Resistance to aromatase inhibitors is a major problem in treatment of estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer. In a study reported in Science Translational Medicine, Pathiraja and colleagues found pervasive DNA hyper- and hypomethylation and enrichment for promoter hypermethylation of...
When Jane Cooke Wright, MD, met with six other oncologists at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago on April 9, 1964, to discuss the creation of American Society of Clinical Oncology, the first medical society dedicated to bringing patient-oriented issues to clinical oncology, the Civil Rights Act...
My year as President was a busy one. Aside from continuing my research and directing the activities of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project, I was drowned by the vast amount of information that was sent to me by ASCO headquarters. At the onset of my Presidency, I discovered...
Is pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree a good idea for ambitious surgical oncologists who want to advance their careers? The ASCO Post recently spoke with Martin J. Heslin, MD, MSHA, Chief, Section of Surgical Oncology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Medical Center, ...
Clinical research is vital for the development and improvement of methods designed to prevent and treat cancer. The majority of clinical trials take place in the developed world through sponsored pharmaceutical research companies.1 The corresponding lack of research in developing countries results...
On April 21, 2014, ramucirumab (Cyramza) was approved for use as a single agent in the treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with disease progression on or after prior treatment with fluoropyrimidine- or platinum-containing...
ASCO’s State Affiliate Council is composed of the State Society Presidents and/or designated physician Council Representatives as well as the Executive Directors of each state and/or regional oncology society. The Council convened in late February to address the most relevant issues affecting...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On April 17, 2014, ofatumumab (Arzerra) received regular approval...
Title: Survivorship: Living Well During and After Cancer Author: Barrie Cassileth, MS, PhD Publication Information: Spry Publishing, April 2014, 216 pages, $16.95 This slender-volume survivorship guidebook provides the latest evidence-based information on complementary therapies and is a must-read...
When Barrie R. Cassileth, MS, PhD, began researching complementary medicine and its potential for use in oncology care over 30 years ago, not much was known about the importance of complementary therapies for the well-being of patients with cancer. She chose to conduct her doctoral dissertation...
The neurosurgeon is often the gateway provider when patients present with what on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) appears to be a new glioblastoma. Because histology-based diagnosis is a prerequisite for initiating standard therapy with radiation and chemotherapy, the first question that the...
Most recent advances in the management of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) are in the area of genetics, according to Steven Gore, MD, of Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven. “New genomics research is leading to a better understanding of MDS heterogeneity and disease biology, and may...
In 2012, just 1 year after taking the reins as President of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Ronald A. DePinho, MD, announced his plans to launch the Moon Shots Program, the most ambitious endeavor undertaken by the cancer center to dramatically accelerate the pace of reducing...
Envision a world where a diagnosis of pediatric cancer is met with the same reaction as a diagnosis of the common cold. In this idyllic world, the word “cancer” no longer carries with it the same traumatic response or stigma that it does today. This hopeful vision is what drives Craig Breslow in...
The College of American Pathologists (CAP) has been awarded two grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The funding, totaling more than $1.25 million, will be used to improve the adoption of evidence-based laboratory testing guidelines and to standardize reporting of...
A phase III clinical trial has shown that noninvasive magnetic resonance-guided focused ultrasound treatment that heats the cancer within the bone, relieves pain and improves function for most patients when other treatment options are limited. The results were published recently in the Journal of...
Data from trials conducted mostly in the 1970s and 1980s established the paradigm that optimal treatment of rectal cancer requires a combination of radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and surgery.1 Virtually all of these trials, however, demonstrated that radiotherapy added only to the local control...
In a pilot study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Deborah Schrag, MD, MPH, and colleagues from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, assessed outcomes with neoadjuvant FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin)/bevacizumab (Avastin) with selective use of...
In a phase III trial (LUME-Lung 1) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Reck et al assessed the addition of nintedanib to docetaxel in second-line treatment of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).1 The combination significantly improved progression-free survival in all patients and improved overall...
INSIDE THE BLACK BOX is an occasional column providing insight into the FDA and its policies and procedures. In this installment, National Toxicology Program scientists Kembra L. Howdeshell, PhD, and Michael D. Shelby, PhD, discuss a recently completed monograph that reviews the published data on...
A majority of cancer patients experience some level of fatigue during the course of their treatment, and approximately 30% contend with persistent fatigue for years after treatment. Fatigue is among the most common and distressing long-term effects of cancer treatment and significantly affects...
In women with breast cancer who had between one and three positive lymph nodes, radiotherapy reduced the recurrence rate by 32% and the breast cancer death rate by 20%. Giving radiotherapy to these women led to nearly 12 fewer recurrences of breast cancer per 100 women after 10 years, and eight...
ASCO has taken the field of psychosocial oncology a step forward in the right direction by providing guidelines for oncologists to direct care of the two most common emotional symptoms that patients experience: anxiety and depression.1 It is fair to say that all patients experience these...
Detection of depression is suboptimal, and its severity is underestimated in the general population, but it is known psychiatric disorders are more common in patients with cancer than in those with any other chronic illness. Although studies in cancer patients have yielded varying figures, it is...
At the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), lymphoma expert and NCCN Panel Chair on Lymphoma, Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, fielded questions from oncologists. The ASCO Post was there to capture his recommendations for a common clinical scenario—treating the...
In February, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted belinostat (Beleodaq), a targeted histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor, priority review status based on a pivotal phase II trial in peripheral T-cell lymphoma. Just 1 month later, researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in...
A series of new workshops are teaching nurses and administrators from community hospital cancer programs how to promote, run, and improve their institutions’ clinical trials. The training focuses on specific skills and tasks, offers postcourse support and aims for long-term, measurable outcomes,...
Fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitors are an emerging area of interest in cancer therapeutics. Studies presented at the 2014 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego provided early encouraging data for two investigational pan-FGFR inhibitors for the...
Although the data are preliminary, experts were impressed with responses to a novel IDH2 inhibitor called AG-221 in patients with hematologic malignancies. In the first clinical trial of AG-221, there were three complete remissions, two complete remissions with incomplete platelet count recovery...
A simple blood test may be able to identify men with castration-resistant prostate cancer who will not respond to enzalutamide (Xtandi). The presence of the splice variant androgen receptor (AR) V7 in circulating tumor cells identified men who were unlikely to respond to enzalutamide and whose...
Patients with early-stage breast cancer who underwent sentinel lymph node dissection experienced lymphedema with increasing incidence over time, according to a presentation at the 2014 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Cancer Symposium in Phoenix.1 In women who took part in the American College of ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved ramucirumab (Cyramza) to treat patients with advanced or metastatic gastric cancer or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with disease progression on or after prior treatment with fluoropyrimidine- or platinum-containing chemotherapy....
Contralateral prophylactic mastectomy improved breast cancer patients’ odds of overall survival by 23% compared with single mastectomy alone, according to a retrospective analysis of nearly 170,000 patients in a U.S. database, but surgical breast cancer specialists warned that the data needed to be ...
At the 19th Annual Conference of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), held recently in Hollywood, Florida, NCCN Panel members presented updates for several tumor types, briefly summarized here. For a more complete description of all updates, visit www.nccn.org. Breast Cancer Guidelines ...
Last January, ASCO held a leadership summit in Washington, DC, with representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, insurance payers, patient advocates, and physicians to address the skyrocketing costs of new drugs and technologies used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Although costs are ...
Dr. Janet L. Rowley’s groundbreaking research in the translocation of genetic material bucked scientific convention and heralded a new understanding that cancer is indeed a genetic disease. Her research was largely responsible for the discoveries that led to the development of the targeted cancer...
Peter Jacobs, MD, PhD, regarded as the father of hematology in his native country of South Africa, began each day at 3 AM in the gym. During his workout, Dr. Jacobs would routinely call the nursing staff for updates on patients in his ward. Before sunup, Dr. Jacobs was on his way to the hospital....
David A. Karnofsky, MD, dedicated himself to the pursuit of scientific excellence and the investigation of more effective therapies for cancer for nearly 30 years, from the time he was a young resident at the Collis P. Huntington Memorial Hospital for Cancer Research of Harvard University, until...
The island nation of Curaçao is nestled in the southern Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan coast. Curaçao was first settled by the Arawaks, an Amerindian people that inhabited the island for hundreds of years before the arrival of Europeans. Amid one wave of settlers from Portugal and Spain that...
John E. Niederhuber, MD, was born and grew up in Steubenville, Ohio, a steel mill town located along the Ohio River. Dr. Niederhuber had a childhood interest in engineering and chemistry, but it was the town’s general practitioner who made a lasting impact on his career path. “He was an old-style...
Barbara L. McAneny, MD, grew up on the outskirts of Alton, a small city on the Mississippi River in Madison County, Illinois. It is an area rich in history, famous as the site of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas’s last debate and for its role preceding and during the American Civil War. “We...
World-renowned breast cancer researcher, Nancy E. Davidson, MD, was born in Denver, Colorado, the daughter of two geologists. “My mother was a geologist beginning in the 1940s, a time when women really didn’t pursue that kind of career. So, I was reared in a very scientifically oriented...
Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, grew up in Auburn, a small historic town in central Massachusetts that was settled by the English in 1714. His desire to become a doctor bloomed early. “My decision to possibly pursue a career in medicine was first inspired by my mother, who was a registered nurse, and by...
My last conversation with Selma Schimmel was 2 months ago. She had been uncharacteristically out of touch for a few weeks, and I had a nagging feeling the severe pain in her psoas muscle caused by advancing ovarian cancer—which had plagued her for months and she described as in a “league of its...
The U.S. House of Representatives recently held a Special Order in honor of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. During the event on the House floor, Members of Congress highlighted critical advancements in cancer care over the past 50 years and...
Physicians have a duty to speak up against high cancer drug prices,” Hagop M. Kantarjian, MD, resolutely stated in an interview with The ASCO Post. “We should speak up because high drug prices are harming patients.” A leader in the effort to drive down the cost of drugs needed to treat patients...
I’ve been plagued with various ailments all my life. Physically and emotionally abused by my stepfather as a child, over the years I’ve developed severe psychological issues including depression and anxiety disorder. I am also in constant physical pain from cervical degenerative disc disease,...
The Clinical Trials and Translational Research Advisory Committee (CTAC) of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) met for the 22nd time on March 12, 2014, in their ongoing effort to improve efficiency and effectiveness of cancer clinical trials. A significant portion of the meeting addressed lagging...
In 2007, the Billings Clinic Cancer Center in Billings, Montana, became one of 15 community-based oncology centers nationwide to receive funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to expand programs for clinical trials, health-care disparities outreach, survivorship and palliative care,...
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...