The use of preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) did not significantly reduce positive margins after breast-conserving surgery, according to data presented during a press briefing at the 2023 American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting.1 Although MRI has been shown to detect...
Investigators have found that patients who had depression and/or anxiety prior to their diagnosis of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) may have had shorter survival times than patients who didn’t have a mental health condition prior to their DLBCL diagnosis, according to a new study published...
When my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer 25 years ago, her medical team suggested we undergo genetic testing for the BRCA gene mutation. I knew that being a BRCA carrier put me at greater risk for breast and ovarian cancers, but I had no idea it also increased my risk for pancreatic cancer....
Prior authorization of medical procedures, services, and medications has been a standard requirement of health-care providers for decades. Rising health-care costs, specifically the escalating prices of cancer drug therapies, have led to a new focus by payers, providers, and policymakers on prior...
This has been a year of firsts and seconds for Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, FASCO. This past October, Dr. Bertagnolli became the 16th Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the first woman and the first clinical trials cooperative group chair to hold that position. Then, 2 months...
A novel study is shedding light on factors that may affect treatment response in patients with young-onset colorectal cancer. Researchers uncovered differences in transcriptional metabolic profiles and other drivers of disease, as well as immune profiles, between younger and older patients with...
A population-based study using information from a database of veterans found that those who had been exposed to Agent Orange may be at an increased risk of developing myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Agent Orange is a herbicide that was used by the U.S. military in Korea and Vietnam to clear...
Elizabeth M. Jaffee, MD, Deputy Director of The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Baltimore, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in a place and time she found exhilarating during her early years. “We didn’t have a lot of money—actually, we were poor. But I had a lot of freedom walking around...
In the era of genomics and precision medicine, the role of pathology in diagnosis and cancer management is rapidly evolving. For the past 50 years, from her office at the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute (NCI), pathologist Elaine S. Jaffe, MD, has been at the forefront of that...
According to Sunil R. Hingorani, MD, PhD, his parents figured heavily on who he became as a person and on his career choices, which ultimately led to his current position as Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, Omaha. “My father...
Jonathan W. Friedberg, MD, MMSc, Director of the James P. Wilmot Cancer Institute, grew up in a suburb of Milwaukee. While his school friends were attending camp, he spent his summers working on the family farm. “Perhaps the hardest work I’ve ever done was haying on a hot, humid night in July,...
Don S. Dizon, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Pelvic Malignancies Program at Lifespan Cancer Institute and Director of Medical Oncology at Rhode Island Hospital was born and reared in Guam. He also is Professor of Medicine and Professor of Surgery at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. “I am...
George D. Demetri, MD, FASCO, Director of the Sarcoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine and Co-Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard, was born in Hyde Park, a town along the Hudson River in New York. When Dr. Demetri was growing up there, it was known for three...
The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) has called for greater action for World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2023 in light of a new study published by Safiri et al in Cancer Medicine, which found that 2.5 million tobacco-related cancer deaths were reported in 2019. The UICC is a global...
Invited discussant Rebecca A. Dent, MD, MSc, Senior Consultant, National Cancer Center Singapore, and Chairman of Medical Oncology at Duke-NUS Medical School, called the findings from these studies “very promising” and “provocative” but acknowledged that the small number of patients precludes...
The respected members of the oncology community listed here are among some of those who passed away in 2022–2023. The ASCO Post remembers them, their lives, and their contributions to cancer research and treatment. Robert J. Gillies, PhD Moffitt Cancer Center and the global research community lost ...
In December 2019, Robert A. Winn, MD, became the second Black physician to lead a National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer center when he took the helm of the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Massey Cancer Center. Dr. Winn’s basic science research, which has been...
Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, Head of the Dermatology Unit at Gustave Roussy and Co-Director of the Melanoma Research Unit at INSERM 981 Paris-Sud University, was born and reared in Paris. “I didn’t have a vocation for medicine when I was a kid; I wanted to be an archeologist. I’m not from a medical...
Today is the era of the multidisciplinary oncology care approach, cancer staging facilitates precision in documenting disease extent, all of which improved the quality of patient care. However, in the United States, the Rai staging system is still the most commonly used clinical staging system for...
Manali Patel, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine (Oncology) at Stanford University, grew up in Shelby, a small town in the textile and farming community of Western North Carolina, among mill workers and other blue-collar laborers. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Dr. Patel’s early life was...
Susan K. Parsons, MD, MRP, Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine and Founding Director of the Reid R. Sacco Adolescent and Young Adult Program for Cancer and Hereditary Blood Disorders at Tufts Medical Center, grew up on a working dairy farm in Sharon Springs,...
Lynn M. Schuchter, MD, FASCO, has said that volunteering and working with ASCO over many years has been the highlight of her career. She served on the ASCO Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012 and on several ASCO committees, including terms as Chair of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program...
The irony is not missed on me. In August 2022, 2 months before I was to start my tenure as President of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), I was diagnosed with mantle cell lymphoma. My entire career over the past 30 years has been in the pursuit of improving global cancer control...
The fight against cancer has made remarkable progress worldwide over the past decade. Through corporate investment in research and technology, the incidence of cancer and death rates in developed nations have steadily declined. The number of people living longer and fuller lives after a cancer...
The Mount Sinai Health System’s esophagectomy program has received a three-star (excellent performance) overall composite score from the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS). According to STS, 13 institutions in the United States and Canada hold the three-star rating, which denotes the highest...
As discussed in Part I of this special feature on cancer survivorship, there are now more than 18 million cancer survivors in the United States, and that number is expected to grow to 26 million by 2040.1 However, most of those survivors—at least two-thirds—either cured or in remission or living...
With this issue of The ASCO Post, we introduce a new feature, View From the Top: The Future of Cancer Care Delivery, which will explore how leaders in oncology are developing strategies to ensure continued innovative oncology care in an ever-changing health-care environment. In this inaugural...
The improvement in cancer survival rates since President Richard M. Nixon signed the National Cancer Act of 1971 into law is staggering. The legislation further committed the United States to greater investments in cancer-focused research to drive down the rates of cancer diagnoses, boost patient...
The updated results of the POLLUX trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dimopoulos and colleagues and in this issue of The ASCO Post, showed significantly improved overall survival with daratumumab plus lenalidomide/dexamethasone (DRd) vs Rd in patients with previously treated...
For this installment of The ASCO Post’s Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with Sibylle Loibl, MD, PhD, Chair of the German Breast Group (GBG) and Chief Executive Officer of the GBG Forschungs GmbH. Professor Loibl, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology ...
Elizabeth A. Morris, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Radiology at the University of California Davis, Sacramento, told The ASCO Post that the study by Berger et al addresses an important question. “This is a topic I am kind of passionate about—it addresses the ordering of mammograms...
Two studies presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer underscore the importance of enrolling patients with gynecologic cancer on clinical trials and of assuring trial access to racial minorities. One study found a statistically significant...
Kathleen Moore, MD, MS, the Virginia Kerley Cade Endowed Chair in Cancer Developmental Therapeutics and Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, spoke with The ASCO Post about GOG-258. According to Dr. Moore, the final results of this long-running...
Whole-exome sequencing of a large database identified carriers of mutations associated with hereditary cancer syndromes (ie, hereditary breast and ovarian cancers and Lynch syndrome). What was surprising was that among those carriers, about 40% did not satisfy the existing National Comprehensive...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Dov Zippel, MD, a surgical oncologist at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, where he is Head of the Meirav Breast Center. Dr. Zippel is the current President of ...
The Appalachian Community Cancer Alliance (ACCA) has launched a lung cancer screening initiative to improve cancer care in rural Appalachia. Home to nearly 26 million people, the Appalachian region includes all of West Virginia and parts of 12 other states, and it has a 10% higher cancer mortality...
Although hypomethylating agents previously appeared to be a promising treatment option for patients with bladder cancer refractory to immunotherapy, researchers were forced to halt a recent phase II clinical trial after patients experienced either no response to treatment or rapid tumor...
In a statement released by The White House on May 15, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, as Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s preeminent biomedical research organization. As the statement makes clear, Dr. Bertagnolli is a...
Researchers have found that azacitidine may be capable of increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy and aiding nearly 90% of patients who had peripheral T-cell lymphoma with the T follicular helper cell phenotype (PTCL-TFH) achieve remission, according to a novel study published by Ruan et al in ...
Two studies presented at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) 2023 Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer underscore the importance of enrolling patients with gynecologic cancer on clinical trials and of assuring trial access to racial minorities. One study found a statistically significant...
Except for a ganglion cyst that had mysteriously popped up on the palm of my right hand in the winter of 2016, I appeared to be in excellent health. I had never had any serious illnesses in my then 55 years and rarely even got colds. If the annoying cyst hadn’t interfered with my normal daily...
Guest Editor’s Note: Substantial evidence supports the value of practices that focus on the interactions among the mind, body, and behavior for promoting health and well-being. In this article, Kavita K. Mishra, MD, MPH, summarizes a clinical model for personalized mind-body medicine in cancer care ...
There are “three main messages” to be gleaned from a study about emergency department visits and unplanned hospitalizations among patients with cancer, the study’s lead author, Amir Alishahi Tabriz, MD, PhD, MPH, told The ASCO Post. Dr. Alishahi is Assistant Member, Department of Health Outcomes...
Emergency department (ED) visits by patients with cancer increased by 67.1% between the start of 2012 and the end of 2019, compared with an increase of just 7.5% in cancer incidence, according to a recent study in JAMA Network Open.1 Factors identified as possible explanations for the...
The invited discussant for the CodeBreaK 200 trial, Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, MHS, Professor of Medical Oncology and Consultant Medical Oncologist at Beaumont RCSI Cancer Centre in Dublin, underscored the importance of patient-reported outcomes in evaluating the effectiveness of oncology treatments,...
Formal discussant of the mRNA-4157-P201/KEYNOTE-942 trial, Margaret K. Callahan, MD, PhD, Research Director, Immunotherapeutics Program, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, agreed that finding an effective cancer vaccine has been challenging, and she is “cautiously optimistic” about...
On May 9, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) posted a draft recommendation statement on screening for breast cancer. The USPSTF now recommends that all women get screened for breast cancer every other year starting at age 40 years (this is a B grade recommendation, meaning the USPSTF...
No one doubts the deadly nature of high-grade serous ovarian cancer. This histologic subtype is responsible for most ovarian cancer deaths, representing the eighth leading cause of cancer deaths in women worldwide and the fifth in the United States. Although there has been some progress in...
Researchers have identified four warning signs and symptoms that may indicate an elevated risk of early-onset colorectal cancer, according to a new study published by Fritz et al in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The findings may be key to helping physicians more effectively detect...
Anita Mamtani, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses study findings showing that axillary lymph node dissection was required by less than 2% of patients with cT1NO triple-negative or HER2-positive breast cancer having upfront surgery. There was no clear advantage of neoadjuvant...