My name is Clifford Hudis, and I am a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where I am chief of the Breast Medicine Service. I am also professor of medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College and president of ASCO. I have had an amazing year serving as the president of ASCO, and today I am delighted to welcome you to our society’s 50th annual meeting commemorated in recent weeks by both the Congress of the United States and also by our host city, Chicago, and its Mayor, Mr. Rahm Emanuel.
How’s this for a paradox: The better cancer centers become at keeping patients alive, the more expensive cancer care becomes. This brutal tradeoff hits harder in rural areas, where the cancer burden is higher and the investigator and clinical trial representation is lower.
