The evolving concept that dietary fat plays an important role in the etiology of human cancer emerged more than 50 years ago. Ernst Wynder, MD, whose seminal epidemiologic work led to identifying smoking as a contributory cause of lung cancer, presented a paper in 1967 showing a decided correlation ...
To meet the growing demand for high-quality cancer care in China, Tahoe Hospital Management Co Ltd has reached a 5-year agreement with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) where health-care professionals from the Pennsylvania-based medical center will assist in the planning and...
The complication rate among women who underwent postmastectomy breast reconstruction was 32.9% at 2 years postoperatively, and women undergoing autologous reconstruction “had significantly higher odds of developing any complication compared with those undergoing expander-implant reconstruction,”...
It’s not just the leaps in development of precision medicines, the soaring costs, the new payment models, clinical trial designs, sources of data, and federal policies. It’s all of them plus the rapidity with which change is happening that makes this era of oncology exceptional. “I would say...
Though many case studies and anecdotal reports have touted the effectiveness of cannabinoids for cancer pain, in randomized studies, the areas in which they are effective are “fairly borderline,” according to Ian Olver, AM, MD, PhD, Immediate Past President of the Multinational Association of...
In the early part of the 20th century, the U.S. government classified cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug: a dangerous substance with no medical value. For many years, that classification prevented systematic research in cannabinoid use in medicine. As a result of societal changes and an intense and...
In a roundtable discussion moderated by Clifford Goodman, PhD, of The Lewin Group, Falls Church, Virginia, representatives of the patient advocacy community, public and private payers, large and small clinics, and the pharmaceutical industry did not always see eye to eye on what “value” means nor ...
National guidelines advise doctors to discuss the benefits and harms of lung cancer screening with high-risk patients. A small study (n = 14) by researchers from the University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center reported there is a gap between what guidelines...
Once dismissed as rare medical miracles that overcame overwhelming odds to thwart cancer, exceptional responders to cancer treatment are now the subject of intense study. In 2015, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced the launch of its Exceptional Responders Initiative, with the goal of...
iCAD has announced U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance of its artificial intelligence software program, PowerLook Density Assessment Version 3.4, which provides an automated method of determining breast density. The software is compatible with iCAD’s digital breast...
Although heart failure is an uncommon complication of breast cancer treatment, the risk may be higher in patients treated with certain types of chemotherapy and lower in younger patients, according to a study published by Henry et al in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging. Researchers studied 16,456...
Estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer is the most common type of breast cancer, but resistance to therapy is common, and eventual development of metastatic disease is a leading cause of death. In research published by Lei et al in Cell Reports, researchers from Baylor College of...
The Conquer Cancer Merit Awards support oncology trainees who are first authors on abstracts selected for presentation at an ASCO scientific meeting, including the ASCO Annual Meeting and thematic symposia. Conquer Cancer recognized 127 recipients with Merit Awards at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting,...
TAILORx changes the configuration of the ball field and the shape of the ball in deciding which women will be recommended chemotherapy after resection of node-negative, hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. TAILORx was presented by Joseph Sparano, MD, at the 2018 ASCO Plenary Session and...
In February 2015, there was no indication that my life was about to radically change. I was a practicing attorney and happily raising two young children with my husband. At 40 years old, I was healthy—or so I thought—and had no physical symptoms to alert me to the devastating news that was about to ...
Accurately assessing the quality of cancer care over the continuum of treatment requires a special set of metrics and data-gathering methods. Moreover, with a growing number of cancer survivors, the post-treatment care involves primary care providers who are adept at managing the comorbidities...
BOOKMARK Title: Junk DNA: A Journey Through the Dark Matter of the GenomeAuthor: Nessa CareyPublisher: Columbia University PressOriginal publication date: April 2015Price: $22.95, paperback, 360 pages When biologists first delved into the human wonder of genes in the 1970s, they eventually...
BOOKMARK Title: MortalityAuthor: Christopher HitchensPublisher: Twelve: Hachette Book GroupOriginal Publication Date: May 13, 2014Price: $19.95, paperback, 128 pages “There are no atheists in foxholes” is an aphorism used to contend that in times of extreme fear, such as during war or facing a...
The largest coordinated research effort to study biologic and nonbiologic factors associated with aggressive prostate cancer in African American men has begun. The $26.5 million study is called RESPOND, or Research on Prostate Cancer in Men of African Ancestry: Defining the Roles of Genetics, Tumor ...
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provided oncology services to people with cancer who had previously been denied coverage. And for that reason alone, many oncologists supported its passage. However, even though the U.S. health-care system remains in the crosshairs of partisan politics, parties on both ...
Researchers at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and Northwell Health’s Department of Radiation Medicine have identified methods to increase use of the radiation therapy hypofractionation in patients with breast cancer. These findings, published by Gilbo et al...
A NEW “frailty index” may predict overall survival for patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma, according to a study published in JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics.1 Frailty is a critical factor in treatment decision-making for many patients with multiple myeloma, as many of these patients are ...
THE ASSESSMENT of cognitive dysfunction in patients who have undergone chemotherapy is complex, and although a number of strategies are available, each has its limitations, according to Karin Olson, RN, PhD, Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. At...
THE EMERGENCE of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has sparked a wave of optimism in hematologic malignancies, but as experience in using CAR T-cell therapy has grown, new challenges have surfaced. A pioneer in the field, David G. Maloney, MD, PhD, enlightened attendees on these issues ...
ROBERT PETER GALE, MD, PhD, DSc (hc), was on the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine for 20 years and has served as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. In 1986, he was asked by the...
Gini Fleming, MD, had a peripatetic path to her destination as a gynecologic and breast cancer expert. As a child, she moved around a lot, living in about 10 or 12 different places, so she had no real sense of being born and reared in any particular place. “My parents married young, when my father ...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Mace L. Rothenberg, MD,...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) is outlining its vision for cancer control in the decades ahead in a series of articles that began publishing in early July in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The series of articles forms the basis of a national cancer control plan, with a blueprint toward the ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation to SRF231 for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma. SRF231 is a fully human antibody that inhibits the activity of CD47, a protein overexpressed on many types of cancer cells, which prevents them from being...
Physicists from The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust combined standard two-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images of the chests of healthy volunteers to create 'super-resolution' videos, showing the lungs expanding and contracting. The...
A new frailty index may aid in predicting overall survival for patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma, according to a study published by Mian et al in JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics. This tool is important because frailty is a critical factor in treatment decision-making for ...
Patients with colorectal cancer tumors on the right side may have poorer 5-year survival rates than those whose tumors are located on the left side. However, a new large-scale retrospective study is the first to demonstrate a potential improvement of these outcomes. Study results show that nearly...
Researchers from Samsung Medical Center and Guardant Health, Inc have demonstrated the feasibility of determining a measure analogous to tumor mutation burden, a promising biomarker that may predict patient response to certain immunotherapies, utilizing the Guardant360 assay, a...
In an Australian phase III trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Coughlin et al found similar functional outcomes at 2 years with robot-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy and open radical retropubic prostatectomy in men with newly diagnosed clinically localized prostate cancer. Study Details In ...
Kieron M. Dunleavy, MD, of George Washington University, discusses the need for drug combinations to improve lymphoma therapy, despite unexpected toxicities, as our understanding of the molecular biology grows.
I’ve been a loyal ASCO member since the early 1970s (aka “back in the day”) and wanted to share a growing pet peeve. I thought of attacking an individual author, but my sense tells me the source of my annoyance is really now a cultural problem and one that can only be fixed at the editor level....
ASCO HAS ENDORSED the recommendations in the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) clinical practice guidelines for integrative therapies during and after breast cancer.1,2 The guidelines “are clear, thorough, and based on the most relevant scientific evidence,” wrote the ASCO expert panel that...
RECOMMENDATIONS IN the Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) clinical practice guidelines for integrative therapies during and after breast cancer treatment “are clear, thorough, and based on the most relevant scientific evidence,” concluded an ASCO expert panel that reviewed the guidelines.1,2...
In 2015, Congress passed the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization ACT (MACRA), which aims to move Medicare toward reimbursement based more on outcomes and values, a goal, in theory, shared by the oncology community. To shed light on the complicated and problematic attempt to restructure the...
In an article published recently in TheNew England Journal of Medicine, Gary H. Lyman, MD, MPH, FACP, FRCP (Edin), FASCO, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and colleagues reviewed opportunities, issues, and challenges posed by the advent of biosimilar medications, focusing on...
The Fox Chase Cancer Center announced the hiring of Pooja Ghatalia, MD, as Assistant Professor in the Department of Hematology/Oncology. Dr. Ghatalia joined the faculty after graduating from a 3-year hematology/oncology fellowship and started in her new position on July 1. Dr. Ghatalia is a...
LUNGevity Foundationhas announced the launch of a new lung cancer awareness campaign called 234. The social media campaign utilizes graphic animation to engage the public in understanding facts about lung cancer. “Our goal with the 234 campaign is to educate the general public about the...
Prior to ASCO’s 2016 endorsement of the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) guideline on active surveillance in the management of localized prostate cancer,1 most men—over 90%—diagnosed with low-risk localized disease were treated with active therapy.2 Today, about 50% of American men with low-risk disease...
A new study by Meulepas et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that computed tomography (CT) scans may increase the risk of brain tumors. The use of CT scans has increased dramatically over the past 2 decades. CT scans greatly improve diagnostic capabilities,...
Medicine is a family tradition for Hanna K. Sanoff, MD, MPH. “I was born and reared in a suburb just outside of Philadelphia and lived there my whole life until after college. I was one of those people who always knew they wanted to be a doctor. There were four generations of physicians on my...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hu et al found that higher postradiotherapy levels of the inflammatory marker high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) were associated with an increased risk of early grade 4+ skin toxicity in patients with breast cancer. Study Details...
For patients with early kidney cancer, surgically removing a portion of the kidney instead of the whole organ is often a preferred treatment, because the procedure can effectively remove tumors while preserving kidney function. But when it comes to the best surgical approach—robotic,...
A study published by Patil et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology explores the occurrence and treatment of brain metastases in stage IV ROS1-positive non–small cell lung cancer. ROS1-Positive Disease vs Other Genetic Mutations Importantly, and in contrast with the findings ...
According to the American Cancer Society, cancer is the leading cause of death for Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islanders in the United States. However, their cancer burden is less than that of non-Hispanic whites and especially non-Hispanic blacks, who bear the most disproportionate share of the...
“What is a reasonable plan of follow-up for patients with cancers for which early detection of metastatic disease offers no advantage?” Posing that question during his Presidential Address at the 2018 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Annual Cancer Symposium, Kelly M. McMasters, MD,PhD,...