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Dr. Jana McHugh, Clinical Research Fellow at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and the Royal Marsden Hospital, on a saliva test which helps identify men most at risk of prostate cancer.
Masood Moghul, MBBS, a urologist and Research Fellow at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research in London shared findings from a study investigating a mobile, targeted, case-finding approach to prostate cancer detection with 3,379 patients. Moghul told the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco how the study addressed health inequalities and barriers to accessing health care that affect prostate cancer in high-risk underserved groups.
Masood Moghul, MBBS, a urologist and research fellow at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK, discussed his group’s findings from the Man Van study investigating a mobile, targeted, case-finding approach to prostate cancer detection with 3,379 patients conducted in Greater London. Moghul told the 2025 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco how the study had addressed health inequalities and barriers to accessing health care that affect prostate cancer in high-risk underserved groups.
Send us a textBurnout in oncology and throughout healthcare is a major issue.An ESMO survey conducted in young Oncologists in 2013-2014 revealed 70% of young oncologists in Europe were impacted by burnout. 25% of oncologists surveyed were thinking of a change of career and 38% of leaving the profession. All this at a time of needing more oncologists! Join us in this 2 part episode where we join the superb Professor Susana Banerjee.She discusses the issue of burnout and the excellent work done by the ESMO Resilience Task Force on this critical issue.Professor Banerjee is an internationally renowned medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital treating and researching gynaecological cancers.She has been heavily involved in the ESMO Resilience project and looking for strategies for dealing with the huge problem that is burnout in oncology.We hope you find this as useful as we have!https://www.esmoopen.com/article/S2059-7029(24)01403-0/fulltext
Welcome to another EAUN edition of EAU Podcasts! In this episode, Ms. Anna Mohammed and Ms. Marta Marchetti introduce the Special Interest Group (SIG) in Endourology and Robotics. Beginning with a brief introduction, Ms. Mohammed and Ms. Marchetti share details of what the SIG hopes to achieve, current developments, and how other nurse specialists can join the group.-----Hosts: Ms. Anna Mohammed – Originally from Trinidad, she graduated from the University of Hertfordshire in 2004. She began her career in theatre, progressing to Theatre Sister with a specialist interest in robotics, gynaecology, and urology. She later trained as a surgical care practitioner, earning a Master's in surgical care practice (urology) in 2015 and qualifying as an independent prescriber in 2021. Passionate about education, she has developed training for theatre staff and surgical practitioners. As Chair of the Endourology and Robotics SIG with the EAUN, she promotes evidence-based practice internationally. She currently works at Cleveland Clinic, London (GB).Ms. Marta Machetti – A skilled nursing professional from northern Italy, Marta graduated in Nursing from the University of Padua in 2013 and earned a Master's in the Surgical Treatment of Congenital Heart Disease in 2015. She advanced from a surgical nurse to a scrub nurse in endourology and robotics, later becoming a surgical assistant. In 2022, she completed a Master's in Surgical Care Practice at Anglia Ruskin University. Her expertise covers all surgical phases, and she is dedicated to staff and patient education. Actively involved in the EAUN, she now works at The Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea, a leading cancer treatment and research center.
Send us a textJoin us as we discuss all things prostate radiotherapy with Dr Alison Tree. Alison is synonymous with all things prostate radiotherapy and is superb at setting the scene for prostate cancer.Based at The Royal Marsden Hospital, and The Institute of Cancer Research, Dr Tree has played a key role in several major prostate radiotherapy trials. These include working alongside Professor Nicholas Van As in the PACE trial portfolio and also working on the PIVOTAL Boost trial.She has special interest in MR-guided prostate radiotherapy (the PRISM trial), boosting dominant intra-prostatic lesions (the DELINEATE trial) and hypofractionation in prostate cancer.Alison Tree is an amazing speaker on the subject of prostate radiotherapy and we are sure this will be of of interest to anyone interested in prostate cancer or radiotherapy.This episode contains everything we could want to know about the current position of prostate radiotherapy and future directions of travel.Enjoy
Roya and Kate talk about the Princess of Wales's emotional visit to the Royal Marsden Hospital where she had her cancer treatment. Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales's paid tribute to the nation's paramedics and still found time to talk to football fans over a pint in a Wetherspoon pub. And why Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has postponed her Netflix TV show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The Princess of Wales took another step in her “new normal” this week with her first solo engagement since being diagnosed with cancer. Kate returned to the Royal Marsden Hospital, where she was treated last year, to meet patients having chemotherapy. Pod Save the King host Ann Gripper is joined by Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers to reflect on the poignant visit where Kate shared candid details of her experience. They also catch up on Prince William's visit to Birmingham, where he fitted in a trip to the pub with football fans alongside appearing at a paramedics conference, and discuss the unfair criticism of Meghan and Harry's wish to help in the wake of the LA wildfires. Plus there is lots to look ahead to as the King prepares for his first foreign visit of the year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sustained responses and long-term overall survival have resulted from checkpoint inhibitor therapy for advanced melanoma, transforming the prognosis for as many as half of patients. This is according to 10-year survival outcomes from the Phase Ill CheckMate 067 trial of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in advanced melanoma that were reported at the ESMO Congress 2024. At the conference, Oncology Times reporter, Peter Goodwin, caught up with James Larkin, FRCP, PhD, Professor and Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.
Today's guest is Somya Agrawal, Leader, Collaborator and Motivator. I had the joy of meeting Somya in June 2024, when she joined us for a Walking Partnerships day in Surrey, in the UK.Somya offers valuable insights into: Being the conductor and not the trumpet player - The difficult transition between manager and leader, how the role changes and the importance of building a high-functioning team.The ripple effect - leading by example - The importance of watching and learning from leaders around you and how we are always being watched, even when we think nobody is watching! Dare to enter the arena - How we foster a culture of openness, transparency, honesty and collaboration. Ask questions and challenge with kindness and curiosity. It is not what you say, but how you say that it matters.We discuss the People, Places, and Experiences that have shaped Somya and made her the person and leader she is today: People - "My parents, sisters and my tribe" Places - "Around the world. My family's travelling style and how it reinforced the importance of teamwork"Experiences - "The loss of my father and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro"Somya's key encouragements to Leaders: ENGAGE - establish a rapport with your team and build trust which will allow you to be your authentic self. With passion for your purpose, you will be able to identify the best people for the job.ENABLE - use your energy to have an impact on those around you to bring people to the table who also understand your vision, as nothing is done without collaboration.EMPOWER - by engaging with energy and by enabling with empathy, you will lead a team that feels empowered. It's not about the destination, it's about the journey. So remember to enjoy it and take your team with you.Connect with Somya:LinkedIn - Somya AgrawalAbout Somya Agrawal:Somya's most recent leadership post as a Senior Civil Servant was as a Deputy Director for Product and Delivery at UK Health Security Agency. She became a DD after a very busy and demanding period as Product Introduction Lead during the COVID-19 pandemic where she was responsible for the design, development and launch of the COVID-19 lateral flow devices. Over 2.5bn LFDs were deployed during that time, so as you can imagine, it was a very high-profile and complex mission with a lot of ambiguity, unknowns and political sensitivities in play. However, Somya loved every second of it, because of the self-development it gave her but also the HUGE national impact that this job had.Prior to being a Senior Civil Servant, she worked at the Royal Marsden Hospital, a specialist Cancer Hospital in London, where she believes her passion for positive outcomes in healthcare really came from, as during her stint there in Research and Clinical trials, she saw many oncology drugs become licensed after seeing patients not only surviving but thriving when given the right care and treatment.Somya is one of 3 girls in her family (the middle one) who have been very fortunate to have been raised by parents who provided their daughters as much as they could within their means which did not come without sacrifices and we are all incredibly grateful for our childhoods and it making us who we are today. Though not yet married, she has a 6 year old niece who she absolutely dotes on and calls one of her best friends.Somya is incredibly passionate about positive outcomes in healthcare and states that her stakeholder engagement skills and energetic personality have now become her USP that have contributed to the successes she has had in her leadership journey so far.
Send us a textIn recent years we have seen a marked change in the landscape of treatment for endometrial cancer.This has been driven by understanding the different molecular subtypes of endometrial cancer.POLE - with an excellent prognosisMMR deficient - with good prognosis and option for immunotherapyNo Specific molecular profile - intermediate outcome and work still to be doneP53 mutant - with a poorer outcomeDr Angela George from the Royal Marsden Hospital has a specialist interest in genomics and shares her expertise and knowledge on this fascinating area of gynaecological cancers.
Send us a textDr Nicolo Battisti is the president of the Society of international geriatric oncology and a medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital.He shares his thoughts and wisdom on how we can help our older patients and their carers recognise signs of frailty and how to tackle them.
Send us a Text Message.Not every older patient is frail and not every frail patient is old.The incidence of cancer goes up rapidly in the older age groups with a big jump in incidence in the over 75 age group. We are treating increasing numbers of older patients with increasingly complex therapy.This is often called a 'Silver Tsunami'.We talk to Dr Nicolo Battisti - A medical oncologist - who is Clinical Lead of the Senior Adult Oncology Programme at the Royal Marsden Hospital and president of SIOG - the Society of Geriatric Oncology.We discuss the impact of frailty on cancer therapy for older patients and how to assess frailty in patients.This is part 1 of 2 of an excellent session!!EnjoyMike & John
La hematóloga y doctora Estella Matutes Juan es entrevistada por el periodista Íñigo Alfonso en una nueva sesión de Memorias de la Fundación, cuyos protagonistas son destacadas personalidades provenientes de diferentes ámbitos de la cultura que fueron destinatarios de becas o ayudas de la Fundación Juan March. Fue merecedora de una beca en el Extranjero de la Fundación Juan March en 1979 para estudiar la leucemia en el Hammersmith Hospital de Londres. Trabajó como hematóloga en el Royal Marsden Hospital de Londres durante veinticinco años y ha sido profesora en el Instituto de Investigación del Cáncer de la Universidad de Londres. Es asociada de la Unidad de Hematopatología del Hospital Clínic de Barcelona y es miembro de la OMS. Es artífice del "Matutes score", un análisis de antígenos utilizado para el diagnóstico de la leucemia más frecuente.Más información de este acto
In Episode 14 spricht Dr. Leo Rasche mit Dr. Martin Kaiser - Oberarzt in der Hämatologie am Royal Marsden Hospital in London - über das englische Gesundheitssystem. Sie beleuchten den problematischen Zugang zu Fachärzt*innen, die langwierige Kosten-Nutzen-Bewertung von Medikamenten, die aber auch für Standardisierung und Transparenz sorgt sowie den hohen Stellenwert der Patient*innen-Perspektive und -beteiligung. Zudem gibt Dr. Kaiser exklusive Einblicke und aktuelle Informationen zum Hochrisiko-Myelom und dessen Therapiemöglichkeiten. Jetzt reinhören!MAT-DE-2303985 V1.0 09/2023
In this 3rd & final episode Dr Sheena & Dr Shiv get to chat to Professor Robert Thomas , a full time NHS Consultant Oncologist, Sorts and Nutrition scientist and active medical researcher who explains why he thinks the gut microbiome and gut health are key to cancer prevention, response cancer therapies and survivorship.They discuss diet, research and patient empowerment. It seems that small, simple , achievable dietary and behaviour changes really can improve outcomes , overall wellbeing and survivorship. Professor Thomas BioProfessor Robert Thomas is a full time NHS Consultant Oncologist at Bedford and Addenbrooke's Hospitals, a teacher at Cambridge University and visiting Professor of Sports and nutritional science at the University of Bedfordshire. He trained at the Royal Marsden Hospital had period of full-time laboratory and clinical research at the Institute of Cancer and Duke University, North Carolina. He now manages patients with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormones and biological targeted treatments but incorporates nutritional and lifestyle strategies to enhance their effect, reduce side effects and improve overall wellbeing.He is also head of a Lifestyle and Cancer Research Unit which designs and conducts government backed studies evaluating the impact of exercise, diet and natural therapies on cancer, other chronic diseases and more recently recovery from Covid-19. In collaboration with Universities in Southern California, Cambridge and Glasgow, this unit has published over 100 peer reviewed scientific papers and regularly presents studies across the World. He is a patron of two cancer support charities and advisesMacmillan and other support groups on their informal materials for patients.He previously led the UK Polybalm and Pomi-T randomised studies and currently leads the UK's covid-19 nutritional intervention study (The Phyto-V study) assessing whether prebiotic polyphenol rich foods plus a probiotic could lower the severity and duration of symptoms.He is author of the UK bestseller "How to Live" and has been awarded The British Oncology Association “Oncologist of the Year” and The Royal College of Radiologist Research Medal.Twitter: @cancernetUKFacebook: @cancernetUKThis podcast is brought to you in collaboration with the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.Disclaimer:The content in this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or qualified healthcare provider. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.
When thinking about cancer treatment, our first thoughts may be about surgery or chemotherapy. But what about what we eat? In this episode, we hear from Dr Clare Shaw, a lead cancer dietician and therapy researcher who has written multiple books with the Royal Marsden Hospital, including The Cancer Cookbook. And Professor Karen Vousden, co-founder of Faeth Therapeutics, a company looking at how diets could help beat cancer. From taste changes to the keto diet, we sit down with our knowledgeable guests to help us scratch the surface of the vast world of diet and cancer. And help us navigate through the question ‘Could food improve cancer treatment?' Find out more about our fantastic guests: Dr Clare Shaw Prof. Karen Vousden Discover more about the research and resources discussed: British Dietetics Association diet myths Faeth Therapeutics About Cancer pages on diet and cancer For more cancer stories from us, check out Cancer news!And if you have a question you'd like us to answer or a topic you want us to explore, you can send an email to sciencesurgery@cancer.org.uk and tell us about your idea! To get notified when new episodes drop you can subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This spectacular keynote address was given by Dr. David Knott at the “Mattox” Trauma Conference in 2023. Mattox Vegas TCCACS: https://www.trauma-criticalcare.com/ War Doctor: https://www.amazon.com/War-Doctor-Surgery-Front-Line/dp/1419744240/ref=asc_df_1419744240/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=508953752346&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15602939439351749599&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9009673&hvtargid=pla-906115140419&psc=1 The David Nott Foundation: https://davidnottfoundation.com/ Dr. Nott on BTK July 1, 2020: https://behindtheknife.org/podcast/war-doctor-david-nott-on-surgery-in-war-zones/ David gained his medical degree from Manchester University and in 1992 gained his FRCS from the Royal College of Surgeons of England to become a Consultant Surgeon. He is a Consultant Surgeon at St Mary's Hospital where he specialises in vascular and trauma surgery and also performs cancer surgery at the Royal Marsden Hospital. David is an authority in laparoscopic surgery and was the first surgeon to combine laparoscopic and vascular surgery. For the past 30 years David has taken unpaid leave to work for the aid agencies Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Syria Relief. He has provided surgical treatment to patients in conflict and catastrophe zones in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Chad, Darfur, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Central African Republic, Palestine, Nepal and Ukraine As well as treating patients affected by conflict and catastrophe and raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for charitable causes, David teaches advanced surgical skills to local medics and surgeons when he is abroad. In Britain, he set up and led the teaching of the Surgical Training for the Austere Environment (STAE) course at the Royal College of Surgeons. In 2015 David established the David Nott Foundation with his wife Elly. The Foundation supports surgeons in developing their operating skills for war zones and austere environments and has now trained over 900 doctors through their bespoke Hostile Environment Surgical Training (HEST) course. In 2019, Picador published David's bestselling memoir, War Doctor. Please visit https://behindtheknife.org to access other high-yield surgical education podcasts, videos and more. If you liked this episode, check out our recent episode list here: https://behindtheknife.org/listen/
This is part three of a three part piece. Although it works as a stand alone podcast we suggest you find time to loop back on episodes one ( here: https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/does-increased-volume-improve-cancer-outcomes-ebpom-world-congress ) and two ( here: https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/does-increased-volume-improve-cancer-outcomes-part-2-ebpom-world-congress ) if you've not yet had time. The topic up for discussion is; “Does increased volume improve cancer outcomes?”. On the panel: Shaman Jhanj, Head of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Research at the Royal Marsden Hospital, Blanche Symons, patient representative, an ex patient of University Collage London Hospital, Daniel Martin, Consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine, working on the intensive care unit at Derriford hospital. The piece is co-chaired by Denny Levett, Professor in Perioperative Medicine and Critical Care at the University of Southampton and a Consultant in Perioperative Medicine at Southampton University Hospital NHS Foundation trust (UHS) with Tim Wigmore, consultant, anesthetist and intensivist at the Royal Marsden Hospital. It was taken from the www.ebpom.org World Congress. Check out their site now and learn how you can attend a discussion like this. Also, as mentioned in the piece, here are some links to other moments we have on TopMedTalk where Vicki Morton provides more characteristically honest, incisive and occasionally challenging input: https://www.topmedtalk.com/covid-19-usa-south-carolina-vicki-morton-joins-desiree-and-monty/ https://www.topmedtalk.com/enhanced-recovery-after-cardiac-surgery-eras-is-it-really-that-different-dingle-2022/ https://www.topmedtalk.com/cardiac-eras-covid-and-beyond-ebpom/ https://www.topmedtalk.com/novel-therapies-for-perioperative-care-ebpom-dingle/
This is part two of a three part piece. Part one ( here: https://topmedtalk.libsyn.com/does-increased-volume-improve-cancer-outcomes-ebpom-world-congress ) presents a short introduction to the subject of “volume and cancer outcomes”. It's presented by Shaman Jhanj, Head of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Research at the Royal Marsden Hospital. In this part we are joined by the rest of the panel; Blanche Symons, patient representative, ex patient of University Collage London Hospital, Daniel Martin, Consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine, Derriford Hospital. The discussion, which includes audience questions, is co-chaired by Denny Levett, Professor in Perioperative Medicine and Critical Care at the University of Southampton and a Consultant in Perioperative Medicine at Southampton University Hospital NHS Foundation trust (UHS) and Tim Wigmore, consultant, anesthetist and intensivist at the Royal Marsden Hospital. To attend an event like this go now to www.ebpom.org and ensure you subscribe to our newsletter.
On today's episode, meet Dr. Sanjay Popat. Dr. Popat has both a private and an NHS practice at The Royal Marsden. He is a Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden, Professor of Thoracic Oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research and is an internationally recognized expert in the treatment of lung cancer. Sanjay qualified from Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in 1994, completed general medical training at the Royal Brompton, and the Hammersmith Hospital, and medical oncology training at the Royal Marsden Hospital. He was awarded a PhD in Molecular Genetics in 2002. He's a strong advocate for patient education and support and is passionate about precision medicine.
This piece is a short introduction to the subject of “volume and cancer outcomes” which is presented by Shaman Jhanj, Head of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Research at the Royal Marsden Hospital. The fascinating debate and panel discussion which followed will be released soon here on TopMedTalk but supporters of Evidence Based Perioperative Medicine (EBPOM) may recognise this piece as one of the big moments of the world congress. As mentioned in the piece, it was jointly chaired with The Onco Anesthesia Collaboration. If you'd like more information about EBPOM or to attend one of our conferences please direct yourself to www.ebpom.org
Angela George, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Consultant in Oncogenetics, and Clinical Director of Genomics, The Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK, joins Jonathan to discuss the importance of personalised cancer treatment for patients. George explains her specific interest in germline and somatic mutations in cancer, the hereditary and genetic links in different cancer types, and her focus on genomics research to improve outcomes for patients during and post-treatment.
A new research paper was published in Oncotarget's Volume 14, entitled, “Spleen tyrosine kinase/FMS-like tyrosine kinase-3 inhibition in relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphoma, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma: updated data with mivavotinib (TAK-659/CB-659).” Researchers Leo I. Gordon, Reem Karmali, Jason B. Kaplan, Rakesh Popat, Howard A. Burris III, Silvia Ferrari, Sumit Madan, Manish R. Patel, Giuseppe Gritti, Dima El-Sharkawi, F. Ian Chau, John Radford, Jaime Pérez de Oteyza, Pier Luigi Zinzani, Swaminathan P. Iyer, William Townsend, Harry Miao, Igor Proscurshim, Shining Wang, Shilpi Katyayan, Ying Yuan, Jiaxi Zhu, Kate Stumpo, Yaping Shou, Cecilia Carpio, and Francesc Bosch from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, University College London Hospitals, Sarah Cannon Research Institute/Tennessee Oncology, Ospedale Papa Giovanni XXIII, University of Texas Health Science Center, Florida Cancer Specialists/Sarah Cannon Research Institute, Royal Marsden Hospital, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and University of Manchester, Hospital Universitario HM Sanchinarro, IRCCS Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria di Bologna, Università di Bologna, Houston Methodist Cancer Center, Takeda Development Center Americas, Inc. (TDCA), Vall d'Hebron Hospital Universitari, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Labcorp Drug Development report an updated analysis from a phase I study of the spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) and FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 inhibitor mivavotinib. They present data for the overall cohort of lymphoma patients and the subgroup of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), including an expanded cohort not included in the initial report. “Mivavotinib (TAK-659/CB-659) is an investigational, oral, reversible, potent dual inhibitor of spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) and FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 (FLT3) [18]. SYK is an essential component of the B-cell receptor signaling pathway; abnormal SYK signaling has been implicated in the pathogenesis of DLBCL and several other B-cell malignancies.” Patients with relapsed/refractory lymphoma for which no standard treatment was available received mivavotinib 60–120 mg once daily in 28-day cycles until disease progression/unacceptable toxicity. A total of 124 patients with lymphoma, including 89 with DLBCL, were enrolled. Overall response rates (ORR) in response-evaluable patients were 45% (43/95) and 38% (26/69), respectively. Median duration of response was 28.1 months overall and not reached in DLBCL responders. In subgroups with DLBCL of germinal center B-cell (GCB) and non-GCB origin, ORR was 28% (11/40) and 58% (7/12), respectively. Median progression free survival was 2.0 and 1.6 months in the lymphoma and DLBCL cohorts, respectively. Grade ≥3 treatment-emergent adverse events occurred in 96% of all lymphoma patients, many of which were limited to asymptomatic laboratory abnormalities; the most common were increased amylase (29%), neutropenia (27%), and hypophosphatemia (26%). “These findings support SYK as a potential therapeutic target for the treatment of patients with B-cell lymphomas, including DLBCL.” DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28352 Correspondence to: Leo I. Gordon - l-gordon@northwestern.edu About Oncotarget Oncotarget is a primarily oncology-focused, peer-reviewed, open access journal. Papers are published continuously within yearly volumes in their final and complete form, and then quickly released to Pubmed. To learn more about Oncotarget, please visit https://www.oncotarget.com and connect with us: SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/oncotarget Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Oncotarget/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/oncotarget Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/oncotargetjrnl/ YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/OncotargetYouTube LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/oncotarget
Richard Thomas and his wife Susanna have led Hillside Church in Wimbledon for 27 years, where he is the pastor. Richard also serves as chaplain to The Priory Hospital, the Royal Marsden Hospital and Cancer Centre London. He is passionate about how we respond spiritually in our darkest hours. "Historically, epilepsy was believed to be caused by demons. So that automatically put anybody who had a seizure, or a fit, as in the evil camp. Now we sort of know that it's caused by an electrical imbalance in the brain. But still, it's a disease that's stigmatised and looked down upon. I remember when I was diagnosed, the doctor could not have done a worse job of telling me. He almost couldn't look me in the eye. He avoided any deep conversation about it and I was in and out of the office in just a few minutes, and then saw him treating an old lady with so much tenderness and care. I wondered what was wrong with me and, of course, it was epilepsy."
To celebrate the end of breast cancer awareness month, Michael and Josh are joined by Dr Belinda Yeo, an experienced oncologist specialising in treating breast cancer. Belinda trained at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, followed by the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. She now works at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute as a Clinician Scientist with a specific interest in breast cancer and the prestigious Austin Hospital in Melbourne, Australia.We discussed all things breast oncology with Belinda, including career path, research, patient-centred care and, of course, all the breast cancer treatment pearls for any budding oncologist!This is one episode not to miss!For more episodes, resources and blog posts, visit www.inquisitiveonc.comFind us on Twitter @InquisitiveOnc!If you want us to look at a specific trial or subject, email us at inquisitiveonc@gmail.comDisclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. If you are unwell, seek medical advice. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
This week, host Jonathan Sackier is joined by Ricky Bhogal, a Consultant at the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK, who specialises in Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Oncology. The pair discuss the footballing injury which led Bhogal to study medicine, as well as the heady heights which Bhogal has already reached in his career as surgeon, educator, academic, and star of the Channel 4 documentary ‘Super Surgeons: A Chance at Life'.
In this edition of OncTimes Talk we're taking a look at: extending life in patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer by adding a third drug to standard two-drug regimens. In the randomized Phase III ARASENS trial—just published in the New England Journal of Medicine—the androgen receptor inhibitor, darolutamide, was compared with placebo when added to gold-standard two-drug therapy. Peter Goodwin visited the Royal Marsden Hospital in London UK to meet one of the ARASENS study investigators: Consultant Clinical Oncologist Vincent Khoo.
Monday morning live with Natasa Denman featuring one of her 2-time published Authors and also part of the Ultimate 48 Hour Author Team, Wendy Trevarthen. Wendy prides herself in empowering others to achieve their highest values in life and enhances motivation, achievement, and success. She is a Registered Nurse and has had an extensive career in the health sector, across clinical, middle management, and educator roles. Wendy has been the recipient of many Awards with the Queensland Cancer Council, including study at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. She is the author of two books, MidLife Mojo and Dear Nurse Me. She holds post-graduate qualifications in Cancer Nursing and Adult Health Education and has successfully mentored many nurses along their career pathways. Her ability to connect and provide long-term, sustainable solutions for others is her trademark. Wendy's passion for helping others combines her personal and career experiences. Her clients have described her as being inspirational and providing caring motivation for them to reach their goals. Here are Wendy's 3 Take-Aways: 1. Draw on their inner ability to turn their frown upside down. 2. Use a simple technique to decrease stress 3. Declutter using project thinking strategy Get to know more about Wendy and her books at https://www.healthyoptionsnow.org/product-page/midlife-mojo-you-re-50-cut-the-crap Find us at http://www.writeabook.com.au Join our Facebook Community: Author Your Way to Riches: https://www.facebook.com/groups/authoryourwaytoriches Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/NatasaDenmanYouTube
This is a special replay of an interview I did with Deborah James back in January 2018. It was just over a year after she'd been diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer and we sat in her living room, drinking tea and talking about her experience over the previous 12 months.Now, four and a half years on, Deborah, who is mum to two children, has raised an incredible amount of awareness of bowel cancer, through writing for The Sun, publishing a book, appearing on national TV, all the while sharing her highs and lows with us all.A week ago, Deborah announced that – following a particularly tough six months where she has mostly been in hospital – she is now receiving hospice at home care. She set up The Bowel Babe Fund which, incredibly, raised over £6million in under a week (and counting…) All of this was recognised when she was awarded a Damehood by Prince William.You can donate to The Bowel Babe Fund, which is raising vital money for Cancer Research UK, The Royal Marsden Hospital and The Institute of Cancer Research here. We don't know how much time is left for Deborah but in her words, the fund will help other Deborahs who have cancer.If you enjoyed this episode then please leave a rating or review - and you can subscribe to ensure you don't miss future episodes. Thank you! Not Another Mummy Podcast is brought to you by me, journalist and author Alison Perry. I'm a mum of three and I love interviewing people about parenthood on the podcast. You can check out my other episodes and you can come chat to me on Instagram: @iamalisonperry or on Twitter: @iamalisonperry. You can buy my book OMG It's Twins now.Music: Epidemic SoundArtwork: Eleanor BowmerSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/notanothermummy. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Well, we're emerging into the light from the pandemic – much as it has not fully gone away - and we're socialising and speaking to each other more. But how are our conversational skills? A bit rusty maybe? Conversing well requires a good listening ear and the ability to make good judgment calls before opening our mouths.This podcast looks at how we break bad news, console people, explore feelings and emotions, and everything that's involved in having those meaningful conversations in the face of challenging circumstances.Our two contributors are returning guests with thousands of hours of experience of listening and talking at the bedside.Dr Kathryn Mannix is a palliative care specialist who has followed up the best-selling 'With the End in Mind' with a book covering this very subject: 'Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations'.'The Voice from the Bedside Chair' comes from our resident poet Audrey Ardern-Jones, a former senior nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital and a talented writer who has kindly penned a poem especially for this podcast: 'Listening Before Leaving' dedicated to those who are dying and those who care for them.
Find out about current treatment options for thyroid cancer such as the recent approval of selpercatinib for patients with an alteration in the RET gene in this interview with Kate Newbold who is a clinical oncologist consultant at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London (UK).
Dr. Chris Jackson is a Medical Oncologist with special interest in gastrointestinal cancers, melanoma and urological cancers. Chris holds a national role in the research and management of colorectal cancer. Chris graduated from the University of Otago and trained in New Zealand before working at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London – the world's first specialist cancer hospital. He is currently the clinical leader for oncology research at Dunedin Hospital, and in 2015, was appointed as Medical Director of the Cancer Society of New Zealand. In this episode, we discuss his passion for fighting injustices and patient advocacy, academia and research, vulnerability in the workplace, the power of story-telling, and how all of these aspects are weaved into his work in oncology. As always, if you have any feedback or queries, or if you would like to get in touch with the speaker, feel free to get in touch at doctornos@pm.me.Audio credit:Bliss by Luke Bergs https://soundcloud.com/bergscloudCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/33DJFs9Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/e9aXhBQDT9YSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/doctornos)
In this episode of the IJGC podcast, Editor-in-Chief Dr. Pedro Ramirez, is joined by Professor Nicoletta Colombo to discuss pembrolizumab for persistent, recurrent, metastatic cervical cancer: KEYNOTE 826. Professor Nicoletta Colombo graduated in medicine in 1980, completing specialty training in obstetrics and gynaecology in 1984 at the University of Milan, Italy. After a training period at Charing Cross Hospital and Royal Marsden Hospital in London, she became a Clinical Research Associate at the Kaplan Cancer Center, New York University, where she worked from 1984 until 1986. Professor Colombo then worked as a member of the Junior and later the Senior Faculty at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Milan. In 1994 she became Deputy Director and in 2001 Director of the Medical Gynaecologic Oncology Division, European Institute of Oncology (IEO), Milan, Italy. Since 2002 she has held the position of Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Milan-Bicocca. In 2008, she became Director of the Ovarian Cancer Centre at IEO and in 2014 Chair of the Program of Gynaecology. Principal investigators of several international clinical trials, Professor Colombo is also author of several publications in the field of gynaecologic oncology, and a member of various professional societies such as the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the Society of Gynaecologic Oncologists (SGO) and the International Gynaecological Cancer Society (IGCS). She is also Past President of the European Society of Gynaecologic Oncology (ESGO) and was Chair of the first ESMO-ESGO-ESTRO Consensus Conference in endometrial cancer ( 2015) and the first ESMO-ESGO Consensus Conference in ovarian Cancer ( 2018). From 2016-2020 she was Subject Editor of ESMO Clinical Guidelines for Gynecological Malignancies and she is currently member of the steering committee of ESMO Clinical guidelines. Highlights 1)adding pembrolizumab to chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab provides statistically significant, clinically meaningful improvements in progression-free and overall survival in patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer 2)The addition of pembrolizumab was also associated with a higher response rate and a longer response duration 3)The safety profile for pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab was manageable 4)data from KEYNOTE-826 suggest that pembrolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy with or without bevacizumab may be a new first-line standard of care for the treatment of persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer.
We're tackling a very difficult subject on this 'Art of Dying Well' podcast. What happens when you get the news that nobody wants? How do you cope with a diagnosis that changes everything? We're looking at how we can listen to, accompany and support a loved one who has received a terminal diagnosis. It's a traumatic time for everyone but it can be a time for taking control, setting goals and making sure you're able to make the most of that often short but very precious time towards the end.Our two guests have walked alongside and cared for so many people and their families as they've journeyed towards death. Firstly we speak to Professor Julia Riley. Julia's one of the country's leading palliative care consultants and Clinical Lead for a service called 'Coordinate My Care'. Talented poet and performer Audrey Ardern-Jones joins us for an extended 'Death Chatter'. Audrey worked for many years as a senior nurse at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London and her beautiful poetry reflects her nursing experiences at the bedside. Listen out for three of Audrey's poems on the podcast.
Ian joins me to talk about his book ‘The Breath of Sadness: On Love, Grief and Cricket.’ Charity shout outs to Sporting Chance and the Royal Marsden Hospital.
RCR: CRASH! (Clinical Radiology Academics Speaking Honestly)
In this episode (split into two parts) we talk to radiologists from Scotland, Wales, and England about regional differences in academic training opportunities. In part one, we speak to Michelle Williams (Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh) and Christina Messiou (Consultant Radiologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital). We discuss how being a frontline NHS consultant can bring your research so much closer to implementation, and how more time and money would solve (nearly) everything. Full show notes are available on the RCR website.
In this special podcast, we present part 2 of "Highlights from ASCO and World Lung 2020" , which was originally broadcast as a webinar on August 14, 2020, hosted by Dr. Paul Wheatley-Price and featuring: Dr Sanjay Popat, BSc, MBBS, FRCP, MD, Medical Oncologist, Royal Marsden Hospital, London Dr Jonathan Riess, MD, MS, Medical Oncologist, UC Davis Cancer Centre, Sacramento Dr Rosalyn Juergens, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist, Juravinsky Cancer Centre, Hamilton, The webinar was a 1 hour live round table discussion that shared highlights from the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting and the 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference Lung Cancer (WCLC) Presidential Symposium.
In this special podcast, we present part 1 of "Highlights from ASCO and World Lung 2020" , which was originally broadcast as a webinar on August 14, 2020, hosted by Dr. Paul Wheatley-Priceand featuring: Dr Sanjay Popat, BSc, MBBS, FRCP, MD, Medical Oncologist, Royal Marsden Hospital, London Dr Jonathan Riess, MD, MS, Medical Oncologist, UC Davis Cancer Centre, Sacramento Dr Rosalyn Juergens, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist, Juravinsky Cancer Centre, Hamilton, The webinar was a 1 hour live round table discussion that shared highlights from the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting and the 2020 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference Lung Cancer (WCLC) Presidential Symposium.
Dr. David Nott has been a Consultant Surgeon at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for 23 years where he specializes in general surgery. Professor Nott also performs vascular and trauma surgery at St Mary’s Hospital and cancer surgery at the Royal Marsden Hospital. For the past twenty three years David has taken unpaid leave each year to work for the aid agencies Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Syria Relief. He has provided surgical treatment to the victims of conflict and catastrophe in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Chad, Darfur, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Central African Republic, Gaza and Nepal. Please check out his book "War Doctor" for an inspiring read https://www.amazon.com/War-Doctor-Surgery-Front-Line-ebook/dp/B07WWGLY7Z/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=war+doctor&qid=1593638019&s=digital-text&sr=1-1 Also check out his foundation that supports training surgeons in war zones. https://davidnottfoundation.com/ A big thanks to Patrick Georgoff for making this happen.
Maria is a gifted third-generation spiritual psychic, clairvoyant, intuitive reader, angelic reiki practitioner, animal reiki practitioner, crystal healer, channel, public speaker, teacher and author. From a young age, Maria has been highly sensitive to energetic fields of places and people, and has been blessed with spiritual gifts to bridge the gap between science and spirituality, to educate others in gaining the scientific background to help them understand spirituality, and to bring them peace and balance in their everyday lives Maria is a scientist in cancer research, with degrees in Biochemistry and Neuroscience from the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London. She has worked in prestigious scientific institutes throughout her scientific career, including London School of Pharmacy, Imperial College and The Royal Marsden Hospital, London. She has been an author in many scientific publications, including a first author paper, which is recognition for her scientific research. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/darlene-hill/message
Ellen Kitetere, an independent prescriber and lead pharmacist for urological and gynaecological cancers at the Royal Marsden Hospital, discusses the important role pharmacists can play in managing and supporting patients with ovarian cancer in the community
It's not a household name but RSV or Respiratory Syncytial Virus is responsible for 30,000 children under five ending up in hospital every year in the UK. The virus can cause serious infections of the lungs and airways (like pneumonia and bronchiolitis). Hannah and Sean from Oxfordshire had baby girls, Millie and Freya, born prematurely in October last year. Just weeks later, the twins spent 12 days in intensive care and then 3 days in the high dependency unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford with bronchiolitis caused by RSV. Andrew Pollard, Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford tells James, the BBC's Science and Health Correspondent, about the dangers of RSV in lower income settings where the virus claims more babies' lives under 12 months old than any other disease apart from malaria. Hopes are that a vaccine for RSV to protect children during the vulnerable first years is imminent. And as one of the world's leading experts on vaccinations (and chair of the UK's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) Professor Pollard tells James that he is confident that a vaccine for the coronavirus, which some experts have suggested could become a pandemic, could be developed by the end of this year. Inside Health regular contributor Dr Margaret McCartney raises the issue of unnecessary vaginal examinations. A new American study in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that more than half of the bimanual pelvic examinations performed on girls and women aged 15 to 20 in the USA are potentially unnecessary and could cause harm. The fact this is still routine for many American women contradicts clear guidance which states there is no evidence for such internal examinations to be carried out in healthy girls and women who don't have symptoms. It doesn't happen in the NHS, Margaret reports, but they are carried out in the private sector under the banner of "well women checks". Could you tell somebody that they were going to die? Could you comfort family members after their loved one has passed away? Crucially could you do this as part of your job, day in, day out, without it affecting you? James talks to nurses at the Royal Marsden Hospital in Surrey which has been raising "compassion fatigue" as an occupational hazard within the profession. Producer: Fiona Hill
Professor Mark Callaway (the RCR’s medical director, professional practice for clinical radiology) talks to Dr Katharine Aitken on the role of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) for colorectal cancer. Dr Katharine Aitken is a consultant clinical oncologist based at The Royal Marsden Hospital.
Welcome to this episode of OC Talks Podcast Series brought to you by Oncology Central. In this episode today of OC talks we will be speaking to Nandita deSouza from the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital (both London, UK) to discuss the Cancer Research UK funded DISCOVAR trial.
Immunotherapy approaches have revolutionized medical oncology in the last years. However, still only a fraction of patients is responding. Given the risk of side effects without efficacy, therefore, biomarkers providing reliable and reproducible prediction of response are urgently needed. In this podcast, next generation biomarkers including the challenge of branched genomic evolution of cancer are discussed by Professor Samra Turajlic, The Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK.
Professor Deborah Bowman reveals how a diagnosis of cancer has transformed her view of medical ethics and what it means to be a patient. As Professor of Ethics and Law at St George's, University of London, Deborah has spent the past two decades teaching and writing about medical ethics, the moral principles that apply to medicine. It's taken her down countless hospital corridors, to the clinics and the wards where medical ethics plays out in practice, behind closed doors, supporting healthcare practitioners and their patients to negotiate uncertainty and conflict. This is the field of clinical ethics and, each time, the 'patient' has been central to her response. Yet in the autumn of 2017, everything changed. Deborah was diagnosed with breast cancer and it signalled the beginning of her undoing, not just personally but professionally too, playing havoc with what she thought she knew about clinical ethics. Patient autonomy - literally 'self-rule'- is one of its cornerstones - a patient's right to make decisions about their healthcare. So what does autonomy mean if the 'self', she thought she knew, was so changeable and confusing? Deborah returns to the Royal Marsden Hospital where she is a patient, to explore this - with both her personal and professional hats on. Producer: Beth Eastwood Main Image: Deborah Bowman. Copyright: Deborah Bowman
Fr Joe McCullough, Chaplain at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, gives a reflection on John Henry Newman's writings on Forgiveness. Fr Joe's brother Patrick was tragically murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1972 at the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Fr Joe McCullough, Chaplain at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, gives a reflection on John Henry Newman's writings on Forgiveness. Fr Joe's brother Patrick was tragically murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1972 at the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Lauren Mahon and Steve Bland join Deborah James at the Royal Marsden Hospital as Debs goes in for an operation for the ablation of her liver tumours. We hear from Consultant Interventional Radiologist, Dr Nicos Fotiadis and Consultant Anaesthetist and Dr Torsten Beutlhauser who will be in charge of her procedure. Also Steve and Lozza go meet Mr Declan Cahill, a Consultant Urological Surgeon and his team. Declan takes them into his operating theatre as he oversees and performs an actual real life prostatectomy by robotic surgery. They then go and see Debs after her operation and catch up again with Dr Nicos Fotiadis. The whole #youmebigc team would like to thank the Royal Marsden Hospital for providing us with this incredible opportunity.
Guest: Dr. Muyinatu Bell Engineering Professor - Johns Hopkins University Dr. Bell joined the faculty of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department with a joint appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. She obtained a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University (2012) and a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Biomedical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006). In addition, she spent a year abroad as an academic visitor at the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital in the United Kingdom (2009-2010). Prior to joining the faculty, Dr. Bell was a postdoctoral fellow with the Engineering Research Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology at Johns Hopkins University and served as President of the Homewood Postdoc Association. Dr. Bell has published over 40 scientific journal articles and conference papers, holds a patent for SLSC beamforming, and is the recipient of numerous awards, grants, and fellowships, including the prestigious NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award (2015), MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35 Award (2016), the NSF CAREER Award (2018), and the NIH Trailblazer Award (2018).
Dr Elyan qualified in medicine from Bristol University and obtained further medical experience in the West Country. His oncology training was at Cambridge and Manchester where he did a research degree through the Paterson Institute and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London as a Senior Registrar.
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnoses or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement. Hello. Welcome to "Cancer Stories." I'm Dr. Daniel Hayes, a medical oncologist, and translational researcher at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, and I've also been the past president of ASCO. I'll be your host for a series of interviews with the founders of our field. Over the last 40 years, I've been fortunate to have been trained, mentored, and inspired by many of these pioneers. It's my hope that through these conversations we can all be equally inspired, by gaining an appreciation of the courage, the vision, and the scientific understanding that led these men and women to establish the field of clinical cancer care over the last 70 years. By understanding how we got to the present and what we now consider normal in oncology, we can also imagine and work together towards a better future, where we offer patients better treatments and we're also able to support them and their families during and after cancer treatment. Today, My guest on this broadcast is Dr. Samuel Hellman, who is generally considered one of the fathers of modern radiation oncology in the United States and frankly, worldwide. Dr. Hellman is currently a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Pritzker Medical School, where he served as the dean from 1988 to 1993. And he's been the A.N. Pritzker Professor of the Division of Biological Sciences. He's also served as the vice president of the University of Chicago Medical Center. Prior to moving to Chicago in the late 1980s, he had previously been physician in chief and the professor of radiation oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He served there from 1983 to 1988, and he was also chair of the Department of Radiation Therapy at the Harvard Medical School, where he served as the co-founding director of the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy. Dr. Hellman has authored over 250 peer-reviewed papers, and he's been one of the co-editors of one of the leading textbooks on oncology, Cancer, Principles and Practice. Dr. Hellman has won many awards and honors, including being named a fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, formerly the Institute of Medicine, and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is frankly, one of the few individuals to serve as president of both the American Association of Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, for which he was actually, I believe-- correct me if I'm wrong Dr. Hellman-- the first radiation oncologist to hold that position, which he served in 1986 to 1987. Dr. Hellman, welcome to our program. Thank you for having me. I hope I got all that right. Your introduction has taken longer than some of the others. You have been so prominent in the field. I have a series of questions. The whole point of this is sort of like Jerry Seinfeld's Riding in a Cab with Friends. I've always said, if I had an opportunity to right with some of the giants in our field, what would I ask them during a cab ride? So I get to ask the questions, and you get to answer. I know you grew up in the Bronx. Can you tell us a little bit more about your background? I'm particularly intrigued about the fact that a boy from the Bronx ended up at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. Why'd you go there? What was your interest? Was it always in science and medicine, or did you have something else in mind? OK. Well, start with the Bronx. I was born in 1934 in the Bronx in a nice part of the city, which doesn't often go with descriptions of the Bronx today, but it was at that time. And about well, 1950, which was when I entered my senior year in high school, I had gone to high school at DeWitt Clinton High School. And as I say, my senior year, we moved to Long Island, and I spent my senior year at Lawrence High School. The important part of this is that Clinton had about 4,500 to 5,000 boys, and Lawrence High School was much smaller and most importantly, coeducational, and that made me very much want to go to a smaller school for college and definitely one that was coeducational. And so my mother and I took a little tour of colleges not too far from New York, but Allegheny was the farthest, I think. It's in Western Pennsylvania, very close to the Ohio border. And it was a beautiful day. I had a very nice two people showing me around, and I became enamored of the place. It was a very good fit for me, but I must say, my method was not a very analytic one, but that's how I got to Allegheny College. And was science and medicine in your thoughts then, or did you have other things that you thought you'd do? No, no. I was a middle-class Jewish boy from the Bronx. You're programmed to be interested in medicine. The old comment was, you know what a smart boy who can't stand the sight of blood becomes? The answer is a lawyer. And I was not offended by the sight of blood. So I actually heard about your decision to go to SUNY Upstate Syracuse and the serendipity involved. And I'm always struck by how so many of us have what we plan and what we end up doing. Can you give us that story? I though it was really fascinating. Well, I'm not sure what part of it you want, but I went to Syracuse Upstate because I won a state scholarship, and I hadn't applied to any New York state schools. And fortunately, the medical school advisor and a former Alleghenian, who was at Upstate, arranged an expedited interview, et cetera. So anyway, that's why I ended there. Why I ended up in radiation oncology-- Well, that was my next question is, how did we get lucky that you decided to go into oncology? Well, I interned at Boston at the Beth Israel Hospital, which was essentially very oriented to cardiovascular disease. Our chairman was a renowned cardiologist. He was the first one to use radioactive tracers. He used radium, as it turned out, and there is an award given by the nuclear medicine society. Their big award, their annual award is the Hermann Blumgart Award, and Blumgart was my chairman. And Paul Zoll, the external defibrillator inventor, was there. Louis Wolff of Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome was there. So it was a cardiac place. And internal medicine was what I wanted to do, but my father was quite hard of hearing and had a lot of trouble making a living, because he was so impaired. And electronic devices, of course, weren't available at that time. And it was widely thought that otosclerosis which is what he had, was a hereditary disease. And so I was discouraged somewhat from entering medicine, not being able to be sure I could use a stethoscope. Parenthetically, I have never had any trouble, and the disease is no longer thought to be hereditary but rather the sequelae of infectious diseases, either diphtheria or influenza. This was the great influenza epidemic. The two, one of those two. But anyway, that's what he had, so I sought to do something else. And I was a little bit put off by taking care of disease which we really could not alter the course of. We could modify it. We could palliate, but probably if I were more dexterous, I would have become a surgeon. But I wasn't, and so I decided I didn't know what to do. I'd take a radiology residency and see where that led. This was late in the year, and there were no radiology residences, literally, in Boston that were available. But a new chief had come to Yale, and he was starting a new program. And one of radiologists in a neighboring institute told me go there. So I did. Well, he turned out to be a radiation oncologist, and he, Morton Kligerman and Henry Kaplan, were the two chairmen of departments of radiology who were radiation oncologists. And Henry had been at the NIH and got them to, with the National Cancer Institute, I guess, to start a fellowship program to encourage radiation oncology. And Kligerman applied for one, got one. I was there. I was captivated by the opportunity to do some curative treatment. I was a chemistry major in college, and physics and chemistry were things I enjoyed. Sounded like a good choice, so that's what happened. So there could not have been very many specific radiation oncology fellowship programs at that time in the United States. Is that true? Yeah, very much true. The ones that stood out was, I say, Henry Kaplan's. There was a very good one at UCSF. And there was one in Penrose Cancer Hospital and one at the MD Anderson, and those were the ones. So your decision to go oncology then, really your decision to go into radiology-- diagnostic radiology originally, sorry-- didn't sound like you were-- Not really. I took a radiology residency, because I thought it would be helpful whatever I decided to do. I really didn't expect to go into diagnostic radiology, but I figured that's something I could do. I didn't have much training or any training in that before. There was a great dynamic radiologist at the Beth Israel Hospital, and he captivated me. And so I figured, there's a lot to learn there, and I'll try it. I think a lot of the younger doctors don't realize that the two were together for a long time. What's your perspective of the split between diagnostic and therapeutic radiology-- I've actually heard you talk about this, so I think I know what you're going to say-- and bringing them back together? Well, I was a great proponent of it. The whole fields are entirely different. But having diagnostic radiology is extremely helpful in radiation oncology, because we depend on images to determine how we treat, where we treat, and so forth, so it was there. But they were interested in entirely different things. And just parenthetically, when I took the Harvard job, I wasn't going to take it unless I had a promise that we could start a Department of Radiation Oncology. Shortly after I came, and the decision was made with just a shake of the hand that, after a year or two, I'd be able to do that, and that's what happened. Actually, that segues into another question I had is I was looking over your background. I met you first when I was a first-year fellow at the medical oncology. That was 1982, by the way, a long time ago, when it was still the Sidney Farber. And I'd heard about your legendary efforts starting the Joint Center and also your teaching methods with your own residencies. But you were rubbing shoulders with Sidney Farber and Francis "Franny" Moore and Tom Frei. That must have been pretty intimidating for a relatively young guy trying to start a whole new department. What was the impetus behind that? It was an interesting experience. Dr. Farber was, of course, the dominant figure in cancer at Harvard, and nationally, he was one of, if not the great leader. I mean, but he was a difficult man, and I don't like to speak disparaging, but we had a rocky relationship. When the Joint Center-- I'm getting ahead of my story, but it's appropriate to this question. When the Joint Center was started, it was started by Harvard Medical School, and the dean for hospital affairs was a man named Sidney Lee. Dr. Lee had formerly been the head of the Beth Israel Hospital, the director, not the chairman of medicine but the director. And he got the idea that all the hospitals in the Harvard area were relatively small, the Mass General was across town and quite large, but that was not true for the Brigham or the BI or the Deaconess or what at that time was the Boston Hospital for Women. And so he got them all together. So there were those, and I think I left out the Children's, but Children's was amongst them, as well as the Sidney Farber, as you say. Or at that time, it wasn't called that. It was called the Jimmy Fund, but that's another story, and one you know better than I, I suspect. But anyway, those six were to get together when I started the Joint Center. Because Dr. Farber and I had so much difficulty with each other-- he wanted really for me to be reporting to him and being part of the Jimmy Fund but that wouldn't have worked with the other hospitals. He was not liked by any of the places, including Children's, which is where he was the pathologist. So those six initial institutions, when we finally came to sign, turned out to be only four because the Children's wouldn't come in, and the Jimmy Fund wouldn't come in. For a number of reasons, two years later, they acquiesced, mostly because we were successful, and they were without supervoltage treatment, and it was just not sensible for them not to join. But that's my relationship with Sidney. Franny Moore is a different story. Franny Moore was an internationally-known surgeon and expected to have his way, but he was very graceful, very nice. I had very few disagreements with him. He expected, and I think, deserved certain deferences. Sydney did, too, but it just made it too difficult to do that but Franny was not that way. Franny and I came to the treatment, conservative treatment of breast cancer from different points of view. He didn't agree with it, but he was entitled to his opinion, and he was fine. Tom is a different story. I got there ahead of Tom, and he came, and if anything, I helped out Tom, although he was much senior. Harvard has its own culture, as you know, and he needed at least an introduction. I mean, he sailed along fine after that. And in fact, at one time, he and I wanted to start a joint residency program. It was to be a four-year program, which would have people take two years together and two years in their respective specialty. But the boards were not in agreement, so it was dropped. But Tom and I always got along fine. Actually, that raises one of my other questions. I spent a lot of time in Europe, and the field of so-called clinical oncology still remains, combining radiation and medical oncology. In fact, they style it as a particular specialty in Great Britain. How did it evolve not that way in the United States? Radiation oncology went off on its own. And I think you had a lot to do with really professionalizing radiation oncology as a specialty in this country. Is that not true? I'd be interested in your perspectives on this, too. Well, I should parenthetically say that I spent a year in the National Health Service in 1965, while I was a fellow at Yale, in clinical oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital, their major teaching hospital for cancer. And I always believed in the joint efforts of a non-surgical oncology program. You can include the surgeons, mostly because their lives are so different and their technical training is much more extensive, but you can work closely with them, and I've been fortunate to be able to do that. But medical oncology and radiation, in my judgment, would be better off close together. And your comment about me and ASCO, being the first president as a radiation oncologist, and I never call myself a radiation oncologist, at least not initially. I always call myself an oncologist. But I do, I agree and then describe what I do as radiation. But I agree with you, they have the best title-- clinical oncologists. And why it occurred the way it occurred, I'm not sure. I know we started in radiology and medical oncology started in hematology. I mean, the real revolution, and leaving aside Dave Karnofsky and his work, the real changes occurred in acute leukemia. And the real founders of the specialty, Dave was surely one of them, but a great many of them were all hematologists, leukemia doctors, and it grew from there. It grew out of hematology. And a lot of major oncology papers were in Blood, the journal Blood before they were in JCO. So that's the best I can do with it. Our big thing was to separate from diagnostic. Getting closer to medical oncology is much easier, because we have the same book. You said I wrote the textbook with Vince and Steve, and so I did. And that was very easy. We spoke the same languages. We saw the same things, not completely. I saw more head and neck. Vince saw more of the hematologic malignancies, but the rules were similar. It was no-- it was easy. And I've heard Dr. Frei-- I trained with him when he was alive and obviously, Dr. DeVita talked about what it was like to give chemotherapy when they started. And how we really professionalized, in many ways, and split up giving chemotherapy, the different responsibilities. What was it like with radiation oncology back 40 years ago? I mean, how did you-- the safety issues, were you all cognizant of the safety issues related to radiation at the time? How did you do your planning? What was that like? Well, safety was-- Hiroshima made everybody know a lot. In fact, if anything, we were more conservative than we probably needed to be because of radioactivity being an evil and all the things that happened after '45 and at Hiroshima and Nagasaki experience. And so safety wasn't a problem that way. But there were a lot of people in the field who were using the field, who are not radiation oncologists. Some of them were radiologists, diagnostic radiologists and did it part time. They had a cobalt unit, before that, just an orthovoltage, conventional energy, much less effective and more damaging. And also gynecologists, and when I visited Memorial Hospital early on in my training, and the surgeons would send a prescription blank, a regular prescription dying down to the radiation therapist. And that's what they were, technicians, or often were. And they may have differed with the prescription but only by being careful and discussing it with the surgeons and convincing them that some change should be. That's very different. How was the planning done? How was the planning done? The planning was fairly primitive. Well, most places had a physicist, usually a physicist, who did both diagnostic machines and conventional radiation oncology, and they were important in that department and those people subspecialized, too. And in fact, when I came to Boston in 1968, Herb Abrams, who was the new chairman of radiology-- he's the one who chaired the committee that selected me-- but he and I jointly started a physics department. So it was still in diagnosis as well as therapy, but we realized that wasn't a good idea and separated. So physics was evolving, but treatment planning before supervoltage, and even with supervoltage before multileaf collimators and a lot of the newer, what then were newer techniques, was reasonably rudimentary. When I did my residency, we did our own planning, and usually, it got checked by the physicist but not all the time. It's a lot different now. Yes, it is. I want to turn this to an area that's more personal to me and that is your role, out of all the many contributions you've made to the field, your role in the field of breast-preserving therapy. I came in just as you and Jay Harris were really making that institutionalized. Just for our listeners, what were the hurdles there? They must have been both personal and professional and technical. And did you ever doubt that this be successful in the long run? You must have had some second thoughts about getting into this. Well, I have to back up. It was well before Jay, but it was at Yale. And apropos of how many-- going back to our previous question-- how few radiation oncologists there were. There was a club. Before there was a specialty, before there was a society, there was the American Club of Radiation Therapy. And all you had to do to belong to it was do radiation therapy without doing diagnostic radiology. And I was in the low 200ths of the consecutive order of people who belonged to the specialty from its very inception at the turn of the century. So there were very few of us, and we knew each other extremely well and had these little conversing meetings. And a number of people would talk about patients who had medical diseases which wouldn't allow them to have their breasts removed. They still had localized, apparently localized breast cancer, and the radiation therapist took care of them, and I did, too. I had these people. And we also had the Europeans, especially the French, who were treating breast cancer with radiation. In fact, they were doing it with a fundamental difference with what we did from the beginning and they do now. And that is, they did it without removing the breast cancer, because they were doing it primarily for cosmetic reasons. And they felt that taking out the breast cancer might damage the cosmetic effect. So we weren't alone. We weren't first. So I knew that other people had done it. Some people who did, Simon Kramer in Pennsylvania at Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, did a great deal of it. And we did it, because we had a surgeon at Yale who was interested in sending patients. You mentioned Jay, but really, before Jay, there was Lenny Prosnitz, who you may or may not know of, who was a long-time chairman at Duke. But Len was a medical oncologist at Yale, who was about, I don't know, three or four years behind me in training, and I was either a young assistant professor there at the time or a fellow, I can't remember which. And he came over to me and said, you've got a nice life. You do interesting things. I'm not so crazy with this. Can I get into it? And Lenny, obviously, being trained in medical oncology, being a boarded internist was also interested in breast cancer. Because that's the one disease, even in the beginning that medicine, or one of the few diseases that medicine was interested in for the hormonal aspects of the disease. So Lenny took over when I left with the surgeon Ira Goldenberg, and he kept it up. And when I went to Harvard, I had all those different hospitals, and I had a very good colleague there, who was the only radiation oncologist in those hospital complex, and he also treated some. So we continued to do it. One of the nice things about Harvard at that time was, at least for this purpose, was we had this women's hospital, Boston Hospital for Women. And gynecologists in those days did everything for women and that included breast surgery. And those guys delivered their babies and when they got breast cancer, took care of them. They weren't interventional. They were their private primary care docs, and they were much more sensitive to the cosmetic aspects and the self-image aspects of breast cancer surgery. And so they knew we did it, and they became a big source of suggesting patients and sending them to us. Anyway, Marty, Marty Levine, the fellow I was talking about, and I developed a reasonable number of them. One of my residents, Eric Weber said, why don't you write a paper about this? I said, it's all done. The French have it. The Brits have it. Even the Canadians have it. He said, we don't. So I said all right. We sent out the paper, and the first paper is with Eric and Marty and me, and it was a JAMA paper and that gets to another point. What year was that? I had to bully pulpit. What year was that, the JAMA paper? The JAMA paper? About '75-- '74, '75. And it made a big splash. And then Lenny and Simon Kramer and Luther Brady, two Philadelphia people who had big experience, and us put all of our stuff together. And Lenny brought it all together, and so there was another big paper. I think that one was in JCO, but maybe not. I can't remember. And I think that's how it got started. And my issue with it and my involvement in it is, yes, pioneering the treatment in America. I don't claim to have pioneered it anywhere else. It wouldn't be true. But what I did do is use the bully pulpit of being the Harvard professor, and I went everywhere and talked about it. And I took on the surgeons in a number of places and talked about it. And if I made a contribution to it, it was that. I can remember being in an audience and hearing you talk about the Halstead theory and then the Fisher theory and what became known, in my opinion, as the Hellman theory, which is a combination of the two. That both local and systemic therapies make a difference, and the mortality rate of breast cancer has dropped by almost one-half over the last 30 years, and you should be proud of that. Oh, I'm proud of it. I'm proud of it. But people don't do things in a vacuum. You build on people and on their doings. Well, I want to be respectful of your time, if I can finish up here. I really just touched the surface of many of the contributions you've made. I wanted to talk a little bit about your role in getting radiation oncologists to think about what we now call translational science. But at the end here, what do you think are your greatest accomplishments? What do you think your legacy has been to the field? Do you think it's the science or your administration or your teaching and mentoring or all of those together? I think all of us would like to think about what our legacies would be. Oh, I would say, it's an interesting and not an easy question, because I'm interested in all of those things. But I like to remind people that, and it's been commented on by others, I am one of the few people who maintained a practice of medicine, a real practice, all through being a dean. I always think of myself first as a doctor. And I am an investigator, and I am interested in research, both basic and clinical, and did both of them, but I'm a doctor first, that's number one. Second to that, I was very involved in teaching and believe-- and that's why I became a dean and before that, started a department in Harvard and gave courses in oncology, and my residents are my greatest legacy, if you really want to know. Nobody lives forever, and what you did in the lab and your patients, that passes, but your residents are your history. They continue it, and their residents continue it and so forth. And just to end on a high note that you mention, is that the Karnofsky lecturer this year was one of my residents. Yes, he was. Of course, that's Ralph Weichselbaum. He was. I actually chaired the selection committee, and I can't tell you how proud I was to stand up and introduce him. He did a wonderful job. In addition to your own residents, I'm going to tell you, you're also passing this on to the medical oncology fellows who were hanging around the Farber in those days. And to this day, I tell patients I wear two hats. My first hat is to take care of them as I can with the knowledge I have today, and my second hat is to do research to make it better. But my first hat always wins, because Dr. Hellman said you're a doctor first. So there you go. Well, I haven't changed on it. That's very nice to hear though. OK. I think on that note, we'll end up. I had planned over about half an hour. We're just over that. So thank you very much, both from me, personally, and from those of us in the field and from our patients who have benefited. Dr. Hellman, you are truly a pioneer and a giant in our field. So thank you so much. Well, you're very kind to say so. For more original research, editorials, and review articles, please visit us online at jco.org. This production is copyrighted to the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Thank you for listening.
Rachael, Deborah and Lauren talk about dealing with the pain caused by cancer. Plus Dr Matthew Brown, a consultant in pain medicine and anaesthetics from the Royal Marsden Hospital, joins the girls to share his experiences of treating the discomfort cancer patients can suffer.
A spectacular predatory dinosaur fossil was auctioned this week in Paris. It was bought by a private collector at the cost of about 2 million Euros. Academic palaeontologists are not happy about the sale. Anjali Goswami of the Natural History Museum and Steve Brussatte of Edinburgh University air their views to Adam Rutherford on the legal and illegal markets for premium vertebrate fossils. Who owns the genetic biodiversity of the oceans? One single multinational corporation - the chemicals giant BASF - has registered almost half of all known patents on genetic sequences from marine organisms. This is the headline finding of a survey of marine genetic resource ownership by David Blasiak of the Global Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. Immunotherapies for cancer have been in the news in the last week. Adam talks to cancer researchers Sophie Papa of Kings College, London and Samra Turaljik of the Royal Marsden Hospital about the principles behind immunotherapy and the different approaches in the clinic and under clinical trials. Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker
How cancer survivors can experience post-operative pain, and confronting the national issue of post-cancer treatment. This edition is funded by The Agnes Hunter Trust. An ever-increasing cancer survivor rate means chronic pain associated with the condition and its treatment is growing. In the UK alone, cancer survivor rates have doubled in the last 40 years, from 24% to 50%* In this edition of Airing Pain, Paul Evans speaks to Dr Paul Farquhar-Smith, consultant in anaesthesia and pain medicine at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, and co-author of Pain in cancer curvivors; filling in the gaps. Dr Farquhar-Smith explains how post-surgical pain in cancer survivors can be caused by damage to the nervous system, what cancer treatments may be associated with this pain, and what pre-surgery steps can be taken to reduce it. Contributors: Dr Paul Farquhar-Smith, Consultant in Anaesthesia at the Royal Marsden Hospital London, and co-author, with Dr Mathew Brown, of Pain in cancer survivors; filling in the gaps. More information: Pain in cancer survivors; filling in the gaps (https://academic.oup.com/bja/article/119/4/723/4111210) Macmillan's page on cancer pain (https://www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/coping/side-effects-and-symptoms/pain) *http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/survival
Dr. Jeremy Freeman was born in Hamilton, Ontario and grew up in Toronto. He attended medical school at the University of Toronto, graduating with highest honours. He completed his otolaryngology residency at the University of Toronto. After receiving his Fellowship from the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada in 1978, he spent two further years of advanced training, one as a Gordon Richards Fellow at the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto in Radiation and Medical Oncology and a second year as a McLaughlin Fellow, training in Head and Neck Oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK. He was the first fellow of the Advanced Training Council sponsored by the two head and neck societies. A Full Professor, he occupies the Temmy Latner/Dynacare Chair in Head and Neck Oncology at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine. He is former Otolaryngologist-in-Chief at the Mount Sinai Hospital stepping down after fulfilling his 10 year appointment. He has an active practice focusing on head and neck oncology with a primary interest in endocrine surgery of the head and neck. He has given over 500 scholarly presentations, has been invited as a visiting professor and surgeon internationally, and has published over 280 articles in the scientific literature. He has been involved in a number of administrative roles in the American Head and Neck Society and is also on the editorial board of a number of high impact journals focusing on head and neck oncology. He has recently been appointed to the National Institute of Health (in Washington DC) task force on the management of thyroid cancer. He is the Director of the University of Toronto Head and Neck Oncology Fellowship, considered to be one of the top three such fellowships in North America. He was the program chair and congress chair of the First and Second World Congresses on Thyroid Cancer held in 2009 and 2013 in Toronto. He was the Keynote speaker at the Congress held in Boston in 2017. He has been invited worldwide to deliver keynotes in the management of thyroid malignancies. In this episode the following topics are discussed: Cost of thyroid surgery in varies depending on jurisdiction Surgery and active surveillance is a fixed cost Costs after surgery TG tests, ultrasound, thyroid hormone costs Contrary to some proponents, surgery is not more cost effective than active surveillance Hypo parathyroidism leads to daily doses of calcium and vitamin D If there is RLN damage, then there could be more surgery and voice therapy There are more costs than solely the surgical fee Levothyroxine costs Ramifications of degree of thyroid cancer Thyroid cancer is a low risk of death Many people die with thyroid cancer but don’t die from it Possibility versus probability Emotional expense of malignancy and being labeled survivor Lead a normal life or the survivor label Lifetime cost of thryoidectomy Medical costs and cost of travel, time of work, baby-sitters, and all expenses that go into managing thryoidectomy for ancillary items How long can someone live without thyroid replacement hormone post thyroidectomy? Quality of life post thyroidectomy Psychological wellbeing Do not do a FNA for nodule under 1 cm NOTES Dr. Jeremy Freeman Jeremy Freeman's scientific contributions LinkedIn
David Nott OBE FRCS has been a Consultant Surgeon at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for 23 years where he specialises in general surgery. David also performs vascular and trauma surgery at St Mary’s Hospital and cancer surgery at the Royal Marsden Hospital. David is an authority in laparoscopic surgery and was the first surgeon to combine laparoscopic and vascular surgery. For the past twenty three years David has taken unpaid leave each year to work for the aid agencies Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Syria Relief. He has provided surgical treatment to the victims of conflict and catastrophe in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Chad, Darfur, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Central African Republic, Gaza and Nepal. In 2015 David established the David Nott Foundation with his wife Elly. The Foundation will support surgeons to develop their operating skills for warzones and austere environments.
In 2016 Steve Hewlett, presenter of Radio 4's The Media Show, was diagnosed as having cancer of the oesophagus, and has been telling us about his treatment. Steve has had to continue his stay in the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, so Eddie Mair went to visit him again. Last week, he told us how some of his options were no longer there. No more drugs trials, no more chemo: his liver was in a state that would not allow any of that. During their conversation this week, Steve told Eddie about the options for palliative care and what living every day as if it's your last, means to him.
In 2016 Steve Hewlett, presenter of Radio 4's The Media Show, was diagnosed as having cancer of the oesophagus, and has been telling us about his treatment. Steve has had to continue his stay in the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, so Eddie Mair went to visit him again. During their conversation, Steve told Eddie that his consultant had said his liver would not be able to handle any more treatments and that the outlook in the long term was not good. On a happier note, he and his partner Rachel decided to get married.
In 2016 Steve Hewlett, presenter of Radio 4's The Media Show, was diagnosed as having cancer of the oesophagus, and has been telling us about his treatment. This week Steve had to stay in London's Royal Marsden Hospital, so Eddie Mair went to visit him. During their conversation, Steve told Eddie that because his liver is "misbehaving", and they are unsure if the new drug is working, he could end up with his "liver being so damaged it's no longer capable of dealing with any further treatment". Despite that, he's decided to continue with the drugs trial.
A new medical movement in Wales is urging patients to take more control of the decisions about the care and treatment they receive. Called Choosing Wisely, it calls for a more equal doctor-patient relationship, an end to "doctor knows best". Dr Paul Myers, chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in Wales discusses the initiative with Dr Mark Porter and with Inside Health contributor, Dr Margaret McCartney. A new way of tracking cancer, through the blood, not from a biopsy of the tumour, is exciting oncologists worldwide. A liquid biopsy, a simple blood test, is proving to be a hugely promising development in cancer treatment. Circulating tumour DNA is measured in the blood, giving doctors the chance to target new treatments for the particular type of cancer. Dr Mark Porter talks to one of the pioneers in this field, Dr Nick Turner at The Royal Marsden Hospital and team leader at the Institute of Cancer Research about what liquid biopsies could, in the future, mean for cancer care. Traditional advice to parents has been to delay the introduction of foods like peanuts and eggs when they wean their babies onto solid food, in order to reduce the risk of food allergies later in life. But conventional wisdom has been turned on its head with a new body of evidence suggesting the opposite is true. In a new survey of the latest data, the Director of Imperial College's Paediatric Research Unit, Dr Robert Boyle, tells Mark that the two most common childhood food allergies, to peanuts and eggs, may be prevented by introducing them early. How accurate are parents when they're measuring out liquid medicine for their children? Not at all, according to a new study. Dr Margaret McCartney discusses the findings that 84% of the 2,000 or so volunteer parents made at least one error, and 20% made a big error. Scary stuff. But there's advice on how to avoid giving your sick child the wrong dose.
Professor Gareth Morgan from The Royal Marsden, UK, talks to ecancerTV about how far treatment in myeloma has come over the past decade. Also where it is likely to go in the coming years as the use of newer agents are fine-tuned to further improve outcomes. He focuses on new data from ASH 2012 such as maintenance treatment with lenalidomide and bortezomib, and notes how newer agents have considerably improved patients’ quality of life. The challenge of whether to use single or combination agents remains, although Professor Morgan notes the additional challenge of toxicity in older patients with the use of combination agents. He points to the data on quadruplets of therapy presented at ASH 2012, and questions the use of this over triplets of therapy. Professor Morgan looks forward to the increased use of treatments according to laboratory sub-types, for example, using profiling to characterise mutational landscapes and sequencing to prevent the emergence of resistance in myeloma.
Professor Gareth Morgan from The Royal Marsden, UK, talks to ecancerTV about how far treatment in myeloma has come over the past decade. Also where it is likely to go in the coming years as the use of newer agents are fine-tuned to further improve outcomes. He focuses on new data from ASH 2012 such as maintenance treatment with lenalidomide and bortezomib, and notes how newer agents have considerably improved patients’ quality of life. The challenge of whether to use single or combination agents remains, although Professor Morgan notes the additional challenge of toxicity in older patients with the use of combination agents. He points to the data on quadruplets of therapy presented at ASH 2012, and questions the use of this over triplets of therapy. Professor Morgan looks forward to the increased use of treatments according to laboratory sub-types, for example, using profiling to characterise mutational landscapes and sequencing to prevent the emergence of resistance in myeloma.
David Cunningham from the Royal Marsden Hospital in London assesses the potential of regorafenib in the treatment of colorectal cancer and gastrointestinal stromal tumours.
Last week, the BBC broadcast a Horizon programme about new cancer treatments being trialled at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. The documentary followed three different types of treatment; robotic surgery, a genetically targeted drug and a radiotherapy robot. As we’ve discovered, standard radiotherapy treatment involves splitting the required dose into 3 beams, so only cells inside ... Read more radiotherapy – part 2
14th International Gynecologic Cancer Society (IGCS) Meeting
Prof Stan Kaye discusses his two talks at the 2012 International Gynaecologic Cancer Society meeting in Vancouver about the current state of PARP inhibitors and anti-angiogenics. Research shows that cells with BRAC mutations, when exposed to Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase, PARP, virtually dissolve. About 18 percent of ovarian cancer cases have this mutations, but up to half of patients will respond to these inhibitors. The difference in response comes from platinum sensitivity. Bevastusimab and other compounds show significant improvement to progression free and overall survival. Prof Kaye states that these different agents need to be fit into current treatment methods and other disease areas.
Dr Tom Waddell discusses the results from a randomised clinical trial that examined the efficacy of panitumumab against oesophageal-gastro cancer and carcinomas. The data was presented at the ASCO 2012 Annual meeting in Chicago. In the study, panitumumab, a monoclonal antibody, was used with the UK standard chemotherapy treatment. Patients had untreated, advance tumours and were randomly selected. The dosage of chemotherapy was reduced to combat toxicity in the panitumumab + standard treatment arm. Unfortunately, the trial was halted due to early data showing that panitumumab had an inferior survival rate. The results did prove that there is a need to look at biomarkers prior to recruiting in order to find new uses for the drug.
Prof Stephen Johnston speaks on treatment of breast cancer and advanced breast cancer with aromotase inhibitors, tamoxifen, fulvestrant and previous trials using endocrine therapy at EBCC 8. Prof Johnston highlights the need for selecting patients in these trials that will benefit from the trials as many only extend progression free survival by three to four months.
Dr Yap talks with Prof McVie on the FLIMS workshop, his decision to become a medical oncologist and his discussion at EBCC 8 titled 'Role of PARP inhibitors in triple negative advanced breast cancer'. FLIMS is an intense training program where oncologists work towards learning how to design clinical trials. In regards to his talk, Dr Yap emphasises that triple negative breast cancer is not a single disease, rather one with numerous sub groups.
Co-Chair of the FLIMS Alumni session on advanced breast cancer at the 8th European Breast Cancer Conference, Dr Hutka discusses the benefits of the FLIMS workshop and her talk on the management of triple negative breast cancer, including hormonal treatment and HER2+ breast cancer. Dr Hutka's work also focuses on gastrointestinal research.
This week's podcast features an interview with Professor Ian Smith from the Royal Marsden Hospital, London, UK, one of the authors of the HERA trial.