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Showing 9151 - 9200Financial Toxicity Potentially Harmful Treatment‑Related Effect
It turns out that in addition to treatment-related toxicity, cancer patients commonly experience “financial toxicity,” a phrase that is increasingly coming into parlance in the cancer community. Patients should be assessed for financial toxicity as early as possible following diagnosis so that they ...
The ‘Silver Oncologic Tsunami’: Rise in Elderly Cancer Patients Brings New Challenges to Oncology Workforce
The “graying of America” poses increasing challenges for the cancer community in terms of rising numbers of cases of cancer and costs associated with geriatric care. The scope of this problem and potential solutions were explored by Andrew E. Chapman, DO, FACP, at the ASCO Quality Care Symposium in ...
Why I Think Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel Is Wrong About Aging
The image of aging that Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, PhD, expresses in his essay, “Why I Hope to Die at 75,” in the October issue of The Atlantic,1 is bleak indeed and one that has contributed mightily to the negative views of aging imbedded in our society. But I refute his description of growing older as...
The Next-to-Last Frontier in Managing Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia
The treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) represents one of the major triumphs in the field of hematologic malignancies. With either the vitamin A derivative all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) combined with anthracycline-based chemotherapy or ATRA plus arsenic trioxide (Trisenox),...
Second-Line Gemcitabine the Preferred Option for Relapsed or Refractory Lymphoma
For patients with relapsed or refractory aggressive lymphoma in a National Cancer Institute of Canada clinical trial, second-line treatment with GDP (gemcitabine, dexamethasone, and cisplatin) was as effective as DHAP (dexamethasone, cytarabine, and cisplatin). Treatment with GDP “can be considered ...
Over 14 Million Major Medical Conditions in U.S. Adults Linked to Cigarette Smoking
At least 14 million major medical conditions among U.S. adults aged 35 years and older were attributed to cigarette smoking by a study estimating the disease burden of cigarette smoking, which, according to the study’s authors, “remains immense.” Among current and former smokers, prevalence ratios...
Single-Nucleus Genome Sequencing Shows Early Aneuploid Rearrangement and Gradual Clonal Evolution in Breast Cancer
In a study reported in Nature, Wang and colleagues developed a whole-genome and exome single-cell sequencing approach (nuc-seq) using G2/M nuclei and used the method to sequence single normal and tumor nuclei from an estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer and a triple-negative ductal carcinoma....
Huntsman Cancer Institute Investigator Receives Leadership Award from the National Cancer Institute
Neeraj Agarwal, MD, a Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator and Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Utah, has received the 2014 Cancer Clinical Investigator Team Leadership Award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). This highly competitive award recognizes exceptional cancer...
Expect Questions From Patients
Screening for thyroid cancer should be discouraged to prevent an “epidemic of diagnosis”—like the one occurring in South Korea—from happening in the United States and other countries, according to the authors of an analysis of the South Korean screening program. That study was published in The New...
South Korean Study Sparks Warnings About the Hazards of Overscreening
An “epidemic of diagnosis” of thyroid cancer is occurring in South Korea and “absolutely could happen here,” according to H. Gilbert Welch, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Hanover, New Hampshire. Dr. Welch is coauthor of an article...
Chevalier Jackson, MD, Performing Bronchoscopy, Philadelphia, Circa 1920
The bronchoscope was first used for extracting foreign bodies and the evaluation of infectious processes, especially abscesses. By the end of the twentieth century, the bronchoscope had been determined the single most useful tool for accurate diagnosis of lung cancer. It allowed for the collection...
A Good Life, All the Way to the Very End
BOOKMARKTitle: Being MortalAuthor: Atul Gawande, MDPublisher: Metropolitan BooksPublication date: October 7, 2014Price: $26.00; hardcover, 304 pages Mortality is the invisible observer in the oncology exam room. When people hear the three words, “You have cancer,” they see their world as they...
When Life Couldn’t Be Better
The following essay by Carolyn D. Runowicz, MD, is adapted from The Big Casino: America’s Best Cancer Doctors Share Their Most Powerful Stories, which was coedited by Stan Winokur, MD, and Vincent Coppola and published in May 2014. The book is available on Amazon.com and thebigcasino.org. Just...
Memorial Sloan Kettering Team Discovery Advances Understanding of Immunotherapy’s Successes—and Its Failures
A collaborative team of leaders in the field of cancer immunology from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has made a key discovery that advances the understanding of why some patients respond to the CTLA-4 blocking antibody ipilimumab (Yervoy), an immunotherapy drug, while others do not. A...
Tapping Palliative Care’s Survival Benefit
A trial reported in 2010 found that adding palliative care to standard care at the time of lung cancer diagnosis prolonged overall survival by an average of about 2.6 months,1 Arif H. Kamal, MD, told attendees at the Best of ASCO meeting in Seattle. Dr. Kamal is Director of Quality and Outcomes at...
Major Strides Seen This Year in Survivorship Care
"This year was actually a boon for the patient and survivor care section,” Arif H. Kamal, MD, said at the Best of ASCO meeting in Seattle, where he reviewed the leading abstracts and gave some of his own perspective. “What you see is a lot of the limitations of research in the palliative care and...
Experts Stress the Need for Integrating Palliative Care Into Standard Oncology Care
The overriding consensus from the 2014 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium: Patient-Centered Care Across the Cancer Continuum held in Boston was that achieving optimal high-quality cancer care requires both state-of-the-art cancer therapy and the integration of palliative care principles...
How the Earlier Introduction of Palliative Care Improves Quality of Life for Patients With Advanced Cancer
A 4-year study1 involving 461 patients with advanced stages of lung, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, breast, and gynecologic cancers has found that providing early outpatient palliative care vs standard oncology care alone improved quality of life and patient satisfaction. The study participants...
Proteome-Scale Map of the Human Interactome Network Created
Researchers have produced a new largest-scale map of human protein interactions that will better enable scientists to trace how genetic changes lead to diseases ranging from cancer to Huntington’s disease. The expanded map, published in the journal Cell,1 is about 30% larger than the combination of ...
Helping Adolescents and Young Adults Cope With Cancer
Each year, about 70,000 adolescents and young adults (AYAs) are diagnosed with cancer in the United States, almost six times the number of cases diagnosed in children up to 14 years of age. While overall cancer survival rates continue to rise—according to the American Cancer Society, there are...
Treating Brain Cancer in 2014
While primary malignant brain tumors account for only 2% of all adult cancers, these deadly neoplasms cause severe cancer-related disability; the 5-year survival rates for brain tumors rank third lowest among all cancers, with those for pancreas and lung cancers being first and second lowest,...
Study Finds Wide Variation in Quality, Content of Clinical Cancer Guidelines
What’s the best way to treat rectal cancer? Consult any of five top clinical guidelines for rectal cancer and you will get a different answer, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Their findings were published online in the journal...
HDAC Inhibitors and Triple Therapy in Relapsed Myeloma
The use of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors as human cancer therapy has focused on the impact of these agents on epigenetic regulation and gene transcription. However, the use of HDAC inhibitors in myeloma may be working through a different mechanism. Specifically, HDAC6 is known to regulate...
Cancer-Killing Virus Plus Chemotherapy Studied in Recurrent Ovarian Cancer
In 6 out of 10 cases, ovarian cancer is diagnosed when the disease is advanced and 5-year survival is only 27%. A new study suggests that a cancer-killing virus combined with a chemotherapy drug might safely and effectively treat advanced or recurrent forms of the disease. Researchers at The Ohio...
Focused Ultrasound, a Young Technology, Begins to Grow
In the United States, it’s been a good 2 years for focused ultrasound. The technology, which uses multiple, intersecting ultrasound beams to treat cancer and other diseases, completed its first successful U.S. phase III oncology trial—to alleviate the pain of bone metastases—and received approval...
With New Innovator Award, Biomedical Engineer to Study How Ovarian Cancer Spreads
With approximately 22,000 diagnoses annually in the United States, ovarian cancer isn’t among the most commonly occurring cancers. Yet, the mortality rate for women who have ovarian cancer hovers above 60%. For Pamela Kreeger, PhD, a University of Wisconsin–Madison Assistant Professor of Biomedical ...
From ‘Clinical Judgment’ to Evidence-Based Medicine: Thoughts on the ASCO/CCO Guideline in Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer
We are witnessing unprecedented progress in the development of therapy for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued 13 approvals since 1996 for agents that have demonstrated an impact on overall survival, pain, or...
Systemic Therapy in Men With Metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: ASCO/CCO Clinical Practice Guideline
The ASCO Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee and the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) program in evidence-based care have released a clinical practice guideline on systemic therapy in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. The guideline was published in the Journal of Clinical...
Sigmoidoscopy or Colonoscopy for Colorectal Cancer Screening: Is It Still the Question?
Mortality from colorectal cancer remains a public-health concern, being the second leading cause of cancer-related death for men and women combined. The major preventive measure for colorectal cancer is to screen for and remove adenomatous polyps. Average-risk individuals (ie, those who do not have ...
New Imaging Technique Identifies Receptors for Targeted Cancer Therapy
Dartmouth researchers have developed a fluorescence imaging technique that can more accurately identify receptors for targeted cancer therapies without a tissue biopsy. They report on their findings in a recently published article in Cancer Research.1 “Protein overexpression is a hallmark of...
The Harvard Global Equity Initiative: From Research to Policy
The Harvard Global Equity Initiative is a research program at Harvard University that is dedicated to promoting equitable global development, with a strong emphasis on health-care issues. This initiative brings together scholars, policymakers, advocates, and practitioners from around the world to...
Power Behind ‘Master’ Gene for Cancer Discovered
A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, led by Mong-Hong Lee, PhD, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Oncology, has demonstrated the significance of CSN6 in regulating Myc which may well open up a new pathway for treating and killing tumors. The study results are...
CAR T-Cell Therapy in Cancer: Driving Toward the Clinic
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy represents a novel and promising therapeutic advance in cancer.1,2 It constitutes a form of personalized therapy that harnesses adoptive cell transfer through genetic engineering of autologous T cells. The initial step in this therapeutic paradigm...
CD19-Directed CAR T Cells Produce Sustained Remission in Relapsed/Refractory Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Shannon L. Maude, MD, PhD, of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Noelle Frey, MD, of the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, and colleagues reported achieving sustained remissions in children and adults with...
Impact of Tumor Boards on Cancer Care
A large observational study suggested that weekly tumor board participation by oncologists improves survival in advanced lung and colorectal cancers, increases participation in clinical trials, and leads to greater use of guideline-based curative care for early non–small cell lung cancer. This is...
Tumor Board Participation Associated With Improved Survival in Stage IV Lung and Colorectal Cancers
A large, population-based, observational study suggests that participation in weekly tumor boards can improve outcomes in oncologic care. Specifically, oncologist participation in weekly tumor board meetings was associated with improved survival in patients with stage IV small cell lung cancer and...
Checklists: Simple Tools That Enhance Quality
Evidence indicates that the use of surgical safety checklists results in marked improvements in patient outcomes. Unfortunately, their adoption in the field of medicine has largely been limited to equipment operations or parts of specific treatment algorithms. Yet they have tremendous potential to...
Medicare Part D Low-Income Subsidy Program Improves Adherence to Hormone Therapy After Breast Cancer Surgery
Findings from a study of more than 23,000 women suggest that the Medicare Part D Extra Help program, which provides low-income subsidies for medications, improves adherence to hormone therapy after breast cancer surgery in all racial/ethnic groups and reduces racial/ethnic disparities. The study,...
ASCO Calls for Major Medicaid Reform to Improve Quality Cancer Care for Low-Income Americans
ASCO issued its new Policy Statement on Medicaid Reform on November 17, which calls for major changes to the program to ensure access to high-quality cancer care for all low-income individuals. The Society’s recommendations call for Medicaid expansion in all 50 states to close coverage gaps,...
Hormonal Therapy for Early Breast Cancer: Do We Learn From Past Mistakes?
Guidelines can be incorrect if they are not based on incontrovertible evidence. Such was the case with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) 1995 guidelines recommending 5 years of tamoxifen adjuvant therapy for stage I to III hormone receptor–positive breast cancer. With more definitive evidence,...
CancerLinQ: Building a Data Infrastructure to Improve Quality and Reduce Cost
In November 2013, ASCO initiated the development of CancerLinQ, a learning health system designed to transform cancer care and improve outcomes. At this year’s Quality Care Symposium in Boston, ASCO President Peter Paul Yu, MD, FACP, FASCO, Director of Cancer Research at the Palo Alto Medical...
Optimizing HER2 Therapy in Early and Advanced Breast Cancers
Trastuzumab (Herceptin) has been the cornerstone of therapy for HER2-positive tumors, which comprise about 20% of all breast tumors. Additional therapies targeted to other HER2 pathways or other targets to be used in combination with trastuzumab are being explored in both the adjuvant and...
Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, Helped Usher in the Era of Chemotherapy, Turning Lethal Cancers Into Curable Ones
Although Vincent T. DeVita, Jr, MD, harbored fantasies as a young child of becoming an ice deliveryman when he grew up, his love of chemistry and biology, as well as admonitions from his mother, Isabel, “to become a doctor,” propelled him toward a career in medicine. Now, more than 6 decades later, ...
Small Risk-Adjusted Variation in Hospital Readmissions Following Colorectal Cancer Surgery
“Little risk-adjusted variation exists in hospital readmission rates after colorectal surgery,” according to an analysis of data from 44,822 patients who underwent colorectal resection for cancer at 1,401 U.S. hospitals between 1997 and 2002. “The use of readmission rates as a high-stakes quality...
Patients With Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Have Improved Outcome With FOLFOXIRI and Bevacizumab
Patients with untreated metastatic colorectal cancer who received FOLFOXIRI (folinic acid, fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, irintotecan) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) had improved survival compared with patients who received FOLFIRI (folinic acid, fluorouracil, irintotecan) plus bevacizumab in a phase III...
Appetite-Enhancing Agent Helps Patients Treated for NSCLC Gain Weight and Lean Body Mass and Feel Better
People have an image of stage III or IV lung cancer patients getting chemotherapy or chemoradiation, and they look terrible; they are losing weight. The fact is, when they respond, they can gain weight,” according to Philip Bonomi, MD, MS. He is the lead author of a phase III study showing that the ...
Additional Articles of Note
Adjuvant Bisphosphonates in Early Breast Cancer: Practice-Changing Findings January 15, 2014, Volume 5, Issue 1 Visit http://bit.ly/1rUM8CS HER2-Positive Breast Cancer Patients With Small Tumors Benefit From Low-Toxicity Regimen January 15, 2014, Volume 5, Issue 1 Visit http://bit.ly/1tA6UZ4...
Top 10 Articles From The ASCO Post in 2014
The following list presents those articles published in 2014 that were observed most often by visitors to ASCOPost.com, as measured by the number of views.a To view the full version of the articles listed below, visit ASCOPost.com and enter the URL provided below each entry. 1. Continuous...
Aloe Vera
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...
Second Annual JADPRO Live Conference Attracts 400 Advanced Practitioners in Oncology From Across the Nation
The second annual JADPRO Live: Transforming Oncology Practice was held October 30 to November 2 in Orlando, Florida. The conference drew nearly 400 nurse practitioners, physician assistants, clinical nurse specialists, advanced-degree nurses, hematology/oncology nurses, pharmacists, and...
