An analysis of radiation therapy patterns among more than 12,000 Medicare patients treated for bone metastases found that 23.4% received extended-fraction radiation therapy, “wasting both health-care dollars and precious patient time,” according to the investigators.1 One-third of the treating...
"When the technician leaves the room, I turn my head toward the screen to interpret neoplasms, the webs of nerves, the small lit fonts in which my pathology and/or future or future end might be written. The first tumor I ever saw was a darkness on that screen, round with a long craggy finger...
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, and Chair of the Hematology and Medical Oncology Department at Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland Clinic. In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with pioneering art ...
Breast surgical oncologist Laura S. Dominici, MD, was born and reared in Litchfield, a small town in the southern portion of New Hampshire. “Our house was on a long dirt road, in a very rural area,” she shared. “There were only about 5,000 residents in the town. My mother was a teacher, and my dad...
The text and photograph here are excerpted from a four-volume series of books titled Oncology: Tumors & Treatment, A Photographic History, The Anesthesia Era: 1845–1875 by Stanley B. Burns, MD, FACS, and Elizabeth A. Burns. The photograph appears courtesy of Stanley B. Burns, MD, and The Burns...
Studies have shown a disconnect between where patients say they want to die and where they actually die. According to research from Stanford School of Medicine, although an overwhelming majority of Americans—about 80%—would prefer to die at home, just 20% do. In fact, 60% die in acute care...
Worldwide, nearly 1.7 million women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Of that number, nearly 300,000 Americans and more than 500,000 Europeans will be diagnosed with both invasive and in situ breast cancers.1,2 Breast-preserving surgery will initially be performed on approximately 60% of...
Months ago, when I defined a theme for my year as ASCO President, “Equity: Every Patient. Every Day. Everywhere,” I never imagined we would experience a health-care pandemic that would disproportionally impact people of color. Nor could I know this would be the moment when yet another brutal crime ...
Data from one of the first clinical uses of augmented reality guidance with electromagnetically tracked tools shows that the technology may help doctors quickly, safely, and accurately deliver targeted liver cancer treatments, according to a research abstract presented during a virtual session of...
The availability of an oral selective estrogen receptor degrader (SERD) would be good news for patients and clinicians as an alternative to intramuscular fulvestrant. The novel agent LSZ102 might fit the bill, based on early activity shown in combination with the targeted agents ribociclib and...
On June 12, Merck announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved an expanded indication for Gardasil 9—a human papillomavirus (HPV) nine-valent vaccine—for the prevention of oropharyngeal and other head and neck cancers caused by HPV types 16, 18, 31, 33, 45, 52, and 58....
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy known as TruUCAR GC027 may prove to be useful in the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and potentially other hematologic malignancies. Preliminary results in a small number of patients...
The 2019 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine was jointly awarded to three researchers. Their discoveries paved the way for promising new strategies to treat anemia, cancer, and many other diseases. One of the three Nobel Laureates is William G. Kaelin, Jr, MD, who continues his research at his...
Lung cancer specialist Narjust Duma, MD, was born and reared in Mérida, Venezuela, a city nestled on a plateau in the Venezuelan Andes. “I’m the daughter of two surgeons. After my parents divorced, I lived with my mother and spent a lot of time at the hospital where she worked. When she was in...
Although ‘paradigm shifts’ are frequently referenced in oncology, these are really few and far between. They occur when new data either partially invalidate previously accepted theory or are at complete odds with the existing paradigm. Moving away from the Halsted radical mastectomy, a standard of ...
Internationally recognized immune-oncology melanoma expert Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, FASCO, was born and reared in Staten Island, not far from where he would shape his noted career at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York, New York. “I went to Princeton University and, during my ...
In 2019, at the ASCO Annual Meeting, Ian Tannock, MD, PhD, DSc, FASCO, was honored with the Allen S. Lichter Visionary Award for his contributions to the fields of genitourinary and breast cancers as well as his efforts to optimize clinical trial design. The title of his lecture was “Clinical...
Steven A. Rosenberg, MD, PhD, FASCO, knew from the start of his medical career that if treatments for cancer were to become curative, research in new therapies would have to move away from the mainstay one-size-fits-all approach of systemic chemotherapy to an innovative, personalized strategy that ...
Telephone outreach coupled with scheduling assistance significantly increased screening mammography setup and follow-through in a population characterized by low rates of screening mammography and high rates of advanced breast cancer at diagnosis. These are findings from a new study conducted by...
The doctor-patient relationship, a time-honored tradition based on trust and cooperation, is critical for vulnerable patients, as they experience a heightened reliance on the physician’s competence, skills, and good will. That same trust is critical on the public health stage, when a nation is...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays, historical...
In 2003, Nina Kadan-Lottick, MD, MSPH, established the regional Yale HEROS multidisciplinary research and clinical program for long-term survivors of childhood cancer survivors, which is the first of its kind in Connecticut and one of the first in the United States. She intends the HEROS program to ...
You’ve agreed to be interviewed on Zoom. If you’re like most people, the technology itself isn’t a barrier. (And if it is, you can consult our step-by-step guide to using Zoom at https://bit.ly/2yxcTN0.) However, you might be less sure about what you can do to make the best impression (and the most ...
In this edition of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with John Craig Venter, PhD, Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of the J. Craig Venter Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to human, microbial, and environmental genomic research. A...
AS I WRITE TO YOU, I am happy to report I have just completed a 7-day rotation at the COVID-19 inpatient service at my hospital in New York City! Overall, it was a positive experience, despite the occasional sad and scary moments. I left the service feeling uplifted and fulfilled. I am glad to have ...
A NEW ONLINE GUIDE provides tips to help oncology and other clinicians navigate the difficult and distressing communications with patients that have arisen during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anthony Back, MD, a medical oncologist and palliative medicine specialist at the University of Washington and...
In hindsight, the symptoms I began experiencing in the fall of 2013—sudden excruciating back bone pain and severe fatigue—should have tipped me off that I had a serious disease, but 7 years ago, they were easy to explain away. The bone pain was similar to what I had experienced several years...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
Studies of second-generation bispecific antibodies were among the highlights of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition. The bispecific T-cell engager blinatumomab was the first such agent to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in...
Several novel strategies for the treatment of patients with stage III or IV melanoma showed promise in studies presented at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.1,2 Vaccine for High-Risk Patients After Resection A tumor lysate, particle-loaded, dendritic cell (TLPLDC) vaccine was...
Over the past 2 weeks, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Review to a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML); Fast Track designations for agents in pancreatic cancer and pancreatic/nonpancreatic neuroendocrine tumors; approvals for companion diagnostic tests;...
The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis has challenged us, as a society, to evaluate our core values and philosophy. Ventilators, a precious and limited commodity, are now in short supply. Humanity is at a precipice, and we physicians are facing an ethical dilemma, how best to allocate ventilators, and, ...
Earlier this month, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced resources available to help physicians cope with increased levels of distress and anxiety during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. These resources build on the AMA’s efforts to ensure physicians and other...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapies for patients with non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs). For full...
The results from the first in-human phase I clinical trial in the United States evaluating CRISPR-Cas9–edited T cells in patients with advanced cancer has shown that the therapy is both feasible and safe, representing a big step forward in the potential of using gene editing to boost the natural...
The lymphomas are an incredibly complex assemblage of neoplastic diseases. They are not one disease, and, at least based on the World Health Organization (WHO) Classification of Tumors published in 2017, they represent a collection of approximately 80 different malignancies, a number that will...
In the fall of 2009, I began experiencing some abdominal discomfort, pain in my right shoulder, and severe fatigue that were easily explained away as the result of gallstones and by my career as a paramedic. I had many of the risk factors for gallbladder disease, and both my mother and sister...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays, historical...
In this edition of Living a Full Life, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, spoke with hematologist Parameswaran Hari, MD, MRCP, Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. In addition, Dr. Hari holds the Armand J. Quick/William F. Stapp Chair...
In an article published in Annals of Oncology, members of the National University Cancer Institute of Singapore (NCIS) workflow team described a segregated-team workflow model that allowed continuation of cancer care at the comprehensive cancer center during the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore....
The spread of COVID-19 continues to have a dramatic impact around the world, disrupting social lives and the delivery of oncologic treatments to patients with cancer. Even under “normal” circumstances, health-care professionals, including those in oncology, are prone to occupational stress....
A $12 million federal grant enabled City of Hope and collaborators to deploy a novel cloud-computing platform, making an immense amount of data from a historic 25-year study more accessible and user-friendly. The ongoing California Teachers Study, which began in 1995, has already given researchers...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
An abstract presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting titled “Evaluating Unconscious Bias During Speaker Introductions at an International Oncology Conference,” by Narjust Duma, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Thoracic Oncologist at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center in...
Immunotherapeutics in breast cancer will likely not be limited to late-stage triple-negative breast cancer. Earlier lines, combination regimens, and expansion into different disease subtypes should become part of this emerging landscape, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine...
In a study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Zibelli et al found that patients with cancer readmitted to hospital within 30 days from index admission often made the decision to return to hospital themselves, without input from their care teams. Study Details The study included 33 patients...
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, The ASCO Post will be interviewing oncologists on how they and their centers are dealing with the crisis. Here, we speak with Miriam A. Knoll, MD, a radiation oncologist at the John Theurer Cancer Center, Hackensack University Medical Center, ...
The coronavirus-related pandemic has affected nearly every corner of the globe. What originated in one country is on course to likely affect every country in the world. In a few countries, the disease has peaked and is on the downward trend. In some, including the United States, the disease is on...
Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, and Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research (RTFCCR) have partnered to establish the Conquer Cancer–Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research Career Pathway Grants in Symptom Management. These grants will support research in symptom...
Although more transgender patients are presenting to breast centers for imaging, many “report significant social stigma when seeking care,” according to a study in the Journal of Breast Imaging.1 Reported verbal abuse and other forms of harassment “can lead to transgender patients concealing their...