Charles F. von Gunten, MD, PhD, of OhioHealth Kobacker House discusses the ROMANA 1 and 2 trials on cachexia in NSCLC and a study on olanzapine vs fosaprepitant for the prevention of nausea and vomiting (Abstracts 9500 and 9502).
Irene Higginson, MD, of Cicely Saunders International, discusses the goals of psychosocial palliative care for patients around the world with advanced cancer.
Wendy Lichtenthal, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and David Kissane, MD, of Monash University, discuss the importance of and challenges with attending to the whole family during palliative care.
Eduardo Bruera, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses exciting developments in the assessment and management of cachexia, as well as a number of emerging pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions (Abstract 67).
Lorenzo Cohen, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses nonpharmacologic approaches to symptom control. Techniques such as acupuncture for managing pain and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, or yoga and meditation to help improve quality of life, can be safely...
Judith Vick, MD Candidate, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Rachelle E. Bernacki, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss a tool that could help clinicians identify seriously ill patients who would benefit from conversations about their goals and values (Abstract 8).
Diane Portman, MD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses clinical pathways that embed palliative care along the spectrum of care for a variety of cancer disease states.
Anthony L. Back, MD, of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, summarizes a general session on best practices and novel tools for enhancing communication between patients and oncology providers (Abstracts 8,9, 39).
Vicki Jackson, MD, MPH, of Massachusetts General Hospital, summarizes her keynote lecture (plenary talk).
Lawrence H. Einhorn, MD, of Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, discusses the encouraging study findings on olanzapine for prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients receiving highly emetogenic chemotherapy (Abstract 176).
Kathleen Foley, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the challenges of integrating palliative care in areas without sufficient resources or health-care infrastructure.
Kathleen Elizabeth Bickel, MD, MPhil, of the White River Junction VA Medical Center, discusses the ASCO/AAHPM Guidance Statement, which will help oncology providers enhance their delivery of palliative care (Abstract 108).
Lawrence H. Einhorn, MD, of Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, discusses the ways in which a dedicated palliative radiation consult service can improve the quality of palliative cancer care (Abstract 110).
Ralph J. Hauke, MD, of Nebraska Cancer Specialists, discusses the application of scientific analysis and research to palliative care issues, which will allow better prognostication, implementation of measures, and improved quality of life.
Betty Ferrell, PhD, RN, of City of Hope, discusses two papers that look at an important issue from different perspectives: depression and anxiety among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer, and the link between oncologists’ dispositional affect and depressive symptoms in their...
As Steering Committee Chair of this year’s symposium, Jennifer S. Temel, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the goals and highlights of the meeting.
Amelie Harle, MD, of the Christie NHS Foundation Trust, discusses a clinical trial––the first of its kind—designed to assess the efficacy of an antitussive in patients with lung cancer (Abstract 2).
Given the challenges of recruiting patients for palliative care studies, Eric Roeland, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses a way to increase the participation of those with cachexia, with the hope of improving treatment (Abstract 67).
Charles L. Loprinzi, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, discusses olanzapine for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients receiving highly emetogenic chemotherapy (Abstract 176).
Judith Paice, PhD, RN, of Northwestern University, reviews the current principles on assessing and treating neuropathic pain in cancer.
JANUARY 2016 8th Annual T-Cell Lymphoma ForumJanuary 28-30 • San Francisco, CA For more information: www.tcellforum.com/ 3rd Annual University of Southern California Multidisciplinary Breast Cancer SymposiumJanuary 30 • Los Angeles, California For more information:...
Acupuncture has been practiced for thousands of years in Eastern Asian cultures as a component of traditional Chinese medicine.1 In the United States, acupuncture became known to the public as a complementary and alternative medicine technique in the 1970s, but it took many years before it was...
Surveys conducted between 1950 and 1970 show that most physicians considered it inhumane to give patients with a poor cancer prognosis the bad news.1,2 Since then, it has been well established that open communication between physician and patient is an essential part of effective cancer care and...
Triplets should be the standard of care in most newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients, according to a study that validated a practice that has become common in the United States, though not necessarily elsewhere. The use of three drugs led to significant reductions in disease progression and...
Nearly 15% of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer were younger than 50, the age at which screening recommendations begin. The study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center also found that younger patients were more likely to have advanced disease. The authors ...
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, Inc, announced that an updated overall survival analysis of the phase III NAPOLI-1 study of irinotecan liposome injection (Onivyde) in combination with fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin achieved a substantial improvement in 12-month overall survival compared to 5-FU and...
Findings from a Polish phase III study point to an additional treatment option for patients with advanced rectal cancer. Patients who received short-course (5-day) radiation followed by consolidation chemotherapy before surgery achieved outcomes similar to those of patients treated with...
A protein that is constantly expressed by cancer cells and quiescent in healthy cells appears to be a solid target for reducing cancer's ability to spread, scientists reported. The WASF3 protein enables cancer cell invasion, and by interrupting its relationship with another protein, CYFIP1, which...
A palliative care consultation initiated in the emergency department for patients with advanced cancer was associated with improved quality of life and did not seem to shorten survival, according to an article published by Grudzen et al in JAMA Oncology. Visits to the emergency department are...
Physicians treating patients with metastatic melanoma may soon have a superior tool in their efforts to closely track the disease. A new study shows that a blood test that monitors blood levels of DNA fragments from dead cancer cells does a better job than the current standard test at tracking the...
ASCO released a new policy statement with recommendations to ensure that clinical pathways in oncology promote—not hinder—the care of patients with cancer. Published by Zon et al in the Journal of Oncology Practice, the statement asserts that the way in which these treatment management...
For Nora Janjan, MD, MPSA, MBA, the practice of oncology is rooted in purpose, empathy, and trust. “You walk into the hospital and you know exactly why you’re there,” she says. “You are there to help patients and their loved ones through probably the most difficult experience that they will ever...
Each year, as a way to recognize enhancements in cancer care, ASCO honors individuals who have made significant contributions to the Society, the practice of oncology, and patients with cancer. At this year’s Annual Meeting, ASCO was pleased to recognize the 2011 Special Award recipients: Kenneth...
The challenges of life-threatening physical illness can sometimes lead to suicide. In fact, given the critical stressors that a person with cancer faces, we might expect suicide to be a more common reaction. Patients with cancer are at increased risk of completed suicide, though the prevalence of...
Imagine just four oncologists attempting to provide care for a population of 82 million people living in a country covering twice the territory of Texas. That’s the state of cancer care in Ethiopia. And imagine a country of more than 90 million people—more than twice the population of...
Earlier this year, the New York State legislature passed a law requiring physicians and nurse practitioners to talk to patients with an expected survival of less than 6 months about their options, including hospice care and aggressive vs palliative treatment, although patients can refuse to discuss ...
ASCO’s professional networking site, ASCOconnection.org, continues to build depth in areas of interest to the oncology community, adding as its newest commentator ASCO President Michael P. Link, MD, the Lydia J. Lee Professor in Pediatric Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine, as well...
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly conducting drug development research outside of the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. Attracted to the perceived lower costs, easier patient recruitment, and market potential, drug developers are now conducting more phase III clinical trials in...
More than half of our nation’s patients with cancer are Medicare beneficiaries, making the entitlement program ground zero in the heated debate on health-care spending. Total Medicare expenditures attributable to beneficiaries in their last year of life runs upward of 30%; this statistic serves as...
Last August, ASCO issued the policy statement, “Opportunities in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to Reduce Cancer Care Disparities” in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.1 The statement builds on ASCO’s policy on disparities in cancer care released in 2009. It calls on both the...
In September, government leaders from around the world as well as representatives from civil society, the private sector and academia gathered at the United Nations in New York for the first-ever summit on the growing economic and human crisis posed by noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), especially in ...
In her interview with The ASCO Post, Judith Redwing Keyssar, RN, sheds light on easing the suffering of patients facing the end of life. Although what she says is appropriate for patients who are clearly dying, I would emphasize that palliative care is also pertinent to patients who are not...
The number of patients seeking hospice and palliative care has grown significantly since 1974, when the NCI funded the first hospice facility in Branford, Connecticut. Nevertheless, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, 85% of Americans still die in hospitals or nursing homes....
Encouraging outcomes have been achieved with a combined-modality treatment approach for patients with locally recurrent colorectal cancer in both curative and palliative settings, although room for improvement remains. During a session presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 6th Annual Congress on Hematologic Malignancies, held recently in New York, included reviews of the management of hematologic diseases as well as discussions of outstanding issues in the field. The following is a synopsis of some of the important...
A recent issue of the Journal of Oncology Practice features a special series of articles on palliative care and end-of-life issues in the oncology practice setting. Articles explore the integration of palliative care services in ambulatory settings, unique delivery mechanisms for palliative care,...
After experiencing the loss of my wife Dina’s first pregnancy during her second trimester, we naturally worried that something would go wrong when she became pregnant again. But when our son Will was delivered at full term, we thought we could finally relax. Born at a whopping 10 lb, Will seemed...
More than 14 years after an NIH Consensus Panel finding of “efficacy of acupuncture in adult postoperative and chemotherapy nausea and vomiting,” an informal show-of-hands poll at the Eighth International Society for Integrative Oncology (SIO) Conference indicated acupuncture was not yet fully...
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. “Depression is a very dangerous...
The potent analgesic property of morphine was first isolated in 1804, and after more than 2 centuries morphine is still the gold standard for moderate to severe pain. It is relatively easy to produce, and compared to most pharmaceuticals, morphine is dirt-cheap. Therein lies the cruel conundrum:...