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Showing 5701 - 5750NCCN 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...
AACR Calls on Congress to Support Cancer Research Funding to Meet the Challenges of Our Aging Population
Great progress is being made in the battle against cancer, but a renewed commitment of federal support for medical research is needed to speed its eradication, according to leaders of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), commenting in connection with a recent Senate hearing on “The...
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 ...
Expert Point of View: Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP
“To our surprise, obesity had a negative prognostic effect on premenopausal patients with breast cancer but not on those who were postmenopausal. We need to consider these findings in the context of results from other data sources that suggest that obesity remains a negative prognostic feature in...
Guides for Oncology Providers and Patients Now Available
As the prevalence of obesity increases in the U.S. population and potentially complicates all aspects of cancer treatment and survival, many cancer care providers struggle with addressing the topics of weight loss and weight management with their patients. Obesity and Cancer: A Guide for Oncology...
Expert Point of View: Peter P. Yu, MD
Discussing the study on immediate vs deferred androgen deprivation therapy in the setting of prostate cancer with prostate-specific antigen (PSA)-only relapse, ASCO President Peter P. Yu, MD, noted that more than 60,000 men each year will face the dilemma of when to start androgen deprivation...
Phase I Study of Novel Third-Generation EGFR Inhibitor Holds Promise Against Resistance Mutation in Patients With Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer
Preliminary evidence suggests that AZD9291, a novel mutant-selective epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor, may become a treatment option for patients with advanced, EGFR-mutant, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that has progressed on standard EGFR inhibitors....
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...
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...
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....
Cancer Care Under the Affordable Care Act
The problematic rollout of the Affordable Care Act’s website, HealthCare.gov, made good political theater, but while much of the heated discussion centered on the plan’s need to enroll “young invincibles,” America’s cancer care system and the older patients it serves were also affected by parts of...
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...
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...
ASCO’s Patient Information Website, Cancer.Net, Undergoes Redesign
ASCO is committed to providing people with cancer and their caregivers with top quality educational information and resources to help them manage their cancer care, treatment, and survivorship. This ongoing commitment is best reflected in its patient-facing educational website, Cancer.Net...
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 Approves Radioactive Diagnostic Imaging Agent to Help Determine the Extent of Head and Neck Cancer in the Body
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a new use for technetium 99m tilmanocept (Lymphoseek Injection), a radioactive diagnostic imaging agent used to help doctors determine the extent to which squamous cell carcinoma has spread in the body’s head and neck region. In 2013, tilmanocept...
Colorectal Cancer Screening Poised for Change
New screening modalities and the customization of the screening population could soon change the way that screening for colorectal cancer is done. At Digestive Disease Week 2014, the largest gathering of gastrointestinal disease specialists in the world, researchers presented data suggesting that...
Lung-MAP Launches: First Precision Medicine Trial From National Clinical Trials Network
A public-private collaboration among the National Cancer Institute (NCI), SWOG Cancer Research, Friends of Cancer Research, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), five pharmaceutical companies (Amgen, Genentech, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and AstraZeneca’s global biologics R&D...
Research Insights From the AACR Special Conference on Pancreatic Cancer
Pancreatic cancer still kills 40,000 Americans a year out of approximately 44,000 diagnosed. While advances in diagnosis and treatment are extending the lives of patients with other cancers, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma remains the second most lethal tumor (behind lung cancer). While a magic...
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 ...
Expert Point of View: Steven J. O’Day, MD, Don S. Dizon, MD, Michael Birrer, MD, PhD
Steven J. O’Day, MD, Director, Clinical Research, Beverly Hills Cancer Center and Director, Los Angeles Skin Cancer Institute, Beverly Hills, California, commented on cervical cancer study by Hinrichs et al from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) during a press briefing at the ASCO Annual Meeting. ...
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...
Expert Point of View: Cora N. Sternberg, MD, FACP
Despite the availability of hormonal therapy for the treatment of metastatic prostate cancer and the high response rates for these agents, most patients eventually experience progression to castration-resistant disease. “Multidisciplinary team approaches have contributed to the enormous progress...
Expert Point of View: Scott T. Tagawa, MD
Formal discussant Scott T. Tagawa, MD, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Urology at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, had the task of putting the three prostate cancer trials—PREVAIL, ELM-PC 4, and SWOG S0925—into context. “Since the approval of docetaxel, we have learned much...
Updated Information on Prostate Cancer Drugs: Enzalutamide, Orteronel, and Cixutumumab
Three separate studies of treatments for prostate cancer reported at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago showed excellent, intermediate, and disappointing results. An update of the previously reported PREVAIL trial (see March 1 issue of The ASCO Post, page 1) was overwhelmingly positive for the ...
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...
Coping With the Aftermath of Cancer
Even now, 3 years after I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I’m still struggling with how it is possible to have a normal mammogram and 6 months later be confronted with stage II estrogen/progesterone–positive, HER2-positive breast cancer. The news was especially devastating to hear because it...
Expect Questions but Not a Lot of Resistance
Stopping statin therapy is safe for patients with cancer who have a life expectancy of no more than a year, according to a randomized study reported at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting. Discontinuing statins did not shorten survival, reduced symptom burden, improved overall quality of life, and led...
Discontinuing Statins Near the End of Life Is Safe, Can Reduce Symptom Burden, and Is Generally Acceptable to Patients
Discontinuing statins for patients near the end of life is safe, saves money, spares patients from swallowing yet another pill and from the symptoms associated with statins, and is generally welcomed by patients. That last bit might come as a surprise to some physicians who worry that discontinuing ...
Diagnostic Imaging Agent Approved for Use in Patients With Head and Neck Cancer
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a new use for technetium 99m tilmanocept (Lymphoseek Injection), a radioactive diagnostic imaging agent used to help doctors determine the extent to which squamous cell carcinoma has spread in the body’s head and neck region. Earlier...
'Physician Education Is Key' to Continued Advances in Geriatric Oncology
Several times during his lecture at the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, Stuart M. Lichtman, MD, FACP, FASCO, the recipient of the B.J. Kennedy Award for Scientific Excellence in Geriatric Oncology, emphasized, “Physician education is the key” to continued advances in geriatric oncology. He specified that ...
ASCO Convenes Think Tank to Tackle Disparities in Cancer Care
Despite advances in cancer screening and in more effective therapies to treat the disease, which have led to improved outcomes and increased survival rates for millions of people with cancer, not every American is reaping the benefits of these advances. Disparities in health-care access, quality of ...
Following ‘Fruitful’ Year of Collaboration, Advocacy, and Growth, Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Moves to Next Level
Finishing up a 2-year term as President of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (ASPHO), A. Kim Ritchey, MD, summarized ASPHO’s achievements in advocacy, education, and professional development in his State of the Society address at the ASPHO 27th Annual Meeting in Chicago. He also ...
2001 Young Investigator Award Recipient Pasi Jänne, MD, PhD, Presents Research on Promising New Therapy for Treatment-Resistant NSCLC
At the 2014 ASCO Annual Meeting, Pasi Jänne, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, presented findings from a phase I study of AZD9291, a new mutant-selective EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor that offers a promising new treatment option for patients ...
ASCO Guideline for Management of Brain Metastases From HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: An Important Framework
Brain metastases are a devastating complication of cancer, and occur in up to 50% of patients with advanced human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer. Management of brain metastases requires individualized coordination between the traditional treatment modalities for...
Ado-Trastuzumab Emtansine as a Late Treatment for HER2-Positive Metastatic Breast Cancer—Better and Less Toxic Than Physician’s Choice
TH3RESA is a randomized phase III open-label study, reported in The Lancet Oncology and summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post, which examined the activity of ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla) in heavily pretreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.1 Formerly known as T-DM1,...
Navigating Cancer in the Era of Personalized Medicine: Rev 2014 Explores Emerging Issues, Ideas for Action
Diagnosed with stage IV non–small cell lung cancer in 2011, Stephen Wright turned to patient support groups where he learned about the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutation and a new drug that targeted it, crizotinib (Xalkori). He asked—then insisted—that he be tested for the mutation. He found ...
Ipilimumab Reduces Recurrences as Adjuvant Treatment of Melanoma
Ipilimumab (Yervoy) has transformed the treatment of metastatic melanoma, producing long-term responses in about 20% of patients. A phase III study has now evaluated its impact in the adjuvant setting, and the results are a bit less striking. Primary Endpoint The European Organisation for Research...
IOM Workshop Explores Growing Problems in Patient Access to Cancer Drugs
Cancer patients’ out-of-pocket costs are rising dramatically, and insurance premiums, cost sharing, and ancillary expenses can be devastating. Many people go bankrupt as a result of the high costs of health care. Drugs are among the most serious economic culprits. They grow more expensive every...
International Leader in Urology, Professor John Fitzpatrick, Dies
His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, “This was a man!” —William Shakespeare I have too many positive memories of John to regale you with here,” said Roger Kirby, MD, in a tribute to his close friend and colleague, John Michael...
Coping With the Aftermath of Cancer
Editor’s note: In the July 10 issue of The ASCO Post, this article by Marie Krejci as told to Jo Cavallo was published; however, the published version was incomplete in that it did not reflect important updates made by Ms. Krejci. We apologize to Ms. Krejci for this error and to our readers for any ...
Prostate Cancer Biomarkers: Improvement in Predicting Clinically Significant Disease
Prostate cancer will be diagnosed in 233,000 American men in 2014. It is one of the leading causes of death by a cancer (killing ~29,500 men annually).1 Hundreds of thousands of men undergo prostate biopsies each year, most for either benign disease or for a cancer that will never lead to their...
Surgical Biopsy Proves Safe for Selected Patients With Late-Stage Lung Cancer
Researchers at the University of California Davis have determined that surgical biopsies can be safely performed on select patients with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer, which should enhance their access to drugs that target specific genetic mutations such as epidermal growth factor receptor...
From Ireland to America and Back, Patrick G. Johnston, MD, PhD, Thrives on Bringing Research Findings to Clinical Practice
Patrick G. Johnston, MD, PhD, FMedSci, Professor of Oncology and President and Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast, grew up in Derry, a city in Northern Ireland. Derry is distinct in being Ireland’s only remaining fully intact walled city, considered one of the finest examples of a walled ...
Lung-MAP Trial Debuts—Other Personalized Studies Will Follow
Oncologists now have a means of bringing personalized medicine to advanced squamous cell carcinoma, and it involves a biomarker-driven clinical trial that maximizes the chance of successful treatment and new drug approvals. Lung-MAP (Lung Cancer Master Protocol) is a unique concept in which the...
The Road to Progress in Lung Cancer Treatment
Despite promising new agents and therapeutic approaches, 5-year lung cancer survival rates have lagged far behind those of most other malignancies. To shed light on some of the important issues facing lung cancer experts, The ASCO Post recently spoke with internationally recognized lung cancer...
HIV-Infected People With Early-Stage Cancers Are Up to Four Times More Likely to Go Untreated for Cancer
Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected people diagnosed with cancer are two to four times more likely to go untreated for their cancer compared to uninfected cancer patients, according to a large retrospective study from researchers in Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center and the National...
