Garcia-Gonzalez’ stepson, Max, was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in 1988 at the age of 14, the Internet was still in its infancy and decades away from the networking resource it has become today. Told that Max would need an allogeneic stem cell transplant to survive, the...
For the third year in a row, more than 250 leaders in cancer care, including cancer center directors, physicians, scientists, ethicists, journalists, public officials, and patient advocates, gathered at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, to attend the...
My family first suspected we might have inherited the BRCA1/2 gene mutation after my father was diagnosed with his third cancer, colorectal cancer, following multiple bouts of squamous cell carcinoma and basal cell carcinoma beginning in his 30s and later prostate cancer. But the high risk of...
About 4 years ago, I [Jo Cavallo] wrote about the death of my brother Dom from multiple myeloma in 2011 and my subsequent enrollment in the PROMISE trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03689595). My goal for enrolling in the study was twofold: to honor Dom and others with the cancer and to make ...
Research shows that about half of adults near the end of life in the United States are too ill to participate in decisions about whether to accept life-prolonging treatment,1 requiring family members and other proxies to serve as surrogate decision-makers for their critically ill loved ones....
Studies have shown that millions of people in the United States are financially vulnerable because of low income, limited savings, or high levels of debt. In 2021, 32% of U.S. adults reported being unable to cover an unexpected expense of $400. A recent study by researchers at the American Cancer...
In September 2023, ASCO announced the establishment of its fourth regional council, the Central and Eastern European Regional Council, which includes representatives from 17 countries, with the goal of expanding ASCO’s mission globally to “conquer cancer through research, education, and promotion...
A prospective pilot study investigating the use of early fluorodeoxyglucose F-18 (FDG) positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with advanced melanoma has found that metabolic changes in melanoma metastases detected on early FDG PET/CT imaging are potentially predictive ...
The road to my breast cancer diagnosis in 2018 was long and tortuous. For 3 years leading up to the diagnosis, I had imaging scans and tissue biopsies every 3 months because of suspicious masses in my breasts. The uncertainty was so destabilizing that I was in a constant state of emotional unrest....
In May 2023, The ASCO Post launched a new feature, View From the Top: The Future of Cancer Care Delivery, which explores how leaders in oncology are developing strategies to ensure continued innovative oncology care in an ever-changing health-care environment. In this installment, Guest Editor Jame ...
Although overall cancer mortality has continued to decline, resulting in over 4 million fewer deaths in the United States since 1991, increasing incidence for 6 of the top 10 cancers pushed the projected number of new diagnoses to over 2 million (2,001,140) for the first time, according to the...