Question 1: In the current era of tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy, which prognostic model is best to assess the prognosis of a person with a new diagnosis of CML? Correct Answer: D. All of the above Expert Perspective Despite not being perfect, all of these scores are reasonably effective at...
Stephen S. Grubbs, MD, a community oncologist and Managing Partner at Medical Oncology Hematology Consultants, PA, has been named the Senior Director of ASCO’s new Clinical Affairs Department. Dr. Grubbs is a longtime ASCO member and volunteer and the Principal Investigator of the Delaware...
Prostate cancer survivors currently approach 3 million in number and comprise 43% of all male cancer survivors in the United States.1 These men face myriad unique oncologic, functional, emotional, and psychological issues that require evaluation and management throughout the survivorship phase of...
Karen E. Knudsen, PhD, has been named the Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center (SKCC) at Thomas Jefferson University and the Hilary Koprowski Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology of the Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Knudsen has been serving in these...
PARP inhibitors offer a promising alternative for targeted therapy in ovarian cancer” and have “clear benefit in BRCA-mutation carriers,” but questions remain about when is the best time to use them and the cost-effectiveness of maintenance therapy, Elizabeth M. Swisher, MD, of the University of...
More than 7,200 cases of anal cancer were diagnosed in 2014—approximately 2,600 in men and 4,600 in women—representing an increase of more than 4,000 from 8 years ago. In more than 90% of patients, infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause, tagging anal cancer as a largely...
Since 1990, we have seen an approximate 35% reduction in breast cancer mortality among women in the United States. Three protagonists can share this clinical success story: prevention, early detection, and better therapies. To shed light on the current state of breast cancer research and therapy,...
Olaparib (Lynparza) achieved encouraging response rates in men with metastatic prostate cancer, particularly those with mutations in genes involved in DNA repair (BRCA2 and ATM, most commonly).1 If validated, these results of the TOPARP-A trial will usher in the first drug targeted to somatic or...
The ability to do genomic analysis of patients’ tumors holds great promise for revolutionizing cancer treatment, and genomics has already made some great strides. However, the Individualized Molecular Pancreatic Cancer Therapy (IMPaCT) trial is a cautionary tale about the hurdles involved in...
The ASCO Annual Meeting is our Society’s premier event and without a doubt one that is highly anticipated by the oncology world. The success of the meeting stems from the desire to share with each other our data and the knowledge we have gleaned from those data over the course of the past year. The ...
Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. —Theodore Roosevelt Longevity, in and of itself, is not an accomplishment. Luck and good genes are just human lottery tickets. Most people fortunate enough to live long lives have a productive sweet ...
Robert C. Young, MD, ASCO Past President, longtime leader of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and an internationally recognized expert in lymphoma and ovarian cancer, is a forward-looking doctor who is confident about something not in his future: retirement. “I’ll never quit working; I’m just not wired...
Dear Dr. Wilson: I am writing to express our family’s deepest and heartfelt appreciation for the lifesaving care you and your team provided for our son, Patrick…. I don’t know how widely it is known that you save lives at the National Cancer Institute—offering hope to people like Patrick, who have...
At the end of the day, I’m still a kid from South Philly,” Andrew C. von Eschenbach, MD, former Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told The ASCO Post. Dr. von Eschenbach is the product of a closely knit yet culturally...
John L. Marshall, MD, a global leader in the research and treatment of gastrointestinal cancers, grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, in a family that put high value on education. As a young boy, science was already on his mind; he enjoyed the explorative nature that chemistry and biology offered....
Due to childhood health issues, Sandra J. Horning, MD, formed an opinion about doctors at a young age: They were good people who helped other people. By her early teens, Dr. Horning began to ponder a career in medicine, which offered the possibility of blending her love of science with a career...
Numerous challenges and milestones mark the course of an oncology career. Community doctors remember special patients, often speaking about a singular bond that is unique among a profession that deals with life and death daily. Researchers recount long hours of seeming futility and then the...
At the 2007 ASCO Annual Meeting, Lodovico Balducci, MD, received the inaugural B.J. Kennedy Award and Lecture for Scientific Excellence in Geriatric Oncology. Called the “patriarch of geriatric oncology,” Dr. Balducci is widely known in the oncology community for his warm humor and thick Italian...
In 1985, Carolyn R. “Bo” Aldigé founded the Prevent Cancer Foundation in honor of her father, who had died the previous year of head and neck cancer. She started the Foundation in her kitchen with a typewriter, a sheath of carbon copy paper, and a telephone. “I quickly rented an office because a...
ASCO announced its first-ever clinical trial, which will offer patients with advanced cancer access to molecularly targeted cancer drugs and collect “real-world” data on clinical outcomes, to help learn the best uses of these drugs outside of indications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug...
Using imatinib to treat chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML) first line, with selective switching to nilotinib (Tasigna) “leads to excellent molecular response and survival” and “may be preferable to universal first-line use of more potent agents, considering efficacy, toxicity, and...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Chacon and colleagues found that ex vivo manipulation of the tumor microenvironment could enhance expansion of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes for use in adoptive cell therapy. The addition of an agonistic anti–4-1BB antibody during initial tumor...
Gene fusions resulting in androgen receptor–modulated ERG gene overexpression can be found in up to 70% of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Attard and colleagues assessed the effect of ERG rearrangement on outcomes in...
Does the finding that the incidence of fractures is “compellingly higher” after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation mean that physicians counseling patients about transplant should feel compelled to discuss the fracture risks? Huifang Linda Lu, MD, PhD, the corresponding author of the study...
The incidence of fractures is “compellingly higher” after receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, according to a retrospective study of patients receiving transplants for treatment of multiple myeloma, other hematologic malignancies, and some solid tumors (mostly breast and ovarian) as...
Alan C. Sartorelli, PhD, Alfred Gilman Professor of Pharmacology at Yale University School of Medicine, Past President of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and a Fellow of the AACR Academy, died on April 30, 2015. A pioneer in cancer chemotherapy, Dr. Sartorelli was one of the...
Martin McMahon, PhD, will join Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah in August 2015 as Professor in the Department of Dermatology and HCI Senior Director of Preclinical Translation. Dr. McMahon is currently the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor of Cancer Biology at the...
An $8.8 million grant from the New York State Stem Cell Science Program (NYSTEM) will accelerate efforts by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to develop new stem cell-based treatments for chemotherapy-resistant blood cancer and other genetic blood disorders. Increasing Stem Cells...
Providing students and residents with feedback on their medical performance is a key element in their learning and development and ensures that high standards are met, according to Charlene M. Dewey, MD, MEd, FACP, Assistant Dean of Educator Development; Associate Professor of Medical Education and ...
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced 26 of the nation’s top biomedical researchers as investigators for the Institute. These scientists will receive the flexible support necessary to move their research in creative new directions. The initiative represents an investment in basic biomedical ...
The phase III RAISE trial—reported by Tabernero and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology1 and reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post—demonstrated that ramucirumab (Cyramza), a fully human IgG1 monoclonal antibody to the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) extracellular domain, in...
In the phase III RAISE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, Head of Medical Oncology at Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Barcelona, and colleagues found that the addition of the antiangiogenic anti–vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) antibody...
The LUNGevity Foundation has announced Nancy Brinker, Founder and Chief of Global Strategy of Susan G. Komen, as the May LUNGevity Hero in recognition of her decades-long dedication and trailblazing work in the fight against cancer. A true pioneer of the advocacy movement, Ms. Brinker gave a...
Roswell Park Cancer Institute recently announced a restructuring of its leadership. “In many cases, these new appointments represent Roswell Park Cancer Institute parlaying our own existing strengths and talents,” says President and CEO Candace Johnson, PhD. “Restructuring some of these positions...
On April 1, 2015, Douglas R. Lowy, MD, became Acting Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), succeeding Harold Varmus, MD, who left NCI to join the faculty of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. (See “The Next Step in a Storied Career,” in the May 25, 2015 issue of The ASCO Post.)...
Kenneth C. Frazier, JD, Chairman and CEO of Merck & Co., Inc., was elected Chairman of the Board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). Mr. Frazier formerly held the position of Chairman-Elect and succeeds Ian C. Read, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, Inc. New Officers ...
At its 152nd Annual Meeting on April 28, 2015, the membership of the National Academy of Sciences voted to change the name of the Institute of Medicine to the National Academy of Medicine. The newly named National Academy of Medicine will continue to be an honorific society and will inherit the...
An investigational immunotherapy called MPDL3280A showed encouraging and durable clinical activity in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, in an early study presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR).1 Responses...
Prostate cancer is one of the most common cancers in American men, yet controversy over the utilization and frequency of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) screening methods remains, due to the overdiagnosis and overtreatment of men with low-grade, less-aggressive forms of the disease. At the 110th...
Mastectomies that preserve the nipple and an envelope of breast skin are as safe as more radical operations for qualifying early-stage breast cancer patients, according to a meta-analysis and systematic literature review presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons 16th Annual Meeting.1...
Bilateral prophylactic mastectomy may ease cancer-related anxiety for patients at high risk of breast cancer, but it does very little to contain the costs. A study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons 16th Annual Meeting found that bilateral prophylactic mastectomy was not...
Pembrolizumab [Keytruda] has a more favorable side-effect profile than cytotoxic chemotherapy and cetuximab [Erbitux]. This is particularly important for recurrent/metastatic head and neck cancer patients who have been so beaten up by their disease, the treatment for their disease, and their...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) is making inroads into head and neck cancer, with encouraging results in heavily pre-treated patients with recurrent or metastatic squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, according to a report on the expansion-cohort KEYNOTE-012 study presented at the 2015 ASCO...
“What’s past is prologue.” —William Shakespeare Today, a cancer drug under study in a clinical trial is commonly provided for a finite period of time after the study closes to accrual. If that drug were not yet U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved when the study began, the complimentary ...
Michael B. Atkins, MD, Deputy Director, Lombardi Cancer Center of Georgetown University, Washington, DC, discussed CheckMate 067 at the Plenary Session. Pending overall survival data, he concluded, “Nivolumab and nivolumab plus ipilimumab are superior to ipilimumab. These treatments (along with...
As a medical writer specializing in oncology, an ASCO member, and someone who tries to build sensitivity to patients into all my work, I was concerned about the cartoon I saw in the May 10, 2015, issue of The ASCO Post. On page 46, there is a cartoon of someone being thrown off a cliff because he...
Patients’ preference for how they receive biopsy results “has shifted from face-to-face visit to discussion over the telephone because of a desire for rapid notification,” according to a survey of 301 patients recruited at three different melanoma clinics. Although 67.1% of the patients preferred...
My life as a cancer survivor and an oncologist has taught me the importance of living every day to the fullest. Sometimes we all need a little reminding to appreciate life to the fullest. When I think of my former patient, Marc, that is what comes to mind. When I was a senior in high school, I was...
The ability to interrogate cancer cells at the genomic, proteomic, immunologic, and metabolomic levels will transform oncology care from one that relies mainly on trial-and-error treatment strategies based on the anatomy of the tumor to one that is more precisely based on the tumor’s molecular...
In 2014, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York opened the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Molecular Oncology with the sole purpose of expediting the translation of novel molecular discoveries into clinical innovations to turn the goal of precision oncology care into...