Since its first annual meeting in 1964, the American Society of Clinical Oncology has outgrown most U.S. convention centers—and has fostered the growth and development of generations of oncologists.
As an estimated 35,000-50,000 members of the oncology community descend on Chicago to again take part in this ephemeral cultural event, the Cancer History Project has created a glimpse into the meeting’s evolution.
The Cancer Letter, established in 1973, has been dispatching a reporter to cover the meeting since at least 1975. These meetings, where giants in the field brush shoulders and debate protocols across crowded rooms, lead to scientific collaboration, policy recommendations, and sometimes cures.
“Another young physician, Larry Einhorn, was presenting his experience with adding cisplatin to the more conventional drugs for my patient’s disease, and the results were nothing short of mind-blowing,” said Larry Norton, senior vice president in the Office of the President, medical director of Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center, and Norna S. Sarofim Chair in clinical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “His presentation hit me like a lightning bolt, so much so that I still remember the chair I was sitting in, my angle to the lectern. (The audience was much smaller then, by orders of magnitude.)
“I left the meeting early to try the new drug on my patient, who had a spectacular response.”
The Cancer History Project asked annual meeting attendees for memories of their “first ASCO.” Their responses describing meetings from the 1960s to 2020 are available here.
Highlights from The Cancer Letter’s coverage of ASCO’s annual meetings follow:
AACR, ASCO Members Concerned Over Ethics, Social Issues, And What To Do About Them
Ethics and social issues involved in cancer research and in the care of cancer patients turned out to be the dominant theme of the joint annual meeting of the American Assn. for Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology last week in San Diego.
Treatment Progress Stirs Up Big ASCO turnout; Reports Presented
Recent progress in the treatment of cancer and prospects for further progress apparently were responsible for drawing a record turnout at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, held in Toronto last week in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Assn. for Cancer Research. More than 2,000 signed up for the ASCO sessions, 800 more than the membership of the organization.
Lung, Head & Neck Treatment Advances Reported At ASCO Annual Meeting
Major advances in treatment of oat cell carcinoma of the lung and head and neck cancer were reported at the scientific sessions of the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.
Leukemia Biology Study Needed To Improve Results, Pinkel Says In Karnofsky Lecture
Acute lymphocytic leukemia in children is the first common cancer to be cured by chemotherapy, “but we’re still losing half of our patients because of the disease’s resistance to treatment,” Donald Pinkel said this week when he delivered the annual David A. Karnofsky Memorial Lecture at the meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Washington.
AACR, ASCO, ONS Flex Political Muscles, Seek Changes In Cancer Act, Other Legislation, Funding Of Grants
Increasing pressures caused by the tightening federal budget, dissatisfactions with review and funding of grants, and a growing awareness of their political clout resulted in a spate of actions directed at the National Cancer Program by members of the nation’s three largest cancer societies at their annual meetings last week in St . Louis.
ASCO President Criticizes Use Of Cooperative Agreement in Clinical Trials
Overreaction by NCI to criticism by regulatory agencies, some members of Congress and the media has resulted in practices “which many members of ASCO believe serve as serious impediments to creative investigation,” Philip Schein said in his presidential address at last week’s 20th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Toronto.
Professional Society Growth Obvious At Spring Meetings
In terms of the most members among oncologic societies, a fourth one meeting this spring, the Oncology Nursing Society, is the winner and still champion, with more than 11,000 on its roles (The Cancer Letter, May 15, 1987).
The American Society of Clinical Oncology, with 6,700 members, claimed it is the largest “professional oncologic society,” a claim the professionals in ONS would challenge. The American Assn. for Cancer Research claimed that with its 4,300 members it is the largest “scholarly” oncologic society, a claim the scholars in ASCO might question but probably won’t, since most of them also are AACR members.
Broder Emerges As National Leader In ASCO Talk, Calls For Faster Reporting Of Clinical Trials
Speaking to reporters before his speech, Broder was asked about his goals as director. “I’ll tell you my fantasy,” he said. “My fantasy is to be able to hold a press conference to announce the dismantling of the National Cancer Institute because cancer is no longer a problem.”
ONS, ASCO, AACR Growth Surge Continues; Flex Political Muscles During DC Meetings
The three largest oncologic professional societies, meeting in tandem in the nation’s capitol, found that their message and their impressive membership strength are commanding the respect of Congress and the Administration.
Whether that can be translated into greater support for cancer research remains to be seen, but it is clear that all three societies have established the organizational process required to enhance their clout with the government.
ASCO, AACR Hold Last Joint annual Meeting, Vow to Encourage Basic-Clinical Interaction
The groups held the final of their back-to-back annual meetings in Orlando, FL, last week. AACR, the older organization, decided last year to meet separate from ASCO beginning in 1994. Yet, the leadership of both organizations expressed hope that their ties would not be severed, but strengthened, with greater opportunity for interaction among basic and clinical researchers.
Results of NSABP Studies Unchanged When Falsified Data is Excluded: Fisher
The conclusions of 14 published breast and colon cancer studies are “monotonously similar” with or without fraudulent data submitted by a Montreal surgeon, Bernard Fisher said to clinical cancer researchers in Dallas last week […]
ASCO officials estimated that approximately 6,500 meeting participants heard the May 16 presentation at the Dallas Convention Center.
Practice of Oncology Must Incorporate Clinical Research, NCI Director Tells ASCO
In remarks to the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, [NCI Director Richard] Klausner called for a massive expansion of NCI’s clinical trials system to include more oncologists and cancer patients. He also advocated the development of an electronic information network to compile and analyze the data that would be generated by the expansion.
ASCO Annual Meeting Attendance Tops 25,000, Continuing Fast Growth
If oncology professionals are voting with their attendance, then the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting has become the most popular oncology meeting in the world. Attendance at this year’s annual meeting earlier this week topped 25,000, ASCO officials said.
Five years ago, attendance at the ASCO annual meeting was 14,700.
Samuel Waksal Resigns From ImClone Following Unimpressive ASCO Presentation
[Samuel] Waksal’s resignation was announced May 22. A few days earlier, at the ASCO annual meeting in Orlando, Waksal showed no signs of emotional distress. He chatted with scientists, financial analysts, and reporters, and appeared at several parties, including a reception held by M.D. Anderson Cancer Center for its president John Mendelsohn, who had delivered the prestigious Karnofsky lecture on agents like C225, which target EGF receptors.
ASCO Seeks “Nothing Less Than A Smoke-Free World”
Calling for the eventual elimination of smoking, the American Society of Clinical Oncology assembled world leaders in tobacco control to urge governments and health organizations to renew attention to the “global health crisis caused by tobacco products.”
ASCO President Paul Bunn, a lung cancer expert and director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, unveiled the society’s new tobacco policy statement, which calls for the formation of an independent commission to develop a blueprint for worldwide reduction in, and eventual elimination of tobacco use.
With A Flat Budget, Niederhuber Outlines NCI Priorities In Speech To ASCO Meeting
“As a nation, I believe we must confront the fact that a rapidly aging population and its cancer burden will weigh heavily, not only on healthcare, but on the workforce and our economy,” [NCI Director John] Niederhuber said. “As cancer researchers and cancer physicians, we face an inescapable question: Can we sustain our momentum and continue to lessen the all-too devastating impact of cancer? I believe that we are all here in Chicago this week, thousands strong, to resoundingly answer: ‘Yes.’”
ASCO 2012: Michael Link’s Presidential Address, and the 2012 Award Winners
Michael Link urged over 25,000 of his colleagues to collaborate toward high-quality care in his presidential address at the society’s annual meeting in Chicago June 2.
Sandra Swain at ASCO 2013: Let’s Focus on Three Goals
In particular, I want to highlight three things. They are: the possibilities and promise of global health equity, the need to strengthen future generations of leaders and practitioners, and the vision for a rapid learning system in oncology.
Hudis’s Address at ASCO 2014: On Value & Commitment
Now, since you are here, today, I can only assume that you share ASCO’s mission, vision, and, yes, intention to conquer cancer, and to rid the world of the fear it brings. The question of course, is how best to accomplish this.
To address this, I want to go back to April 9th, 1964, at the Edgewater Beach Hotel—right here in Chicago during an AACR meeting, where our founders met, motivated by “their common concern for the patient with cancer.”
Who were these seven? Drs. Fred J. Ansfield, Harry F. Bisel, Herman H. Freckman, Arnoldus Goudsmit, Robert Talley, William Wilson, and Jane C. Wright. All were visionary leaders.
“Call me Doctor:” How women in oncology are fighting for cultural change
In 2018, Narjust Duma, then a second-year fellow at Mayo Clinic, attended an ASCO panel in which the session chair, a man, introduced himself and the other man presenter by name and title. The woman panelist was introduced by first name only.
This realization led to the Duma et al. study, published in 2019 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, “Evaluating Unconscious Bias: Speaker Introductions at an International Oncology Conference.”
The study set off a firestorm, inspiring policy change throughout academic oncology. ASCO has since implemented directives for how to introduce speakers at all future meetings.
ASCO’s mCODE seeks to compose lingua franca for cancer informatics
The American Society of Clinical Oncology published a set of common standards for cancer data elements via an initiative dubbed mCODE.
ASCO’s mCODE, short for Minimal Common Oncology Data Elements, is the latest set of standards designed to grow into the lingua franca for oncology—by providing a common language, ASCO is betting that adoption of mCODE would enable electronic health record systems to interoperate seamlessly and generate essential patient outcomes data.
This column features the latest posts to the Cancer History Project by our growing list of contributors.
The Cancer History Project is a free, web-based, collaborative resource intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act and designed to continue in perpetuity. The objective is to assemble a robust collection of historical documents and make them freely available.
Access to the Cancer History Project is open to the public at CancerHistoryProject.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @CancerHistProj, or follow our podcast.
Is your institution a contributor to the Cancer History Project? Eligible institutions include cancer centers, advocacy groups, professional societies, pharmaceutical companies, and key organizations in oncology.
To apply to become a contributor, please contact admin@cancerhistoryproject.com.
