Cancer Network Podcasts

The cost of cancer treatment has at least doubled since 1987 and there does not appear to be any hint that cancer care costs will decline. In this podcast we discuss the reasons for the increase in costs, as well as the ethics of cancer care cost containment.

Chemotherapy regimens that 10 years ago cost $30,000 have now increased ten-fold. Could a new research facility help make cancer care affordable again? We speak with Dr. Scott Ramsey to find out about this new facility, the Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research and Evaluation, which aims to do just that.

We speak with Dr. Ian Thompson about hot button issues in prostate cancer today: which patitents should be screened, which should be biopsied, and whether to treat or observe early disease.

We speak with two practicing oncologists, Dr. Paul R. Helft and Dr. David Eagle, about how the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act will affect oncology practices and cancer patients.

We speak with Patricia S. Steeg, PhD, who has recently written a perspective in the journal Nature calling for a shift in both the types of drugs that are developed for breast cancer and in the way clinical trials are designed and executed.

We speak with Dr. Sara Hurvitz, director of the breast cancer program at the University of California in Los Angeles. Dr. Hurvitz is actively involved in translational phase I/II breast cancer clinical trials as well as in research to better define distinct types of breast tumors to better design novel targeted therapies.

We discuss the diagnosis and treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer with Dr. Diane Simeone, who is involved in both pancreatic cancer clinical trials as well as research to better characterize important pancreatic cancer pathways and identify biomarkers for the disease.

We present an exclusive interview with Dr. Kimberly Blackwell, Duke Cancer Institute, who discusses some of the most important information to come out of this year’s meeting, including the EMILIA study, and talks about the future of breast cancer research.

We speak with Dr. Hagop Kantarjian of the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who shares his impressions of some of the highlights of this year’s ASCO meeting with regard to hematologic malignancies.

We present an exclusive interview with Joel W. Neal, MD, PhD, who discusses some of the most important information to come out of this year’s meeting and talks about the future of lung cancer research.

In this exclusive interview, Michael B. Atkins, MD, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses some of the most important melanoma research to come out of this year’s ASCO meeting and talks about the future of melanoma therapies.

The debate over screening for lung cancer continues. While there have been many advances in treatment for late-stage disease, screening and prevention are likely the most cost effective and best approaches to preventing lung cancer deaths.

In this interview we speak with two prostate cancer experts, Andrew J. Armstrong and Tomasz M. Beer, both of whom are actively involved in the research and clinical trials of novel agents, on the topic of newly available and upcoming treatment options for patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer.

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is the most commonly diagnosed, noninvasive type of breast cancer in women. In this interview, Dr. Lance Liotta and Professor Virginia Espina, whose laboratory has been one the first to successfully culture living DCIS cells, discuss novel ways to stop breast cancer before it becomes invasive and malignant.

Triple-negative breast cancer is aggressive, has a high rate of metastases, and carries a poor prognosis. Dr. Joyce O’Shaughnessy, who will be presenting at the Miami Breast Cancer Conference, discusses an overview of new therapies for triple-negative breast cancer.

We interview two prominent ovarian cancer researchers from both sides of the Atlantic, Dr. Michael Birrer and Dr. Jonathan Ledermann, on the role of PARP inhibitors and the challenges of developing ovarian cancer therapies.

In this interview, Christopher-Paul Milne and Kenneth Kaitin, Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. discuss the current challenges of the US Food and Drug Administration review process as it relates to oncology therapeutics and upcoming changes to the Prescription Drug User Fee Act.

Dr. Gunter von Minckwitz discusses the recent paper he authored that showed that bevacizumab in addition to neoadjuvant chemotherapy significantly increased the rate of pathological complete response in patients with early stage HER2-negative breast cancer.

In this interview, Dr. David Ahlquist, gastroenterologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester in Minnesota, discusses early detection methods of colorectal cancer, touching on sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopies, fecal blood testing, and in particular, stool DNA screening.

We speak with Dr. Michael Atkins, who has extensive clinical experience in kidney cancer and development of various new treatments, and is presenting this weekend during the renal cancer translational science session at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2012 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.