As 2014 marks the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), it seems only appropriate to highlight the founders of the Society and the vision they shared for its future. The 1960s were the early days of the use of chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer, ...
More than 4.3 million women with limited access to health care received breast and cervical cancer screening and diagnostic services in the first 20 years of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. From 1991 to 2011, 56,662...
We read the letter to the editor in the July 24, 2014, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine entitled, “A Randomized Trial of Robot-Assisted Laparoscopic Radical Cystectomy,” with great interest.1 Provocative Results In the letter, reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, Bochner and...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recently announced publication of the 20th annual edition of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC). One of the eight original NCCN Guidelines, the NCCN Guidelines for SCLC was initially...
The recent publication by Antoniou et al on risk of breast cancer in PALB2 carriers,1 reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post (page 47), is a contribution to the interesting history of the PALB2 gene, and an important milestone in the expansion of hereditary cancer susceptibility testing in the...
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and its policies and procedures. In this installment, Virginia Kwitkowski, MS, RN, ACNP-BC, and Elektra Papadopoulos, MD, MPH, discuss FDA’s current approach to the review of study...
Cetuximab (Erbitux) added no survival benefit to chemoradiation in stage III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to results reported in a Plenary Session of the 2013 World Conference on Lung Cancer in Sydney, Australia.1 It was the second surprise result from the Radiation Therapy...
Trebananib inhibits angiogenesis by blocking the binding of angiopoietins 1 and 2 to the Tie2 receptor expressed on endothelial cells, a mechanism that differs from vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors and that involves a different signaling pathway. In the phase III TRINOVA-1 trial ...
The 13-year follow-up of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC), reported by Fritz H. Schröder, MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Urology at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues in The Lancet, showed that prostate-specific...
Precision medicine in the management of ovarian cancer “is a work in progress, to be sure,” Steven B. Newman, MD, noted in wrapping up the session on gynecologic cancer at the recent Best of ASCO meeting in Chicago. “A list of different histologic types of ovarian cancer and potential targets are...
Despite its acceptance as standard of care for early-stage breast cancer almost 25 years ago, barriers still exist that preclude patients from receiving breast-conserving therapy, with some patients still opting for a mastectomy, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer ...
Inhibitors of heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) look promising for the treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and have the advantage of not needing a specific mutation to target, said Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, Professor and Chief of Medical Oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute of...
On September 11, 2001, the devastating terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center left in its wake a unique toxic site in both mass and quantity of hazardous materials. It took 9 months to remove approximately 2 million tons of wreckage from Ground Zero, during which thousands of...
ASCO has announced the “Top 5 Advances in 50 Years of Modern Oncology,” based on results of worldwide voting on CancerProgress.Net—ASCO’s interactive website documenting the history of progress against cancer. The “Top 5 in 50” results identify pivotal discoveries in chemotherapy, prevention,...
Last month, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) released its 2014 Cancer Progress Report: Transforming Lives Through Research, which highlights the quickening pace of drug development and approval, especially in molecularly targeted agents, that are leading to increased numbers of...
Analyses of data from 27,404 people aged 65 and older participating in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) from 2000 through 2010 suggest that overscreening for prostate, breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening “is common in both men and women, which not only increases health care ...
Inhibition of the PD-1/PD-ligand1 (PD-L1) axis has shown considerable therapeutic promise in several cancers. Tumor PD-L1 protein expression may predict response to drugs targeting this pathway, but its measurement has been limited by the lack of standardized immunohistochemical methods and...
Newly launched in 2014 by LIVESTRONG, “The Big C” is a one-of-a-kind global competition to generate innovations that improve the daily quality of life for the 32.5 million people around the world living with cancer now. The competition was open to entrepreneurs, trailblazers, technology whizzes,...
The study finding1 that men with moderate pattern baldness on the front and the crown of the head at age 45 had a 40% increased risk, compared to men with no baldness at that age, of developing prostate cancer later in life has received coverage by diverse media, from USA Today2 to TIME3 to the...
Several faculty members at Roswell Park Cancer Institute have been awarded nearly $5 million in grant funding from public and private organizations to further their efforts to find new and better ways to detect and treat cancer and improve patients’ quality of life. The 13 awards, including two for ...
Bookmark Title: Integrative Oncology (Second Edition)Editors: Donald I. Abrams, MD, and Andrew T. Weil, MDPublisher: Oxford University PressPublication date: September 3, 2014Price: $65.00; Paperback, 848 pages In 1990, David Eisenberg, MD, from the Harvard School of Public Health, conducted a...
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...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for people with breast cancer. The studies include phase I and II, interventional, and observational trials evaluating new therapies; diagnostic tools; genetic counseling; the association ...
Antiseptic principles delivered the promise of safe surgery, while asepsis allowed safe major dissections and invasion of body cavities. The physicians who were using these techniques recognized the amazing difference in their surgical results and corresponding mortality rates and proselytized to...
In his powerful 2010 best-seller, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (Scribner), Siddhartha Mukherjee, MD, chronicles the evolution of cancer from the oldest known description of the disease written on a papyrus from about 1600 BC to the present day’s understanding of the biology of ...
Often, the children of patients with cancer are the invisible sufferers of the disease and its aftermath. These online resources can help patients talk with their children about a cancer diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, and their potential impact on the children. American Cancer Society:...
Although the focus of an oncologist’s attention is understandably attuned to the needs of the patient, when a patient is a parent, quality oncology care should also include attention to the patient’s role as a parent and to the needs of the patient’s children, according to Paula K. Rauch, MD,...
ASCO has called for increased education, research, and advocacy to reduce the toll of obesity, both as a leading cause of cancer and a complication in the care of patients with cancer. The Society’s recommendations outline four critical priorities, including increased education and awareness about...
Eleven days before Patricia J. Goldsmith, joined CancerCare as its CEO last May, she received the unexpected news that she had early-stage colorectal cancer. While the diagnosis was shocking, Ms. Goldsmith said it gave her a unique perspective on what it means to have this serious disease and a...
This date has a special place in my heart, as well as the hearts of my children, my family and my loved ones. It was the day when my life—and my priorities—took a whole new direction.” So begins Breast Cancer, Break the Silence, a slim yet powerful and highly revealing booklet by Saudi Arabian...
A new report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency of the World Health Organization, urges health authorities of countries with high stomach cancer burden to include stomach cancer in their national cancer control programs and allocate more resources to control the...
Clinical depression is highly prevalent, associated with significant morbidity, often underrecognized, and inadequately treated in cancer patients. Professor Michael Sharpe and Jane Walker, PhD, and their colleagues’ seminal work on enhancing treatment of depression in cancer patients using a...
ASCO and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) sent a joint letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) urging the agency to regulate electronic cigarettes, cigars, and all other tobacco products and to strengthen the proposed regulations for newly deemed products. The...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recently launched a new video series for people newly diagnosed with cancer through its patient education website, Cancer.Net. This initiative was made possible by a grant from the LIVESTRONG Foundation to the Conquer Cancer Foundation. After a...
Oncology fellows just years away from entering the profession full time may have unrealistic expectations of their future career, according to data published recently in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study by Tait D. Shanafelt, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, and colleagues...
The results of the ECOG E4402/RESORT trial recently reported by Kahl and colleagues,1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, provide interesting new information on the use of maintenance rituximab (Rituxan) vs retreatment with rituximab at progression in patients with low–tumor burden...
Researchers at the Salk Institute have reported on a synthetic derivative of vitamin D able to collapse the barrier of cells shielding pancreatic tumors, making this challenging cancer more susceptible to therapeutic drugs. The discovery has led to human trials for pancreatic cancer, even in...
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 September 4, 2014, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was granted...
Each day, millions of patients with cancer around the world suffer unrelieved pain because they are denied morphine, the gold standard of cancer pain control. The World Health Organization has called access to morphine a human rights issue. Not surprisingly, the crisis in unrelieved cancer pain is...
Fifteen years ago, David Fishman, MD, launched the National Ovarian Cancer Early Detection Program as part of the National Cancer Institute’s Early Detection Research Network. The goal of the research effort was to develop methods to accurately detect ovarian cancer while it was still confined to...
The investigators and sponsors of the phase III REVEL trial should be congratulated and probably commiserated. In this large study, reported by Garon and colleagues in The Lancet and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, 1,253 patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were...
Two-thirds of patients with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma who harbored BRCA mutations responded to the combination of veliparib, cisplatin, and gemcitabine in a phase IB trial that is paving the way for future studies of novel poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARP) inhibitors in this challenging...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Orphan Drug Designations to aldoxorubicin in three indications: glioblastoma multiforme, small cell lung cancer, and ovarian cancer. Aldoxorubicin combines doxorubicin with a novel single-molecule linker that binds directly and specifically to...
Young women with early breast cancer may be more likely to resume menses and become pregnant when treated with a luteinizing hormone–releasing hormone (LH-RH) analog (also known as a gonadotropin-releasing hormone [GnRH] analog) along with chemotherapy, according to the final follow-up of...
The pathologic evaluation of lumpectomy margins is “fraught with problems and pitfalls,” said Stuart J. Schnitt, MD, Director of Anatomic Pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, who was part of a multidisciplinary discussion of ...
Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), received the Ellen V. Sigal Advocacy Leadership Award from the national advocacy organization Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) at its 18th Annual Cancer Leadership Awards Reception held...
The bane of treating non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with druggable mutations has been the development of resistance to targeted agents. New compounds are meeting the challenge of treating resistant disease, according to Fadlo R. Khuri, MD, FACP, Professor and Chair of Hematology and...
This year’s Best of ASCO meeting held in Seattle featured topics that both riveted attendees and pushed their buttons, according to program chair Alan P. Venook, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco. “I am extremely pleased with the quality of the presentations from the faculty, but...
Survivors of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who never smoked or who are former smokers at the time of diagnosis have a lower risk of developing secondary primary lung cancers compared to those who are current smokers, suggesting that increased tobacco exposure is associated with a higher risk...
Adding consolidation radiation therapy to chemotherapy significantly improves 10-year survival in patients with stage I and II Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a large observational study based on the National Cancer Database (NCDB). Yet over that same 10-year period, radiation therapy use declined...