The annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology is a place where many commercial interests jostle for attention to make their latest promising therapy the star of the show. But a standard widely available generic drug stole the show by producing incredible results in improving survival for men with advanced prostate cancer. And that has some of us …
A prostate cancer breakthrough: The good and not-so-good news
An article published recently in the American Cancer Society journal CA: A Journal for Clinicians received a lot of media attention. The report showed dramatic declines in the rate of people being diagnosed with colorectal cancer, as well as decreases in the rates of colorectal cancer deaths over the past number of years.
But the press didn’t say much about the fact that not everyone has benefited …
Address the racial disparity of colorectal cancer
This was the dream: We would use technology to create a seamless health care system, one where people, computers and machines would work together to improve patient care in many different ways. Health care would be more efficient, it would be safer, it would be less expensive, we would be able to transfer health-related information quickly and accurately.
After …
Health technology must improve patient safety
I had the opportunity recently to participate in a Twitter chat on the topic of colorectal cancer awareness. The chat was intended to bring attention to a nationwide campaign called “80 by 2018” designed to increase colorectal cancer screening rates to 80% of the population over the next 4 years. If it is successful, we should see a decline in both incidence and deaths …
Don’t forget those where cancer screening didn’t make a difference
News reports covering a prostate cancer study recently in the New England Journal of Medicine have all pretty much come out with the same message: men diagnosed with prostate cancer who had radical surgery did much better than men who were assigned to “watchful waiting” after they were diagnosed.
But guess what? There’s a critical fact that seemed to be missing in much of the coverage I saw. And that fact …
Watchful waiting for prostate cancer: Implications of a new study
I spent 4 hours on New Year’s Eve sitting in the surgeon’s chair getting a skin cancer taken off my nose. Nothing about the experience fits the “benign” label so many professionals, including yours truly, have used: routine; easy to treat; nothing to worry about. Friends, after this experience, which left me looking like a tall, white-haired Rudolph the …
Skin cancers are never truly benign
I attended a meeting recently that got me to thinking about the fact that as we revolutionize cancer research and treatment, we are also going to have to revolutionize cancer care. And that may prove to be an even more daunting task than finding new treatments for the disease itself.
The meeting was sponsored by a collaboration called “Read more…
How to realize the promise of personalized medicine
There was a memorable scene in the movie “The Graduate” from 1967. You may know it or have heard of it, when the older man turns to the college graduate and says the future is all about one word: “plastics.”
Well, plastics may have been then, but this is now. And the core themes I keep hearing these days there are two central …
The promise and the peril of big data in health care
We’ve all heard the phrase, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Well, that saying may hold particular relevance while reviewing a new research report published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The report is an important one. It is an 18 year follow-up of a study designed to show whether the use of …
Seeking an end to the prostate cancer and finasteride discussion
A newspaper story recently caught my eye when it headlined: “Senators Revive Push for End-of-Life-Care Planning.” It reported on new legislation making the rounds in Washington to address care planning for those with advanced illnesses.
You remember “end of life care planning,” don’t you? It was part of the Affordable Care Act debate several years ago, and quickly became translated intoRead more…
Make the difficult journey of cancer patients a bit easier
As we walk the halls and sit in the lectures at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, there’s an elephant in the room. It is right there in front of us, but not many of us seem willing to talk about it. Fewer still are making any commitments to do something about it.
So what is …
Directing cancer resources in a limited resource world
Another year and another annual meeting for the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago. This is a meeting that regularly attracts many thousands of doctors, researchers, pharmaceutical folks and others interested in the science and business of cancer from around the globe to learn, to discuss, to persuade, to educate on the progress being made in clinical cancer …
Genomics and personalized medicine: Is it really different this time?
Coming to an office near you: a new test that can “confidently” predict whether or not you need to have aggressive therapy for your newly diagnosed prostate cancer.
Really?
That’s what the press reports would lead you to believe. And it’s really going to catch your attention if you’re one of the tens of thousands of men who will have …
Why I’m skeptical of a test for newly diagnosed prostate cancer
I have been diagnosed with skin cancer.
There really isn’t much special about that, since it is a distinction I share with over 2 million Americans who have a skin cancer removed every year. Fortunately, for most, it is a cancer that is not of particular concern since most can be removed. But even those “simple” surgeries–as I have learned …
Lessons from a diagnosis of skin cancer
Groundhog Day was on Saturday this year, and unlike the furry little beast, what I have to say each year around this time is just as good today as him looking for his shadow on Saturday.
What is all this about, you are probably asking yourself?
It is about an annual update that …
My smartphone has become an ally in my weight loss program
We are on a search for truth, but will we ever find it? That summarizes how I feel after reading an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, which once again raises the question of how much screening mammography contributes to the progress we have made in reducing deaths from breast cancer in …
ACS: Finding the truth about mammogram screenings
I was recently sitting on an airplane on my way to a far off destination for a meeting preceded by a couple of days of rest and relaxation.
In and of itself, nothing particularly special about that except that maybe a couple of folks will be jealous. But to me, right now it is an incredible moment, the culmination …
I admire the strength and determination of cancer survivors
David Sampson, who is a colleague of mine here at the American Cancer Society, recently sent me a blog written by a woman well known in the breast cancer community who days previously had been diagnosed with recurrence of her breast cancer. The blog has captivated me, perhaps more so now that I have been facing some of my own …
Cancer survivors are truly remarkable people
It has been a long slog since we started our war on cancer here in the United States in 1971.
At times I am not certain that this has been so much of a war as opposed to a series of skirmishes that occasionally have produced incredible moments of optimism. But there have been a fair share of frustrations …
Facing the difficult issues when it comes to high quality cancer care
Like many of you, I have been reading the various news stories about Lance Armstrong, especially one recently in a major newspaper, which went into great detail about the allegations surrounding Lance Armstrong’s cycling career.
But what I didn’t see in all of that coverage was much mention of the other side of the man, the side that I …
Why Lance Armstrong will always be a hero
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