Earlier this month, members of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative’s Blue Ribbon Panel submitted an ambitious list of 10 recommendations on the scientific approaches that are most likely to accelerate progress against cancer to the President’s National Cancer Advisory Board. The panel’s...
The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group–American College of Radiology Imaging Network (ECOG-ACRIN) Cancer Research Group has received federal approval to add a quality-of-life research study, Communication and Education in Tumor Profiling (EAQ152), or COMET, to the NCI-MATCH (EAY131) trial, which is ...
On August 13, 2013, more than 100 cancer researchers and physicians from around the world met in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to discuss 2 challenging problem areas in cancer. One group was focused on the carcinogenic potential of low-dose exposure to chemical mixtures in the environment, and the...
Phase I Study Title: Phase Ib Study of Nivolumab and Dasatinib in Patients With Relapsed/Refractory Philadelphia Chromosome–Positive Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (Ph+ ALL) Study Type: Phase I/interventional/single-group assignment Study Sponsor and Collaborators: Northwestern University, National...
Studies show that adolescent and young adult cancer survivors experience distinct challenges and quality-of-life issues from those experienced by either younger or older adult cancer survivors and that those challenges and issues can persist long after the cancer diagnosis and the end of...
When it comes to pediatric cancer, there are so many signs of hope, starting with the fact that the childhood cancer 5-year survival rate has climbed all the way up to 83%. But while we celebrate the victories of all these children over cancer, little is known about the long-term health effects,...
A new study1 showing that just 1 in 20 terminally ill patients with cancer has sufficient understanding about the prognosis or purpose of treatment is highlighting the need for improvements in both the way oncologists communicate prognosis with their patients and in the development of educational...
Music therapy, an established adjuvant to standard cancer care, is offered in a growing number of cancer centers throughout the United States and internationally. Defined by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) as “the evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individual...
What do up to 60% of cancer survivors have in common? Answer: some type of long-term sexual dysfunction. How many cancer survivors seek professional help for sexual problems? Answer: less than 20%. Even when they do seek help, they may not be successful in finding professionals with expertise in...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and its Chief Executive Officer, Margaret Foti, PhD, MD (hc), were honored with the PHL Life Sciences Ultimate Solution Award for their significant contributions to and impact on the field of cancer research. The award is presented annually by PHL ...
A recent study1 published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (see “Breaking the ‘Conspiracy of Silence’” in this issue of The ASCO Post) found that just 1 in 20 patients with advanced, incurable cancer has sufficient understanding of his or her prognosis or life expectancy. Now, another new study ...
Cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates—perhaps more than any other chronic disease—shine a grim spotlight on global disparities of care. It is one of the most preventable of human malignancies, yet it is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women around the world. It kills 260,000 women...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on September 15 that it has taken action against 55 tobacco retailers by issuing the first warning letters for selling newly regulated tobacco products—such as e-cigarettes, e-liquids, and cigars—to minors. These actions come about a month after ...
With the expansion of our understanding of signaling pathways in normal cells and how they are co-opted or corrupted in malignancy, the number of potential antitumor agents to be tested has exploded, exposing the limitations of traditional antineoplastic drug development and challenging us to...
A new study from Drexel University College of Medicine suggests all organ transplant recipients, regardless of race, should receive routine, total-body screenings for skin cancer. Out of 259 nonwhite transplant recipients who were evaluated in the study, 19 skin cancer lesions were identified in...
As reported by Hope S. Rugo, MD, and John W. Park, MD, both of the University of California, San Francisco, and colleagues in The New England Journal of Medicine, the multiarm adaptive randomization phase II I-SPY 2 trial has shown that the addition of veliparib/carboplatin and the addition of...
Earlier this month, ASCO, in collaboration with the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the Society for Surgical Oncology (SSO), jointly issued an update to a clinical practice guideline for physicians treating women with breast cancer who have undergone a mastectomy. The update...
Clinicians face a number of questions in evaluating and treating patients with stage IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). One expert in the field, Rafael Santana-Davila, MD, reviewed key issues in managing this disease in the Journal of Oncology Practice (JOP). The ASCO Post asked Dr....
As reviewed in this issue of The ASCO Post, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently updated its guidelines for colorectal cancer screening1 from 2008 and has now included seven acceptable strategies, including direct-visualization modalities (ie, endoscopy and computed tomography...
As reported in JAMA, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has issued new recommendations for colorectal cancer screening.1 In brief, the USPSTF recommends colorectal cancer screening starting at age 50 years and continuing until age 75 years (grade A recommendation = “The USPSTF...
Attendees at the 2016 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference held July 18–22 in Koloa, Hawaii, got a peek at early data for a number of novel agents in the treatment of various lymphoma subtypes. The ASCO Post captured these findings. Denintuzumab Mafodotin in Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma Denintuzumab...
There is no role for routine imaging as a means of following patients with large cell lymphoma, according to Bruce D. Cheson, MD, Deputy Chief of Hematology-Oncology and Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Hospital, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Washington, DC. “Routine...
A small device implanted under the skin may improve breast cancer survival by catching cancer cells, slowing the development of metastatic tumors in other organs, and allowing time to intervene with surgery or other therapies. These findings, reported by Rao et al in Cancer Research, suggest a path ...
The study findings by Dr. Buchakjian and colleagues suggest it may be time to revisit the significance of frozen margin status, according to one of the session co-moderators, Allen Cheng, MD, DDS, of the Providence Cancer Center and Head & Neck Surgical Associates, both in Portland, Oregon....
Intraoperative frozen margins from the tumor bed help to assess the prognosis of oral cancer, but the permanent specimen margin remains king, according to a retrospective cohort study reported at the 9th International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer.1 Results indicated that the rate of local...
“This (adverse cardiac effects of chemotherapy) is a difficult problem to address because the side effects of chemotherapy in terms of its impact on the heart show up many years, sometimes decades, later. So that makes it harder to study and treat. It’s a real problem,” commented session...
The anabolic hormone testosterone may lessen the early adverse cardiovascular effects of chemotherapy and chemoradiation for advanced or recurrent cancer, according to a randomized controlled trial reported at the 9th International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer.1 Among the patients studied,...
For several years now, the American health-care system has been undergoing a transformation. Innovative ideas are being explored, new systems continue to be created, and millions of lives have been impacted. As health-care providers and research engines, academic institutions have an opportunity...
For the majority of patients who are diagnosed with advanced-stage non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), platinum-based doublets have been the standard of care for over 30 years. Recently, the immune checkpoint inhibitors nivolumab (Opdivo) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) demonstrated superior survival ...
Although targeted drugs like imatinib (Gleevec) have revolutionized the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), patients generally must take them for the rest of their lives and may cease benefiting from them over time. New research conducted by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute...
Today, Vice President Joe Biden announced a series of new steps focused on increasing access to information about clinical trials and improving the efficiency of our clinical research system. These steps include making it easier for participants to find clinical trial opportunities as quickly as...
New findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the cancer death rate for children and adolescents aged 1 to 19 has been steadily declining since the mid-1970s and dropped by 20% from 1999 to 2014, the result of advances in therapy, especially for leukemia. During...
Federally funded research continues to spur progress against cancer; however, accelerating the pace of progress will require robust, sustained, and predictable annual funding increases for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the Food and Drug...
The combined use of fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) and immunohistochemistry (IHC) identified non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with rare or novel anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene rearrangements, not otherwise identified by FISH alone, that showed response to...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Imperiale et al found that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) colorectal cancer risk assessment tool was able to estimate the current risk for advanced colorectal neoplasia. Study Details The study involved 4,457 persons aged...
A first-of-its-kind joint report from the American Cancer Society and Alliance for Childhood Cancer has compiled the latest information related to pediatric cancer, including statistics and trends; a current list of drugs used to treat pediatric cancers; ongoing pediatric cancer clinical trials;...
An animal study suggests that resistance to tamoxifen therapy in some estrogen receptor–positive breast cancers may originate from in utero exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The study provides a new path forward in human research, as about half of the breast cancers treated with...
The Chinese Journal of Cancer (CJC) is soliciting the 150 most important questions in cancer research and clinical oncology from cancer researchers around the world. The editors of CJC believe this will help provide important insights and guidance in future efforts to advance cancer research...
In a UK-based phase III noninferiority trial (QUARTZ) reported in The Lancet, Mulvenna et al found that use of whole-brain radiotherapy in addition to optimal supportive care including dexamethasone was associated with little additional benefit in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients...
The ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group (ECOG-ACRIN) announced that Robert L. Comis, MD, Professor of Medicine at Drexel University, is stepping down from his position as Group Co-Chair of the organization. His departure, effective February 28, 2019, will coincide with the end of ECOG-ACRIN’s current ...
I am writing to ask the ASCO community for help in addressing a policy decision by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) that requires oncologists to take a 700-hour course (on the full range of nuclear medicines) to give one medicine to their patients: prepackaged radioimmunotherapy. It’s...
Some patients who ask about immunotherapy do so because they don’t want to get chemotherapy. Immunotherapy “is not a replacement yet, especially for chemotherapy, which has a track record of curing cancer,” Anas Younes, MD, medical oncologist and Chief of the Lymphoma Service at Memorial Sloan...
Immunotherapy has received “a lot of attention, mainly because of the media coverage,” Anas Younes, MD, medical oncologist and Chief of the Lymphoma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, said in an interview with The ASCO Post. “Many patients inquire, not about a specific...
Although diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) is a curable disease in most patients aged 65 years or older, these patients are also at higher risk of chemotherapy-related death within the first 30 days of treatment. To quantify the risk of early fatality and identify risk factors, researchers led ...
In 2012, my husband, Robert, and I were looking forward to starting the next phase of our lives and were feeling excited about the future. Although only in our 50s, we had decided to retire early from our full-time careers, move to our cabin in Hayward, Wisconsin, and find less stressful part-time ...
While a majority of states are still missing important opportunities to pass and implement legislative solutions proven to prevent and fight cancer, progress is being made to move the nation closer to ending cancer as we know it, according to a report recently released by the American Cancer...
The best part of my day is hearing that little voice yell, “It’s Momma!” as my son rushes to greet me with a hug. It is humbling, and sometimes terrifying, to realize that I brought a little person into the world who is completely dependent on my husband and me for survival. Few would argue...
I was 2 months into my first-year fellowship at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington, DC, when I learned the best oncology lesson of my career. I owned a copy of DeVita, Hellman, and Rosenberg’s Cancer: Principles and Practice of Oncology and had read Cancer Treatment...
The American Society of Hematology (ASH) will honor Laurence Boxer, MD, and Ralph Nachman, MD, with 2016 Mentor Awards at the 58th ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition in San Diego, California, for their sustained, outstanding commitment to the training and career development of early-career...
Three leading national cancer organizations have issued a consensus guideline for physicians treating women who have ductal carcinoma in situ treated with breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation. The new guideline has the potential to save many women from unnecessary surgeries,...