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Showing 6851 - 6900Postinduction Dexamethasone and Individualized Dosing of Asparaginase Improve Outcome in Pediatric ALL
Findings from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute ALL Consortium Protocol 00-01, recently reported by Lynda M. Vrooman, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues in Journal of Clinical Oncology, indicate that postinduction dexamethasone and individualized dosing of Escherichia coli–derived...
Cancer Organizations Recognize Sen. Shelby and Rep. DeLauro for Their Commitment to the Fight against Cancer
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) were recognized recently by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Association for Cancer Research, the Association of American Cancer Institutes, and Friends of Cancer Research for their outstanding commitment to cancer...
Death with Dignity Program at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
After passage of the Washington Death with Dignity Act in November 2008, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance—the site of outpatient care for patients with cancer from Fred Hutchinson–University of Washington Cancer Consortium—developed a Death with Dignity program. The program is adapted from existing ...
Impressive Results Shown for Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: Anti-PD1 and Anti-PD-L1 Antibodies
Antibody-mediated blockade of the programmed death 1 protein (PD-1) and its ligand (PD-L1) resulted in potent and durable tumor regression and prolonged stabilization of disease in patients with advanced solid tumors, according to early data on these drugs presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting. ...
SIDEBAR: Understanding the PD-1/PD-L1 Pathway and Its Promise
Tumors can be recognized by the immune system, but they have multiple mechanisms for evading eradication by the immune system. The tumor microenvironment suppresses the immune response, partly because tumors can express molecules that inhibit immune responses. The cancer clinical trials summarized...
Innovative Leader in Oncology Is Committed to Tackling the Most Critical Issues in Managed Care
“I’m a Nebraskan,” said Lee N. Newcomer, MD, MHA, a leader in the oncology community who is well known for his innovative efforts to align physician payment and quality of care in ways that will best configure to the rapidly changing health-care environment. Speaking in the flat vowels and neutral...
UICC President Balances Innovation and Pragmatism to Reduce the Global Burden of Cancer
Mary K. Gospodarowicz, MD, FRCPC, is determined to help reduce the worldwide burden of cancer, a problem of epic proportions. Her approach is simple: adopt what works and reject what doesn’t. Much progress in the fight against cancer can be made without waiting for the next paradigm-changing...
Pioneering Oncologist's Research on Cisplatin Revolutionized Testicular Cancer Treatment
Lawrence H. Einhorn, MD, grew up in Dayton, Ohio, in a time and place that he describes as pleasant and community-oriented. Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Einhorn has maintained strong roots in the Midwest. “After finishing high school, I did my undergrad at Indiana University and went to ...
After a Distinguished Career, Trailblazing Swiss Oncologist Remains Devoted to Addressing the Global Cancer Challenge
Switzerland, a landlocked country with a population about that of New York City, has four geographic regions, each with its own official language. Internationally regarded lymphoma and breast cancer expert, Franco Cavalli, MD, FRCP, was born and raised in Locarno, a town in the Italian region of...
Prolific Surgical Oncologist Understands the True Value of Mentorship
Charles M. Balch, MD, FACS, PhD (hc), was born in Milford, Delaware, where his father was a research chemist for DuPont during World War II. “My father was part of the team that developed rayon for parachutes. It was a top priority program because they couldn’t get nylon from the Philippines. After ...
Emil 'Tom' Frei III, MD 1924–2013
The pages of medical history are dog-eared with breakthroughs that have transformed medicine and saved lives. One of those dog-eared pages belongs to Emil Frei III, MD, known to his colleagues and friends as Tom. In the dawn of oncology, Dr. Frei, along with his associate, Emil Freireich, MD, did...
FDA Clears Multicenter Trial of Treatment for Hair Loss Related to Chemotherapy
The FDA has approved initiation of a multicenter trial of the DigniCap System, a scalp-cooling device for chemotherapy-related hair loss. The trial is the second and final phase of study for the DigniCap System. A pilot study previously conducted by researchers at the University of California San...
Angelina Jolie's Disclosure of Prophylactic Bilateral Mastectomy: A Positive Example for Women with BRCA Mutations?
Angelina Jolie, in a New York Times article entitled “My Medical Choice,”1 disclosed that having a BRCA1 mutation and an estimated 87% risk of breast cancer, “I decided to be proactive and minimize the risk as much I could. I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy.” She was writing...
Focus on the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology
With a roster of over 600 members that includes community and institutional oncologists, administrators, registered nurses, and patient navigators, the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology (GASCO) is one of ASCO’s largest State Affiliates. Founded in 1986, the Atlanta-based Society is active in...
Vitamin D and Cancer: A Uniform Dose Is Unlikely to Fit All Patients
Integrative Oncology is guest edited by Barrie R. Cassileth, MS, PhD, Chief of the Integrative Medicine Service and Laurance S. Rockefeller Chair in Integrative Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York. The Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center...
Improving Treatment and Care for Patients with Primary Brain Cancers
Despite advances in neuroimaging, the development of focused radiation therapy, and more effective chemotherapy, life expectancy for patients with primary malignant tumors of the brain and spinal cord remains stubbornly low at between 15 and 18 months. However, there are significant advances on the ...
Treating Both the Physical and Psychological Symptoms of Cancer
A growing number of people with cancer are being treated on an outpatient basis. At the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in New York, to ensure that the psychosocial and psychiatric needs of these patients were being...
No Survival Benefit of ERCC1 and RRM1 Expression-based Chemotherapy in Patients with Advanced NSCLC
A trial reported by Gerold Bepler, MD, PhD, of Karmanos Cancer Institute, Detroit, and colleagues in Journal of Clinical Oncology assessed whether chemotherapy selected on the basis of in situ ERCC1 and RRM1 protein levels could improve outcomes in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer...
Thirty Years of Advancing Cancer Research and Care
In the last 30 years, discoveries made through research have fueled great improvements in cancer prevention, treatment, and care. Major progress against cancer has been made, and steady investment both in scientific studies and in the careers of researchers has led to transformations in how doctors ...
ASCO Issues Guideline Update and Videos on Fertility Preservation
ASCO recently issued an update to its guideline on fertility preservation for people living with cancer, as well as two videos jointly produced with the LIVESTRONG Foundation. Both the guideline and videos are intended to raise awareness and understanding of this important area of cancer care....
Journal of Clinical Oncology Fosters the Development of Early-career Researchers through Support of Conquer Cancer Foundation Young Investigator Awards
The Conquer Cancer Foundation of the American Society of Clinical Oncology is dedicated to funding breakthrough research and sharing cutting-edge knowledge, and the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) shares this commitment: It is ranked as the most widely read oncology journal worldwide, with a...
National Institutes of Health Issues Projected Impact of Sequestration on Programs
Earlier this month, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released its updated projections of reductions in programs due to the deficit-budget mechanism known as sequestration, which took effect on March 1, 2013. The sequestration law requires NIH to cut 5%, or $1.55 billion, of its fiscal year...
Study Shows High Concordance of Recurrent Somatic Alterations in Primary and Matched Metastatic NSCLC
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stéphane Vignot, MD, of Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale (INSERM) Unit 981, Paris, and Gustave Roussy Institute, Villejuif, France, and colleagues used next-generation sequencing to identify somatic alterations in...
Expert Point of View: Electra D. Paskett, PhD
Formal discussant Electra D. Paskett, PhD, Professor of Medicine at The Ohio State University, was enthusiastic about these trial results and the potential of visual inspection with acetic acid screening, as well as low-cost human papillomavirus (HPV) screening to save lives in the developing...
Expert Point of View: Gottfried Konecny, MD
Formal discussant Gottfried Konecny, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, also viewed the study as a game changer. He cited the strengths of the study, including its design, randomization with stratification, P values adjusted for multiple testing, and the...
Financial Revamping of Medical Education
The American medical education system was in a state of crisis in 1910 when Abraham Flexner published his treatise, Report on Medical Education in the United States and Canada (Carnegie Foundation Bulletin Number Four).1 A century later, we face another crisis in medical education—not in terms of...
MSKCC Community Mourns the Death of Trudy Nan Small, MD
Trudy Nan Small, MD, was a pediatric hematologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center who specialized in the diagnosis and care of children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for hematologic malignancies and those with life-threatening genetic disorders of the immune system....
Plasma Epstein-Barr Virus DNA a Potential Marker for Treatment Response in Advanced Hodgkin Lymphoma
Plasma Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) DNA has prognostic significance in Hodgkin lymphoma, both prior to therapy and at 6 months of follow-up, according to results of a study published in Blood. “Plasma EBV-DNA positivity at month 6 is associated with particularly poor outcomes and may serve as an...
Survival Benefits of DCIS Management Strategies Compared
Overall survival benefits of six management strategies for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are within 1 year of each other, according to a disease simulation model integrating empirical data from published literature and quantifying the tradeoffs among the different management strategies with...
Shiitake Mushroom
The use of dietary supplements by patients with cancer has increased significantly over the past 2 decades despite insufficient evidence of safety and effectiveness. Finding reliable sources of information about dietary supplements can be daunting. Patients typically rely on family, friends, and...
Driven by the Past
When I was 9 years old, a bout of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain sent me to the emergency room. The physicians diagnosed appendicitis and rushed me to the operating room. But what the surgeon found instead was a 10-cm-wide, grade 2, immature teratoma. In 1968, treatment for malignant ovarian...
SIDEBAR: Expect Questions about Programmed Death Receptors
In today’s high-tech, sci-fi–loving culture, “programmed death receptor” seems like a term apt to stir up public interest, particularly when those receptors are being “targeted” by “agents.” In this case, however, the agents are antibodies that target programmed death 1 (PD-1) receptor and disable...
Molecular Imaging Improves Care in Pediatric Glioma
The amino acid imaging agent, O-(2-[18F]-fluoroethyl)-L-tyrosine (F-18 FET), may improve upon standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and its diagnostic benefit for imaging pediatric gliomas when conventional MRI is not sufficient, said researchers at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular ...
AMA Announces 2013-2014 Board of Trustees; Names Oncologist Barbara McAneny, MD, Chair-elect
The American Medical Association (AMA) recently introduced the 21 members of its Board of Trustees for the coming year following elections held during the Annual Meeting of the AMA House of Delegates. The new Chair of the AMA Board of Trustees is David O. Barbe, MD, MHA, a Family Medicine physician ...
Progression of Renal Cell Carcinoma Linked to Shifts in Tumor Metabolism
Investigators in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have uncovered a connection between how tumor cells use energy from metabolic processes and the aggressiveness of the most common form of kidney cancer, clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Their findings demonstrate that normal...
Erlotinib in First-line Treatment of Metastatic NSCLC with EGFR Exon 19 Deletion or Exon 21 (L858R) Substitution
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. Indication On May 14, 2013, erlotinib (Tarceva) was approved for...
ASCO Issues Progress Report on Blueprint for Cancer Research
ASCO has released a Progress Report on the gains made toward achieving goals set forth in its landmark 2011 report, Blueprint for Transforming Clinical and Translational Cancer Research. The ASCO Blueprint laid out an innovative roadmap for the clinical research system to capitalize on the new...
Institute Initiatives Help Oncologists Integrate Evidence-based Guidelines in Practice
Building on ASCO’s longstanding commitment to drive quality, value, and accountability in cancer care, the Institute for Quality’s initiatives provide oncologists with resources to ensure that every patient receives the highest level of cancer care. Established in 2011, the Institute for Quality...
2013 Breast Cancer Symposium to Offer Expanded Meet the Professor Sessions and New Fellows, Residents, and Junior Faculty Track
As a cancer care specialist, it can be easy to become hyperfocused on your area of expertise within your subspecialty. But that’s exactly what ASCO wants its members—in all specialties—to avoid. The theme of this year’s Breast Cancer Symposium—Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Clinical...
Molecular Landscaping of Acute Myeloid Leukemia: Are We Relearning the Past or Informing the Future?
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a clinically and molecularly heterogeneous disease.1 This concept has been supported by more than 4 decades of studies showing distinct outcomes of subsets of patients that differ in age, disease type (primary vs secondary vs therapy-related), and cytogenetic and...
Best First-line Treatment for Advanced Colorectal Cancer Remains Unclear
In patients with advanced colorectal cancer, it remains unclear which biologic agent added to standard chemotherapy is best, even after a head-to-head comparison of two commonly used agents. In the phase III FIRE-3 trial, conducted by the German AIO CRC Study Group, the addition of cetuximab...
Expert Point of View: Prolaris
Scott Tomlins, MD, PhD, a pathologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, was cautiously optimistic about this new test. “Whenever you introduce a new biomarker, you need to demonstrate its ability to impact clinical decision-making, and it needs to improve on what we currently have,” he...
ASCO Impact Report Indicates Strong Interest in New Treatments for Melanoma and Cervical Cancer
New treatments for melanoma and cervical cancer were cited as the most important subjects of new clinical information presented at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meerting, according to the second annual ASCO Impact Report released recently by Encuity Research. New treatments for melanoma, with an emphasis...
Expert Point of View: Stephen R.D. Johnston, MA, MD, PhD
The results of the next-generation sequencing analysis of the BOLERO-2 samples showed that specific activating PIK3CA mutations are not in themselves predictive of clinical benefit from mTOR inhibitors, possibly because there are other ways to activate mTOR independently of PI3K. “It is probably...
Despite a Recurrence, I'm Not Surrendering My Life to Cancer
This is the first time I’m going public with the fact that I have advanced ovarian cancer. I thought I could avoid the fate of my mother and her mother, both of whom died of ovarian cancer in their 50s, and live well past my 60s and even 70s. But at 58, I’ve had to accept that that is not likely. I ...
Supreme Court Rules Human Genes May Not Be Patented
On June 13, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that isolated human genes may not be patented. However, the creation of synthetic forms of DNA, known as complementary DNA (cDNA), is eligible for patent protection. The decision resolves the question brought before the Supreme Court justices in...
Expert Point of View: Howard A. Fine, MD and Albert Lai, MD, PhD
Howard A. Fine, MD, Chief of Hematology/Oncology at New York University Langone Medical Center and Director of the NYU Brain Tumor Center, served as formal discussant of the RTOG 0825 study at the Plenary Session. He noted the strong rationale for studying bevacizumab in glioblastoma, which is a...
Studies Explore Role of Bevacizumab in Combination Therapies for Glioblastoma
At the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting, studies evaluating the addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard therapy in newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme patients did not meet their primary endpoints. When paired with irinotecan, however, bevacizumab showed activity in MGMT-unmethylated tumors....
Encourage Questions about Late Effects of Treatment
Melissa Hudson, MD, of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, and lead author of a study finding that 98.2% of adult survivors of childhood cancer had a chronic health condition, told The ASCO Post that she hoped that survivors’ awareness of the need for ongoing health monitoring was...
Conversations with Breast Cancer Patients
I am a retired oncologist, previously an attending physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, with a professional lifetime experience in caring for patients with all stages of breast cancer, and now I am a regular reader of The ASCO Post. In recent months there have been several articles...
