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Showing 8101 - 8150ASCO’s Approach to Health Information Technology and the Rapid-learning System
The slow, but inevitable evolution of electronic oncology health-care systems has already, at least conceptually, moved to the next generation of machines that not only store and process data, but also have the ability to provide real-time clinical decision support. At ASCO’s first Quality Care...
Measuring and Improving Quality in Oncology Practices
The seed for ASCO’s Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI®) was planted a decade ago by Joseph Simone, MD, when he contemplated the feasibility of studying a volunteer group of oncologists to measure the quality of care they provide and share those results with their colleagues. Dr. Simone’s...
Expert Point of View: Martin Dreyling, MD and Joshua Brody, MD
Martin Dreyling, MD, Professor at the University of Munich in Germany, said the most important lymphoma studies presented at the 2012 ASH Annual Meeting focused on ibrutinib, the first-in-class Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor. “Basic science has gone mainstream. We will see a revolution during...
Expert Point of View: Claire Dearden, MD
Patients are very excited about this new, well tolerated drug for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Ibrutinib is available orally and is not chemotherapy. It produces excellent responses. This is particularly important for elderly [ie, age 65 and older] patients who are not always fit enough to...
Umbilical Cord Blood Transplant: Two Units are No Better Than One in Children with Hematologic Malignancies
Use of two partially HLA-matched units of umbilical cord blood were not superior to a single unit if it contained an adequate number of hematopoietic stem cells, according to a randomized study by the Blood and Marrow Clinical Trials Network. Results were reported at the 54th Annual Meeting of the...
Radiation Therapy for Patients with Invasive Breast Cancer: 3 Weeks Proves as Effective as 5 Weeks
Ten-year follow-up of the two-part UK Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy Trials (START) supported the 5-year findings, demonstrating that a 3-week course of adjuvant radiation therapy is equivalent to a 5-week course of radiation for women with invasive breast cancer. The update was presented...
National Comprehensive Cancer Network Appoints New CEO
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) recently appointed nationally regarded breast cancer expert Robert W. Carlson, MD, as its new CEO. Previously, Dr. Carlson was Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology and Medical Informatics, Stanford University Medical Center; he first...
Does Health-care Quality Translate to Value?
On March 23rd, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, enacting sweeping change in our health-care system. An underlying theme of the legislation is the realignment of our payment system so that it places value over volume of services. At ASCO’s first...
Are We Winning the War on Cancer?
On December 23, 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the U.S. National Cancer Act. This date is widely considered to mark the beginning of the so-called “War on Cancer,” although that phrase was introduced only later on. Over recent decades, journalists have from time to time questioned whether we...
More Thoughts on Rationing Cancer Care
I read the article about “The Ethics of Rationing Cancer Care” with interest (The ASCO Post, Dec 15, 2012). The issue of rationing (or rational) care has likely been debated since Hippocrates. Yet the topic has become a focus of acute interest with the current fiscal crises facing countries around...
E-mail Reminders to Providers May Improve Documentation of Code Status in Patients with Advanced Disease
E-mail reminders to providers at the start of each new chemotherapy regimen may improve the rate and timing of code status documentation for patients with advanced lung cancer, according to a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Jennifer S. Temel, MD, and colleagues from Massachusetts General ...
'Practice-changing' ATLAS Study Supports 10 vs 5 Years of Tamoxifen Therapy in Women with Breast Cancer
"Practice-changing" is the term several physicians and researchers used when asked by the media to describe the results of a study showing that extending tamoxifen therapy from 5 to 10 years for women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer further reduced recurrence and mortality....
Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine Opens at Mount Sinai
The Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York officially opened in December, housing significant areas of six of Mount Sinai’s most influential institutes focusing on brain, cancer, heart, children’s health, genomics, and imaging. With a half-million square feet ...
Social Media Is Helping My Brother Fight Kidney Cancer
My brother, Rick Thomas, is a great guy. I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother. He’s funny, warm, and kind to everyone he meets. He became a commercial airline pilot for American Airlines after flying C-5s in the Air Force for 12 years and has always been a responsible person and a...
Oncology Trailblazer James F. Holland, MD, Recalls a Time of Unbridled Scientific Excitement
James F. Holland, MD, began his journey into oncology when it was still a nascent discipline, working alongside groundbreaking pioneers in the field such as Drs. Emil “Tom” Frei and C. Gordon Zubrod. Dr. Holland recently shared a glimpse of his role in oncology’s formative years with The ASCO Post. ...
Most Patients Do Not Report that Cure Is Highly Unlikely with Chemotherapy for Advanced Cancer
Chemotherapy for metastatic lung or colorectal cancer can provide palliation and modestly prolong life, but is not curative. In a study recently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Jane C. Weeks, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Insitute, and colleagues found that the majority of patients...
Cisplatin Linked to Significantly Increased Risk of Venous Thromboembolism
Patients with advanced solid tumors treated with cisplatin-based chemotherapy had a significantly increased risk of venous thromboembolic events, according to a meta-analysis of 38 randomized phase II and III trials evaluating cisplatin-based vs non–cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The trials involved ...
The Conquer Cancer Foundation Announces Its Sustaining Donor Program
You can help the Conquer Cancer Foundation fulfill its mission of creating a world free from the fear of cancer when you make a monthly gift today. When you become a sustaining donor to the Foundation, your monthly gift will provide a reliable stream of support that is so vital to ensuring that the ...
New England Journal of Medicine Article Reports Inferior Outcome in Using Alternative Treatments to Counter Mechlorethamine Shortage
ASCO Immediate Past President Michael P. Link, MD, recently coauthored a perspectives piece in The New England Journal of Medicine on the impact of drug shortages on children with cancer. The paper, “The Impact of Drug Shortages on Children with Cancer — The Example of Mechlorethamine,” describes...
Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups Celebrates 10 Years of Clinical Trial Participation Awards
For any community practice, participation in a clinical trial can be a time-consuming, intense commitment. But this commitment is integral to the advancement of new methods and therapies, which is why the Coalition of Cancer Cooperative Groups has exactly one mission: increasing clinical trial...
Dune Medical Devices Receives FDA Approval for the MarginProbe System
Dune Medical Devices, Inc, announced that the FDA has granted Premarket Approval to the MarginProbe System, the company’s breakthrough intraoperative tissue assessment tool for early-stage breast cancer surgery. The technology significantly improves surgeons’ ability to intraoperatively identify...
Primary Endpoint Not Met for Eribulin vs Capecitabine in Breast Cancer
While a global phase III trial failed to meet its primary endpoint in showing an overall or progression-free survival benefit for eribulin (Halavan) in metastatic breast cancer, a trend toward greater efficacy than capecitabine (Xeloda) was observed, researchers reported at the 2012 San Antonio...
Expert Point of View: Amir T. Fathi, MD
For years, adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) have been treated with intensive, multiagent, cytotoxic chemotherapy involving multiple rounds of treatment, derived from regimens that are highly effective in children. Although the survival of children with ALL hovers around 90%, less than ...
Inotuzumab Moves Forward in Relapsed/Refractory ALL
Single-agent inotuzumab ozogamicin achieved an encouraging overall response rate of 57% in the treatment of relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) in a phase II trial reported at the 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Response was independent of monthly ...
Expert Point of View: Martin Dreyling, MD
Martin Dreyling, MD, Professor of Medicine at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and Coordinator of the European Mantle Cell Lymphoma Network, commented on the data emerging for ibrutinib in lymphoma. “Ibrutinib is the molecule of the year at ASH,” he told The ASCO Post. “With other molecular ...
Somatic HER2 Mutations That Drive Cancer Found in HER2-negative Breast Cancer
A proportion of patients with breast cancer whose tumors test HER2-negative for gene amplification on fluorescence in situ hybridization or immunohistochemistry harbor HER2 mutations that are amenable to treatment with anti-HER2–targeted therapy, according to a gene-sequencing study presented at...
Expert Point of View: Sandra M. Swain, MD, FACP, and Lisa Carey, MD
Sandra M. Swain, MD, FACP, Medical Director, Washington Cancer Institute, MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, DC, who moderated the session, said these interesting observations must now be validated in preclinical models of triple-negative tumors, and then tested in patients. “Residual...
Cost of Cancer Drugs: What Price for What Benefit?
In 2011, national health-care spending in the United States was about $2.7 trillion, larger than the entire French national budget.1 U.S. national health-care spending is about 17% of the national gross domestic product. Total Medicare expenditures in 2011 were $549 million.2 In the debate about...
Expert Point of View: Neal J. Meropol, MD
A critical component of informed consent is an understanding of the potential risks and benefits of investigational treatments. In the context of early-phase oncology trials, concern has been raised about whether this understanding is adequate, since patients tend to express high expectations about ...
Expert Point of View: Kevin P. Weinfurt, PhD
Our work suggests three specific recommendations for researchers and care providers who are discussing with patients the possibility of enrolling in a phase I clinical trial. First, we should always communicate the likelihood of benefit in terms of the number of participants expected to derive...
SIDEBAR: Shout-out to Policymakers on Diabetes Education
“If we could just give a shout-out to policymakers to understand that in the long term,” when patients who have diabetes and cancer receive adequate diabetes education, “we are cutting our length of stay, we are decreasing hospital costs, we are decreasing readmission rates,” June McKoy, MD, MPH,...
Keeping Diabetes under Control Is Critical to Good Outcomes for Patients Who Also Have Cancer
In the News focuses on media reports that your patients may have questions about at their next visit. This continuing column will provide summaries of articles in the popular press that may prompt such questions, as well as comments from colleagues in the field. Cancer and diabetes can be comorbid...
University of Michigan Cancer Center Names Kathleen Cooney, MD, to Head Clinical Operations
The University of Michigan (U-M) Comprehensive Cancer Center in Ann Arbor has named Kathleen Cooney, MD, as Deputy Director for Clinical Services. Dr. Cooney is Frances and Victor Ginsberg Professor of Hematology/Oncology and Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology at the U-M Medical School...
David A. Karnofsky's Early Contributions to Cancer Research Helped Establish Oncology as a Medical Discipline
For nearly 30 years, from the time he was a young resident at the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital for Cancer Research of Harvard University, until his death from lung cancer on August 31, 1969, David A. Karnofsky, MD, dedicated himself to the pursuit of scientific excellence and the...
Treatment of HER2-positive Disease in 2013
From the initial discovery of the HER2 family of receptors in the mid-1980s to the present, a “wealth of riches” has been uncovered in terms of agents that can target pathways relevant to this aggressive breast cancer type, notes Hope S. Rugo, MD, Director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials...
A Look at the Patient Navigator Program in Breast Cancer
In 1990, Harold P. Freeman, MD, established the nation’s first patient navigation program at Harlem Hospital Center in New York (see accompanying article here). Since then, Dr. Freeman’s vision has gained national attention and is currently being looked at in a demonstration project across multiple ...
The Doctor Who Championed Patient Navigation in Harlem
After completing his residency at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Harold P. Freeman, MD, arrived at Harlem Hospital Center in 1967, where the overwhelming majority of his patients presented with late-stage disease. That early experience with underserved patients would shape his career as...
As Computers Learn to 'Talk' to Each Other, Patient Care Will Improve
Last fall, Edward P. Ambinder, MD, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and a member of ASCO’s Health Information Technology Work Group, spoke about “The Information Age: Cyberspace and Cancer,” at the...
Young Investigator Award's Humble Beginnings Mark the Start of Something Big
Judith Kaur, MD, was presented with the very first Young Investigator Award (YIA) at the 1984 ASCO Annual Meeting in Toronto in what she felt was a “very prestigious event”—having breakfast with the ASCO president. The purpose of the new YIA program was to provide grant funding to help a young...
International Members Cite Networking, Enhanced Patient Care Among Benefits of ASCO Membership
Thanks to the membership category ASCO designed for physicians in developing countries, Brazilian oncologist Milena Mak, MD, can greatly enhance the care she delivers in the very busy 580-bed Instituto do Cancer do Estado de Sao Paulo. And radiation oncologist Pooja Nandwani Patel, MD, can use the...
Research Roundup from San Antonio: New Data on Triple-negative, HER2-positive, Local, and Advanced Breast Cancer
The 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium featured more than 2,500 abstracts and lectures, including timely research in the field and discussions for scientists and clinicians alike. In addition to nearly two dozen in-depth reports from the meeting, The ASCO Post brings readers the following...
ASH International Clinical Collaboration Replicates High Cure Rate of APL in Developing Countries
The work of an American Society of Hematology (ASH) international clinical network collaborative focused on modernizing treatment protocols for patients in the developing world with acute promyeloctyic leukemia (APL) has drastically improved cure rates in patients in Central and South America. In...
ASH Highlights Included New Data in Myeloma, Lymphoma, and Leukemia, plus Studies of Mucositis and Graft-vs-Host Disease
The 54th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) featured about 5,000 abstracts, including oral sessions and posters, as well as named lectures and symposia. In addition to our regular news coverage from the meeting, below are capsule summaries of a few news highlights that we...
Selumetinib/Docetaxel Shows Promising Activity in Previously Treated KRAS-mutant Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer
Currently, there are no approved therapies for KRAS-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and few clinical trials have been performed specifically in this setting. In a recent article in Lancet Oncology, Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, Scientific Director, Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science,...
Chemotherapy-free Regimen Successful in Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia
For the first time, a chemotherapy-free regimen was superior to conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy for the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). The combination of all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) plus arsenic trioxide (Trisenox) achieved significantly superior overall survival compared...
Erratum
Two of the articles published in the January 15, 2013, issue of The ASCO Post included comments from a Dr. Peter Ellis. One report, from the 2012 Quality Care Symposium referred to Peter G. Ellis, MD, of UPMC, Pittsburgh, while a second report pertained to a presentation at the 35th ESMO Congress...
We Need Gemtuzumab Available Again to Treat AML
The word “revival” signifies a renewed use or acceptance after a period of inactivity; similarly, the word “resurrection” refers to the concept of an entity coming back to life after death. In the past year, these terms have been used frequently by us (and others) in articles calling for the return ...
Integration across the Spectrum: Community Perspective on the Medical Oncology Home Model
The term “patient-centered cancer care” has become ingrained in today’s health-care vernacular. However, no matter what modifications occur in clinical oncology practice, the terms value and cost-effectiveness are now a solid part of the equation. At ASCO’s Quality Care Symposium, Linda D....
Expert Point of View: Philip Agop Philip, MD and Alan P. Venook, MD
Philip Agop Philip, MD, Head of the Multidisciplinary Team for Gastrointestinal and Neuroendocrine Oncology and Neuroendocrine at Karmanos Cancer Institute at Wayne State University, Detroit, was the formal discussant of the paper at the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. He said the positive...
Nab-paclitaxel/Gemcitabine Combination Improves Overall Survival in Pancreatic Cancer
In patients with treatment-naive metastatic pancreatic cancer, the addition of nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) to gemcitabine improved overall survival vs gemcitabine alone, in an international study presented at the 2013 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 New Standard “We...
