Dr. DeVita Discusses "The Death of Cancer"
February 25th 2016In The Death of Cancer, written by Vincent T. DeVita Jr, MD, a pioneering oncologist reveals, after 50 years on the front lines of medicine, why the war on cancer is winnable, and how to get there. In an interview with OncLive hosted by Maurie Markman, MD, he speaks with DeVita on his book and his thoughts on how the field has evolved.
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Scientific Misconduct in Oncology: A Distasteful Subject That Requires Acknowledgment and Attention
February 5th 2016The greatest concern with the profoundly distressing episode that has unfolded at Duke University in recent years is whether it will truly serve as a learning experience that would help prevent future misconduct— events that have the potential to result in serious harm to highly vulnerable patients with cancer.
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Fresh Approaches and Open Minds Needed to Assess Unique Targeted Therapy Outcomes
January 8th 2016There is an objectively rational and scientifically valid alternative to evaluate N-of-1 experiences, and there is a critical need for the continued development of such approaches, which the oncology community increasingly recognizes as a necessary step to replace the established but untenable randomized clinical trial paradigm.
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It's Time for True Advances in Comparative Effectiveness Research
December 21st 2015It is simply unrealistic and highly counterproductive to the future of cancer care to believe that the only acceptable approach to determining the absolute or relative clinical utility of a specific drug, regimen, device, or procedure, is through the conduct of a so-called evidence-based randomized trial.
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Practicing Oncologists May Not Find Answers They Need in Clinical Trials
December 14th 2015Although legitimate questions have been raised over the years regarding the generalizability of clinical study results in the nonresearch setting, patients with cancer have benefited greatly from the appropriate conduct, completion, and ultimate reporting of such trials in the peer-reviewed medical literature.
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Value-Based Care: Why Include Factors Beyond Oncologists' Control?
September 14th 2015How can any analysis of the quality of cancer care being delivered by providers that focuses on a survival outcome as the ultimate measure of that quality-rather than on an evaluation of the optimization of the care process-be considered objectively valid and clinically meaningful?
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"N-of-1" Research Findings Belong in the Peer-Reviewed Publishing Realm
August 4th 2015A trend in the biomedical industry to bypass the rigors of scientific publishing was highlighted recently in a provocative commentary regarding the virtual absence of data in the peer-reviewed literature demonstrating the utility of a novel proprietary laboratory testing platform.
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Expanding Use of Oral Therapies Puts Challenges of Patient Compliance in Spotlight
May 22nd 2015Dr. Maurie Markman discusses how the transition to the new therapeutic paradigm of oral therapies necessitates that we consider unique aspects of this strategy that may negatively impact outcomes compared with an approach of systemic antineoplastic drug administration.
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Crossing Tumor Types: BRCA Experience Points Way to New Diagnostic Paradigm
April 1st 2015Patients with advanced cancers of the pancreas or prostate, or where progression to this state occurs later in the course of the illness, should have tumor or germline testing performed looking for the presence of a BRCA mutation.
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Controversies in Clinical Care: Questioning Research
March 23rd 2015Maurie Markman, MD, offers examples of clinical trials where the interpretation of study results is worthy of considerable additional discussion or where justification for the actual conduct of the study can be called into question.
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Molecular Diagnostics in CML Illustrate Ways to Enhance Well-Established Strategies
January 30th 2015Although there clearly are a number of worthy candidates for the single most influential event that unequivocally proclaimed the beginning of the modern era of precision cancer medicine, there would surely be many votes for the impact of imatinib on the course of the natural history of chronic myeloid leukemia.
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Effective Targeted Therapy Needed to Establish Clinical Utility of a Molecular Diagnostic Test
January 6th 2015There has been considerable discussion and debate within the gynecologic oncology community for more than two decades regarding a role for second-look surgery (open or laparoscopic) in the management of advanced ovarian cancer.
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Research and Policy Paradigms Must Consider Patients' Assessments of Relevant Goals and Outcomes
December 2nd 2014What patients with cancer perceive as relevant clinical outcomes, and how these outcomes are assessed, is important in the provision of routine care and in the arena of clinical trials.
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Molecular studies are increasingly utilized to develop an individual therapeutic approach based on abnormalities present in the setting of uncommon/rare cancers or in specific clinical situations where it is virtually certain that formal regulatory-based trials will never be undertaken.
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Molecular Insights: Tumor Analysis Providing Answers to Clinically Relevant Biological Questions
October 29th 2014It is increasingly recognized that the era of treating individual advanced or metastatic cancers based essentially on the anatomic site of origin or histologic subtype as determined by light microscopic evaluation is rapidly coming to a close.
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Molecular Era Tumor Boards: Team Approach to Interpreting Genomic Test Results Proves Valuable
September 11th 2014How can a conscientious but very busy practitioner keep up with the massive quantity of molecular data that could potentially impact an individual patient with cancer? The Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego has updated the tumor board concept for the molecular era.
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Not Yet Ready for Prime Time: Lessons Learned From a Failed Molecular Marker-Based Lung Cancer Trial
August 27th 2014Scarcely a week goes by without a report in the peer-reviewed medical literature suggesting that a novel somatic genomic alteration or a specific normal polymorphism is potentially relevant to achieving a desirable clinical outcome within cancer medicine.
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There is a tension in the air these days when it comes to the manner in which evidence-based oncology research should be conducted in this revolutionary era, and that tension is evident on the pages of peer-reviewed articles describing novel findings in clinical molecular oncology, in editorials discussing these studies, and in commentaries related to future approaches to discovery.
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