GUEST EDITORS Dr. Abutalib is Assistant Director, Hematology and Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation Director, Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Apheresis Service, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Zion, Illinois, Editor-in-Chief, Advances in Cell & Gene Therapy. Dr. Medeiros is Professor and...
In a press briefing that preceded the 2019 Multidisciplinary Thoracic Cancers Symposium, Charles B. Simone II, MD, a radiation oncologist and Chief Medical Officer at the New York Proton Center, noted that this study should help clinicians better understand the impact of local therapy for patients ...
Breast cancer in young women is characterized by more aggressive biologic features as compared to older patients, but outcomes are good when guideline-recommended treatments are given. European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) spokesperson Matteo Lambertini, MD, PhD, of IRCCS Policlinico San...
The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) recently announced that Mark E. Thompson, MD, has been appointed to the newly created staff position of Medical Director for Public Policy. Dr. Thompson will chair the COA Government Affairs and Policy Committee, a standing committee that guides official...
Although tools like the ESPEN guidelines on nutrition for patients with cancer have helped to standardize practices in this area of patient care, scientific evidence on the efficacy of nutritional intervention among patients with breast cancer is still scarce. Preliminary results from a study to be ...
A global survey of HER2 testing has raised questions about how resources should be spent on potentially lifesaving HER2-targeted therapies for breast cancer, especially in lower-income countries. These results will be presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Breast Cancer...
OneOncology, the national partnership of community oncologists, has announced that Lee Schwartzberg, MD, FACP, has been named Chief Medical Officer. The Chief Medical Officer position provides a link between OneOncology and its physician partners, demonstrating the shared, foundational commitment...
A new study analyzing the entire set of genes and all the proteins produced by colon cancer tissues from patient samples has revealed a more comprehensive view of the tumor, pointing to novel cancer biologic mechanisms and possible new therapeutic strategies. This multidisciplinary and...
Cognitive impairment associated with cancer—also known as “chemobrain”—has gained recognition as a complication of the disease and its treatment. With this in mind, a research team started to investigate levels of biomarkers in relation to chemobrain to better understand its ...
In light of the launch of his campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden announced that they are stepping down as Co-Chairs of the Biden Cancer Initiative. They are also resigning from the Board of Directors. “[W]e are glad...
On April 25, Eli Lilly and Company announced that the company has been working to facilitate the withdrawal of olaratumab from the market for the treatment of advanced soft-tissue sarcoma. Lilly's actions to withdraw olaratumab from the market follow completion of the international phase III...
Earlier this week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed to improve the reimbursement currently given to hospitals that provide chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy to patients with blood cancer as part of the Fiscal Year 2020 Inpatient Prospective Payment...
A cancer diagnosis is often overwhelming, and adding financial burden to the mix can sometimes feel unmanageable. Give your patients the practical information they need with the Managing the Cost of Cancer Care booklet from ASCO. It covers health insurance benefits, information about the Affordable ...
ASCO Annual Meeting attendees with an interest in global health will find a deep portfolio of relevant sessions in the 2019 program. A preliminary list of global health–related sessions is below; visit am.asco.org or check the 2019 iPlanner for the most updated program information, including...
Registration is now open for the 4th Annual U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Clinical Outcome Assessments in Cancer Clinical Trials Workshop, which will take place on July 12 at the FDA White Oak Campus in Silver Spring, Maryland. The 1-day workshop, which will be co-hosted by ASCO and the...
Promising breakthroughs in cancer care don’t just happen overnight. They are the result of years of hard work by the brightest minds in cancer research. Yet many are unaware of the vast resources necessary to fuel cutting-edge research projects. Increasing awareness around this issue is vital to...
ASCO and ASCO’s Conquer Cancer Foundation are proud to recognize the winners of ASCO’s Special Awards and Conquer Cancer’s Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Awards and Tribute Award. The recipients of these awards have worked to transform cancer care around the world. Don’t miss the opportunity...
In the 2 years since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of regorafenib in the treatment of patients with sorafenib-refractory advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, we oncologists have witnessed a veritable avalanche of newly approved medicines for the treatment of advanced...
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has named Giulio Draetta, MD, PhD, as Chief Scientific Officer, a new position that champions innovation, develops strong partnerships, and provides focused leadership on the science and clinical translation of research programs. Dr. Draetta joined ...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Oncology Research Program has funded three investigators from NCCN Member Institutions—Patrick Boland, MD, and Sarbajit Mukherjee, MD, MS, both of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Amit Mahipal, MBBS, of Mayo Clinic Cancer Center—to...
ASCO has approved two new resource-stratified guidelines aimed at improving the early detection and treatment of colorectal cancer in all resource settings. The guidelines are a continuation of ASCO’s efforts to provide evidence-based recommendations for the management of malignancies applicable...
Rafael Fonseca, MD, the Getz Family Professor of Cancer and Chair of the Department of Medicine, Mayo Clinic in Arizona and an expert in minimal residual disease (MRD) in myeloma, commented on the PRIMeR study for The ASCO Post. The PRIMeR subanalysis of the STaMINA trial showed the prognostic...
A growing list of biomarkers is beginning to drive targeted therapy in breast cancer, and clinicians can take advantage of these assays to make treatment selections, Debu Tripathy, MD, Professor of Medicine and Chair of Breast Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center,...
Ryan C. Fields, MD, has been named Chief of the Section of Surgical Oncology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Fields, who joined the faculty in 2011, is also Associate Professor of Surgery, Associate Program Director of the General Surgery Residency Program, and...
The members of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) recently elected Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, as its President-Elect for 2019–2020. He officially became President-Elect at the 2019 AACR Annual Meeting and will assume the presidency at the 2020 AACR Annual Meeting in San Diego. The...
I’ve been in excellent physical shape my whole life. Growing up, it was my dream to play Division 1 soccer in college, and I trained hard throughout high school to achieve that goal. My dream came true, in 2005, when I was invited to play soccer at East Carolina University. I was eager to bond...
RADIATION THERAPY immediately following surgery in children with ependymoma, the third most common pediatric brain tumor, nearly tripled survival, in a Children’s Oncology Group (COG) clinical trial led by Thomas E. Merchant, DO, PhD, Chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at St. Jude...
THE RISK FOR developing several obesity-related cancers is rising more rapidly in people aged 25 to 49 than in those older than 50, with the magnitude of the rise steepest in the youngest age group, according to a study published in Lancet Public Health.1 In an interview with The ASCO Post, the...
PHYSICIANS SHOULD routinely assess the body mass index (BMI) of their patients and offer counseling and/or referrals to a nutritionist or dietician to patients with a BMI of > 30 kg/m2, Ahmedin Jemal, DVM, PhD, told The ASCO Post. Those actions plus community-level policies designed to increase...
A certain type of DNA marker may predict poor outcomes in multiple myeloma, researchers at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have found. The marker is a particular rearrangement of chromosomes that is rarely tested for but may indicate resistance to immunomodulatory drugs such as...
A new study suggests that Oncotype DX–guided treatment could reduce the cost for the first year of breast cancer care in the United States by about $50 million (about 2% of the overall costs in the first year). These findings were published by Mariotto et al in the Journal of the...
SCREENING FOR LUNG CANCER among high-risk groups deserves the attention that Steven E. Vogl, MD, brought to it in his column At Microphone 1 in the February 10 issue of The ASCO Post. Subspecialist oncologists are not always attuned to the needs of their patients outside of their own specialty.1...
The ASCO Post is pleased to reproduce installments of the Art of Oncology as published previously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. These articles focus on the experience of suffering from cancer or of caring for people diagnosed with cancer, and they include narratives, topical essays,...
EACH YEAR, City of Hope recognizes several oncologists for their research contributions. Recently, City of Hope named Alexandra Levine, MD, MACP, and Dan Raz, MD, MAS, as award winners. Margaret L. Kripke Legend Award DR. LEVINE, Professor in the Department of Hematology & Hematopoietic Cell...
In the past, the role of the pathologist was primarily to present anatomic pathology findings on various specimens, particularly at tumor boards. However, in the emerging age of personalized medicine and molecular diagnostics, the responsibilities of pathologist have greatly expanded into...
IN SPITE of the high response rates and lack of progression to active disease with the regimens described at the 2018 American Society of Hematology Meeting & Exposition, several myeloma experts interviewed by The ASCO Post said the data do not yet move them to routinely intervene in high-risk...
MORE DATA are in to support early intervention for high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma—an early, asymptomatic entity lacking the presence of CRAB criteria (elevated calcium, renal failure, anemia, bone lesions). The latest come from two phase II studies presented at the 2018 American Society of...
CANCER RESEARCH UK announced recently that it is funding three new international oncology research initiatives. Collectively, the teams have been awarded almost £60 million. These 5-year research programs will investigate how the microbiome can be manipulated to treat bowel cancer, find new ways to ...
In this installment of Living a Full Life, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, interviewed multiple myeloma pioneer Robert A. Kyle, MD, whose groundbreaking work has changed the practice of hematology. Among his many honors are the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award from ASCO and the Wallace H....
Previous research has suggested that specific factors about the doctor performing colonoscopy—for example, a gastroenterologist vs a surgeon, female vs male—were associated with different rates of detection of precancerous polyps. However, a Cleveland Clinic–led research team...
We read with interest a recent article published on ASCOPost.com, which summarized a paper on the role of shared decision-making in lung cancer screening.1,2 The summary and original report highlight a mandate by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that bears careful...
Results of a small clinical trial suggest that supplementing chemotherapy with high doses of vitamin D may benefit patients with metastatic colorectal cancer by delaying progression of the disease. These findings were published by Ng et al in JAMA. Initial trial findings were reported at the 2017...
With the recent breakthroughs in immunotherapy, treatments that modulate the immune system are now being used across numerous cancer types and across the spectrum of disease with significant success, but not all patients achieve objective responses. There is still a critical need to better...
Data supporting the use of FLT3 inhibitors in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) were featured at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting & Exposition. Gilteritinib was evaluated in combination with induction and consolidation as front-line therapy in newly diagnosed patients with AML,1 and...
Dietary intake of fat is associated with several types of cancer, but few studies have explored the link between fat intake and the risk of skin cancer. In a study published by Park et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, researchers examined the relationship between fat intake...
On April 19, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus axitinib for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). KEYNOTE-426 Approval was based on KEYNOTE-426, a randomized, multicenter, open-label trial conducted in ...
A new study reports that a type of cervical cancer that is less amenable to detection by Papanicolaou (Pap) testing is increasing in several subpopulations of women, pointing to the growing importance of human papillomavirus (HPV) testing and vaccination. The study was published by Islami ...
Over the past week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted several Fast Track and Orphan Drug designations to treatments for myelodysplastic syndromes, triple-negative breast cancer, acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated cancers. Fast Track Designation...
A consortium of researchers have completed an analysis of a new gene fusion they believe is responsible for the development of a wide spectrum of cancer types. According to the investigators, their studies show that errant gene fusions in neuregulin-1, or NRG1, which are present in about...
A new study found wide state-to-state variations in Medicaid reimbursements to physicians who treat patients with cancer with radiation therapies. These differences could compound existing disparities in access to health care in rural communities, which tend to have higher Medicaid...