In 2015, the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products (OHOP) approved 16 new molecular entities. The most notable were drug approvals in disease areas such as non–small cell lung cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, melanoma, renal cancer, and diseases that are particularly difficult to...
Nova Southeastern University (NSU), Fort Lauderdale, Florida, announced the appointment of Johannes W. Vieweg, MD, FACS, as Founding Dean of NSU’s College of Allopathic Medicine. The new college is aiming to welcome its first class of MD candidates in 2018, subject to achieving accreditation. Dr....
The estimated number of cancer cases worldwide in 2008 was 12.7 million, with 7.6 million deaths. By 2030, it is estimated that there will be 22 million newly diagnosed cancer cases and 12 million deaths, shocking to contemplate in dollars and human suffering. Although this impending disaster has...
Every so often, a memoir comes along in which the story speaks to universal themes. For that magic to occur, the author must step aside at times and let others tell their story, too. Moreover, the writing must be clear, vibrant, and above all else honest to the core. The recently published memoir...
The American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) recently welcomed Judy Keen, PhD, as its Director of Scientific Affairs, a position created to expand research participation and collaboration in the field of radiation oncology. As the ASTRO lead on scientific affairs, Dr. Keen will develop and...
On January 23, 2016, the indication for nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) in unresectable or metastatic melanoma was expanded through accelerated approval to include patients regardless of BRAF V600 mutation status.1 The combination was previously approved for treatment of patients with...
Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, an internationally recognized lung cancer physician-investigator, has been named Deputy Director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. He will also serve as Assistant Dean for Cancer Research in the Emory School of Medicine. In his role as Winship’s Deputy...
The 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans1 have generated comments and controversy, with some organizations expressing concern that the guidelines did not recommend limiting the consumption of red and processed meat. These organizations include the American Institute for Cancer Research...
“A missed opportunity” is how Susan Higginbotham, PhD, RD, Vice President for Research, American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), described the “failure” of updated dietary guidelines to recommend limiting consumption of red and processed meat. Doing so would have “the potential to save...
Here are several more abstracts selected from the proceedings of the 2015 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, focusing on newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, and amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis. For other selected abstracts...
ASCO has announced the creation of the Ellen L. Stovall Award and Lecture for Advancement of Cancer Survivorship Care, intended to recognize and promote the work of pioneers and leaders in the growing field of survivorship. The first award will be presented at the 2017 Cancer Survivorship...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO has awarded four 2016 International Innovation Grants to organizations developing projects with the potential to revolutionize cancer control in low- and middle-income countries. This year’s grants will support research in India, Nepal, Uganda, and the...
A funding award of $13.4 million hopes to answer one of the biggest questions in the current management of breast cancer: Do women with the earliest form of the disease, ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), need invasive surgery? Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Duke...
Value in cancer care—and how to define it—is a hot topic. There is general agreement that it is some measure of benefit vs cost, but “should the focus be on providing value to patients at a population level or at an individual level?” asked Alan Balch, PhD, CEO of the Patient Advocate Foundation,...
Urologist Steven Brandes, MD, has joined NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center as Chief of Reconstructive Surgery in the Department of Urology, effective February 1. He was also named a Professor of Urology on the faculty of Columbia University College of Physicians and ...
David J. McConkey, PhD, has been appointed Director of the Johns Hopkins Greenberg Bladder Cancer Institute. The institute was established in 2014 with a $15 million gift from Baltimore-area commercial real estate developer Erwin L. Greenberg and his wife, Stephanie Cooper Greenberg, and a $30...
The majority of patients with locally advanced head and neck cancers rely on cost-coping strategies that alter their lifestyle in order to manage the financial burden of their care, according to research presented by Kung et al at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium (Abstract...
CancerLinQ LLC, a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of ASCO, has named three new members to its leadership team. David Dornstreich, Robert Merold, and Jennifer L. Wong recently joined CancerLinQ LLC and, in their various roles, will be utilizing their extensive strategic experience to fully realize ...
Although more people than ever before are surviving cancer—there are currently 14.5 million cancer survivors, and that number is expected to climb to 19 million by 20241—they often experience long-lasting physical, emotional, and financial concerns related to the disease. To address the unmet...
In his discussion of the presentation, Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, said that conclusions cannot be drawn from the results of NEOSCOPE, which is underpowered to show differences. “On the surface, we see an improvement in the CarPacRT...
Claus Rödel, MD, of the Department of Radiotherapy, University of Frankfurt, Germany, discussed the study at the 2016 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. “The main strength of the Polish II study is clearly its innovative design,” he said. “It sequentially combines effective local radiotherapy and...
Bringing new cancer therapies through the discovery and development process entails considerable risk and many years of study. It also requires substantial investment and incentives from the public and private sectors to fuel future investment and discovery. A system that rewards advances in cancer ...
Preliminary research has identified autoantibodies—immune proteins found in the blood specific for one's own proteins—that can potentially detect lung cancer early by distinguishing between smokers with or without lung cancer and can also discriminate between lung cancer and low-dose...
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators may have uncovered a novel mechanism behind the ability of obesity to promote cancer progression. In their report published by Incio et al in Clinical Cancer Research, the research team describes finding an association between obesity and an...
The American Cancer Society (ACS) and ASCO have issued a Breast Cancer Survivorship Care guideline, published jointly in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The guideline recommendations were formulated by a multidisciplinary expert work group and are based on...
A highly lethal cancer sometimes requires large doses of highly toxic drugs. However, a blitzkrieg approach can be unfeasible for some patients due to severe side effects. Now a team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found that an implantable device can deliver a ...
On January 28, 2016, ASCO released the following statement by ASCO President Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, FASCO: ASCO applauds President Obama for aligning the Administration’s full support behind Vice President Biden’s “moonshot” initiative to accelerate the discovery of new cancer treatments, as...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Harrington et al found that the addition of concurrent adjuvant lapatinib (Tykerb) to chemoradiation therapy and the use of maintenance lapatinib did not improve disease-free or overall survival in high-risk patients with resected...
The Sohn Conference Foundation unveiled The Sohn Precision Medicine Program at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) on January 14, 2016. Funded by a $1.5 million grant provided by The Sohn Conference Foundation over approximately a 3-year period, the Program will provide high-risk pediatric...
ASCO will honor Patricia A. Ganz, MD, an accomplished medical oncologist and renowned advocate for improving the quality of cancer care from prevention through survivorship, with its first annual Joseph V. Simone Award and Lecture for Excellence in Quality and Safety in the Care of Patients With...
James K.V. Willson, MD, Associate Dean of Oncology Programs and Professor and Director of the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center, has been named Chief Scientific Officer of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas...
A committee of national experts, led by a Cleveland Clinic researcher, has established first-of-its-kind guidelines to promote more accurate and individualized cancer predictions, guiding more precise treatment and leading to improved patient survival rates and outcomes. These guidelines were...
Here are several more abstracts selected from the proceedings of the 2015 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, highlighting therapeutics in acute leukemias and myelodysplastic syndromes. For five other top abstracts on therapies for acute leukemias and myelodysplastic ...
On January 19, 2016, Vice President Joe Biden discussed big data as one of the “major undertakings” designed to advance the pace of progress in the fight against cancer as part of his new “moonshot” initiative at the World Economic Forum in Davos Klosters, Switzerland. Mr. Biden presided over a...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On December 18, 2015, approval of the programmed cell death...
Bookmark Title: The Death of Cancer: After Fifty Years on the Front Lines of Medicine, a Pioneering Oncologist Reveals Why the War on Cancer Is Winnable—and How We Can Get There Authors: Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, MD, and Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux Publication date:...
A potentially fatal complication of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation may be reversed with the use of a novel drug currently under priority review at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Hepatic veno-occlusive disease/sinusoidal obstruction syndrome is usually a serious complication...
Although chemotherapy is often cited as the main culprit for diminishing cognitive function in patients with cancer, ushering the term “chemobrain” into the vernacular, research by Tim A. Ahles, PhD, and his colleagues is showing that multiple factors may contribute to the condition.1 Using breast...
Research is the bedrock of progress against cancer, and discoveries in cancer biology are moving from bench to bedside faster than ever. No recent advance has been more transformative than the rise of immunotherapy, particularly over the past year, making this treatment strategy ASCO’s Advance of...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO has received a generous grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) in support of a new ASCO initiative, “Improving the Delivery of Cancer Care in Medically Underserved Communities.” Over an 18-month period, this initiative will bring ASCO’s Quality...
At a Capitol Hill briefing today, ASCO announced immunotherapy as the top cancer advance of the year. Recent breakthroughs in immunotherapy—along with almost 60 other important cancer research advances—are described in ASCO's just-released report, Clinical Cancer Advances 2016: ASCO's...
Several experts commented that an all-oral regimen would bring convenience to the treatment of myeloma. Thierry Facon, MD, of Lille University Hospital in France, told The ASCO Post that although ixazomib (Ninlaro) may not be more active than other proteasome inhibitors, “It definitely has...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced the appointment of an Acting Deputy Office Director and an Associate Director of Clinical Science in its Office of Hematology and Oncology Products (OHOP). Acting Deputy Office Director Amy E. McKee, MD, was recently announced as the...
Late in 2015, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) expanded the label for pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a humanized antibody, to include the initial treatment of patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma. Previously, pembrolizumab had received accelerated approval in patients with...
In 1956, the American College of Surgeons encouraged the development of hospital-based registries, but for the most part, these efforts were clumsy, inaccessible card files of data. Today, advanced microcomputer technology has increased the ability to not only collect and cull cancer data but also...
A 70-year-old female patient underwent a cardiac procedure to repair her mitral valve, and at the same time, she also underwent a coronary artery bypass grafting. She had an uneventful course for the first four postoperative days. On the sixth postoperative day, she started complaining of abdominal ...
Options for second-line therapy of advanced/metastatic renal cell carcinoma are expanding. Updates from the CheckMate 025 and METEOR trials presented at the 2016 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium solidify the value of both nivolumab (Opdivo, an immune checkpoint inhibitor) and cabozantinib...
In a population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yabroff et al found that cancer and its treatment were associated with material financial hardship for 29% and psychological financial hardship for 32% of patients aged 18 to 64 years in the United States. Financial hardship...
James O. Armitage, MD, of The University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Ruben A. Mesa, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, discuss pacritinib and its significant efficacy in myelofibrosis (Abstract LBA7006).
Ruben A. Mesa, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, discusses pacritinib and its significant efficacy in myelofibrosis (Abstract LBA7006).