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Showing 6801 - 6850James P. Allison, PhD, Receives 2014 Canada Gairdner International Award
The Gairdner Foundation of Canada has named James P. Allison, PhD, for one of its 2014 Canada Gairdner International Awards. Dr. Allison is Chair and Professor of Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. The honor, announced recently by the Gairdner Foundation,...
Visit the Conquer Cancer Foundation Donor Lounge at the ASCO Annual Meeting
The work that we do at the Conquer Cancer Foundation would not be possible without the support of generous donors who share our vision to create a world free from the fear of cancer. Conquer Cancer Foundation supporters are invited to visit the Donor Lounge during the ASCO Annual Meeting, held May...
Conquer Cancer Foundation and Strike 3 Foundation Work Together to Conquer Pediatric Cancers
Envision a world where a diagnosis of pediatric cancer is met with the same reaction as a diagnosis of the common cold. In this idyllic world, the word “cancer” no longer carries with it the same traumatic response or stigma that it does today. This hopeful vision is what drives Craig Breslow in...
Getting It Right in the End: Individualization of Care for Patients With Rectal Cancer
Data from trials conducted mostly in the 1970s and 1980s established the paradigm that optimal treatment of rectal cancer requires a combination of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and surgery.1 Virtually all of these trials, however, demonstrated that radiotherapy added only to the local control...
Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Without Routine Radiotherapy Shows Promise in Patients With Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer
In a pilot study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Deborah Schrag, MD, MPH, and colleagues from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, assessed outcomes with neoadjuvant FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin)/bevacizumab (Avastin) with selective use of...
Continued Survival Benefits Seen With Radical Prostatectomy vs Watchful Waiting in Long-Term Follow-up of the SPCG-4 Trial
The long-term benefits of radical prostatectomy vs watchful waiting in men with localized prostate cancer has remained a debated issue. As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Anna Bill-Axelson, MD, of Uppsala University Hospital, and colleagues, additional long-term follow-up in the...
Demanding More From Clinical Trials
“The function of the formal controlled clinical trial is to separate the relative handful of discoveries that prove to be true advances in therapy from a legion of false leads and unverifiable clinical impressions, and to delineate in a scientific way the extent of and the limitations that attend...
Cancer Chemotherapy Use During Pregnancy
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the FDA and its policies and procedures. In this installment, National Toxicology Program scientists Kembra L. Howdeshell, PhD, and Michael D. Shelby, PhD, discuss a recently completed monograph that reviews the published data on...
Ceritinib Highly Active in Patients With ALK-Rearranged Advanced NSCLC
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring ALK rearrangement is sensitive to the ALK inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori), but resistance ultimately occurs. In a phase I study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Boston, and...
ASCO Releases Adapted Guideline on Screening, Assessment, and Management of Fatigue in Adult Survivors of Cancer
A majority of cancer patients experience some level of fatigue during the course of their treatment, and approximately 30% contend with persistent fatigue for years after treatment. Fatigue is among the most common and distressing long-term effects of cancer treatment and significantly affects...
Postmastectomy Radiotherapy Benefits Women With Breast Cancer That Has Spread to One to Three Lymph Nodes
In women with breast cancer who had between one and three positive lymph nodes, radiotherapy reduced the recurrence rate by 32% and the breast cancer death rate by 20%. Giving radiotherapy to these women led to nearly 12 fewer recurrences of breast cancer per 100 women after 10 years, and eight...
ASCO Releases Adapted Guideline on Screening, Assessment, and Care of Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Adults With Cancer
Detection of depression is suboptimal, and its severity is underestimated in the general population, but it is known psychiatric disorders are more common in patients with cancer than in those with any other chronic illness. Although studies in cancer patients have yielded varying figures, it is...
Challenges in Creating and Promoting Clinical Practice Guidelines
With regard to clinical practice guidelines, clinicians want an authoritative resource that will clearly and concisely instruct them in most clinical scenarios. Guideline developers want to give them this, “but producing guidelines is not as straightforward as it might seem,” according to David...
The Affordable Care Act: NCCN Panelists Rate It ‘Average’
Oncologists and third-party payers are already experiencing changes as a result of the Affordable Care Act, which earned an “average” rating by a panel of providers, payers, and patients assembled at the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) in Hollywood,...
Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, on Treating the Elderly Lymphoma Patient With Elevated Bilirubin
At the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), lymphoma expert and NCCN Panel Chair on Lymphoma, Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, fielded questions from oncologists. The ASCO Post was there to capture his recommendations for a common clinical scenario—treating the...
I-SPY 2 Trial ‘Graduates’ Neratinib to Phase III Study in HER2-Positive, Hormone Receptor–Negative Breast Cancer
In the targeted-therapy era, it is important to identify subsets of patients who can benefit from novel agents and combinations as quickly as possible. The I-SPY 2 trial is designed to expedite this goal and to change the way that targeted agents are studied and approved. This innovative adaptive...
NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology: 2014 Updates
At the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), held recently in Hollywood, Florida, NCCN Panel members presented updates for several tumor types, briefly summarized here. For a more complete description of all updates, visit www.nccn.org. Breast Cancer Guidelines ...
Reflecting on the Past Year and Looking Ahead to the Next
On assuming the Presidency of ASCO a year ago, I recognized that one of our greatest challenges as a professional society is helping the American public understand the value of cancer research, especially now, when scientific advances are accelerating but resources are contracting. This is partly...
ASCO Develops New Strategy to Increase Value in Cancer Care
Last January, ASCO held a leadership summit in Washington, DC, with representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, insurance payers, patient advocates, and physicians to address the skyrocketing costs of new drugs and technologies used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Although costs are ...
ASCO Releases Guideline on Prevention and Management of Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Survivors of Adult Cancers
ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on prevention and treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in adult cancer patients, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 The guidelines resulted from the efforts of an expert panel, with representation from the fields of...
Jane Weeks, MD, MSc: August 12, 1952–September 10, 2013
On September 10, 2013, Jane Carrie Weeks, MD, MSc, a prominent researcher at Dana-Farber Cancer Center, died of cancer in her Boston home. She was 61. At the time of her death, Dr. Weeks was Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard...
Peter Jacobs, MD, PhD: 1934–2013
Peter Jacobs, MD, PhD, regarded as the father of hematology in his native country of South Africa, began each day at 3 AM in the gym. During his workout, Dr. Jacobs would routinely call the nursing staff for updates on patients in his ward. Before sunup, Dr. Jacobs was on his way to the hospital....
Understanding the Relationship Between the Lab and the Clinic is Key to 2014 Karnofsky Memorial Award Honoree’s Success
The island nation of Curaçao is nestled in the southern Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan coast. Curaçao was first settled by the Arawaks, an Amerindian people that inhabited the island for hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans. Amid one wave of settlers from Portugal and Spain that...
Enthusiasm and Vision Guide the Head of FDA’s Oncology Office
In 2005, Richard Pazdur, MD, was named the FDA’s Director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products. By any measure, being arbiter of the nation’s oncology drug pipeline is a daunting prospect, but Dr. Pazdur sees it as an opportunity to encourage his talented staff to work for the greater ...
Barbara L. McAneny, MD, Is Dedicated to Designing a Better Health-Care System
Barbara L. McAneny, MD, grew up on the outskirts of Alton, a small city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois. It is an area rich in history, famous as the site of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas’s last debate and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. “We...
A Coast-to-Coast Road to an Illustrious Career in Radiation Oncology
Nationally regarded radiation oncologist and lymphoma expert Richard Hoppe, MD, was reared in Seaford, a small town hugging the South Shore of Long Island, New York. “I grew up in the early part of Long Island’s suburban sprawl, and my childhood was a fairly typical experience for that time,”...
International Leader in Multiple Myeloma Was Inspired by an Early Mentor’s Lessons in Wisdom and Compassion
Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, grew up in Auburn, a small historic town in central Massachusetts that was settled by the English in 1714. His desire to become a doctor bloomed early. “My decision to possibly pursue a career in medicine was first inspired by my mother, who was a registered nurse, and by...
An Early Calling to Medicine That Never Wavered: ASCO President Peter P. Yu, MD
The road leading to a career in medicine is often a stepwise journey of multiple decision points and influences. However, sometimes the decision to become a doctor is hardwired from birth. Such was the case with 2014-2015 ASCO President Peter P. Yu, MD. Since his days in nursery school, Dr. Yu...
Remembering Selma Ruth Schimmel
My last conversation with Selma Schimmel was 2 months ago. She had been uncharacteristically out of touch for a few weeks, and I had a nagging feeling the severe pain in her psoas muscle caused by advancing ovarian cancer—which had plagued her for months and she described as in a “league of its...
Oncology Advanced Practitioners in the Midst of Growth, Change
The number of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) in community cancer practices is growing, according to ASCO’s annual census of oncology practice, published in March 2014.1 As though to illustrate that finding, a new professional society—the Advanced Practitioner Society for...
A Proposal for Patient-Selected Controlled Trials: Good Science and Good Medicine
The Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee (CTAC) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) met for the 22nd time on March 12, 2014, in their ongoing effort to improve efficiency and effectiveness of cancer clinical trials. A significant portion of the meeting addressed lagging...
Bringing Palliative Care Services to Local Community Clinical Practices and Health Facilities Throughout the World
In 2007, the Billings Clinic Cancer Center in Billings, Montana, became one of 15 community-based oncology centers nationwide to receive funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to expand programs for clinical trials, health-care disparities outreach, survivorship and palliative care,...
Randomized Trials vs Meta-analyses: Which Is the Better Bet?
Two surgical oncology experts who squared off in a “Great Debate” at the 2014 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Annual Cancer Symposium in Phoenix. Heidi Nelson, MD, Professor of Surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, argued for the superiority of randomized controlled trials in...
Margin Reassessment in Breast-Conservation Therapy
Significant progress has been made in local-regional and systemic treatments of breast cancer. Most patients currently diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States are diagnosed with early-stage disease and achieve excellent outcomes with breast-conservation therapy. Indeed, outcomes have...
ASCO Endorses SSO/ASTRO Guideline on Margins for Breast-Conserving Surgery With Whole-Breast Irradiation in Stage I/II Breast Cancer
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology,1 ASCO has endorsed the recently published Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) consensus guideline on margins for breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation in stage I and II invasive...
Ceritinib in ALK-Positive Metastatic NSCLC Patients With Progression on or Intolerance to Crizotinib
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 April 29, 2014, ceritinib (Zykadia) was granted accelerated...
ICD-10 Adoption Requirements Delayed for 1 Year
The legislation signed into law in early April creating another patch for the fundamentally flawed sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula for reimbursing physicians under Medicare also delays the adoption of International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition (ICD-10) coding system, which will...
A Way Forward in Genomic Medicine
Over the past several decades, the convergence of scientific discovery, technology, and therapeutic developments has created an unparalleled opportunity to integrate our growing knowledge of genomics into the clinical practice of oncology. To shed light on the current state and future of...
Unprecedented Release of Medicare Data Raises Concerns About Lack of Context: Statements From COA and ASTRO
In April, as part of the Obama administration’s work to make the U.S. health-care system more transparent, affordable, and accountable, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a vast amount of privacy-protected data on services and procedures provided to Medicare...
Patients Benefit From Faster FDA Drug Approval Process
In an increasing spirit of cooperation, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and several pharmaceutical companies are bringing to fruition the newest in a series of ways to expedite drug development and review. Breakthrough therapy is the designation instituted in 2012 by the FDA Safety and...
Looking Ahead in Treating Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
It’s the dawn of a new era in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), largely due to the development of agents targeting the BCR signaling pathway, according to John C. Byrd, MD, of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbus. At the 19th Annual Conference of the...
Surveillance After Colon Cancer Surgery: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Finding salvageable colon cancer recurrence is akin to finding a needle in a haystack, rendering routine patient surveillance of little value. But finding that needle offers an opportunity for treating recurrent disease early, which makes surveillance worthwhile. These were the opposing views...
Glioblastoma: Can We Make This Intractable Disease Tractable?
In the clinical array of brain tumors, glioblastoma is the most difficult to treat, and despite decades of research and the advent of new therapies, patients with glioblastoma continue to have a very poor prognosis. Leading brain tumor experts at the recent 25th Annual Cancer Progress Conference in ...
Mercaptopurine Oral Suspension for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
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 April 28, 2014, an oral suspension of mercaptopurine (Purixan) ...
Obesity Increases Breast Cancer Mortality in Premenopausal Women With Estrogen Receptor–Positive Disease
According to results of a large study of women with early breast cancer, the presence of obesity increased the risk of breast cancer–related mortality by 34% in premenopausal women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer. Obesity had little effect on breast cancer–related mortality in...
Expert Point of View: Peter P. Yu, MD
Commenting on the study by Jänne et al, ASCO President Peter P. Yu, MD, said that the issue of drug resistance is important to understand for all cancers, but it is difficult to overcome resistance. “This clinical trial has important implications not only for NSCLC patients but for all patients...
Expert Point of View: George W. Sledge, Jr, MD
In his commentary on the ALTTO results, George W. Sledge, Jr, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Oncology at Stanford University, reminded attendees that the announcement of the first results for adjuvant trastuzumab, which occurred at the 2005 ASCO Annual Meeting, was “a...
Medicare Advisory Panel Cast Doubts on Lung Cancer Screening, Leaving Advocates Dismayed but Undaunted
On April 30, 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) convened the Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) to assess the value of low-dose computed tomography (CT) lung cancer screening in the Medicare population. After a decades-long battle,...
'Small Practices Like Mine'
Recently, I participated in ASCO’s Congressional news briefing in Washington, DC, following the release of its report, The State of Cancer Care in America: 2014. During my presentation I talked about the workforce shortage of approximately 1,500 medical oncologists that is predicted by 2025. A...
Expert Point of View: Michael J. Morris, MD
Formal discussant of the E3805 study, Michael J. Morris, MD, Associate Member at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said that these results confirm the role of upfront chemotherapy along with androgen-deprivation therapy in men with newly diagnosed metastatic hormone-sensitive...
