Maurie Markman, MD

Maurie Markman, MD, president of Medicine and Science, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, editor-in-chief, OncologyLive, discusses overall survival as an endpoint in ovarian cancer clinical trials.

The FDA’s recent approvals of novel anti-PARP agents as maintenance therapy for patients with previously treated advanced ovarian cancer highlight an issue that has received inadequate attention in the peer-reviewed oncology literature.

Fewer than 4% of patients with cancer in the United States participate in clinical trials, the elderly and individuals with clinically relevant comorbidities are strikingly underrepresented in the research portfolio.

There is a critically important subject associated with the clinical trial experience that has had inadequate discussion within the medical literature, regarding the role of the patient beyond agreeing to serve as a research subject.

From the perspective of a patient and that patient’s family, it is completely understandable that the single most important goal of an antineoplastic strategy is to prolong survival and, if possible, produce a cure.

Controversy over the FDA’s role in regulating off-label marketing practices of pharmaceutical companies continues to reverberate in the medical community.

In patients with common solid tumors, it is well-established that those with early-stage cancers have a statistically defined superior prognosis compared with those who present with and are required to be treated at later stages of the disease.

There are certain commonly used terms in the realm of oncology that may result in unintended consequences and should be considered carefully before being employed in conversation or in writing.

Maurie Markman, MD, president of Medicine and Science, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, editor-in-chief, OncologyLive, discusses the era of precision medicine in ovarian cancer.

Maurie Markman, MD, president of medicine and science, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, editor-in-chief, OncologyLive, discusses endpoints in clinical trials for ovarian cancer.

Antineoplastic drug therapy has been delivered by the oral route since the earliest days of the modern chemotherapeutic era.

There are many elegant examples of basic laboratory research or mathematical modeling studies that resulted, through the conduct of clinical trials, in major paradigm changes in how cancer is managed.

Oncologists are well aware that by the time a new antineoplastic drug or regimen first enters the pages of a traditional reference textbook, the data supporting its use, including doses, schedules, and clinical indications, may already be considerably out-of-date.

The clinical oncology community, along with patients, families, pharmaceutical companies, investors, and third-party payers, eagerly awaits the plenary session presentations at the ASCO annual meetings as representing the most important and impactful of the thousands of abstracts submitted each year.

The decades-long argument over whether zinc lozenges can shorten the duration of the common cold is far removed from the arena of cancer medicine, yet the studies conducted to settle the debate help illustrate the shortcomings of the clinical trial model that has dominated the oncology sphere.

This commentary from Maurie Markman, MD, highlights a critical required component for the development of effective novel antineoplastic strategies through the process widely known as precision cancer medicine.

In the cancer management arena, the term “clinical benefit” has unfortunately achieved a problematic status.

In the ongoing debate regarding the role of randomized trials in defining the standard of care in cancer management, adherents of this so-called gold standard acknowledge the problems associated with conclusions drawn from prospective nonrandomized studies or retrospective analyses of patients managed with different approaches.

The impact of the Trump administration's agenda is being felt in the healthcare arena, prominently in the oversight for drug approvals.

There is an intense and seemingly growing debate within the clinical, research, and regulatory arenas regarding what should be appropriately required to declare that a new or novel strategy be considered an acceptable standard-of-care approach to cancer management within a particular setting.

Randomization designed to isolate the impact of a specific factor has enabled practitioners to understand the value, or lack of value of particular drugs, procedures, or processes in a given clinical setting.

It is common for third-party payers to deny payment for N-of-1 molecular testing at the same time they continue to pay for multiple lines of chemotherapy, even though there is often little evidence that the particular patient's cancer will respond or that the quality of life will be improved.

In general, where surgery is a medically appropriate option, it is the surgeon who takes the leading clinical role in discussions with the patient and her or his family regarding the development of an optimal strategy for that individual.

Research on a scalp-cooling device to help patients with breast cancer avoid hair loss during chemotherapy illustrates this question: what level of evidence might individual clinicians require before they would suggest, recommend, or support the use of a particular approach in treating patients outside the realm of the mandates of governmental agencies or payers?

Despite the importance of clinical trial data, there are problems with the way these data are presented. There is a need to simplify what is being discussed so that it can be more easily understood or summarized by patients and their advisers in their decision-making process.

It has long been recognized that the elderly are acutely underrepresented in the clinical trials that help to define the standards of care in oncologic management in the United States.

Maurie Markman, MD, president, Medicine and Science, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, editor-in-chief, OncologyLive, discusses what he would like to see accomplished in the field of ovarian cancer over the next year.

Certain components of the cancer care continuum have the potential to favorably impact the rapidly encroaching crisis in cancer care costs at the societal level.

The current status of clinical cancer research in the United States falls far short of what is necessary to effectively and efficiently change this amazing opportunity to improve both the quantity and quality of the lives of patients with cancer into an objective reality.

"Uncertainty" is a routine dilemma when discussing a prognosis with a patient with cancer and his or her family. The prognosis is, at best, a statistical probability—assuming the available objective data are somewhat representative of the individual patient.