According to Srikala S. Sridhar, MD, MSc, FRCPC, of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, Toronto, Canada, “It’s an exciting time in the field of urothelial cancer,” thanks to the emergence of new therapies such as the immune checkpoint inhibitors and other approaches that aim to improve both...
ASCO President Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, released the following statement on June 8: ASCO congratulates Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, on the announcement of his continued service as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A renowned researcher and skilled administrator, Dr....
The National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded SWOG clinical trials program has added 3.34 million years of life for patients with cancer in the United States because of successful therapies that were validated through its trials. When analyzed, the investment for each year of life gained since the...
ASCO spokespersons at the press briefing lauded the results with larotrectinib and called for broader testing for tropomyosin receptor kinase fusions. The data for larotrectinib “bring us into a new era where treatment is truly based on mutation, not location,” said Sumanta Kumar Pal, MD, a...
Formal discussant of this paper, Allison Kurian, MD, MSc, of Stanford University School of Medicine, said: “I think these results are practice-changing. Toxicity and quality of life were better with olaparib [Lynparza].” Dr. Kurian noted that the study did not report correlative biomarkers for...
Nearly 1 in 2 Canadians is expected to be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime, according to a new report—Canadian Cancer Statistics 2017—released by the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) in partnership with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada. For males, the...
When patients with metastatic cancer used a Web-based tool to self-report symptoms proactively during treatment, they lived 5 months longer than did patients assigned to usual care. In addition, they had improved quality of life and fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations compared with...
Fifteen years ago, my internist advised me to lose weight. But after seeing the yo-yo effects of dieting on friends and colleagues, I knew I would find the process of losing weight and gaining it back frustrating, so I ignored my physician’s advice. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed late this past...
After undergoing nearly 5 years of intensive medical training, IBM’s Watson for Oncology cognitive computing system is starting to make good on its promise to accelerate personalized care for patients with cancer. The system has been trained by oncologists at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center ...
In both inpatient and outpatient medical settings, the physician-patient communication process can become more difficult as a disease progresses. Conflicts due to a misunderstanding of therapeutic goals and/or a patient’s values can slowly arise over time among patients, their surrogates, and...
MANY FACTORS can influence treatment decisions patients make concerning their cancer care. These include safety, efficacy, and cost, among other concerns. Recently, CancerCare, a national organization dedicated to providing assistance at no cost to anyone affected by cancer, established the...
Breast cancer surgeon Monica Morrow, MD, came from a town in the far northeast reaches of suburban Philadelphia. “I guess because there were only two girls in our family, I was the son my father never had, and he reared me that way. When we were playing catch, if I missed the ball and got hit in...
Three years ago, early results from the U.S. Intergroup C10403 trial,1 which evaluated the effectiveness of treating adolescent and young adults (AYAs) with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using an intensive pediatric regimen, showed significant improvement in event-free and overall survival...
IN AN EFFORT to find new strategies to personalize treatment for pediatric patients, Seattle Children’s Hospital has opened the first clinical trial applying next-generation T-cell receptor (TCR) sequencing and single-cell gene expression analysis to better understand how the immune system drives...
THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI) has awarded $24 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch) to continue operating the NCI’s primary public access point for cancer information in both English and Spanish. With the new contract, the Contact Center will emphasize clinical trial ...
A NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE (NCI)-funded training program in distress screening is being offered at no cost for competitively selected trainees in September 2017 at City of Hope, Duarte, California. Oncologists and other health-care professionals who are interested in learning how to successfully...
Neuroendocrine tumors are difficult to manage and unlikely to be cured, but researchers intend to slow progression of these tumors and aid survival by personalizing patient doses of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT), according to research presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the...
CancerCare has announced the establishment of the CancerCare Patient Values Initiative, a multipronged effort with an aim to reframe the national health-care policy dialogue so that it includes what is important to patients and their families. As the first step of this important project,...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) has issued a new clinical guideline for the use of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in early-stage lung cancer. While SBRT is the current standard of care for peripherally located tumors in patients who cannot undergo surgery, the new...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) has published its first set of consensus screening recommendations for children with common cancer predisposition syndromes in Clinical Cancer Research. These recommendations emerged from the Childhood Cancer Predisposition Workshop held by the...
The first analysis of nearly 19,000 de-identified genomic records from the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) international data-sharing initiative known as AACR Project Genomics Evidence Neoplasia Information Exchange (GENIE) was recently published in Cancer Discovery. In addition to ...
For an investment of $125 for each year of life gained since the 1950s, the National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded SWOG clinical trials program has added 3.34 million years of life for patients with cancer in the United States because of successful therapies that were proved through its trials....
Eight years ago, I was on top of the world. I had moved to Los Angeles, California, in 2007, from my home in Poços de Caldas, Brazil, to pursue my dream of launching a singing career in the United States, and was finally making progress. I had just completed composing songs for my debut album and...
BOOKMARK Title: What Patients Say, What Doctors HearAuthor: Danielle Ofri, MDPublisher: Beacon PressPublication date: February 2017Price: $24.95, hardcover, 288 pages Despite our scientific and medical advances, the single most important diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which is ...
In the phase III CA184-095trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Tomasz M. Beer, MD, FACP, of the Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, and colleagues found that ipilimumab (Yervoy) did not increase overall survival vs placebo in men with asymptomatic or...
Nearly 2,500 children in the United States are diagnosed with brain tumors each year, making these malignancies among the most common solid tumors in children and adolescents. Despite advances over the past few decades, the treatment of brain tumors remains one of the most challenging clinical...
Geriatrics for the Oncologist is guest edited by Stuart M. Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO, and developed in collaboration with the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG). Dr. Lichtman is an Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Commack, New York, and Professor of...
ASCO is very fortunate to have an active member base eager to volunteer, share expertise, and give back to the oncology community. Currently, more than 2,000 volunteers are engaged on ASCO committees, subcommittees, working groups, panels, task forces, editorial boards, and in various training...
Care for people who have survived or are living with cancer should acknowledge the heterogeneity of their needs and experiences and should reflect the same level of personalization that is now guiding active cancer therapy. At a time when more people are surviving cancer than ever before, new...
By including a planned gift to the Conquer Cancer Foundation in your estate plans, you can help make a dramatic difference for cancer patients years—even decades—into the future. With just one small change to your will or trust, your planned gift of any size will deliver a big impact, and: Your...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On May 10, 2017, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was granted accelerated...
Immunotherapy is a new treatment paradigm in recurrent metastatic head and neck cancer, according to Nabil F. Saba, MD. At a symposium hosted by the Winship Cancer Institute and Emory University—Updates in the Management of Head and Neck Cancer—Dr. Saba discussed current research and new...
Preliminary study results suggest that venetoclax (Venclexta) plus rituximab (Rituxan) is a highly active combination in relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), achieving durable responses and minimal residual disease negativity in previously treated patients. “The results of our...
In the past 10 years, we have made remarkable advances in how we fight cancer. One of the most powerful new tools in our arsenal is cancer immunotherapy, which reawakens our own immune system to produce stunning results for many suffering from advanced cancer. Immunotherapy saved President Jimmy...
As new treatment decision-making tools make their way toward and into the clinic, oncologists are getting a sense of how they may affect clinical practice—and beginning to look farther down the road. “What do you see ahead for clinicians?” asked Christian Downs, JD, Executive Director of the...
ASCO President Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO, released the following statement today: “ASCO congratulates Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, on the announcement of his continued service as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A renowned researcher and skilled administrator, Dr....
By adding an experimental drug to a standard chemotherapy regimen, a subset of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer had a significantly longer period before the cancer progressed as compared with those who received the standard treatment, according to a phase II clinical trial led by an...
Among patients with cancer, as many as 53% of emergency department visits that do not require admission could be avoided with better symptom management and greater availability of outpatient care tailored to their needs, according to a new study from Fred Hutchinson Cancer...
ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) Study continues to expand and now has more than 300 participants enrolled on study drug, more than 100 sites, new partnerships, and a revised protocol to lower the age of eligibility. “We are very pleased with the...
Xuesong Han, PhD, of the American Cancer Society, discusses the Affordable Care Act and her study findings showing how implementation of the law is associated with a shift to early-stage diagnosis for all screenable cancers except prostate cancer (likely due to Task Force recommendations against...
Findings from a phase III clinical trial of about 300 women may introduce poly ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors as a new type of treatment for breast cancer. Compared to standard chemotherapy, the oral targeted medicine olaparib (Lynparza) reduced the chance of progression of advanced,...
Findings from a retrospective study of 1,200 women provide reassurance to breast cancer survivors who are contemplating pregnancy. In the study, women who became pregnant after an early breast cancer diagnosis, including those with estrogen receptor–positive tumors, did not have a higher...
About 50% of all cancer survivors and 70% of young breast cancer survivors report a moderate to high fear of recurrence. The fear can be so distressing that it negatively affects medical follow-up behavior, mood, relationships, work, goal setting, and quality of life. Yet interventions to alleviate ...
Treatments for childhood cancer are often intense and carry the risk of lifelong health problems for survivors. An analysis of 23,600 childhood cancer survivors in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study (CCSS), funded by the National Institutes of Health, found that the rate of severe health problems...
After he was not accepted into the University of Hong Kong, plan B for W.K. Alfred Yung, MD, was to leave his country and immigrate to the United States to attend the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis—a move he considers more exile than choice. Born on April 8, 1948, in Hong Kong, Dr. Yung...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) recognized Mina J. Bissell, PhD, FAACR, with the 14th AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research during the 2017 AACR Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. The AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research was established in 2004 ...
Eric Paul Winer, MD, was born in Boston in 1956, a year when gasoline was 22 cents a gallon and IBM released the world’s first computer with a hard drive. His grandfather on his mother’s side had hemophilia and died 5 years before Dr. Winer was born. Although there was a 50% chance that Dr. Winer...
Bert Vogelstein, MD, was born on June 2, 1949, at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, the same renowned institution where he would later make his mark in the field of cancer genetics. As a young teen, he was an enthusiast and independent consumer of books, one of which helped shape...
Statement by 2016–2017 ASCO President Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FACP, FASCO: “The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) congratulates Scott Gottlieb, MD, on his confirmation as Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). With more than 1.7 million new cancer diagnoses made in...
Lori J. Pierce, MD, FASCO, FASTRO, grew up in Washington, DC, and moved with her family to Philadelphia while in high school. She still considers the fast-paced DC–Philadelphia corridor her home, but her passion for a career in medicine, in part, took seed in a small town located in North...