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...
Researchers have found that pediatric patients with cancer undergoing radiation therapy may experience greater baseline and long-term neurocognitive outcomes when they have supportive environments compared with those who live in neighborhoods with economic hardship, according to a new study...
Researchers have estimated that about 14 of every 10,000 transgender women may be at risk of developing prostate cancer, according to a new study published by Nik-Ahd et al in JAMA. Background Transgender women keep their prostates even after gender-affirming surgery, but the extent to which they...
Researchers have found that studying the landscape of DNA and RNA alterations across multiple organs of metastasis may provide a new direction in cancer therapeutics to address treatment failure, according to a new study published by Liu et al in Nature Medicine. The new findings from analyzing...
Encouraging outcomes were achieved in patients with BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer who received neoadjuvant treatment with olaparib in a feasibility study led by Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH, Professor in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at The University of Texas MD...
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...
Researchers may have shed light on how radiation therapy impacts immune cells and tumor cells in renal cell carcinoma, according to a novel study published by Chow et al in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer. The new findings may provide key information for planning treatment regimens that...
Researchers may have discovered a new therapeutic target for patients with breast cancer—the TONSL gene—while attempting to understand the mechanisms behind breast cancer cell pathogenesis, according to a novel study published by Khatpe et al in Cancer Research. “Most of the cancer research to date ...
Investigators have found that patients with advanced cancer who participated in advance care planning may have received less aggressive and more comfort-focused end-of-life cancer care compared with those who did not participate in advance care planning, according to a new study published by Levoy...
Cancer has stalked my family for generations. My mother, brother, and maternal uncle were diagnosed with melanoma. Fortunately, all survived. When my sister was diagnosed with early-stage invasive ductal carcinoma in 2010, she underwent genetic testing, which showed she was positive for the BRCA2...
Study after study has demonstrated race-based differences in survival and other clinical outcomes for patients with cancer. But as health professionals, we are learning that these differences are less about a patient’s skin color and more about the legacy of racial inequality.1 This knowledge...
The GLOW study’s invited discussant, Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD, Chief of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, said the GLOW findings are “practice-changing,” validating that high claudin-18.2 (CLDN18.2) expression as an important biomarker in...
Pediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) living in extreme poverty and undergoing maintenance therapy may have almost a twofold greater risk of relapse compared with pediatric patients who weren’t living in extreme poverty, according to a new study published by Wadhwa et al in...
In three new clinical trials, researchers have found that the novel fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitor pemigatinib and new poly (ADP ribose) polymerase (PARP)/ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) inhibitor combinations may be effective at treating patients with multiple...
Investigators have uncovered factors contributing to the COVID-19 pandemic’s destabilization of the usual patterns of cancer care, described specific ways that National Cancer Database data models were impacted by the pandemic, and offered guidance to cancer centers across the United States on how...
A new survey of Hispanic adults residing in Indiana may present a snapshot of their cancer-related knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors and provide guidance for the future development of tailored cancer screening messaging and prevention strategies, according to a study published by Espinoza-Gutarra...
Hereditary cancer syndromes are caused by a pathogenic variant in cancer susceptibility genes, which overall account for approximately 10% of all cancers. Carriers of pathogenic variants are at an increased risk of developing cancer during their lifetime. Genomic cancer risk assessment makes it...
Researchers have discovered that the financial impact of an individual’s cancer diagnosis may also impact a partner’s health-related quality of life, according to a new study published by Ghazal et al in JAMA Network Open. “When you think of key developmental milestones young adults expect to...
Researchers have provided strong evidence that a healthy lifestyle may significantly reduce mortality in adults who have survived pediatric cancer, according to a new study published by Dixon et al in The Lancet. The findings are among the first to reveal that the specific primary causes of...