Cancer Prevention, Screening, and the Reality of Cancer
Why did a paper highlighting the relevance of organ-specific rate of stem cell division to the risk for the development of malignant disease result in a negative response from certain quarters of the oncology community?
DECEMBER 6, 2017
Implementation Science in Oncology: We Have So Much to Learn!
A number of disturbing, yet provocative, reports strongly support the idea that the clinical research community must begin to actively invest time and effort in the field of implementation science.
NOVEMBER 2, 2017
The Clinical Utility of Pragmatic Randomized Trials
The introduction of the pragmatic randomized trial, which uses basic trial design to directly address simple but highly clinically relevant issues, has the potential to favorably affect cancer management, even if the studies themselves do not directly relate to a survival outcome.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2017
Biosimilars in Oncology: Meaningful Bending of the Cost Curve or an Opportunity Lost?
Perhaps the single most relevant issue related to the pending introduction of biosimilars into clinical practice is the potential effect of biosimilars on the rapidly escalating price of important antineoplastic agents.
AUGUST 22, 2017
Considering Cost When ‘Cure’ Is an Objectively Realistic Possibility
Should cost be viewed differently if the goal of short-term therapy is to potentially produce a state of “cure” or induce a long-term disease-free and treatment-free remission?
JULY 11, 2017
A Disquieting Side of Biomedical Research: Potential Implications for Oncology
Watchful observers of laboratory and clinically oriented scientific investigation are taking notice of the challenges that face biomedical research—an important human endeavor.
JUNE 13, 2017
Are We There Yet? Basing Payment on the Clinical Activity of a Novel Antineoplastic
Have we as a society have finally arrived closer to the point where we will no longer tolerate the irrational cost of beneficial pharmaceutical agents?
MARCH 29, 2017
Are We Appropriately Monitoring Antineoplastic Drug Toxicity in the ‘Real World’?
The most striking difference between antineoplastic and other pharmaceutical agents is the toxicity profile that is routinely considered “acceptable” in the arena of cancer management.
MARCH 8, 2017
Flowers for Algernon and CRISPR Technology: Arguing an Unsettling Connection
In the 1960s, in the science fiction short story and subsequent novel Flowers for Algernon, later made into the Academy Award–winning movie Charlie, author Daniel Keyes describes a medical experiment gone bad.
JANUARY 19, 2017
E-Cigarettes: A Major Public Health Controversy Requiring Resolution
It is difficult to think of a health-related issue that has generated more intense debate within the medical and public health communities over the past decade than e-cigarettes.
JANUARY 6, 2017
Time to Question Why Certain Federally Funded Cancer Trials Have Been, or Are Being, Done
The recent publication of the outcome of a Phase III clinical trial examining primary systemic therapy of ovarian cancer raises an important question: How can a recognized and seriously flawed study, with substantial taxpayer funding, be permitted to be conducted?
DECEMBER 16, 2016
Disquieting News Reports on Cancer Investigation: Isolated Events or Worrisome Trends?
There is understandable euphoria surrounding simply spectacular advances in our understanding of the basic biology and pathophysiology of numerous human diseases, and no group of diseases has been more affected by these revolutionary changes in our knowledge base than cancer.
DECEMBER 13, 2016