The recent FDA approvals of a cell/gene therapy for patients with advanced B cell malignancies provide a glimpse into a paradigm shift in the treatment of hematologic and solid cancers, the creation of a new drug unique to each cancer patient.
These statements may not be breaking news for oncologists and other physicians, who should have been aware of the lethal nature of cigarette smoking at least since the publication of the first Surgeon General's report on Smoking and Health more than half a century ago. While the report generated front page headlines and led the network newscasts back in January 1964, the tobacco epidemic has continued, causing more than 20 million deaths in the U.S. in the decades since. Cigarette companies have persisted in using their legal, marketing, and propaganda tools to mislead and addict millions of consumers, including underage youth, for the sole purpose of increasing profits.
By Emily RubinNovelistWe see the brightness of a new page where anything yet can happen.Rainer Maria RilkeI was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and underwent treatment until 2010 at Beth Israel Hospital, now Mount Sinai, in New York. A year after finishing treatment I was thrilled to find out that my novel, Stalina, was a winner of the Amazon Debut Novel Award Contest.
Funaro is a resident at Duke Pharmacy, Friedman is the James B. Powell Professor of Pediatric Oncology at Duke, and Weant is a clinical pharmacist in neuro-oncology at Duke Pharmacy.
This month, I should be taking my son, Jacob, to college. Instead, I'm participating in Curefest for Childhood Cancer on the Mall here in D.C.
Patients for whom there are no existing treatments watch with desperation as a potentially helpful new drug spends years working its way from a lab bench, through clinical trials, and finally to the FDA, where reviewers consider it for approval.
It's been a long time since we've seen the kind of strong national commitment that exists today to support medical research.
If enacted, the proposed budget reduction of $5.8 billion to the National Institutes of Health will slow research, deprive patients afflicted with cancer of hope, and deliver a devastating blow to our science workforce and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This proposed reduction directly counters the wisdom of the U.S. Congress, who less than a year ago overwhelmingly passed the 21st Century Cures Act.
This week, the USPSTF issued its draft guidelines for prostate cancer screening. They propose shifting from task force's recommendation against routine prostate cancer screening to a recommendation for informed and shared decision-making in which the physician and patient discuss the real risks of harm and the potential for life saving benefit before deciding on screening.
Oncologists must confront end-of-life issues on a nearly daily basis. Our approach to the potential death of a patient may change over time, however, depending on the patients' diagnosis and stage, where those patients are in their treatment plan, and, of course, what the patients' wishes are. When feasible, our primary goal is to prevent death from cancer, and when we cannot achieve that, we try to delay death as long as we can. When dying seems inevitable, we do our best to make it as comfortable as possible.
