Vol. 18/No. 02

Charles L. Loprinzi, MD may have landed somewhat accidentally into the world of symptom management research, but once he arrived, he was there to stay.

It was little more than 3 years ago that ibrutinib became the first Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor to gain the FDA’s approval with a second-line indication for patients with mantle cell lymphoma.

The power of that ability to analyze cancers over broad populations has generated much excitement in the drug development arena and it’s not hard to understand the reasons.

Amid a rising incidence of thyroid cancer, endocrine surgeons have increasingly explored minimally invasive approaches for operating on patients with the disease.

The ambitious goals of the Cancer Moonshot initiative, now incorporated into the recently enacted 21st Century Cures Act, are generating excitement among oncology leaders.

Researchers are seeking to determine whether adding the PARP inhibitor veliparib to a chemotherapy combination will improve outcomes for patients with HER2-negative, germline BRCA-associated metastatic or locally advanced breast cancer.

In 1941, Charles Brenton Huggins, MD, observed that prostate cancer could be controlled by hormone-directed treatments, a discovery for which he was awarded half the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1966.

It is perhaps a little unusual that an oncol­ogy commentary would begin with a highly provocative discussion about the future of driverless cars, but there are similarities in the sharp corners of the debate over this new tech­nology and emerging trends in cancer care.