On March 14, Pfizer issued the following statement on its company position in Russia. Pfizer stands with the unified global community across the public, private, and civil society sectors in opposition to the Russian war in Ukraine and the brutal situation it has created. The international...
We are all following the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine with surprise and horror. I’m sure few readers of The ASCO Post imagined the invasion of a European country by its European neighbor was possible again, naively thinking wars like this ended with the Allied victory in World War II. But...
I returned home to the United Arab Emirates in 2017, following my oncology fellowship training and work experience in the United States. I immediately realized that I am now dealing with a considerably different cancer patient population in terms of age of onset, stage at presentation, awareness...
"One of the great advocates for the poorest and sickest of our planet.” —Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu “Our mission is to provide a preferential option for the poor in health care. By establishing long-term relationships with sister organizations ...
According to the United Nations (UN), more than 1.7 million Ukrainians have already fled to Central Europe due to the Russian invasion, which the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has called the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Many of those fleeing Ukraine and those...
The Russian Federation is the largest country in the world, extending from Eastern Europe to Northern Asia and the Pacific Ocean. The population of more than 140 million people is unevenly distributed across the country.1 As a result, Russia has high spatial inequality in terms of accessibility of...
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this occasional special focus on the worldwide cancer burden. In this issue, we feature a close look at the cancer incidence and mortality rates in Burundi. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the...
On February 4, 2022, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) will launch a new 3-year campaign for World Cancer Day that brings together individuals, organizations, and governments around the world in an effort to create awareness and help close the gap in cancer care. The campaign...
In an analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, researchers in the Global Burden of Disease 2019 Cancer Collaboration found a global increase in new cases of cancer, cancer deaths, and cancer-related disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) between 2010 and 2019, with aspects of cancer burden differing...
Cancer deaths rose to 10 million and new cases jumped to over 23 million globally in 2019, according to a new study from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine published in JAMA Oncology. At the start of the decade in 2010, total...
The enthusiasm behind the open access initiative sprang from the need for scientific research that is accessible to everyone worldwide. Open knowledge based on open access also aimed to increase good research practices such as reproducibility and transparency.1 This movement was launched by...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, researchers working collectively as the Global Burden of Disease 2019 Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Collaborators identified cancer incidence and mortality rates in 2019 among individual aged 15 to 39 years globally and according to country...
According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an estimated 19.3 million new cancer cases occurred worldwide in 2020, resulting in almost 10 million deaths. The IARC projects a 50% rise in global cancer incidence and mortality by 2040. To help control this looming crisis,...
About 10 years ago, on a flight to Detroit, while returning from the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, I had a conversation with Lori Pierce, MD, FASTRO, FASCO, radiation oncologist at the University of Michigan, who went on to become ASCO President for the 2020–2021 term. I recall inviting her...
The number of deaths related to breast cancer are increasing at an alarming pace worldwide. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) 2020 report, approximately 2,088,849 new cases and 627,000 deaths related to breast cancer occurred in 2018.1 More than 55% of these deaths occurred in low- to ...
Located in the Eastern Himalayas, Bhutan is a landlocked, lower–middle-income country bordered by China and India. With a population of more than 850,000 people, Bhutan is predominately made up of three ethnic groups—the largest group is the Bhutia (also called Ngalop), followed by the Nepalese...
In a prospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Partha Basu, MD, and colleagues found that a single dose of quadrivalent human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine given to girls in India provided 10-year protection equal to two or three doses against persistent infection with HPV types 16...
In a global population-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Duggan et al identified national health system characteristics associated with reduced breast cancer mortality, including higher Universal Health Coverage Service Coverage Index (UHC Index) rating and increased number of public...
Some of the most impressive data on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy have come from studies conducted in China. Attendees at the 2021 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference heard from one of the leading Chinese investigators, Peihua (Peggy) Lu, MD, of Lu Daopei Hospital, who described the...
An international cross-sectional survey reported in The Lancet Oncology by Fundytus et al found that access to cancer medicines considered essential by oncologists is lacking across the spectrum of low- and lower middle–income to high-income countries. As stated by the investigators, “The World...
With a population under half a million people, Brunei Darussalam is a small equatorial nation in Southeast Asia. Bordered by the South China Sea on the north, Brunei Darussalam is surrounded on all other sides by Malaysia, which separates the nation into two noncontiguous parts. Nearly two-thirds...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Gregorio Jaimovich, MD, Director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Favaloro University Hospital in Buenos Aires. Distinguished expert on radiation therapy and bone...
Katherine Van Loon, MD, MPH, was raised in Miami, until the age of 12, and then her family relocated to Atlanta, where she spent her junior and high school years. “If you ask my parents about my decision to become a doctor, they will say I first declared it at age 5. Nobody knew how that idea came...
During the opening session of the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, Julio Frenk, MD, PhD, MPH, President of the University of Miami, gave a riveting presentation in which he described the devastating effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic on patients with cancer as well as on fragile and fragmented...
In a simulation-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ward et al estimated that delay in diagnosis due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile will lead to an early surge of newly diagnosed cancers at later stages, resulting in excess mortality over the next 10 years. As stated by the...
A cancer diagnosis can abruptly and durably alter the course of daily life—not just for the person diagnosed but also for family members. New research presented by Sinen Korbi, MD, and colleagues at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2021 examined the coping mechanisms of...
Christine D. Berg, MD, of the National Cancer Institute, discusses air pollution as a carcinogen that disproportionately affects poorer, overburdened communities and the elderly and frail—especially in countries where smoking rates are high and the use of coal predominates. Clinicians, Dr. Berg says, can help their patients by advocating for switching to clean energy and transportation and helping health-care facilities become more sustainable (Abstract PL02.07).
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this occasional special focus on the worldwide cancer burden. In this issue, we feature a close look at the cancer incidence and mortality rates in South Africa. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of...
Alex A. Adjei, MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic, talks about the fact that despite strides in lung cancer treatment, more than 60% of the world’s patients with the disease are in countries with relatively scarce medical resources, where less than 50% of patients are screened. There is a great need, says Dr. Adjei, to focus on ways to reduce disparities and remove the barriers of cost, access, quality, and lack of awareness (Abstract PL01.03).
Five European countries rank highest for lung cancer risk attributable to air pollution among those aged 50 to 69 years, according to research presented by Berg et al in the Presidential Symposium Plenary Session at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2021 World...
In a Global Registry of COVID-19 in Childhood Cancer cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Mukkada et al found that approximately one-fifth of children with cancer infected with COVID-19 worldwide had severe illness, with an associated mortality rate exceeding that reported in the general...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ward et al estimated the improvements in global overall survival for female breast cancer that could be achieved via increased availability of treatment and imaging modalities, as well as improvements in quality of care. Study Details The study used a...
Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women around the world, making it a significant public health problem.1 The disease affects both men and women, although it is rare in men, accounting for just 1% of all breast cancer diagnoses in the United States and less than 0.1% of...
Peihua Lu, MD, of Lu Daopei Hospital, discusses the state of research in China on CAR T-cell therapy, placing it in the context of the global development pipeline and the progress being made.
The ASCO Post is pleased to continue this occasional special focus on the worldwide cancer burden. In this issue, we feature a close look at the cancer incidence and mortality rates in Bahrain. The aim of this special feature is to highlight the global cancer burden for various countries of the...
The Kingdom of Bahrain is a high-income island nation located in the Persian Gulf. The nation is an archipelago consisting of two separate groups of islands spanning 30 miles north to south, 10 miles east to west, and about 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC. Though situated in a region rich in ...
In this installment of The ASCO Post’s Global Oncology series, Guest Editor Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Ashraf Zaghloul, MD, DrPH, Professor at the National Cancer Institute of Egypt and President of the Egyptian Society of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Zaghloul was born in 1956 in ...
Worldwide, the global average surface temperature has risen at a similar rate of 0.17°F per decade since 1901, with the warmest year on record occurring in 2016 and the second warmest occurring in 2020. However, according to NOAA, since the late 1970s, the United States has warmed faster than the...
In a clinical trial conducted in Malawi, researchers found that combination chemotherapy with CHOP (cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone) provided curative benefit compared to current standard-of-care therapy in people diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL)—and...
In a population-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Rumgay et al provided estimates of the global incidence of new cancers attributable to alcohol consumption, including the estimate that 4.1% of all new cases in 2020 were related to alcohol use. Study Details In the study, population...
Canada’s publicly funded health-care system has a complex drug approval and funding process. Due to multiple assessment steps and bureaucratic processes, newly developed cancer drugs can often experience long delays before oncologists may use them to treat their patients with cancer. Several...
India has witnessed a major paradigm shift in the field of breast cancer and its management over the past 4 decades. The discipline of medical oncology has evolved exponentially over this period—a growth that few other scientific disciplines have experienced. Interventions at the individual,...
In this installment of the occasional department on Global Health-Care Equity, Guest Editor, Chandrakanth Are, MBBS, MBA, FRCS, FACS, spoke with Augusto Leon, MD, a surgical oncologist and Head of the Program of Cancer at Pontifical University of Chile, Santiago. Dr. Are is JL & CJ Varner...
Although we are just halfway through 2021, the outlook for improvements in global cancer trends looks grim. According to new estimates by the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s Global Cancer Observatory, the global cancer burden rose to 19.3 million cases and 10 million deaths in 2020...
In a prospective cohort study reported in The Lancet, the GlobalSurg Collaborative found that 30-day mortality after surgery for colorectal and gastric cancers, but not breast cancer, was higher in low- or middle-income countries vs high-income countries.1 Among all patients, mortality rates...
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Human Reproduction Programme (HRP)—the main instrument within the United Nations system for research in human reproduction—have launched a new guideline to help countries make faster progress, more equitably, in the screening and treatment of cervical...
Morocco is an Arab country in North Africa. It covers 716,550 square kilometers and has a population of nearly 36 million. The median age is 29.3 years. Morocco’s estimated gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019 was $122 million. As of 2019, Morocco’s health budget was equivalent to 4.5% of the total ...
This past October, in a virtually held ceremony of the General Assembly of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), Anil K. D’Cruz, MBBS, MS, DNB, FRCS (Hon), Director of Oncology at Apollo Hospitals in Mumbai, Chennai, and Delhi, India, began his 2-year tenure as President of the global...
In a prospective cross-sectional study reported in JCO Global Oncology, Gupta et al found that women with ovarian cancer in India had a high prevalence of pathogenic or likely pathogenic BRCA variants. As stated by the investigators: “There are deficient data on prevalence of germline mutations in...
In a European population-based study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Cardoso et al found that colorectal cancer incidence and mortality declined more in European countries with long-standing colonoscopy or fecal test screening programs since the year 2000 compared to countries with more recently...