RESEARCHERS AT The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are testing the possibility of safely eliminating surgery in patients with breast cancer who are “exceptional responders” to neoadjuvant therapy, according to Henry M. Kuerer, MD, PhD, a breast cancer surgeon who described this...
The latest news from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccination rates in the United States for human papillomavirus (HPV) is disappointing. It shows that in 2016, just 43.4% of adolescents (49.5% of females and 37.5% of males) were up-to-date with the recommended 3-dose HPV...
Nearly 85% of patients surveyed 6 or more months after completing radiotherapy as part of their treatment for breast cancer reported the side effects were not as bad as they had feared or expected. Approximately 92% of the 269 patients treated with breast conservation and 81% of the 58 patients...
Virginia G. Kaklamani, MD, Professor of Hematology/Oncology at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio and leader of the center’s breast cancer program, was born and reared in Athens, Greece. “I spent my formative years in Athens, where I attended school. My father is a physician and my mom’s a...
Among patients with inoperable, advanced, or metastatic ALK-positive inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor, 50% were confirmed to have partial or complete tumor shrinkage after treatment with the ALK-targeted anticancer therapeutic agent crizotinib (Xalkori), according to data from the phase II EORTC...
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have completed a detailed genomic analysis, known as the Pan-Cancer Atlas, on a data set of molecular and clinical information from over 10,000 tumors representing 33 types of cancer. “This project is the culmination of more than...
Dr. Collins is Director of the National Institutes of Health. Originally posted on March 19, 2018, to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Blog (https://directorsblog. nih.gov). OVER THE PAST couple of weeks, we’ve lost two legendary scientists who made major contributions to our...
“I think I found the trial that is going to save your life,” Stefanie Joho’s sister said after checking out the ClinicalTrials.gov website. “And sure enough, it did. That is not an exaggeration. That is exactly what happened,” Ms. Joho, a health advocate and consultant based in Philadelphia, told...
Women with small, low-grade, well-defined breast tumors and a genetic profile that shows they are at low risk of the cancer metastasizing have only a 1.4% risk of locoregional recurrence within 5 years, according to new results from a large randomized trial of nearly 7,000 patients. This low risk...
In 2017, more than 63,000 women in the United States were diagnosed with in situ breast cancer. The overwhelming majority of those women, about 83%, were diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a condition characterized by the presence of abnormal cells confined to the breast milk ducts;...
On March 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) to treat adult patients with previously untreated stage III or IV classical Hodgkin lymphoma in combination with chemotherapy. “Today’s approval represents an improvement in the initial...
Why wouldn’t you support a patient with a terminal illness the “right to try” any therapy that may save his or her life? The answer to this question—one engulfed in a political debate in Congress—seems simple. It is not. [Editor’s Note: [Editor’s Note: On May 30, 2018, the President signed into...
Six years ago, I was 38 years old and, like many young people, took life for granted. I had two young daughters, ages 7 years and 4 months, and a wife I adored. And, except for a nagging pain on the left side of my abdomen, I was blessed with good health. Then, suddenly, the pain became so...
FOR DECADES, the status of metastatic prostate cancer trials was not particularly exciting. With an absence of high-impact novel agents, the focus of cancer trial groups was on the improvement of standard care. Well-crafted, large trials of hormonal therapy demonstrated the utility of combined...
Why wouldn’t you support a patient with a terminal illness the “right to try” any therapy that may save his or her life? The answer to this question—one engulfed in a political debate in Congress—seems simple. It is not. [Editor’s Note: On May 30, 2018, the President signed into law the Trickett...
The number of U.S. cases of Merkel cell carcinoma is rising about six times faster than most other cancers, and at nearly twice the rate of melanoma. Paulson et al reported these findings in The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, which are based on research conducted at the University...
In the December 10, 2017, issue of The ASCO Post, I authored an article in which I raised the possibility of curing follicular lymphoma without the dreaded chemotherapy. Clearly, no good deed goes unpunished: My good friend and The ASCO Post’s editor Jim Armitage, MD, challenged me to defend that...
NEIL P. SHAH, MD, PhD, Leader of the Hematopoietic Malignancies Program at the University of California, San Francisco, Helen Diller Family Cancer Comprehensive Cancer Center, noted that BLU- 285 could fill an “unmet medical need” for a KIT inhibitor that is “both potent and selective.” He pointed ...
ROBERT W. DAY, MD, the longest-serving President and Director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the leader who brought into being its campus overlooking Seattle’s South Lake Union, died in his Seattle home on January 6, 2018 of lung cancer. He was 87. “It is a tragic loss for all of...
Understanding what consciousness is, and why and how it evolved, is perhaps the greatest mystery known to science. With its 100 billion or so neurons and a processing rate of about 4 billion bits per second, the human brain is a miraculously complicated entity, much of which is still under...
Ponce Health Sciences University of Ponce, Puerto Rico, in partnership with the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, has received a grant of $16,000,000 from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The grant will help to expand Ponce Health Sciences University’s research capabilities in basic ...
In 1996, Jimmie C. Holland, MD, the Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) in New York, decided to launch the cancer center’s Lung Cancer Survivorship Program after she had a startling encounter with a patient. “The woman said to me, ‘Would...
Bostjan Seruga, MD, PhD, is a medical oncology consultant at the Insitute of Oncology Ljubljana and Associate Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has published on barriers in global cancer research. The ASCO Post spoke with him recently about his career path, cancer care in...
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), from 1999 to 2015, more than 183,000 people have died in the United States from overdoses related to prescription opioids, including methadone, oxycodone, and hydrocodone.1 To stem the epidemic in prescription opioid–related use and ...
PREMENOPAUSAL WOMEN with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer benefited substantially from the addition of ribociclib (Kisqali) to first-line endocrine therapy plus medical ovarian suppression, according to results from the MONALEESA-7 study.1 At the 2017 San Antonio...
FRONT-LINE TREATMENT of advanced Hodgkin lymphoma with brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) plus doxorubicin/ vinblastine/dacarbazine (A+AVD) achieved superior outcomes compared with the standard four-drug regimen of doxorubicin/bleomycin/vinblastine/dacarbazine (ABVD). The substitution of brentuximab...
THE UNIVERSITY of Edinburgh Medical School was established in 1726 during the Scottish Enlightenment. As one of the oldest medical schools in the English-speaking world, it is interesting to reflect on the seminal contributions made centuries ago by several alumni that are still relevant to the...
The discovery of my non–small cell lung cancer (NCSLC) in 2005 was serendipitous and completely unexpected. A never smoker and physically active my whole life, the only hint something might be amiss was a slight tickle in my throat, which I’m not even sure was related to my cancer diagnosis. In...
The Walther Cancer Foundation, Inc., a private foundation based in Indianapolis, Indiana, has endowed a new ASCO award and lecture bearing its name to be presented annually at the Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium. This grant represents a new foray for the foundation as it...
This year has been an important transitional period for oncology providers to start collecting their performance data to meet the requirements of the Quality Payment Program outlined in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). The Quality Payment Program is a...
In a webcast press briefing prior to the 2017 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, journalists got a peek at some of the most anticipated abstracts. ASH President Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, Director of the Lebow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics and Jerome Lipper...
Cancer memoirs come in a variety of literary styles and voices. Not surprisingly, the most poignant cancer memoirs are by those who are writing, in essence, their final words before departing this earth. The most widely read of that variety has been the beautifully written best seller When Breath...
Nicaragua, situated between Costa Rica and Honduras, is the poorest country in Central America. Following the U.S. occupation in 1912, the Somoza family began a brutal political dynasty that would end in 1979 during the bloody Nicaraguan Revolution. Marcela G. del Carmen, MD, MPH, Chief Medical...
It had been an uneventful Sunday morning, and I was writing my final note for the day, hopeful to make a stealth exit and perhaps join my family at church. But as I closed the chart and looked up, I saw Ruthie, my oncology fellow, approaching with a grim expression. “I just left the room of a...
Bloodless stem cell transplantation, performed without the transfusion of allogeneic blood or blood products, has numerous clinical advantages, especially among populations of patients who prefer, for religious or other reasons, no blood methods of medical and surgical treatment. Patricia A. Ford, ...
Howard A. “Skip” Burris III, MD, FACP, FASCO, of Sarah Cannon and Tennessee Oncology, and Therese Marie Mulvey, MD, FASCO, of Massachusetts General Hospital North Shore Cancer Center, were selected by the ASCO Nominating Committee as candidates for ASCO President-Elect. Below, the candidates share...
“Growing research suggests that body weight is not only related to the risk of developing malignancy, but also prognosis after diagnosis, especially in breast cancer,” said Jennifer A. Ligibel, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, at the 19th Annual Lynn Sage Breast...
Although a majority of major cancer centers may test for minimal residual disease (MRD), a recent survey conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, suggests most oncologists remain uncertain about what to do with the results. At the National Comprehensive Cancer Network®...
Poly (ADP ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors are among the most exciting new classes of oncology drugs, and their development has coincided with the increasing recognition of the therapeutic vulnerability in targeting DNA damage response and DNA repair. The initial clinical testing of PARP...
Communicating effectively with patients with advanced cancer not only helps patients and their family members successfully transition to palliative and end-of-life care, it can prevent physicians from experiencing professional burnout, according to Robert M. Arnold, MD, Distinguished Service...
In this roundup, The ASCO Post offers a glance at key findings from studies in noncolorectal gastrointestinal malignancies presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2017 Congress from investigators around the world. Docetaxel-Based Triplet in Gastric Cancer The superiority of...
Low-dose computed tomography (CT) screening for lung cancer has become standard practice, mostly due to the results of the National Lung Screening Trial. Related evidence continues to evolve, informing the benefits and risks of low-dose CT in clinical practice. Mazzone et al presented new ...
Gary Gilliland, MD, PhD, President and Director of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, recently delivered the following testimony and answered questions from members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. His remarks...
Honoring National Cancer Institute researchers Douglas R. Lowy, MD, and John T. Schiller, PhD, with the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for advances in technology that enabled the development of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines to prevent cervical cancer and other tumors caused by ...
I’ve always had dense breasts and avoided doing breast self-exams because I couldn’t tell if the lumpiness I was feeling was something serious or merely normal fibrous tissue. Instead I relied on my yearly mammogram to spot any early signs of cancer. Four years ago, I was once again relieved to...
TWO STUDIES published this year examining the incidence of colorectal cancer in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) show an undeniable and sobering trend: Colorectal cancer rates are increasing in this age group, and younger people are dying of the cancer at slightly higher rates than in previous...
Nationally regarded leukemia and lymphoma specialist Gwen L. Nichols, MD, was born in the Bronx, New York, and when she became of school age, her parents moved to the upstate suburb of Chappaqua, where she grew up. Asked if there were any physicians in her family who might have influenced her...
Breast cancer specialist Ann H. Partridge, MD, MPH, was born in Manhasset, Long Island, and grew up several miles east in Muttontown, New York. Since tiny Muttontown didn’t have its own school system, Dr. Partridge went to high school in nearby Locust Valley, a town on Long Island’s North Shore,...
FORMAL DISCUSSANT, Manuela Schmidinger, MD, of the Medical University of Austria, Vienna, commented on the CheckMate 214 findings. “We have just seen a change in the paradigm in the treatment of metastatic renal cell cancer.” “More than a decade ago, VEGF [vascular endothelial growth factor]...
Historically, randomized controlled trials have served as the state-of-the-art method for determining the efficacy and safety of new, innovative treatment regimens for patients with cancer and other diseases. It is imperative that such trials are carefully designed to ensure that they are...