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Showing 5151 - 52002014 Oncology Meetings
JUNE National Coalition of Oncology Nurse Navigators 5th Annual Conference: Setting the Course for Improved Cancer CareJune 12-14 • Atlanta, Georgia For more information: www.nconnconference.com Targeting VEGF-mediated Tumor Angiogenesis in Cancer TherapyJune 19-20 • New York, New York For more...
Cancer Has Robbed Me of My Physical Beauty but Not My Inner Strength
I’ve been plagued with various ailments all my life. Physically and emotionally abused by my stepfather as a child, over the years I’ve developed severe psychological issues including depression and anxiety disorder. I am also in constant physical pain from cervical degenerative disc disease,...
A Proposal for Patient-Selected Controlled Trials: Good Science and Good Medicine
The Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee (CTAC) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) met for the 22nd time on March 12, 2014, in their ongoing effort to improve efficiency and effectiveness of cancer clinical trials. A significant portion of the meeting addressed lagging...
Bringing Palliative Care Services to Local Community Clinical Practices and Health Facilities Throughout the World
In 2007, the Billings Clinic Cancer Center in Billings, Montana, became one of 15 community-based oncology centers nationwide to receive funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to expand programs for clinical trials, health-care disparities outreach, survivorship and palliative care,...
Randomized Trials vs Meta-analyses: Which Is the Better Bet?
Two surgical oncology experts who squared off in a “Great Debate” at the 2014 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Annual Cancer Symposium in Phoenix. Heidi Nelson, MD, Professor of Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, argued for the superiority of randomized controlled trials in...
Margin Reassessment in Breast-Conservation Therapy
Significant progress has been made in local-regional and systemic treatments of breast cancer. Most patients currently diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States are diagnosed with early-stage disease and achieve excellent outcomes with breast-conservation therapy. Indeed, outcomes have...
ASCO Endorses SSO/ASTRO Guideline on Margins for Breast-Conserving Surgery With Whole-Breast Irradiation in Stage I/II Breast Cancer
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 ASCO has endorsed the recently published Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) consensus guideline on margins for breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation in stage I and II invasive...
Experts Share Keys to a Successful Lung Screening Program
There are currently 172 computed tomography (CT)-based lung screening centers up and running in the United States, according to the Lung Cancer Alliance.1 In a presentation at the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) 2014 Annual Meeting in San Diego, Reginald Munden, MD, DMD, MBA, and Ralph...
ASCO’s Latest Breast Cancer Guidelines
On Cancer.Net, your patients can find information about ASCO’s new guidelines on the treatment of metastatic breast cancer and the updated guideline on hormone therapy for early-stage breast cancer. Each summary for patients provides an explanation of the recommendations, what they mean for...
Explore Cancer Care That Best Supports Patients and Families at the Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium
Palliative care is essential to good cancer care, but it is a topic that can raise red flags because of the common misperception that it is reserved for those in the terminal stage of the disease. In truth, palliative care is highly necessary for all patients with cancer, and when it is integrated...
A Way Forward in Genomic Medicine
Over the past several decades, the convergence of scientific discovery, technology, and therapeutic developments has created an unparalleled opportunity to integrate our growing knowledge of genomics into the clinical practice of oncology. To shed light on the current state and future of...
Helping Young Adults Cope With Cancer
For young adults diagnosed with cancer, coping with the aftermath of the disease can be especially daunting. Although all cancer survivors share some common concerns and distress, for young adults grappling with body image, sexuality, peer pressure, dating, marriage, family planning, education, and ...
ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline Update: Sentinel Lymph Node Biopsy for Patients With Early-Stage Breast Cancer
ASCO recently convened an update committee of experts in medical oncology, pathology, radiation oncology, surgical oncology, guideline implementation, and advocacy to develop evidence-based recommendations that update the ASCO 2005 clinical practice guideline on use of sentinel node biopsy in...
Patients Benefit From Faster FDA Drug Approval Process
In an increasing spirit of cooperation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and several pharmaceutical companies are bringing to fruition the newest in a series of ways to expedite drug development and review. Breakthrough therapy is the designation instituted in 2012 by the FDA Safety and...
Looking Ahead in Treating Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
It’s the dawn of a new era in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), largely due to the development of agents targeting the BCR signaling pathway, according to John C. Byrd, MD, of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus. At the 19th Annual Conference of the...
NCCN Roundtable: When a Parent Has Cancer
Attendees at this year’s annual conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) not only got up to date on the Guidelines but left with a better understanding of how children deal with a parent’s cancer, and how oncology providers can best help. Panelists for the NCCN roundtable...
Surveillance After Colon Cancer Surgery: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Finding salvageable colon cancer recurrence is akin to finding a needle in a haystack, rendering routine patient surveillance of little value. But finding that needle offers an opportunity for treating recurrent disease early, which makes surveillance worthwhile. These were the opposing views...
Phase III Study of Talimogene Laherparepvec in Patients With Metastatic Melanoma: Overall Survival Analysis Reported
Amgen recently announced top-line results from the primary overall survival analysis of a phase III trial in melanoma, which evaluated the efficacy and safety of talimogene laherparepvec (also known as T-VEC) for the treatment of unresected stage IIIB, IIIC, or IV melanoma compared to treatment...
Glioblastoma: Can We Make This Intractable Disease Tractable?
In the clinical array of brain tumors, glioblastoma is the most difficult to treat, and despite decades of research and the advent of new therapies, patients with glioblastoma continue to have a very poor prognosis. Leading brain tumor experts at the recent 25th Annual Cancer Progress Conference in ...
Cryoablation of Breast Tumors Shows Promise in Patients With Early-Stage Disease
Cryoablation of breast tumors, which destroys lesions by exposing them to extremely low temperatures, shows promise as an alternative to surgery in carefully selected women with early-stage disease, according to a study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting in Las...
Obesity Increases Breast Cancer Mortality in Premenopausal Women With Estrogen Receptor–Positive Disease
According to results of a large study of women with early breast cancer, the presence of obesity increased the risk of breast cancer–related mortality by 34% in premenopausal women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer. Obesity had little effect on breast cancer–related mortality in...
Expert Point of View: George W. Sledge, Jr, MD
In his commentary on the ALTTO results, George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Oncology at Stanford University, reminded attendees that the announcement of the first results for adjuvant trastuzumab, which occurred at the 2005 ASCO Annual Meeting, was “a...
'Small Practices Like Mine'
Recently, I participated in ASCO’s Congressional news briefing in Washington, DC, following the release of its report, The State of Cancer Care in America: 2014. During my presentation I talked about the workforce shortage of approximately 1,500 medical oncologists that is predicted by 2025. A...
‘Unprecedented’ Survival Benefit in Prostate Cancer With Addition of Docetaxel to Hormone Therapy
Adding docetaxel to standard androgen ablation therapy (ie, testosterone suppression) extended survival by more than 1 year in men with newly diagnosed metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer in the phase III E3805 trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health. As reported at the ASCO...
Sharing 50 Years of Christmas: A Quality Metric?
A very pleasant 68-year-old woman was referred to my clinic with biopsy-proven liver metastasis from primary colon cancer. She was initially diagnosed with colon cancer, which was resected, and she then received chemotherapy. A suspicious liver lesion was biopsied in the adjuvant setting, which...
Leading Cancer Researcher and Public Health-Care Expert, Eddie Reed, MD, Dies
In a 2010 interview, Eddie Reed, MD, a pioneer in the molecular pharmacology of DNA-damaging anticancer agents and the clinical development of paclitaxel for ovarian cancer, was asked what lay ahead. Before answering, Dr. Reed first acknowledged the esteemed mentors who gave him their most precious ...
Colorectal Cancer Screening Recommended Past Age 75 for Previously Unscreened Patients
Colorectal cancer screening is cost-effective and “should be considered well beyond age 75 years” for individuals not previously screened, according to a computer simulation study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The researchers noted that while the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force...
Focus on the Washington State Medical Oncology Society
The Washington State Medical Oncology Society (WSMOS) was formed in 1993 in response to the health-care reform legislation then being proposed by President Bill Clinton. “The law never passed, but it spurred the development of our Society, so some good came out of the law’s defeat,” said Vicky E....
New Option for Preserving Fertility in Women Being Treated With Chemotherapy for Early-Stage Breast Cancer
One of the most reported studies emanating from the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting involves the use of the luteinizing hormone–releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist goserelin (Zoladex) to reduce the risk of ovarian failure among women being treated with chemotherapy for early-stage breast cancer, and to...
2014 Oncology Meetings
JUNE MASCC/ISOO International Symposium on Supportive Care in CancerJune 26-28 • Miami, Florida For more information: www.mascc.org/symposium European Conference of Oncology Pharmacy 2June 26-28 • Krakow, Poland For more information: http://ecop2014.wordpress.com 6th International Workshop on...
Genomic Confidence and Competence
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Stacy W. Gray, MD, AM, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, and colleagues presented one of the first studies evaluating how academic oncologists perceive the incorporation of a...
Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation Provides $100 Million Gift to Support Precision Oncology Work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has launched an initiative to improve cancer care and research through genomic analysis. The new program will reshape clinical trials and speed the translation of novel molecular discoveries into routine clinical practice. The Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis...
Colon Cancer Prevention: It’s All About Mindset and Minute Details
I would like to congratulate Corley and his colleagues for their seminal work on the association between adenoma detection rate and risk of colorectal cancer, advanced colorectal cancer, and colorectal cancer mortality. The impact of their findings—reported in The New England Journal of Medicine1...
Paying It Forward: Breakthrough Prize Winners and Institutions Commit $3 Million in Support of Next Generation of Scientists
Following last year’s announcement of the first-ever Breakthrough Prizes, established by a group of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to celebrate scientists and encourage careers in the field, the winners were frequently asked what they would do with their newfound prize money of $3 million each. Three ...
Issues in the Management of the Axilla in Patients With Breast Cancer
For the past 40 years the story of breast cancer surgery in general, and for the past 20 years the management of the axilla in particular, has been one of increasing conservatism. To give our readers insight into the current and future direction of axillary management, The ASCO Post spoke with...
A New Era in the Management of Advanced HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
Approximately 20% of all breast cancers are human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive. Prior to the era of HER2-targeted therapy, HER2-positive breast cancer was characterized by a poor prognosis.1,2 The development of the first HER2-targeted therapy, trastuzumab (Herceptin), led to...
ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline: Systemic Therapy for Patients With Advanced HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
Approximately 15% of patients with breast cancer have tumors that overexpress the HER2 protein and these patients can benefit from HER2-targeted therapies. The American Society of Clinical Oncology recently released a clinical practice guideline on systemic therapy for patients with advanced...
Conquering Cancer With 2013 Career Development Award Recipient Rebecca A. Gardner, MD
Rebecca A. Gardner, MD is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington and Attending Physician at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She received a 2013 Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Career Development Award (CDA) for her project “Autologous T cells genetically modified to express a CD19...
FDA Approval of Siltuximab for Multicentric Castleman’s Disease
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the FDA and its policies and procedures. In this installment, FDA hematologist/oncologist Albert Deisseroth, MD, PhD, discusses the recent approval of siltuximab for patients with multicentric Castleman’s disease who are human...
Many Patients With Colorectal Cancer Fail to Receive Adjuvant Chemotherapy
Data from the National Cancer Data Bank (2010–2011) suggest that 30% of patients with colorectal cancer who are eligible for adjuvant chemotherapy fail to receive it, but their odds increase by 30% when surgery is performed by laparoscopy, rather than laparotomy.1 “In this large national database...
Preoperative Breast MRI: Does Higher Sensitivity Equal Better Outcomes?
Breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is superior to more commonly used imaging modalities in preoperative breast cancer staging and should be a key element in routine workup. But despite its high sensitivity for catching cancers, breast MRI still does not deliver maximum value for the patient....
Expert Point of View: Gregory A. Masters, MD, FASCO
This combination shows good activity in the difficult-to-treat second-line setting of NSCLC,” said Gregory A. Masters, MD, FASCO, about the results of the REVEL study reported at the ASCO Annual Meeting. Dr. Masters, who is Attending Physician at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center and Research...
Expert Point of View: Sherene Loi, MD PhD
Sherene Loi, MD PhD, Head of the Translational Breast Cancer Genomics Lab at the Peter McCallum Cancer Centre, Victoria, Australia, commented on the N9831 study presentation and referred to her group’s own work on tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. These investigators have shown a positive association ...
Ibrutinib Surpasses Ofatumumab as Second-Line Treatment of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Ibrutinib (Imbruvica) significantly improved progression-free survival, overall survival, and response when compared with ofatumumab (Arzerra) as second-line treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) in the phase III RESONATE study. The study results were...
Early Study Explores New Approach to Treating Advanced Cervical Cancer
A small, federally funded study of nine patients treated with human papillomavirus (HPV)-targeted adoptive T-cell therapy gives reason to hope that this type of therapy may be a new effective approach for patients with metastatic cervical cancer and possibly other solid tumors.1 In the study, two...
Combined With Chemotherapy, Cetuximab and Bevacizumab Found Comparable for First-Line Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Treatment
Call it a draw: Cetuximab (Erbitux), an EGFR inhibitor, and bevacizumab (Avastin), a VEGF inhibitor, confer comparable benefits as first-line treatment with chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer, according to the phase III Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB)/Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) ...
Advancing Immune Checkpoint Targeting in Cancer Treatment
James P. Allison, PhD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Immunology, Executive Director of the Moon Shots Immunotherapy Platform, and Deputy Directory of the David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, is...
Time to Move Forward With Lung Screening
Start with the most lethal cancer globally—lung cancer—for which standard approaches result in a modest 5-year survival. Then consider the results from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), suggesting in a well done randomized study that significant mortality reduction does occur with low-dose...
Expert Point of View: Nancy E. Davidson, MD, and Claudine Isaacs, MD
This study provides key insights into the longstanding and vexing debate about optimal systemic therapy for these young women. We wonder about the role of tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors, chemotherapy, and ancillary therapies like bisphosphonates,” said Nancy E. Davidson, MD, Director of the...
Exemestane/Ovarian Suppression Reduces Recurrence vs Tamoxifen/Ovarian Suppression in Premenopausal Breast Cancer
A joint analysis of two important phase III clinical trials—TEXT (Tamoxifen and Exemestane Trial) and SOFT (Suppression of Ovarian Function Trial)—showed that exemestane plus ovarian function suppression was superior to tamoxifen plus ovarian suppression in preventing recurrence in premenopausal...
