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Showing 1 - 50Oncology Pioneer V. Shanta, MD, Has Long Championed Access to Quality Cancer Care
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed V. Shanta, MD, an internationally renowned oncologist and Chairperson of the Cancer Institute in Adyar, Chennai, India. Dr. Shanta has been with the Institute since 1955, holding several positions...
A Tribute to Arti Hurria, MD, FASCO, a Leader in Geriatric Oncology
The oncology community is deeply saddened by the untimely passing of Arti Hurria, MD, FASCO, a nationally regarded expert and advocate for elderly patients with cancer. Dr. Hurria died on November 7, 2018, in a traffic accident. At the time of her tragic death, Dr. Hurria was Director of the City...
Waun Ki Hong, MD, FACP, FASCO, Innovator in the Treatment of Head and Neck Cancer, Dies at 76
Waun Ki Hong, MD, FACP, FASCO, led numerous clinical trials showing that cisplatin-based chemotherapy and radiotherapy could effectively treat patients with cancer of the larynx while sparing their voice box. This seminal work also served as a model for organ-preservation strategies in many other...
A Visionary in Lymphoma, Bertrand Coiffier, MD, PhD, Dies at 71
Internationally renowned lymphoma expert Bertrand Coiffier, MD, PhD, died on January 2, 2019. He was 71. Dr. Coiffier published more than 500 papers and book chapters that garnered more than 50,000 literature citations, placing him among the top 1% of the most influential researchers globally. His ...
For Maria Papaleontiou, MD, Research Holds the Key to Improving Care of Patients With Thyroid Cancer
Maria Papaleontiou, MD, whose research interests focus on the complex issues surrounding the management of thyroid cancer and thyroid disease in general, was born on Cyprus, a small island nestled in the azure waters of the Mediterranean Sea. She recently spoke with The ASCO Post about her life and ...
Stories of the Scientists Behind Immunotherapy
As the field of immunotherapy accelerates, so does the literature reporting on the path ahead. One of the newer books on the topic is A Cure Within: Scientists Unleashing the Immune System to Kill Cancer. It has a top-notch pedigree: the author, Neil Canavan, is a seasoned journalist with more than ...
Overscreening for Prostate Cancer in Older Men Remains an Issue
Although most major cancer organizations agree on the guidelines for prostate cancer screening, there is still uneven application of the test, such as in the older patient population, resulting in overdiagnosis and waste in an already fiscally challenged health-care system. Researchers from the...
Update on Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
Checkpoint inhibitors have moved the field of immuno-oncology to the forefront of cancer treatment and research. However, these agents come with the risk of serious adverse events. To shed light on the toxicities associated with checkpoint inhibitors and other timely issues in the field of...
Oncology Researcher Catherine J. Wu, MD, Always Knew She Wanted to Be a Doctor
Catherine J. Wu, MD, Professor at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, was reared in a medical environment, which shaped her career path as a physician-scientist. “Both of my parents are physicians and were trained in internal medicine. Medicine was always part of my life as I grew up, and it seemed like...
A Battle With Leukemia: Part Memoir, Part Oncology History
BOOKMARK Title: Cancer Crossings: A Brother, His Doctors, and the Quest for a Cure to Childhood LeukemiaAuthor: Tim WendelPublisher: ILR PressPublication date: April 2018Price: $24.95, hardcover, 256 pages Tim Wendel is a journalist and author of several noted books, mostly concerning sports. In...
Neurologic Knowledge to Enhance Well-Being and Happiness
BOOKMARK Title: Your Happy Brain: Why and How to Hug ItAuthors: Philomena Lawrence, BA, BEd, and Gilbert Lawrence, MD, FRCRPublisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing PlatformPublication date: June 2018Price: $16.00, paperback, 390 pages Some 2,400 years ago, the ancient Greeks were among the...
A Feminist Take on Health-Care Disparities
BOOKMARK Title: Doing Harm: The Truth About Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and SickAuthor: Maya DusenberyPublisher: HarperOnePublication date: March 2018Price: $27.99, hardcover, 400 pages Over the past year or so, there have been several books by women focused...
Palliative Care in the Pediatric Oncology Setting
Cancer is the leading cause of disease-related childhood death. To better serve the special needs of this highly vulnerable patient population, pediatric palliative care teams use a personalized, holistic, and interdisciplinary approach tailored to relieve the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual ...
Leader in Geriatric Oncology, Arti Hurria, MD, FASCO, Dies at Age 48
ARTI HURRIA, MD, FASCO, died tragically on November 7, 2018, from injuries sustained in a traffic accident. Dr. Hurria was a national leader in geriatric oncology, embracing the age-associated nuances of the elderly, and leading initiatives and research that advanced this specialty field. “The...
A Pediatric Oncologist Recounts 7 Years at a Hospital in Jerusalem
Elisha Waldman, MD, is a pediatric oncologist and Associate Chief in the Division of Palliative Care at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. He grew up in a Connecticut suburb, the son of a conservative rabbi. Early on, Dr. Waldman majored in religious studies and felt...
Founder of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute Relates the History of Cancer Research
Cancer memoirs are generally written by people who have an intimate relationship with the disease, mostly survivors, sometimes by those who are dying while writing, such as the breathtaking book, The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying, by the poet Nina Riggs. Once in a while, a scientist or...
Lung Cancer Researcher Melissa Johnson, MD, Benefits From Father’s Perspective as Career Military Officer
Lung cancer researcher Melissa Johnson, MD, is a self-described “military brat,” whose father was a career officer in the Marine Corps, serving for more than 35 years. She was born in Oklahoma City and moved nine times during her childhood. When Dr. Johnson was in high school, her father was...
When Illness and Culture Collide
“‘Sickness’ is what is happening to the patient. Listen to him. Disease is what is happening to science and to populations.” —Lawrence Weed, MD, 1978 America’s massive health-care system is highly complex, with its own unique language, methods, technologies, and scientific approaches, developed and ...
A Career Path Shaped by Unlimited Possibilities for Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO
In this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Clifford A. Hudis, MD, FACP, FASCO, ASCO’s Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his current position, Dr. Hudis served in a variety of roles at ASCO, including President during ASCO’s 50th anniversary...
The Abscopal Effect: A Reemerging Field of Interest
For the past 50 years or more, oncologists have designed their treatment plans around the three pillars: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Now, with a series of recent successes, immunotherapy is rapidly reemerging as the fourth pillar in the oncologic armamentarium. Despite major advancements...
Patients With Cancer in Rural America Remain Underserved
Despite growing national awareness of health-care inequities, the plight of rural Americans diagnosed with cancer has persistently remained inadequate. Speaking with The ASCO Post, Jan Probst, PhD, Professor at the Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina, Columbia, noted, “We...
Parenteral Opioid Shortage Threatens Appropriate Pain Care for Patients With Cancer
In response to the opioid-overdose epidemic, several measures have been put in place, such as the reclassification of hydrocodone as a Schedule II opioid and new requirements for physician review of prescription drug–monitoring program databases in most states. Moreover, the Surgeon General and...
Inflammation, DNA Damage, and Cancer
The link between inflammation and cancer is a field of growing interest in the oncology community. Biologists have theorized that simultaneous DNA damage and cell division during inflammation could lead to cancer. To shed light on this important issue, The ASCO Post recently spoke with Jennifer...
Lung Cancer Screening: Proven Effective but Still Fighting for Acceptance
In 2010, the long-awaited findings from the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) revealed that participants who received low-dose helical computed tomography (CT) scans had a 15% to 20% lower risk of dying of lung cancer than participants who received standard chest x-rays. In response, the U.S....
Tackling Financial Toxicity: One Institution’s Roadmap Forward
ALTHOUGH FINANCIAL toxicity has become an important issue in the oncology community, evidence suggests the subject is rarely addressed by oncologists, exacerbating its grave effects on patients with cancer and their families.1 “But I don’t think it’s because health-care providers don’t want to...
Do Incident Learning Systems Prevent Medical Errors?
ACCORDING TO a study by Johns Hopkins, medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States.1 Lakshmi Santanam, PhD, tackled such sobering data at the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium. “Incident learning systems are not just about medical errors or data; it’s kind of a first...
Challenges and Successes of Adopting an Oncology Care Model
IN ORDER TO rein in the untenable rise in costs while delivering high-value cancer care, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation developed a new payment system—the Oncology Care Model. At the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, Cardinale B. Smith, MD, PhD, shed light on the system’s...
Living a Full Life After a Diagnosis of Cancer
BOOKMARK Title: Here We Grow: Mindfulness Through Cancer and BeyondAuthor: Paige DavisPublisher: She Writes PressDate: May 2018Price: $22.95, paperback, 154 pages Since the publication of Dr. Paul Kalanithi’s best-selling book, When Breath Becomes Air, about his diagnosis of cancer and untimely...
Family Archivist Holds Joyful Memories Amid Grief of Losing Loved Ones
BOOKMARK Title: The Trail to Tincup: Love Stories at Life’s EndEditors: Joyce Lynnette HockerPublisher: She Writes PressPublication date: May 2018Price: $23.95, hardcover, 288 pages Human mortality is embedded in the day-to-day challenges of clinical oncology; a cancer diagnosis is a reality...
Never a Doubt About a Career in Medicine for Anne S. Tsao, MD
There was no epiphany or family influences, as long as she can remember; Anne S. Tsao, MD, always wanted to be a doctor or, because of her love for caring for sick animals, a veterinarian. Dr. Tsao was born in Fountain Creek, Pennsylvania, but her parents moved to a suburb just outside of Chicago...
Cancer Care in the U.S. Prison System
A health-care system is evaluated by various metrics: one is how it cares for its most vulnerable patients. The United States spends far more on health care than any nation in the world, yet access to high-quality oncology services remains elusive to certain minority populations—none more so than...
Humbled by Challenges, Renowned Hematologist Kanti R. Rai, MD, Recalls a Rich Career
For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor, Jame Abraham, MD, interviewed Kanti R. Rai, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Karches Center for Oncology Research, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset; Professor of Medicine at Zucker School of Medicine at...
Big Data and Breast Cancer: Moving the Field Forward Through Comprehensive Analysis
To gain further insight into, among other things, optimizing big data and the latest on hormonal breast cancer treatment, The ASCO Post recently spoke with pioneering oncologist Christopher C. Benz, MD, a breast cancer specialist and Director of the Cancer & Developmental Therapeutics Program, ...
On the Frontier of Breast Cancer Research With Joyce A. O’Shaughnessy, MD
Nationally regarded breast cancer researcher and clinician Joyce A. O’Shaughnessy, MD, was born in upstate New York, just outside of Albany, where she attended grade school before her family moved to Beverly, Massachusetts, a suburban town 26 miles from Boston, where her family’s roots were....
Quality Improvement: Worth the Effort but Not Always Easy to Execute
According to Kaveh Shojania, MD, the keynote speaker at the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium, dedicated quality improvement work can help repair a fragmented health-care delivery system, but it’s challenging, and there are multiple things that can go wrong during the process.1 “I’ve developed this ...
The Opioid Crisis From the Oncology Perspective
As the nation battles an escalating opioid-overdose crisis, which claims more than 100 lives per day, a new study presented at the 2018 ASCO Quality Care Symposium was designed to answer a heretofore unanswered question: How common are opioid-related deaths in patients with cancer?1 Unintended...
Proton Therapy Leader, James D. Cox, MD, Dies at 80
THE ACCLAIMED radiation oncologist James D. Cox, MD, led MD Anderson’s Proton Therapy Center, an international center of excellence for proton therapy, research, and education, distinguished as the world’s first proton therapy facility located within a comprehensive cancer center. At the 2017...
Learning to Listen and Returning to the Art of Medicine
Bernard Lown, MD, was born in Lithuania, the son of a rabbi. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 14, where his scientific precocity bloomed. After attaining his medical degree from John Hopkins University School of Medicine, he pursued his passion of raising international awareness of...
On Aging and the Wellness Industry
Only a few centuries ago, the major source of moral and scientific authority in Western culture was religion, which requires trusting one of numerous supernatural deities. However, the presumption that medicine is based on evidence-based and peer-reviewed science is what gives it authority in...
An Early Love of Literature Gives Way to a Career in Breast Cancer Research for Jennifer K. Litton, MD
Breast cancer specialist Jennifer K. Litton, MD, was born and reared in Leominster, Massachusetts, a small city in the north central part of the state. “I went to parochial schools until seventh grade and then went on to high school in Worcester. Although I enjoyed science early on, I was...
New Techniques in Intraoperative-Guided Imagery May Enhance Outcomes in Patients With Cancer
Primary treatment of most solid tumors includes surgical excision or radiation therapy, both of which require precise anatomic localization of the tumor as well as surrounding tissue and organs. If the targeting is too broad, unnecessary morbidity may occur to nearby structures, along with the...
David J. Sugarbaker, MD, Pioneer in Thoracic Surgery, Mesothelioma, Dies at 65
DAVID J. SUGARBAKER, MD, was an internationally recognized thoracic surgeon who specialized in the treatment of mesothelioma and complex thoracic cancers. To be recognized as first in a medical finding or procedure is a rare honor; Dr. Sugarbaker received that honor twice, being the first to...
A Journey Through the Immune System
Although the basic concept of using the body’s immune defense mechanisms to fight cancer has been around for centuries, the idea of using immunotherapy in cancer, in general, returned to prominence when Dr. Thomas Burnet first proposed the theory of cancer immunosurveillance in 1957. Despite...
Understanding the Different Perspectives on Cost and Value in Cancer Care
The estimated cost of cancer care in the United States was $125 billion in 2010 and is expected to rise to $175 billion by 2020.1 In an effort to reign in spiraling costs and deliver better care, the term “value” has become part of the new oncology lexicon, as providers, patients, and payers seek...
Wally Curran, MD, FACR, FASCO, Reflects on a Career in Academic Oncology
GUEST EDITOR Dr. Abraham is the Director of the Breast Oncology Program at Taussig Cancer Institute, and Professor of Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic. Find him on Twitter @jamecancerdoc. For this installment of the Living a Full Life series, guest editor, Jame Abraham, MD,...
Lung Cancer Expert Leora Horn, MD, Recalls Her Journey to a Career in Oncology and a Home in Nashville
The tumultuous history of modern South Africa has numerous stories that lie beneath the surface of the sociopolitical headlines, such as the story of lung cancer expert Leora Horn, MD. “I was born and reared in Johannesburg, South Africa, a second-generation African family. In 1987, because of the...
Male Breast Cancer: An Understudied Malignancy
Male breast cancer is a rare and understudied malignancy when compared with female breast cancer, with conflicting literature on survival outcomes in men and women. The ASCO Post spoke recently with breast cancer expert Sharon Giordano, MD, MPH, FASCO, Professor at The University of Texas MD...
A Story of a Mother and Daughter and Cancer
BOOKMARK Title: The Cookie Cure: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of Cookies and CancerAuthors: Susan Stachler With Laura StachlerPublisher: SourcebooksPublication date: February 2018Price: $19.95, paperback, 320 pages Cancer memoirs vary in their voice and message. Some are slapstick humorous attempts to ...
A Daughter Struggles Through Her Father’s Battle With Cancer
BOOKMARK Title: White Hot Grief Parade: A Memoir Author: Alexandra Silber Publisher: Pegasus Books Publication date: July 2018 Price: $25.95, hardcover; 288 pages The sudden death of a loved one produces a different type of trauma for family and friends than the protracted fading away of cancer. ...
A Firsthand Account of Cancer and Mental Illness
Brain tumors are among the most challenging clinical scenarios faced by the oncology community. Along with devastating physiologic damage, brain tumors often have a dramatic effect on the patient’s cognitive, neurologic, and psychological functions. However, the body of literature focusing on...
