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Showing 5751 - 5800Questions: Primary Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma of the Central Nervous System
The ASCO Post is pleased to present Hematology Expert Review, an occasional feature that includes a case report detailing a particular hematologic condition followed by questions. Answers to each question appear here with expert commentary. In the October 25 issue of The ASCO Post, part 1 of a...
A Chemist Exposes Dangerous Chemicals
Bookmark Title: Pick Your Poison: How Our Mad Dash to Chemical Utopia Is Making Lab Rats of Us All Author: Monona Rossol Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Publication date: October 2015 Price: E-book, 210 pages Monona Rossol is a chemist and “industrial hygienist” who is a frequent contributor to...
A Pandemic’s Story of Tragedy and Success
Bookmark Title: AIDS Between Science and Politics Author: Peter Piot Publisher: Columbia University Press Publication date: May 2015 Price: $29.95; hardcover, 216 pages AIDS is a global phenomenon that recognizes neither national boundaries nor social strata. The AIDS pandemic was one of the...
The Future of ASCO: President-Elect Candidates Share Their Vision
S. Gail Eckhardt, MD, FASCO, is a tenured Professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she also holds the Stapp Harlow Chair in Cancer Research. She has been a faculty member at the institution since 1999 and was Division Head of Medical Oncology from 2006–2014. Currently, she...
Management of Aromatase Inhibitor–Induced Musculoskeletal Symptoms: A Physiatric Approach
Aromatase inhibitors have demonstrated efficacy in reducing the risk of breast cancer recurrence in hormone receptor–positive patients, but medication compliance can be limited by uncomfortable side effects, including musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction. Musculoskeletal symptoms have been reported ...
Telotristat Etiprate Added to Standard Therapy for Carcinoid Syndrome Shows Clinical Benefit in Patients With Metastatic Neuroendocrine Tumors
The investigational drug telotristat etiprate was shown to have clinical benefit when added to somatostatin analog therapy for carcinoid syndrome not adequately controlled by long-acting somatostatin analog therapy, the current standard of care, in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine tumors....
Why Melanoma Rates Are Increasing in Adolescents and Young Adults, Especially Among Females
The incidence of melanoma among children, adolescents, and young adults has reached epidemic proportions, increasing more than 250% over the past 4 decades, with young females at highest risk for the deadly cancer, according to a study1 by researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo,...
ASCO Recommendations for Use of White Blood Cell Growth Factors: What Remains the Same and What Has Been Modified
Neutropenic complications remain the main dose-limiting toxicity of cancer chemotherapy treatment and are associated with considerable morbidity, mortality, and costs.1 Although patients who have experienced a prior neutropenic event are at increased risk of subsequent events, several studies have...
End-of-Life Clinical Decisions Still Need Conversations About Improving Care
In 2014, the Institute of Medicine report Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life called for more conversations about improving care for those who are dying. Improving the care of the imminently dying is an important issue in the oncology...
NCCN Unveils Graphic Evidence Blocks to Guide Decision-Making
Treatment decision-making for oncologists and their patients may become simpler through the use of graphic NCCN Evidence Blocks™, which were unveiled at the NCCN 10th Annual Congress: Hematologic Malignancies™ sponsored by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN¨). The first of the NCCN...
Ovarian Cancer Trialists Forming Work Group to Standardize Definition of Pathologic Complete Response
Ovarian cancer clinical trialists are forming a working group to develop a standard definition of pathologic complete response in ovarian cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Such agreement within the field potentially would enable the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider...
Expert Point of View: William J. Gradishar, MD, FASCO
Discussant of the Neoadjuvant Breast Symphony Trial data, William J. Gradishar, MD, FASCO, Betsy Bramsen Professor of Breast Oncology at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University in Chicago, underscored the importance of identifying patients in a more precise and...
Combined EGFR and VEGF Inhibition Ameliorates the Impact of the EGFR T790M Mutation in NSCLC
Treatment with erlotinib and bevacizumab (Avastin) may help overcome the poor prognosis associated with T790M mutations present at diagnosis in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the results of the phase II BELIEF trial.1 At the 2015 European Cancer Congress, Rolf A. Stahel,...
Expert Point of View: Christian Blank, MD
Christian Blank, MD, Group Leader of Immunology at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, formally discussed the COMBI-v findings. He first credited targeted therapy and immunotherapy for almost tripling the chance of patients with metastatic melanoma living beyond 1 year; however, he noted...
Meta-analysis Evaluates Benefit of Docetaxel and Bisphosphonates in Hormone-Sensitive Prostate Cancer
The results of a meta-analysis conducted in the United Kingdom may guide clinicians in the use of docetaxel and bisphosphonates in patients with hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.1 Claire L. Vale, PhD, Senior Research Scientist at the Medical Research Council Clinical Trials Unit at University...
Debate Over Physician-Assisted Suicide Continues, State by State
In 1997, after surviving a storm of high-court legal challenges, Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act went into effect, making Oregon the first American state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The Supreme Court ruled that there was no right to assisted suicide in the Constitution but implied that...
Expect Questions About Updated Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines
As Chair of the American Cancer Society (ACS) panel that issued an updated guideline for breast cancer screening, Kevin C. Oeffinger, MD, has answered questions and offered perspective on the updated guideline and its development for The New York Times, USA Today, and other major media outlets. As...
Updated ACS Breast Cancer Screening Guideline Recognizes Greater Role for Individual’s Values and Preferences
The reactions to the updated breast cancer screening guideline from the American Cancer Society (ACS) have been many, varied, and not consistently favorable but not surprising to Kevin C. Oeffinger, MD, who chaired the ACS panel that issued the guideline. Breast cancer screening “is an area that...
Stepping Back in Medical History: A Groundbreaking Surgeon’s Battle With the Establishment
Bookmark Title: Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern MedicineAuthor: Cristin O’Keefe AptowiczPublisher: Gotham BooksPublication date: September 8, 2015Price: $17.00, paperback; 384 pages In the late 1740s, John Wesley—a British evangelist and...
Cancer Cured My Life
The following essay by Richard M. Levine, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which is coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and the bigcasino.org. I’m a...
Engaging Clinicians in the Collection of Cancer Registry Data to Improve Clinical Research
In June, the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons published a revision of its Facility Oncology Registry Data Standards (FORDS) manual, which contains all the data items, codes, and rules to abstract data into cancer registries at the more than 1,500 Commission on...
ASCO Launches TAPUR to Assess the Off-Label Use of Targeted Therapies for Patients With Advanced Cancers
Two years ago, Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FASCO, Chief Medical Officer of ASCO, proposed a unique clinical trial concept during an educational session on the challenges of delivering precision medicine services in a community setting at ASCO’s Annual Meeting. The idea was to design a clinical...
A Shrink Tells the Inside Story of Psychiatry
Bookmark Title: Shrinks: The Untold Story of PsychiatryAuthor: Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD, with Ogi OgasPublisher: Little, Brown and CompanyPublication date: March 10, 2015Price: $28.00, hardcover; 352 pages Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD, is the Lawrence C. Kolb Professor and Chairman of Psychiatry at...
Getting the Content and the Message Right in Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines
According to recent national headlines, the American Cancer Society (ACS) now recommends that women at average risk of breast cancer should “screen later and less often.”1 While the new ACS recommendations (summarized in this issue of The ASCO Post) might initially be taken as casting doubt on the...
How QOPI® Is Improving Oncology Care
Launched in 2002 as a pilot program to promote excellence in oncology care, the origins of ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) date as far back as 1997, when the Institute of Medicine (IOM) created a National Cancer Policy Board to assess the state of cancer care in the United...
TAPUR: ASCO’s First Clinical Trial Addresses Critical Gaps in Understanding of and Access to Targeted Therapies
ASCO is preparing to expand the boundaries of precision medicine with the launch of its first clinical trial. At a press briefing during the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, the Society formally announced its plans for the Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study. At a time when...
The State of Progress in Hematologic Malignancies
The number of targeted therapies approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the treatment of a variety of cancers, especially hematologic malignancies, continues to rise. In 2014 alone, 4 of the 10 new agents directed at discrete molecular targets approved by the FDA were for blood...
Oncologists Encouraged to Learn More About Lesser-Known Heritable Gastrointestinal Cancers
The genetic basis for inherited colorectal cancer is proving to be a much bigger and more complicated “pie” than was appreciated just a few years ago, according to Michael Hall, MD, Director of Gastrointestinal Risk Assessment at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia. “With next-generation...
Expert Point of View: Peter Naredi, MD, and Michael Brada, MD
Peter Naredi, MD, European CanCer Organization (ECCO) Scientific Co-Chair of the Congress, stated in a press release: “In my view, Dr. Brastianos and colleagues very elegantly show what we mean with precision medicine, how genetic profiling can support our understanding of the metastatic process,...
Expert Point of View: Vincent Grégoire, MD, PhD
I am actually not comfortable discussing this analysis,” said formal discussant Vincent Grégoire, MD, PhD, of the Department of Radiation Oncology, St-Luc University Hospital, Brussels, Belgium. “Instead of me you need a biostatistician. Nevertheless, I will try to address the study.” “The study...
Quick Takes From ECC 2015 Include New Data in Melanoma, Prostate and Breast Cancers, and Renal Cell Carcinoma
The 2015 European Cancer Congress (ECC), held recently in Vienna, represented the combined efforts of the European Cancer Organisation (ECCO), the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), and other partner organisations, constituting the largest European platform for oncology education. At...
Expert Point of View: Clifford Hudis, MD
Discussant Clifford Hudis, MD, Chief, Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, highlighted the obvious clinical advantages of APF530 over the current standard of care. “If this drug were simply the same in price and availability, why wouldn’t you use it? It’s...
Expert Point of View: Clifford Hudis, MD, Shanu Modi, MD, and Richard Gelber, PhD
Discussant Clifford Hudis, MD, Chief of Breast Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, highlighted neratinib’s benefits while also advocating caution in interpreting the results due to incomplete data, the serious side effect of diarrhea, and the potentially...
Does Low-Dose Radiation Cause Leukemia?
Data from A-bomb survivors, persons with ankylosing spondylitis and neoplasms treated with radiation therapy, and many other sources show a strong association between exposure to ionizing radiation (particles or electromagnetic waves with sufficient energy to cause an ionization such as photons and ...
Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia: What Drug for Which Patient?
Treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) with tyrosine kinase inhibitors is “the golden child success story of targeted treatment,” Jerald P. Radich, MD, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Seattle, Washington, told attendees at the National...
Nationally Regarded Oncology Nurse Practitioner, Mary Pazdur, RN, MSN, Remembered by Friends and Colleagues
Oncology nurse practitioner Mary Pazdur, RN, MSN, spent her professional life bettering the clinical care and outcomes of cancer patients, culminating in her career at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology, working with patients on cancer vaccine...
One Long Shift With a Nurse on a Cancer Ward
Bookmark Title: The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives Author: Theresa Brown, RN Publisher: Algonquin Books Publication date: September 22, 2015 Price: $15.59; hardcover, 272 pages If health care were looked at through an architect’s eyes, nurses would be the girders holding the...
The Sixth Edition of the Essential Breast Cancer Book
Bookmark Title: Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book Author: Susan M. Love, MD Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books Publication date: September 8, 2015 Price: $24.00; paperback, 704 pages For more than 25 years, Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book has been the best source of information for women with breast...
Integrating Spirituality Into Palliative Care Services
Over the past couple of decades, the oncology community has made great strides in mediating the psychosocial needs of our patients. However, a patient’s spirituality is a subjective and uncomfortable issue for many oncologists, which leaves a gap in the continuum of care. To reach a better...
You’ve Lived A Good Life
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the “Art of Oncology” as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO). These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
Racial Issues on the Road to Medicine
BookmarkTitle: Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and MedicineAuthor: Damon Tweedy, MDPublisher: Picador, Macmillan PublishingPublication date: September 8, 2015Price: $26.00; hardcover, 304 pages Strained race relations over issues whose foundation is based on inequality...
The Highs and Lows of a Transplant Surgeon
Bookmark Title: Last Night in the OR: A Transplant Surgeon’s OdysseyAuthor: Bud Shaw, MDPublisher: Plume, division of Penguin GroupPublication date: September 15, 2015Price: $16.00; paperback, 304 pages Surgery has a distinct place in medicine. Surgeons cut deep into our bodies amid clusters of...
Lung Cancer: Hope From Science
The following essay by Paul A. Bunn, Jr, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org. I grew up...
A Swiss Psychotherapist Gives Her Perspective on Optimal Palliative Care
Over the past few decades, the oncology community has incorporated new evidence-based therapies to address the psychosocial needs of patients with cancer, especially those with advanced disease. To bring a global perspective to this evolving discipline, The ASCO Post recently spoke with Monika...
A Blueprint for Drug/Diagnostic Development: Expansion and Use of Curated Genetic Databases
In a continuation of a 2014 conference that explored regulatory considerations and strategies for next-generation sequencing, the Friends of Cancer Research, with support from Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc, Pasadena, California, met to discuss the issues and problems of coordinating drug and ...
Practicing the Humanistic and Holistic Approach to End-of-Life Care
In 1990, when Bruce (B.J.) Miller, MD, was an undergraduate at Princeton University, the practice of medicine was far from his mind. Then a student in Chinese and Asian studies and later an art history major, Dr. Miller would come to pursue a career specializing in palliative medicine after an...
The Complex Interactions of Treatment Costs, Clinical Outcomes, and Patient Expectations
A clinical dilemma that is receiving a great deal of attention in the oncology community is the undue financial burden some patients face during their treatment and into survivorship. While much emphasis is put on methods to reduce and help patients navigate the complex payment system, little is...
Cancer Care in Low-Resource Areas: Some Improvements Over the Years, but Serious Problems Remain
Low- and middle-income countries bear a larger share of the global cancer burden than does the developed world,” said Greta Massetti, PhD, Associate Director for Science, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and Co-Chair of the National Cancer...
Making a Difference for Patients: An Interview With Dr. Daniel F. Hayes, 2015–2016 President-Elect
Daniel F. Hayes, MD, FASCO, began his term as ASCO President-Elect this past June, and will serve as President in 2016–2017. A breast cancer specialist, he is Professor of Internal Medicine, the Stuart B. Padnos Professor in Breast Cancer, and the Clinical Director of the Breast Oncology Program at ...
ASCO Clinical Practice Guideline: Use of Biomarkers to Guide Systemic Therapy for Women With Metastatic Breast Cancer
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Catherine Van Poznak, MD, and colleagues, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers to guide decisions on systemic therapy in women with metastatic breast cancer.1 The statement is based on an ASCO expert panel review...
