We wish to applaud the sentiments expressed in the recent article in The Cancer Letter titled “Oncologists, advocates, FDA call for an end to MTD and ‘more is better’ era in cancer drug dosing,” but also raise several concerns to be addressed as this initiative moves forward.
As a community, we strive for cancer treatment and research that is data-driven, patient-centered, and that meets the highest standards of quality and safety. Yet, as physicians and advocates, we’ve become aware of a situation where these ambitions are not being met.
Since COVID-19 made its way to the United States, we have seen a stream of worrying news of the pandemic’s impact on cancer care in the U.S., including 9.4 million missed screenings for just about all forms of cancer. While screening rates rebounded in the fall of 2020, there’s a growing concern from oncologists that screenings haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels for everyone.
The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is a powerful reminder that the COVID-19 pandemic, now entering its third year, will continue to have personal and public health impacts. This may be especially true for those individuals who unfortunately missed or delayed cancer screening or treatment as a result of the pandemic.
FDA’s recent approval of an immunotherapy in the adjuvant setting for stage II-IIIA non-small cell lung cancer makes it all the more urgent to detect lung cancer at early stages.
Proton therapy is an ultra-precise form of radiation that spares patients excess radiation to the heathy tissues and organs surrounding their tumor.
Researchers have made tremendous progress in cancer prevention and treatment over the past few decades. As a result, the death rates for many common cancers are declining in the U.S.1 Unfortunately, not everyone is benefitting from these breakthroughs.
In the field of radiation oncology there is currently tremendous excitement about the delivery of radiation at much higher dose rates than typically used clinically.
In health, the immune system plays a key role in protecting us not only from infectious disease, but also from the development of cancer; immune cells recognize and destroy harmful agents, whether pathogens or malignant cells.
Over the past year, we have witnessed the awesome power of American pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
